• Israel has conducted over 100 strikes across Lebanon since the conflict reignited, killing 361 people in a single day on Apr⁠il 8—dubbed "Black Wednes⁠day"—in an operation the Israeli military called "Operation Eternal Darkness," per France 24.
• A US policy known as "qualitative military edge" (QME), enshrined in US law in 2008, legally requires Washington to ensure arms sales to Middle Eastern countries don't undermine Israel's military superiority—including caps on aid to Lebanon's armed forces.
• Lebanon's army currently ranks 118th out of 145 countries on the 2026 Global Firepower index, and US envoy Tom Barrack made headlines with a blunt admission: "We don't want to arm them… so they can fight Israel? I don't think so."
• Since Israel's founding, the US has provided over $300 billion in military assistance to Israel; since Oct⁠ober 2023 alone, at least $16.3 billion in direct military aid has been enacted by Congress.

The backstory: Hezbollah emerged from Lebanon's 1975–1990 civil war stronger than the fractured national army, justifying its weapons as resistance against Israeli occupation of the south—an occupation that ended in 2000. Since then, successive US and European statements have called for the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah, but arms transfers to the LAF have remained tightly capped under QME constraints.

Why it matters: The same framework that experts say deliberately limits Lebanese army capabilities is also the one that Western governments invoke when calling on that army to disarm Hezbollah—a contradiction now on full public display.

• A Teachers' Syndicate delegation met Education Minister Rima Karami this⁠ week to hash out one of the most anxious questions in Lebanese households: what form will the Brevet and Baccalaureate exams actually take this⁠ year?
• The Minister confirmed that General Secondary (Baccalaureate) exams will proceed in three sessions, with the first session held on its original scheduled date, and schools in war-affected areas given flexibility to choose between sessions.
• For the Brevet, a serious proposal is on the table to cancel the national centralized exam entirely, replacing it with internal school exams conducted under unified Ministry standards—a significant departure from tradition.
• By May⁠ 15, the Ministry of Education is expected to announce a mechanism for reducing curricula or required exam subjects, acknowledging the exceptional disruptions of this academic year; the academic year itself has been extended by one week.

Zooming out: The debate over a 650 billion Lebanese Lira compensation grant for private school teachers—including a 200 billion Lira draft law stalled in parliament—remains unresolved, adding financial pressure to an already strained school year.

• The town of Hula, roughly 16 square kilometers with a population of approximately 13,000, sits in southern Lebanon near the Palestinian border—a location that has made it a frontline in every conflict from the Ottoman era to the present war.
• On Oct⁠ober 31, 1948, Israeli forces massacred 85 men—elders and youth—dividing them into three groups, shooting them, and demolishing the houses over them; UN observers intervened to stop the killing from reaching women and children.
• More than 300 residents passed through Israeli detention facilities including Khiam and Ansar prisons over subsequent decades; over 80 were displaced or expelled before the year 2000 liberation, which residents describe as a moment of unparalleled collective joy.
• In the latest war, the Israeli army destroyed the Hijazi family home—over 70 years old—and defaced a memorial monument to the 1948 massacre with Hebrew writing; residents say the idea of permanent settlement is "completely rejected" and return remains a certainty, not a question.

The bigger picture: Hula's layered history—from the 1948 massacre to repeated displacement to the current conflict—illustrates how southern Lebanese communities experience the present war not as an isolated event but as a continuation of a decades-long pattern.

• Saudi Arabia suspended US access to Prince Sultan Airbase and Saudi airspace after Trump announced "Project Freedom"—his plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—on social media, with Kuwait also cutting off US access to its bases and airspace, according to NBC News and Drop Site News reports citing US officials.
• Trump reversed course on "Project Freedom" days later, saying he was halting the plan in a bid to reach a deal with Iran; he told reporters a deal was "very possible" but warned he would resume bombardment if negotiations collapsed.
• Dubai hotel occupancy is projected to fall to 10 percent in the second quarter of 2026—down from 80 percent before the Iran war—while Qatar has extended its force majeure on LNG exports through Jun⁠e, according to Moody's Analytics cited by the Wall Street Journal.
• Separately, Saudi Arabia is currently exporting around 5 million barrels per day via its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea, bypassing the closed Strait entirely.

What to watch: Whether the US-Iran negotiations produce a deal that reopens the Strait—and how long Gulf economies, already reeling from tourism and LNG shutdowns, can sustain the disruption.

• Global crude flows through the Strait of Hormuz have plunged from around 20 million barrels per day before the war to a trickle, according to the International Energy Agency, making it the largest oil supply disruption in the history of the global market.
• Indonesia announced it will import around 150 million barrels of Russian crude this⁠ year; the Philippines received its first Russian crude shipment in five years in Mar⁠ch and has asked Washington to extend a sanctions waiver for further purchases.
• Southeast Asian crude imports fell 30 percent year-on-year in Apr⁠il—their lowest level since 2015—while Brent crude climbed from $71 to around $120 per barrel between Feb⁠ruary and Apr⁠il, according to analytics firm Kpler and market data.
• The Philippines declared a one-year national energy emergency as inflation spiked to 7.2 percent last⁠ month, up from 2.4 percent in Mar⁠ch; Malaysia's monthly fuel subsidy bill reportedly rose from around $179 million in Jan⁠uary to as much as $1.5 billion.

The bigger picture: Even if a ceasefire is reached to⁠morrow, analysts say returning oil and gas production to pre-war levels will take at least six months—and the simultaneous tightening of oil, LNG, and fertilizer markets makes this crisis structurally different from any previous energy shock.

• Nearly two months after the US-Iranian war began on Feb⁠ruary 28, 2026, armed factions operating under Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces have launched dozens of attacks on US targets from facilities embedded in agricultural land and investment sites across southern and western Iraq, according to Asharq Al-Awsat's on-the-ground reporting.
• In Nov⁠ember 2025 elections, representatives of armed factions won more than 100 seats in parliament, and faction leaders hold decisive influence over which candidate heads the government—while simultaneously running commercial contracts, border crossings, and ministry appointments.
• A Shiite leader close to the factions told Asharq Al-Awsat: "Every inch Hezbollah loses in southern Lebanon is compensated by Iran with kilometers in Iraq"—illustrating how Tehran manages geographic influence across multiple fronts simultaneously.

Zooming out: The war effectively erased the distinction between Iraq's official state institutions and its armed factions, with analysts describing a governing model where the central state monopolizes rent on paper while multiple militia networks distribute it in practice.