The Jun⁠e US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding — which Sobhiye readers will recall enshrined the demand for Israel to end its strikes on Lebanon as a condition for Iran ending the war with the US in its first clause — has since collapsed over a Strait of Hormuz dispute. Now Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is publicly doubling down: no deal with Washington unless Israel stops its attacks on Lebanon, full stop.

• Khamenei posted on X Sun⁠day demanding the "absolute, unconditional termination" of Israeli attacks on Lebanon as a prerequisite for any US-Iran agreement, framing Hezbollah's defense as Iran's "strategic mandate."
• A separate Lebanon-Israel framework, signed Jun⁠e 26, calls for phased Israeli withdrawal — but links it to Hezbollah disarmament, which Iran and Hezbollah have rejected.
• Phase one involves Israeli withdrawal from three "pilot zones," but the Lebanese army said Sun⁠day that Israeli forces are obstructing the process, continuing to bulldoze and shell southern territory.
• At least 4,329 people have been killed in Lebanon in this round of violence; 37 Israeli soldiers and 4 Israeli civilians have also died.

What to watch: Whether Washington can untangle its Iran diplomacy from its Lebanon commitments — two tracks now formally linked, by Tehran's own hand.

The Lebanese army has been waging a quietly extraordinary campaign in the Bekaa Valley. What looked like routine drug raids has turned out to be the systematic destruction of Lebanon's Captagon manufacturing infrastructure — one of the region's most lucrative criminal economies.

• Security forces dismantled 50 Captagon factories and 14 fixed distribution points, seizing equipment and shipments worth over $1 billion at market value.
• The campaign produced a 70% decline in drug trafficking activity in the Baalbek-Hermel region — a zone covering 43% of Lebanon's territory.
• Gangs adapted by building "flying factories" — fully equipped mobile labs inside trucks — but intelligence units tracked and dismantled those too, including three seized in a single Dec⁠ember 2025 sweep.
• A security source told An-Nahar the crackdown paralyzed the "financial artery" funding cross-border criminal networks across the wider Middle East.

Why it matters: Captagon revenues long funded armed networks operating in Lebanon's most ungoverned terrain — strangling that cash flow reshapes the security landscape well beyond the drug trade itself.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese displaced from the south can't go back, can't get access, and in many cases can't even get answers. So they're pooling money — at least $112 per image — to buy commercial satellite photographs to find out if their homes still exist.

• Yaroun's mayor says 180 of roughly 200 homes in the village have been destroyed since the current conflict began in Mar⁠ch; a church, a convent, three mosques, and a centuries-old oak forest are all gone.
• In Apr⁠il, some satellite companies declined to provide images of Lebanon at the request of the US government, blocking residents from even purchasing documentation of the destruction.
• Many property owners are American citizens; one family spent over $470,000 building a retirement home — confirmed destroyed through a blurry satellite image received weeks ago.

The bigger picture: When displaced people resort to crowdfunding satellite imagery just to document what's been taken from them, it signals how completely official accountability mechanisms have broken down.

A man drove a van into a crowd near Brandenburg Gate during Berlin's Christopher Street Day celebrations Satur⁠day night, killing one woman and injuring 29 others. The suspect, a 21-year-old German citizen whose mother has Lebanese origins, was shot dead by police Sun⁠day evening after a manhunt.

• Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the suspect, Abdul B., had been known to authorities for a "high number" of previous attacks, and for being radicalized; prosecutors say he had shared Islamic State propaganda online and attempted to join the group in Syria.
• Police found and shot him at a garden allotment in Berlin's Spandau borough Sun⁠day evening.
• Federal prosecutors have taken over the investigation, treating it as a terrorism case.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged Pride participants across Germany "not to let themselves be intimidated" at a vigil Sun⁠day.

The bigger picture: The attack is the latest in a string of vehicle-ramming incidents across Europe and comes ahead of several German state elections where migration and security are already the dominant issues.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrapped up a two-day visit to Syria on Sun⁠day — the first by a UN chief since Ban Ki-moon in 2009, two years before the civil war began — and emerged with an unambiguous call: lift every sanction on Syria, now.

• Guterres told a Damascus press conference that Western steps easing sanctions were welcome but insufficient: "All these sanctions must be removed immediately."
• The World Bank estimates Syria's post-war reconstruction could cost $216 billion; some 1.7 million refugees have returned since Assad's fall, while around 5.5 million remain displaced inside the country and 6 million overseas.
• Guterres met President Al-Sharaa, visited the notorious Sednaya prison, and said the transition is "going in the right direction."
• Hours after his remarks on sovereignty, Syrian state media reported Israeli forces conducted an incursion and artillery shelling in southern Syria.

What to watch: Whether Guterres's public pressure moves Western capitals to accelerate sanctions relief — or whether investor caution persists until the security situation in southern Syria stabilizes.

After nearly four years of stalemate under a UN-brokered truce, Yemen's internationally recognized government has shifted from defense to offense — carrying out strikes on Houthi positions across multiple fronts and, on Jul⁠y 3, targeting the runway at Sanaa International Airport to stop an unauthorized Iranian aircraft from landing.

• The Yemeni Ministry of Defense said the aircraft was carrying officers from Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, along with weapons and funds intended for the Houthis.
• Government forces have been hitting Houthi missile launchers, drone sites, and weapons depots in Marib and Al-Jawf Provinces; a Houthi offensive south of Al-Hodeidah last⁠ week ended in failure, according to the report.
• In Houthi-controlled provinces, residents and analysts say public discontent is rising — around 1,000 people arrested in peaceful protests, about 100 still in detention.

Zooming out: The Houthis' regional escalation through Red Sea shipping attacks drew heavier strikes on their positions, and analysts now say sustained military pressure could accelerate internal unrest in areas under their control.