Days after Army Commander Rodolphe Haykal floated bringing back compulsory military service, the backlash has arrived. Much of it comes from parts of the Christian community, where the objection is less about boots and more about who ends up wearing them.

• Some Christian critics fear conscription could reshuffle the sectarian balance among army officers, given demographic shifts in recent decades.
• The worry traces to the old system, when university-educated conscripts, including doctors and engineers, joined as conscripted officers.
• Others link it to unresolved questions: confine weapons to the state first, then ask young people to serve.
• Economic objections are blunter. Who pays for conscripts when the army itself struggles financially?
• Supporters want a different model: men and women alike, three-month cycles, vocational training, and civil service. Compulsory service ended in 2007, after Law 665 of 2005.

Why it matters: A proposal about national cohesion has landed in the middle of Lebanon's oldest arithmetic, sectarian balance, which explains why a training scheme is being debated like a constitutional amendment.

Last time, we covered Hezbollah's new housing aid program. Now Washington has answered. The US State Department says reconstruction money from Gulf and European partners will flow only after Hezbollah disarms, and it called the party's housing aid "deceptive."

• Spokesman Tommy Pigott said partners can mobilize "billions of dollars" for southern Lebanon, but only after disarmament.
• He said negotiations between Lebanon and Israel have stalled since the Rome meetings in Aug⁠ust, and that technical talks continue.
• On Prime Minister Nawaf Salam's request for a mechanism to verify Israeli withdrawal, Pigott said it is already being addressed in those talks.
• He also dismissed the $200 million Iranian funding reported last⁠ week as money that "simply does not exist," and accused Hezbollah of using drug activity to fund itself. Hezbollah never confirmed the Reuters report.

The bigger picture: The funding fight now runs both ways, with Hezbollah promising up to $14,000 per family while Washington says the larger checks wait on one condition.

Israeli intelligence is believed to be fishing for informants on social media in both Lebanon and Iran, using ads and appeals pitched in local dialects. A verified Instagram account styled as Mossad is posting in colloquial Lebanese Arabic.

• The account, @themossad_official, invites people to start private conversations. Lebanon's General Security warned residents against engaging with it in Aug⁠ust 2025.
• Earlier warnings covered fake job offers with high salaries, a Facebook page called SAWA, and a page calling itself "Unit 504."
• Lebanese authorities were reported to have arrested 32 people suspected of passing information to Israel in Oct⁠ober 2025.
• Researchers say the outreach targets Hezbollah's members first and their surrounding community second. In Lebanon, collaboration with Israel carries a prison sentence.

What to watch: With economic hardship still widespread, security services on both sides are treating a suspicious job ad as a front line, and warnings like these are likely to keep coming.

A 27-year-old Sri Lankan migrant worker was sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia over a single Facebook comment. This⁠ week, the kingdom's Supreme Court set that sentence aside, ending weeks of diplomatic effort from Colombo and pressure from rights groups.

• Deputy Foreign Minister Arun Hemachandra announced the ruling Wednes⁠day and thanked both countries' authorities and legal teams.
• Anojan Sivarasa was convicted of blasphemy in Sep⁠tember after replying in Tamil to a heated online exchange. He deleted the comment and posted an apology video.
• An earlier court had sentenced him to five years and a fine of 3 million riyals, before the death sentence.
• Unclear: whether further proceedings follow, or how long he stays in detention.

What to watch: Sri Lankan lawmakers are reviewing the Supreme Court's ruling, and Sivarasa's family says it has had no direct contact with him since 28 Sep⁠tember.

HSBC runs the UK's largest sharia-compliant fund, the choice of most halal pension schemes in Britain. A Middle East Eye analysis of its semi-annual report says it bought over $100 million in shares of five companies linked to the Israeli military in early 2026.

• The purchases include $35.7 million in RTX, parent of Raytheon, which works with Israeli firm Rafael on Iron Dome interceptors.
• Others: $20.3 million in Analog Devices, $18.9 million in Honeywell, and $17.6 million in Rolls-Royce.
• Hyphen separately reported a $38.3 million Palantir purchase.
• Analog Devices said it does not direct fund investment decisions. Rolls-Royce declined to comment on investors' actions. HSBC did not respond.
• Ibrahim Khan of Islamic Finance Guru said the fund's criteria "can and should be changed."

Why it matters: The fund's screening criteria were set long ago, so the debate is about what "sharia-compliant" should mean for savers whose pensions sit inside it.

Germany's police crime statistics show foreign nationals committing more crimes than Germans. A new study argues that the raw numbers overstate the gap, and that age, gender and upbringing explain much of what remains.

• Foreign suspects are about twice as likely to be reported to police as German ones, according to criminologist Susann Prätor.
• Adjusting for that, the gap shrinks from 2.6 times to 1.7 times, per DW.
• Serious violent crime: 0.2% of Germans and 0.6% of non-Germans. More than 99% of people in either group commit none.
• Prätor ties risk to being young, male, poorly educated, and exposed to violence at home, not to culture.
• She wants more spending on early prevention, from preschool social skills to youth recreation.

Zooming out: Whichever way the statistics are read, they only count what gets reported, which is the study's central point.