As Israeli strikes pound Tyre, Nabatieh, and villages across the south, political circles report that 13 Lebanese ministers left the country for the Eid al-Adha holiday — leaving citizens searching for a state and finding silence.

• Reports circulating in political circles say 13 cabinet ministers departed Lebanon during the Eid al-Adha break, even as Israeli strikes accelerated across the south, targeting Tyre and pushing toward the incineration of Nabatieh.
• Critics argue the government was supposed to transform into a political and humanitarian operations room — with daily press briefings, displacement plans, emergency mechanisms, and systematic documentation of every strike and victim.
• President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri have all been criticized for appearing below the level the moment demands — brief tweets, public silence, and minimal direct address to the Lebanese people.
• Daraj notes the deeper contradiction: political leaders who argue the state is the only salvation from Hezbollah's grip are undermining that argument by being visibly absent when the south needs the state most.

Why it matters: A government seen as absent during active bombardment of its own cities faces a credibility crisis that could outlast the conflict itself — making any future appeal to state authority harder to sustain.

Ceasefires pause the shelling — they don't pause what the shelling has already done to the people living under it. A personal account from Daraj puts into words what many Lebanese can't: the body keeps score long after the guns go quiet.

• The author describes panic attacks at the thought of leaving the house, sleep disrupted by intrusive noise, and a brain locked in permanent alert — confusing a neighbor's cough with an Israeli sonic boom.
• Since 2019, Lebanese have moved from financial collapse to the Beirut port explosion to the 2024 war with no recovery window between catastrophes — arriving at each new crisis already depleted.
• Reconstruction plans circulating ahead of any ceasefire cover infrastructure and housing, but no framework for collective psychological recovery, accountability, or justice has been publicly proposed.

The bigger picture: When a population's trauma accumulates across overlapping crises without any institutional response, the gap between physical rebuilding and human recovery becomes a crisis of its own.

With politicians largely absent or silent, Lebanon's religious authorities are stepping into the vacuum: an emergency Islamic-Christian Spiritual Summit is set for Jun⁠e 2nd in Beirut, bringing together all major faith communities to address the war and its toll on national unity.

• Sheikh Al-Aql of the Druze community, Dr. Sami Abi Al-Muna, confirmed the summit will be held at the community's house in Beirut on Tues⁠day, Jun⁠e 2nd, with all spiritual authorities participating.
• The Vice President of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council confirmed his participation after a direct call with Sheikh Abi Al-Muna; contacts were also made with the Patriarchal See in Bkerke, Speaker Berri, and Walid Jumblatt.
• A National Committee for Islamic-Christian Dialogue has already drafted a concluding statement in consultation with participating authorities, with Sheikh Abi Al-Muna expressing optimism a consensus formula can be reached.

What to watch: Whether the summit's final statement moves beyond broad national unity language to address the specific question of exclusive state control over military decisions will signal how much real political weight it carries.

The U.S. military fired a Hellfire missile into the engine room of a cargo vessel attempting to breach the American blockade of Iran — the latest sign that the naval standoff in the Gulf of Oman is getting sharper, not quieter.

• U.S. Central Command said it struck the Gambia-flagged Lian Star as it was transiting international waters toward an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman, after issuing more than 20 warnings that the vessel was in violation of the blockade.
• Since the blockade began on Apr⁠il 13, the U.S. military has redirected at least 115 ships, according to Centcom.
• Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the U.S. military is ready to resume strikes on Iran if no deal is reached — as the ongoing conflict has pushed up global energy prices and Iran has mostly closed the Strait of Hormuz.

What to watch: Whether the blockade holds as U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations continue will determine both the trajectory of regional energy prices and the durability of any eventual diplomatic agreement.

A triple-action cancer injection called amivantamab eradicated tumours completely in 15 patients during an international trial — results doctors are calling unprecedented for a group whose cancers had already beaten both chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

• In the trial, 102 patients with head and neck cancer were given the jab; tumours shrank or disappeared entirely in 43 patients, including 15 whose tumours were eradicated completely.
• Patients receiving amivantamab lived a median of 12.5 months overall after starting treatment, despite having a form of cancer with very poor outcomes once standard treatments fail.
• The drug, developed by Johnson & Johnson, targets cancer through three mechanisms — blocking EGFR, blocking the MET pathway, and activating the immune system — and is delivered as a small subcutaneous injection rather than an intravenous drip.
• The jab is currently being evaluated in about 60 clinical trials, primarily for lung cancer but also for colorectal, brain, and gastric cancers.

The bigger picture: Results presented at the world's largest cancer conference mark a notable step for patients with HPV-negative head and neck cancers — historically among the hardest to treat once standard therapies stop working.

After 88 days of what the Independent Persian describes as the longest state-imposed internet shutdown in modern history, Iran partially restored connectivity — but data shows fewer than 4 in 10 users can actually reach the global internet.

• Internet traffic analysis firm Kentik found that connectivity has not exceeded 39 percent of users during the current restoration phase, with traffic remaining far below pre-Jan⁠uary levels.
• NetBlocks estimated the direct economic losses from the 88-day blackout at around $3.287 billion, with indirect losses estimated between $6.16 billion and $7.04 billion.
• Users across Iranian cities report that Google Play remains inaccessible for many, Telegram stays stuck in "updating" mode, and VPNs are largely non-functional — leading many to describe the current situation as a "half-dead internet."

Zooming out: The gap between state media's announcement of an internet "return" and the reality experienced by millions of Iranians illustrates how digital infrastructure has become a tool of political control in the ongoing conflict's aftermath.