A small ridge in south Lebanon has become a key sticking point in the Lebanese-Israeli negotiation track, holding up progress on the broader talks. Now, with Israeli assessments suggesting most Hezbollah fighters inside Ali al-Taher have been killed, Jerusalem is quietly weighing whether to hand the position over to the Lebanese Army — or stay.

• Israeli assessments say most Hezbollah members at Ali al-Taher have been killed; Israel's i24NEWS puts the remaining fighters at 10 to 15, with Israel monitoring roughly 12 tunnel entrances via sensors and drones.
• Israel's security establishment is debating two options: maintain control of the ridge, or transfer it in an organized manner to the Lebanese Army.
• Israel is dissatisfied with the army's performance in the U.S.-backed "pilot zones," and Lebanese Army officers have reportedly told Washington they oppose a rapid Israeli withdrawal, fearing Hezbollah would return.
• No date has been set for the eighth round of talks in Rome; Lebanese political sources say Israeli preconditions — including army authority to search private homes and Hezbollah disarmament — remain "impossible."

What to watch: Whether Israel transfers Ali al-Taher to the Lebanese Army will effectively determine if negotiations resume in Rome at all — and on whose terms.

When Lebanon's economy collapsed after 2019, workers who received their National Social Security Fund end-of-service payouts got them at worthless lira exchange rates — sometimes a fraction of what they were owed in real terms. Five years on, the state, employers, and the NSSF are still arguing over who picks up the bill.

• NSSF Chairman Bechara Al-Asmar confirmed efforts to reconstitute indemnities for workers who left between Oct⁠ober 2019 and Apr⁠il 2024, with corrections capped at 50 percent of pre-collapse value.
• The estimated cost of that correction: between $750 million and $1 billion, to be split equally between the state and employers — though neither side has agreed to pay.
• MP Bilal Abdallah, who heads the Parliamentary Health and Labor Committee, says the situation of about 60,000 employees "whose lives have been ruined" needs correcting — and that "the state and employers have shirked their responsibilities."
• Employers argue they already paid their NSSF contributions and shouldn't be billed twice for a currency collapse they didn't cause; the NSSF says the state owes it billions it hasn't returned.

The bigger picture: With the state broke, employers resistant, and the NSSF caught in the middle, the workers who lost the most remain the ones with the least leverage to reclaim it.

Lebanon's pushback against Iranian influence sharpened this⁠ week, with the Foreign Ministry refusing the continued stay of Iranian former ambassador Mohammad Reza Sheibani and a Kataeb Party adviser calling Iran's role in Lebanon an outright occupation.

• The Lebanese Foreign Ministry reiterated that "rationality in relations between countries" requires dealing through constitutional institutions, not armed factions — a pointed rebuke of Iran's support for Hezbollah.
• Kataeb adviser Sassine Sassine called Iran's presence "an Iranian occupation of Lebanon through Hezbollah" and criticized Sheibani's stay as allowing Tehran to "issue orders and instructions to armed groups in Lebanon."
• Sassine raised the possibility of Lebanon filing a UN Security Council complaint or formally declaring its inability to control the situation and invoking Chapter Seven — though he acknowledged past UN complaints have proven ineffective.

Zooming out: The public hardening of Beirut's language toward Tehran reflects how much the post-war moment has shifted Lebanon's political calculus — even if institutional follow-through remains uncertain.

The Iran-U.S. confrontation escalated sharply on Tues⁠day, with Iranian media reporting that the country's military launched what it called a "decisive operation" against American targets in the region, even as Washington carried out its own fresh round of strikes.

• Iran's Tasnim news agency reported that "U.S. bases and interests in the region are being targeted by Iranian missiles and drones" as part of the announced operation.
• The exchange marks another round in what has become a sustained military confrontation between the two countries.
• No casualty or damage figures were available at the time of reporting.

What to watch: The pace and scale of exchanges between Washington and Tehran will determine whether this round escalates further or becomes another in a series of calibrated, contained salvos.

America's top workplace discrimination agency has ruled that Cisco may have violated the civil rights of its Arab and Muslim employees — the first such governmental finding involving a Big Tech company over its sales of technology to Israel.

• The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined in Jun⁠e that Cisco subjected employees to a hostile work environment, following a complaint filed in Dec⁠ember 2024 by a group called "Bridge to Humanity."
• More than 1,700 of Cisco's more than 86,000 employees had signed an open letter urging the company to stop providing technology to the Israeli government; signatories alleged they were subsequently harassed.
• The EEOC also found that Cisco retaliated against one employee by terminating her for involvement in pro-Palestine efforts.
• EEOC mediation with Cisco has "not gone anywhere," according to The Guardian; separate complaints have also been filed with the National Labor Relations Board and the California Labor Commissioner.

The bigger picture: The ruling is the first time a U.S. government body has sided with Big Tech workers who organized collectively over their employer's technology sales to Israel, setting a potential precedent for similar workplace disputes.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney just got a clean sweep. His Liberal Party won all three special elections held Mon⁠day, including flipping a Quebec riding that Conservatives had held since 2018 — as the trade war with Washington shows no signs of cooling.

• The Liberals won Chicoutimi-Le Fjord in Quebec, Beaches-East York in Toronto, and North Vancouver-Capilano in British Columbia, bringing their caucus to 173 seats in the 343-seat House of Commons.
• In the Quebec riding, Conservatives collapsed from 34 percent of the vote last⁠ year to roughly 13 percent on Mon⁠day — a result analysts linked to local anger over Trump's 50 percent tariffs on approximately $20 billion of Canadian exports, imposed after trade talks broke down on Aug⁠ust 21.
• Trump has since signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America," while U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remarked that Canada has sparse leverage given the U.S. economy is roughly 13 times larger.

Zooming out: Three consecutive by-election wins in ridings spanning Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia suggest Carney's positioning against Trump is holding as a national electoral argument, not just a regional one.