🌳 Lebanon on the agenda

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The Security Council Meets on Lebanon—With Rockets, Casualties, and a Ceasefire Gap All on the Table

The backstory: After Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei was killed in a US-Israeli strike in early March, Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel. Israel responded with large-scale airstrikes across Lebanon. Lebanon's government condemned the launches, banned Hezbollah military activity, and called on its army to enforce the ban—but Israel says it won't stop until the threat is "eliminated."

• The Security Council convened today at the request of France, joined by Bahrain, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, and the UK, to be briefed by three senior UN officials on Lebanon's deteriorating situation.
• Lebanese Ministry of Public Health figures show 394 people—including 83 children—were killed in Israeli strikes between March 2–8, while roughly 500,000 internally displaced people registered on Lebanon's IDP platform.
• Three UNIFIL peacekeepers were injured inside their base in Al Qawzah on March 6, with a UN investigation ongoing; Secretary-General Guterres condemned the attack and demanded accountability.
• UN Special Coordinator Hennis-Plasschaert traveled to Israel on March 9 for talks with senior officials, with Resolution 1701's full implementation "central" to her engagements, before returning to meet President Aoun.

What to watch: Whether France's expected call for a simultaneous halt—Hezbollah stops firing, Israel stops striking—gains any traction at the Council, especially with the US likely to push back hard.

The EU Opens an Emergency Airlift to Lebanon as International Support Pours In

• The European Union delivered 45 metric tons of emergency supplies to Lebanon's Ministry of Social Affairs, in coordination with UNICEF, to support families displaced by the current conflict.
• The shipment includes first-aid kits, blankets, winter clothing, water tanks, and child development kits—to be distributed through shelters and host communities most affected by the escalation.
• Ireland separately committed €3 million in humanitarian aid, communicated to Foreign Minister Youssef Khalil through its ambassador; Finland and Sweden also expressed support for Lebanon's sovereignty and its push to consolidate weapons under state authority.
• Foreign Minister Raji reiterated Lebanon's rejection of Iranian interference and the government's commitment to disarming Hezbollah under the March 2 cabinet decision.

The bigger picture: The combination of an EU airlift, Irish funding, and European diplomatic backing signals that Lebanon's sovereignty push is generating real international goodwill—but goodwill doesn't stop airstrikes.

Aoun Visits Army HQ With a Blunt Warning: Back Off the Military

• President Joseph Aoun traveled to the Ministry of Defense and army command in Yarze Tuesday, meeting Defense Minister Michel Mounsi and army commander General Rudolf Haikal in a show of solidarity with the institution.
• Aoun called those attacking the army and its commander "irresponsible people with no sense of patriotism," and warned that anyone dreaming of replacing the army commander is targeting the institution itself—"and that is forbidden."
• He also addressed the personal toll on soldiers, noting that many troops deployed in the south have been displaced from their own homes due to Israeli strikes.

Why it matters: With Hezbollah's disarmament now official government policy, the Lebanese Army is being asked to do something historically impossible—and its political cover from the top matters enormously right now.

QUICK HITS

• $30 bail, priceless irony: A Lebanese military court released three armed Hezbollah fighters on a bail of just 900,000 Lebanese liras—roughly $30 total—after a 5-minute hearing, directly contradicting the cabinet's ban on Hezbollah military activity. The government's prosecutor immediately appealed.
• Arrest warrant, please: A group of anti-Hezbollah MPs and lawyers urged Lebanon's top prosecutor to act on their August criminal complaint against Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem, demanding an arrest warrant on charges of incitement to civil war, sectarian strife, and rebellion against the state.
• Ceasefire? Israel's not calling back: President Aoun's four-point peace plan—ceasefire, LAF deployment, weapons confiscation, direct negotiations—is sitting on read, with Western diplomatic sources telling LBCI that Israel's response is unlikely to be positive, per a Financial Times report suggesting the Hezbollah campaign could outlast the war with Iran.
• Pay your water bill (please): Beirut's water authority announced it's collecting 2026 fees, offering subscribers an 85% waiver on late penalties for 2025 and earlier, plus installment plans stretching up to December 2028—yes, even now, bureaucracy finds a way.
• Americans, time to go: The US Embassy in Beirut updated its security alert Monday, urging American citizens to depart Lebanon via Middle East Airlines while flights remain available, and reminding those who stay to stockpile food, water, and medications.

INTERNATIONAL

Europe's Nuclear Rethink: The Iran War Exposed a Decades-Long Energy Mistake

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared at a nuclear energy summit near Paris that Europe's move away from nuclear power was a "strategic mistake," directly linking the admission to the disruption caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
• Von der Leyen announced a €200 million fund for European nuclear innovation and set a target of deploying small modular reactors (SMRs) across the EU by 2030, noting that nuclear's share of European electricity has dropped from one-third in 1990 to roughly 15% today.
• French President Macron used the summit to push for standardized reactor designs across Europe, while Greenpeace activists stormed the stage, with one confronting Macron over the fact that France imported 39% of its enriched uranium from Russia in 2025.

The bigger picture: Europe's energy vulnerabilities—laid bare by the Iran conflict shutting off key oil routes—are accelerating a continent-wide pivot back toward nuclear power that would have seemed politically unthinkable just five years ago.

AI on the Kill Chain: The First Acknowledged Civilian Victim of an AI-Assisted Airstrike

• A joint investigation by conflict monitoring group Airwars and The Independent identified Abdul-Rahman al-Rawi, a 20-year-old Iraqi student, as the first acknowledged civilian killed by a US AI-assisted airstrike, during a February 2024 operation targeting Iranian-backed militias in al-Qaim, Iraq.
• The US carried out 85 coordinated strikes that night using Project Maven, a machine-learning targeting system; US Central Command later admitted it was "more likely than not" that civilian deaths occurred, but told investigators it has "no way of knowing" which strikes used AI.
• Experts warn that Project Maven's accuracy can drop below 30% in some conditions, and that growing "automation bias" means military personnel increasingly trust AI outputs without independent verification—a pattern now reportedly used in ongoing strikes across Iran.

What to watch: With Palantir's Maven Smart System and Anthropic's Claude reportedly paired for active combat targeting in Iran, legal and ethical accountability frameworks for AI-assisted warfare are dangerously far behind the technology being deployed.

Saudi Arabia Posts Its Strongest Growth in Two Years—But the Region Is Watching Closely

• Saudi Arabia's economy expanded by 4.5% in 2025—its strongest performance in two years—with oil-related activities growing 5.7% and non-oil sectors rising 4.9%, according to figures released by the General Authority for Statistics.
• Non-oil sectors were the primary driver of growth, contributing 2.8 percentage points to overall GDP, with wholesale, retail trade, restaurants and hotels leading all sectors at 6.2% expansion.
• Fourth-quarter growth hit 5% year-on-year, with crude oil and natural gas activities surging 12.4% in that period alone, as total GDP at current prices reached 4.789 trillion riyals for the full year.

Zooming out: Strong Saudi growth figures arrive at a volatile moment for regional energy markets—with the Strait of Hormuz disrupted by the Iran conflict, how Riyadh navigates oil output and pricing decisions in the coming months will shape the entire Middle East economy.

GHER HEK

• Lebanon's solidarity kitchen: A remarkable network of grassroots organizations—from Barzakh Bookshop Café in Hamra turning its kitchen into a daily iftar relief hub, to Nation Station coordinating volunteers across Beirut—has mobilized to support displaced families, reflecting Lebanon's legendary tradition of community mutual aid when it matters most.
• Faith, camera, action: A long-lost 14-camera shoot of George Michael's landmark 1988 Faith tour at Paris' Bercy Arena is finally heading to cinemas worldwide, accompanied by an 18-track live album featuring previously unheard Wham! recordings—over 25 million albums sold and the man still has surprises left.
• A century of memory: Walid Khalidi, the Palestinian historian who co-founded the Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut in 1963 and spent a lifetime documenting pre-Nakba Palestinian society through photographs, village records, and translations, passed away in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the remarkable age of 100.
• Spurs: beautifully cursed: Tottenham Hotspur are simultaneously charging through the Champions League last 16 and careering toward Championship relegation—a feat so perfectly on-brand that even Arsenal fans are reportedly too sympathetic to gloat, which, honestly, is the most alarming detail of all.

Thanks for reading—hold each other close today, and we'll see you tomorrow.