Lebanon and Israel signed a trilateral framework agreement with the United States on Fri⁠day—a significant formal document between the two countries aimed at ending decades of conflict, with a phased plan for disarmament, Israeli withdrawal, and Lebanese state control over its own territory.

• The framework, signed in Washington in the presence of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, outlines 14 points covering a sequenced process: the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) assumes control of pilot zones, non-state armed groups are disarmed, and the IDF progressively withdraws from Lebanese territory.
• Israel declares it has "no territorial ambitions in Lebanon" and that its military presence is solely a consequence of threats from non-state armed groups, particularly Hezbollah, according to L'Orient To⁠day's full text of the agreement.
• The deal commits Lebanon and the US to blocking funds from reaching non-state armed groups, and the US pledges to rally international partners for reconstruction, economic recovery, and investment in Lebanon.
• Two initial "pilot zones" in southern Lebanon have already been agreed upon by the IDF and the LAF, with future zones to be agreed upon by mutual consent.

What to watch: Implementation depends on verified disarmament milestones and LAF deployment capacity—two variables that have stalled previous agreements—so how quickly the pilot zones are activated will signal whether this framework moves faster than its predecessors.

Hours after the ink dried in Washington, Hezbollah fired back. MP Hassan Fadlallah said the Lebanese government lacks the legitimacy or tools to enforce the agreement—and warned that attempting to do so would amount to civil war.

• Fadlallah argued that direct negotiations with Israel violate Article 52 of the Lebanese Constitution, and that the Washington agreement was effectively "Netanyahu negotiating with himself."
• He said the party will "adhere more to resistance and to arms" and will "confront any measure" taken by the government to implement its Washington commitments—while simultaneously insisting Hezbollah's ministers remain in the cabinet for their own strategic reasons.
• A US administration official told MTV Lebanon that Washington treats the Lebanese state—not Hezbollah—as the sole legitimate party to negotiations, and that Iranian support for Hezbollah constitutes interference in Lebanese sovereignty.
• Iran's position, per Fadlallah, is that it will not sign any agreement before Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory.

Zooming out: The gap between a signed framework and ground-level reality now runs directly through Hezbollah's calculation of whether resistance or political accommodation better serves its survival in a post-war Lebanon.

Lebanon's government just published a decree slapping an environmental fee on 98 categories of imported and manufactured goods—everything from food to perfumes to appliances—and the business community is already warning it'll hit consumers hard.

• Decree No. 3214, published in the Official Gazette, imposes a fee of between 1% and 3% on affected goods, with revenues earmarked exclusively for the National Solid Waste Management Authority—not the general treasury—to fund sorting and treatment projects, Al Modon reported.
• The Syndicate of Food Importers warned of "direct and immediate price increases" across all affected imports, while the General Labor Union also objected, citing risks to living standards for ordinary Lebanese households.
• Economic analysts caution that the actual consumer impact depends on market competition: in sectors dominated by exclusive import agencies, the full fee is likely to be passed directly to buyers, while more competitive markets may absorb part of the cost through margins.

The bigger picture: The decree is Lebanon's first significant attempt to operationalize a "polluter pays" model for waste financing, but its credibility hinges on whether price oversight mechanisms exist to prevent importers from using it as cover for broader markups.

Israel just declassified the internal documents behind one of history's most audacious hostage rescues, revealing that behind the heroic narrative, officials were quietly negotiating right up until the raid was launched.

• The newly released files show that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's crisis team initially ruled out any negotiations with the hijackers—who held 106 passengers at Entebbe Airport in Uganda—but gradually opened to talks as the standoff stretched to six days.
• Israel pursued a dual track simultaneously: France-led negotiations with Ugandan President Idi Amin while commandos prepared blueprints of the airport and transport planes were readied for a night raid thousands of miles away.
• The operation freed all but 3 hostages killed in crossfire; all hijackers and dozens of Ugandan soldiers were killed; only one commando—Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of the current prime minister—died.
• "Let us not deceive ourselves," Rabin wrote in one memo. "It was an extraordinary operation and achievement. However, the problem is not over. Terrorism continues to operate."

The bigger picture: The files were released ahead of the raid's 50th anniversary on Jul⁠y 3, as Israel still grapples with the hostage crisis that began with Hamas's Oct⁠ober 7, 2023 attack, which killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

More than two and a half years after Oct⁠ober 7, Israel's ban on Palestinian workers is still in effect, and what began as an emergency security measure has quietly reshaped the West Bank economy—and the lives of hundreds of thousands of families.

• Before Oct⁠ober 7, more than 100,000 Palestinian workers entered Israel daily; that number has since fallen to well under 10,000, and West Bank unemployment surged to 29 percent, according to a World Bank report describing the situation as an economic collapse.
• Earnings from Israeli employment previously made up nearly a quarter of the West Bank's gross domestic product, providing income for households, local markets, and the Palestinian Authority's tax base.
• Israeli employers who once relied on Palestinian crews now pay staffing agencies up to 1,500 shekels per day for foreign workers—compared to 600-800 shekels for skilled Palestinian workers—with employers describing slower work and lower quality.
• An economist at Hebrew University who reviewed 17 years of data found only 3 attacks inside Israel were carried out by Palestinian permit holders, concluding the security justification for the ban does not hold.

What to watch: With Israeli employers, military figures, and the Shin Bet all previously supporting some form of worker re-entry, the question is whether economic pressure will eventually shift the political calculus behind a ban that now appears open-ended.

The boss of Amazon-backed electric carmaker Rivian says the auto industry has hit a fork in the road—and companies chasing short-term profits from petrol vehicles may find themselves stranded by the time the 2030s arrive.

• RJ Scaringe, Rivian's founder and CEO, said manufacturers focused on combustion engines will look good financially through 2028, but face a technology gap as the decade closes.
• Ford, General Motors, Honda, Stellantis, and Volkswagen have collectively written off more than $70 billion from previous EV investments, according to Reuters, as the industry retreats toward profitable petrol and hybrid vehicles.
• Rivian itself lost $3.6 billion in 2025 amid heavy investment in its new R2 SUV and autonomous driving technology—a vehicle Scaringe describes as "make or break" for the company's first profit.

Zooming out: Electric vehicles made up 7.8% of all US car sales in 2025, and with Chinese carmakers locked out of the US market by prohibitive tariffs, the race to capture that growing share is intensifying among Western manufacturers even as many retreat from it.