Hezbollah, the Iran-founded armed group that has taken heavy losses in two wars with Israel since 2024, has spent three months preparing for a possible new round of fighting, Reuters reports. The new twist: tens of millions of dollars from Iran for weapons, on top of the $200 million for displaced families we reported earlier this⁠ month, which the US disputes.

• Lebanese security sources told Reuters the group is procuring explosives and producing drones that can be flown into Israeli positions, using the lull in hostilities since Jun⁠e.
• One source and another close to the group said the weapons money comes on top of the roughly $200 million Tehran sent to aid families in Shi'ite heartlands.
• Hezbollah is also restoring command-and-control structures that broke down in key battles, including Bint Jbeil and the Ali al-Taher ridge. Sources say small, isolated units struggled against Israeli remote-operated systems.
• Hezbollah's media office rejected the claim of broken command systems, said resisting Israel's occupation is a legitimate right, and said it is wary of giving Israel a pretext to escalate.

What to watch: The sources say stockpiles and fighting force aren't fully ready, so the next move may depend on whether a US-Iran escalation reopens the Lebanon front.

Investigators have found that the car carrying half a ton of C4 and TNT, intercepted at the Dahr al-Baydar checkpoint two weeks ago, wasn't traveling alone. We previously reported that two Hezbollah members were arrested over the shipment, and that Hezbollah later acknowledged it, saying the materials were meant for confronting Israel. The new detail is a second vehicle that scouted ahead and slipped away toward Beirut. That matters because it points to a wider network, not just one intercepted car.

• A security source told Al Modon that camera footage along the Bekaa highway showed a reconnaissance car driving ahead of the explosives-laden Dodge to watch for checkpoints and security deployments.
• When security forces stopped the Dodge, the escort car's occupants kept going toward the capital and vanished.
• The Information Branch, the Internal Security Forces' intelligence unit, says it has identified the young men inside, plus the car's specifications and license plates.
• Security sources expect the judiciary to issue subpoenas and arrest warrants, opening a new phase of the investigation into the network that moved the materials toward greater Beirut.

Why it matters: The case widens from a single intercepted car to a field network, which is where investigators say the question of who facilitated and monitored the shipment now sits.

The Lebanese Order of Pharmacists, the profession's licensing syndicate, opened its 27th conference, which we flagged yester⁠day, under President Joseph Aoun's patronage. The news is in what Health Minister Rakan Nassereddine announced: two electronic systems, one for tracking drug side effects and one for registering medicines, the latter due to launch officially on Nov⁠ember 1. He also gave a status report on the long-delayed National Drug Agency, meant to be Lebanon's dedicated drug regulator.

• Nassereddine said the ministry is building a simplified app so doctors and pharmacists can report medicine side effects. A separate electronic drug-registration mechanism, meant to cut administrative delays, is already being tested.
• The National Drug Agency's implementing decree has been approved by the cabinet, and the formation request sits with the Civil Service Board.
• The ministry is building a central reference drug laboratory with the Lebanese University; some equipment has arrived.
• He described freezing imported biosimilars (cheaper copies of biologic drugs) from non-reference countries as precautionary, with files to be re-examined by experts.
• Order head Abdulrahman Merkbawi announced the fixed commission was restored after five years and that 917 inspection reports were filed.

The bigger picture: Lebanon's drug-quality debate is moving from announcements to deadlines, and the Nov⁠ember 1 launch is the first to land.

Oman's foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, used a speech at Cambridge to propose a non-aggression pact covering all six Gulf states, Iran and Iraq, arguing the US should no longer be the region's main security provider. It's the first time a Gulf leader has so explicitly broken ranks on a long-standing Iranian goal, and it came as the US-Iran standoff over the strait of Hormuz, the narrow shipping lane at the Gulf's mouth, kept simmering.

• Albusaidi argued that for 50 years Iran was "systematically excluded" from regional security arrangements and cast as the threat, an idea he called a perception imposed by outside powers.
• The same day, Saudi Arabia's defence minister, Pakistan's army chief and Turkey's intelligence head met officials in Tehran to try to prevent renewed US-Iran fighting.
• Albusaidi said he believed the Feb⁠ruary US-Iran talks, mediated by Oman, were "making significant progress" and an agreement was within reach.
• Oman and Iran have a temporary deal on managing Hormuz shipping, but it's on hold until the US and Iran lift their respective blockades.

The bigger picture: A pact would likely face resistance across the region, given the damage Iran has inflicted on Gulf economies, directly or through proxies such as the Houthis.

The UK chancellor, John Healey, will announce in Wednes⁠day's budget that carer's allowance, a weekly benefit for unpaid carers, will taper off instead of vanishing entirely when earnings pass a limit. Until now, earning a single penny over the weekly cap meant losing the whole week's payment, which left hundreds of thousands of carers with debts they didn't know they were running up.

• Under the old rule, a carer earning one penny over the £204 weekly limit forfeited that week's £86.45. Doing that for a year meant being asked to repay £4,495.40.
• An independent review found about 180,000 carers ran up overpayment debts totalling £300m between 2019 and 2025.
• The new taper removes just £1 of allowance per extra £1 earned, but the system won't be built before the end of the decade.
• The budget will also make higher tax-free mileage rates permanent, which the Treasury says will benefit about 3 million people.

Why it matters: A rule that turned pennies into thousand-pound debts is going, though carers will wait years before the replacement takes effect.

Israelis vote to⁠day in an election that polls suggest is too close to call, with former military chief Gadi Eisenkot the strongest challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Palestinian citizens of Israel, about 20% of the population, are also expected to vote in large numbers, which could shape whether the right can assemble a majority.

• Polls put Palestinian turnout between 64 and 68 percent, versus 54 percent in 2022, according to analyst Ameer Fakhoury in Middle East Eye.
• Fakhoury says a result of around 15 seats for the Arab parties could deprive the right of the numbers it needs.
• Time Magazine's reporting says analysts see a unity government or another election as the most probable outcomes, since a bloc needs 61 seats for a majority.
• A Hebrew University politics expert said opposition parties swear they won't sit under Netanyahu.

What to watch: Coalition talks could drag for weeks, and if no bloc reaches 61 seats, Israel faces another round of elections.