🌳 Water, But Make It Illegal

TOP STORIES

Lebanon's Secret Water Market Runs on Fuel—and Nobody's Checking

• An investigation by Daraj found that 14 out of 28 water wells supplying Beirut's tanker trucks are located inside or directly adjacent to gas stations—creating a dual-profit loop where operators sell both the fuel that powers the trucks and the water those trucks carry.
• A German federal geoscience institute study found that fuel leaks from underground storage tanks amount to roughly 1,500 liters per station over a decade, and that a single drop of fuel can contaminate up to 300 cubic meters of groundwater.
• Water tankers in Lebanon are officially the most contaminated water source in the country, per a 2021 environmental report—yet the Ministry of Energy never responded to Daraj's information request filed in September 2025, and the Ministry of Interior refused to register it entirely.
• MP and chemistry professor Najat Aoun Saliba warned that mixing chlorine with diesel-contaminated water doesn't purify it—it produces carcinogens—and said she raised this formally with the government but received no reply.

The bigger picture: What started as a state failure to provide tap water has quietly privatized a public right into an unregulated, potentially toxic black market—and the companies profiting from it include United, Coral, MEDCO, HYPCO, and TotalEnergies Lebanon.

Lebanon's Amnesty Law Is Back—And the Sectarian Arithmetic Still Doesn't Add Up

• Speaker Nabih Berri referred MP Faisal Karami's general amnesty bill—submitted on February 10—to joint parliamentary committees after meeting with Public Prosecutor Jamal Hajjar, who told him the best solution to Lebanon's overcrowded prisons is an amnesty law with limited exceptions.
• President Joseph Aoun separately asked judiciary officials to draft an amnesty framework, insisting any law must protect the blood of military personnel—a red line that's been at the heart of every previous collapse of this legislation.
• The Amal-Hezbollah bloc still refuses to pardon those who fled to Israel after the 2000 liberation, while Christian parties—Lebanese Forces, FPM, Kataeb—insist those same individuals must be included as a precondition for their vote.

The backstory: Lebanon last tried to pass a general amnesty in May 2020, but the bill failed in parliament because sectarian factions couldn't agree on which crimes and which criminals to include. Prisons remain severely overcrowded, and families of detainees from Baalbek-Hermel have been escalating street pressure for their sons' release.

What to watch: With parliamentary elections approaching, the political incentive to pass something is real—but unless the Islamist detainee question and the Israel-collaborator question are decoupled, this bill is headed for the same graveyard as its predecessors.

Byblos by the Sea: Batroun Declares Its Coast a Protected Zone

• The municipality of Batroun has officially declared its coastline and up to 500 meters offshore a "hima"—a locally managed nature reserve backed by a municipal decree rather than a parliamentary law—making it one of the first Lebanese towns to exercise direct jurisdictional authority over its territorial waters.
• The move was developed in partnership with the Lebanese Environment Forum (LEF), the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL), and the University of Balamand, which mapped the seabed and found it hosts Posidonia seagrass meadows—described as "the lungs of the Mediterranean" for their carbon absorption and role as fish nurseries.
• The hima bans dynamite fishing and illegal nets, plans drone surveillance and night cameras, and creates new jobs for local youth as certified marine guides—with partial funding already secured from the European Union.

Zooming out: Batroun is one of 22 coastal sites the Lebanese Environment Forum is working to bring under a connected national marine network—from Akkar in the north to Tyre in the south—a rare bottom-up conservation model in a country where top-down governance has repeatedly failed.

QUICK HITS

• Nobody Told Bassil Anything: FPM leader Jbran Bassil pushed back at reports that Saudi envoy Prince Yazid bin Farhan asked him to ditch his Hezbollah alliance—saying "nobody talks to me that way"—while diplomatic sources confirm MP Faisal Karami was told in Riyadh that the Kingdom favors delaying the parliamentary elections.
• Alliance Season, Lebanese Edition: Electoral maps are taking shape ahead of the vote—Amal and Hezbollah are keeping their current seat distribution intact, the PSP-LF alliance covers multiple districts, and the independents are splintering badly, with the change movement unlikely to repeat its 12-seat surprise from 2022.
• Polar Vortex, Beirut Branch: A powerful cold front from eastern Europe is pushing snow down to 900 meters today, with coastal temperatures dropping to as low as 7°C, icy mountain roads expected overnight, and waves reaching 3 meters—not exactly man'oushe-on-the-balcony weather.
• Doctors vs. Big Insurance: Lebanon's Doctors' Syndicate head Elias Shalala is threatening to make patients pay physicians directly after insurance companies refused to honor a 2023 agreement granting a 5% fee increase—a raise that amounts to just 0.7% of a total hospital bill, while insurers hike premiums by 20-30% annually.
• Schools Need a New Playbook: Education Minister Rima Karami chaired the fifth meeting of the Local Education Group, calling for an end to political interference in schools and launching work on a resource-mapping plan and annual self-assessment cycle to finally steer the ministry toward evidence-based decisions.

INTERNATIONAL

Newly Discovered Documents Confirm Systematic Expulsion of Palestinians in 1948

• An Israeli researcher discovered thousands of historical documents from 1948 near a Jerusalem rubbish bin, belonging to Rafi Kotzer, a founding member of the Golani Brigade's commando unit—the papers include logbooks, military orders, and summaries that had never been made public, according to Middle East Eye.
• Among the documents, orders issued by 12th Battalion commander Yitzhak Broshi directed soldiers to shoot any Palestinian found outside their village on sight, execute "every 10th man" in captured villages where outsiders were found, and destroy homes of those who did not comply with military inspection orders.
• Israeli historian Adam Raز, director of the Akevot Institute, published a lengthy investigation in Haaretz concluding that the documents prove Palestinians were systematically expelled through violence, massacres, and deliberate terror—directly contradicting Israel's long-held official position that refugees left voluntarily at the instruction of Arab leaders.
• More than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced during the 1948 war; Israeli archives covering the period remain largely classified even 80 years later, leaving key historical questions officially unresolved.

The bigger picture: The discovery adds a significant body of primary-source evidence to a long-running historical and legal debate over Palestinian refugee status—one that directly shapes ongoing diplomatic disputes about the right of return.

For the First Time in 24 Years, More Americans Sympathize With Palestinians Than Israelis

• A Gallup poll published Friday—based on 1,001 telephone interviews conducted between February 2 and 16, 2026—found that 41 percent of Americans now sympathize more with Palestinians, compared to 36 percent who sympathize more with Israelis, marking the first time Palestinians have led in the survey in nearly a quarter century.
• The shift is not confined to young voters: among Americans aged 35 to 54, sympathy for Palestinians jumped to 46 percent from 33 percent last year, while support for Israelis in that same group fell from 45 to 28 percent—a near-reversal in a single year.
• Democrats showed the widest gap, with 65 percent sympathizing with Palestinians versus 17 percent for Israelis; even among Republicans, support for Israel dropped to its lowest level in 22 years at 70 percent, down from a high of 80 percent in 2004.

Zooming out: The poll arrives as the Trump administration has moved away from publicly endorsing a two-state solution—a position 57 percent of Americans still support—widening the gap between public opinion and US foreign policy to one of its broadest points on record.

Layla Shahid, Palestinian Diplomat Who Called Beirut Home, Dies at 75

• Layla Shahid, the Palestinian diplomat who served as PLO representative in Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and France before becoming Palestine's ambassador to the European Union, died by suicide at age 75—after several previous attempts over the past two years, according to friends and colleagues who mourned her publicly.
• Born in Beirut in 1949 to a prominent Palestinian family exiled to Lebanon after the 1936 revolt, Shahid studied anthropology at the American University of Beirut, joined Fatah early, and spent over two decades as one of the most visible faces of Palestinian diplomacy in Europe before resigning from Mahmoud Abbas's authority in 2015.
• Those close to her say her depression in recent years was inseparable from the Palestinian situation after October 7, Lebanon's economic collapse, and the freezing of her bank deposits in Beirut—where she had long hoped to retire with her husband, Moroccan novelist Mohamed Berrada; France's Élysée Palace issued a formal condolence statement, while no official Lebanese statement was released.

Why it matters: Shahid was a foundational figure in building Palestinian diplomatic legitimacy in Europe across three decades, and her death—mourned deeply in Beirut, Paris, and Brussels—reflects the profound personal toll that the region's compounding crises have taken on a generation of Arab public intellectuals.

GHER HEK

• Baklawa Nests Go Global: Lebanese-American cookbook author Maureen Abood's new book Lebanese Baking features over 100 sweet and savoury recipes—from khaliat al nhal honey buns to baklawa nests—and she told Canada's National Post the book is her way of helping diaspora Lebanese say "this is who I am" with pride and deliciousness.
• Swoosh, 92-54: HMEM Antelias women's basketball team dominated NSA with a 92-54 blowout in round 11 of the Lebanese championship, with Meghri Torossian draining 6 three-pointers for 20 points and Lateecia Williams adding 22 points and 9 rebounds as the team recorded their 9th win of the season.
• Beirut After Dark: A Lebanese expat posted a photo of his childhood street in Lebanon right after sunset—mountains behind, cozy night lights ahead—and the Reddit post became a quiet love letter to home, capturing the longing every diaspora Lebanese carries for the smell of winter air and the simplicity of streets that hold every memory.
• Bruno's at Peak Bruno: Hawaiian superstar Bruno Mars just released his fourth studio album The Romantic and became only the fourth male soloist in chart history to score 10 US Hot 100 number ones—joining Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, and Drake—with his Wembley stadium tour already sold out across 6 nights in July.

That's your Saturday—go enjoy it, you've earned it.