Israeli strikes killed at least 20 people across southern Lebanon on Satur⁠day, hitting a residential building, an army barracks, and a Civil Defense rescue crew mid-operation—all while a ceasefire technically remains in effect.

• At least nine people died in a single strike on a residential building in Seir al-Gharbiya, Nabatieh district; five more were killed in the Al-Baqbouq area north of Tyre, where one woman's body remained trapped under rubble as ongoing strikes blocked rescue crews.
• Israel struck a Civil Defense team linked to the Islamic Health Authority in Kfar while they were actively recovering casualties from an earlier attack, wounding members of the rescue crew.
• A strike near Hiram Hospital in Aabbasiyyeh caused severe damage; Lebanon's Health Ministry said at least 25 medical and administrative staff were wounded—the third strike near that facility since Mar⁠ch 2.
• Lebanon's army confirmed an Israeli strike hit a barracks in Nabatieh, moderately wounding one soldier; total deaths in Lebanon since Mar⁠ch 2 have surpassed 3,100, including 210 children and 123 medics.

What to watch: With expanded military talks between Lebanon and Israel set for next Fri⁠day, and a second round of political talks scheduled for Jun⁠e 2–3, Satur⁠day's strikes test whether either side can hold even a fragile quiet ahead of the table.

Lebanon is sending its army's top operational officers to Washington for the first-ever expanded military talks with Israel, bringing documented evidence of ceasefire violations, occupied territory, and a direct ask.

• The Lebanese delegation will be headed by Brig. Gen. Georges Rizkallah, Director of Operations, and will include specialists in military intelligence, international humanitarian law, and engineering.
• The delegation's file will present evidence of the army's weapons-restriction efforts since being tasked by the Lebanese government, explain why private homes have not been searched, and document Israeli violations including occupied and mined areas.
• Lebanon will formally request international financial support to strengthen the army's logistical capabilities—a request that comes as two Lebanese officers from the army and General Security were recently placed on the U.S. OFAC sanctions list.

Zooming out: The timing of the OFAC sanctions—days before these talks—signals that Washington is simultaneously pressuring and engaging Beirut, making the military session as much about leverage as logistics.

Among Lebanon's more than one million displaced people are 400,000 children living in overcrowded shelters, clutching the single toy they grabbed on the way out—many of them unlikely to find their homes still standing when this ends.

• Lebanon's 632 collective shelters house nearly 130,000 people; children describe sleeping with pillows over their heads, still hearing warplanes in their sleep, and asking daily when they can go back to school.
• Around 164,000 internally displaced young people accessed formal education online as of May⁠ 14, according to OCHA; roughly 94,000 attended in-person classes, and 4,222 were reached through non-formal education.
• A total of 211 children have been killed since the conflict escalated on Mar⁠ch 2, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry; Save the Children's country director warned the trauma will have "devastating consequences for years to come."

The bigger picture: The scale of village destruction in the south—compared by some rights groups to what occurred in Gaza—means that for many of these children, the toys they carried out are all that physically connects them to the homes they left behind.

When a missile hit the oil tanker Skylight in the Strait of Hormuz on Mar⁠ch 1, it killed two crew members and left a 26-year-old Indian sailor searching for a friend who has never been found—one story among thousands now trapped by a war at sea.

• Maritime intelligence firm Kpler told BBC Verify that 38 commercial vessels have been struck in and around the Strait since the conflict began; more than 20,000 seafarers are currently stuck in the Gulf, according to the International Maritime Organization.
• The International Transport Workers' Federation has received more than 2,000 calls for help from crews trapped near the Strait, reporting unpaid wages, food and water shortages, and difficulties returning home.
• Skylight was uninsured and effectively stateless at the time of the strike, having been sanctioned by the US in Dec⁠ember for transporting Iranian oil and subsequently deregistered by its flag state Palau, leaving crew families with no clear path to compensation.

The bigger picture: The conflict has exposed how sanctions-era opaque ship ownership structures leave seafarers—and their families—with almost no legal recourse when vessels operating outside the insurance system are hit.

The Trump administration announced that most foreigners already living legally in the United States must now leave and apply for permanent residency from their home country—reversing a practice that has been in place for over half a century and affecting an estimated 600,000 people who apply each year.

• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said the change applies to students, temporary workers, and tourist visa holders, with exceptions only in "extraordinary circumstances" determined case by case by USCIS officers.
• Immigration lawyers warned the policy creates a "Catch-22" for people from countries where the US has no functioning embassy—such as Afghanistan, where the US Embassy has been closed since Aug⁠ust 2021.
• USCIS did not announce when the change takes effect or whether applicants must remain abroad throughout the entire process, leaving attorneys and aid groups scrambling to advise clients.

What to watch: Court challenges are widely expected, and the administration has yet to clarify whether the policy affects those whose green card applications are already underway.

At least 309,852 people obtained German citizenship in 2025, a new record, driven largely by a 2024 law that cut the residency requirement from eight years to five and allowed dual nationality for the first time.

• The 2025 figure—reported by Welt a⁠m Sonntag from 14 of Germany's 16 federal states—beat the previous record of 291,955 naturalizations set in 2024, which itself represented a 46% jump over the year before.
• In 2024, 28% of new German citizens came from Syria, followed by people from Turkey; year-on-year growth slowed to 6% in 2025 after the prior year's surge.
• Officials in several municipalities say a new wave is expected when the collective protection status for Ukrainian refugees expires in Mar⁠ch 2027, as many who arrived in early 2022 will have met the five-year residency requirement by then.

Zooming out: Germany's dual-nationality shift has quietly made it one of Europe's more accessible routes to citizenship, and the numbers suggest demand far outpaced what policymakers initially projected.