Hussein Sharif, a 34-year-old taxi driver from Yammoune, was captured by Israeli forces in Oct⁠ober 2024 and has been held without any known contact with his family since. A new account, relayed through the wife of a Palestinian detainee who shares his cell, offers a rare glimpse of how he is being held.

• According to Al Modon, her husband says Sharif is held in the underground "Rakif" section of Israel's Ramla Prison, sharing a cell with two other men. She describes no sunlight, three meager meals a day, and beatings during transfers.
• Mattresses arrive around midnight and are taken back at dawn. Yard time, shower included, lasts half an hour a day.
• Lebanon's National Human Rights Commission says Sharif has severe stomach ulcers with intermittent bleeding and knee problems after surgery. There is no record that the Red Cross, a lawyer, or a judge has seen him.
• The commission's Sep⁠tember 23 update counts 40 cases of capture, detention, and disappearance, including five whose fates remain unknown.

Why it matters: The account lands as families of Lebanese prisoners are still working with almost no official information, which is why a cellmate's wife has become one of their few sources.

Fuel is getting cheaper in Lebanon for another round. Prices have been sliding since our last reports on Oct⁠ober 10 and 21, and to⁠day's cut tracks Brent crude dipping below $100 on hopes that the war with Iran may de-escalate.

• A 20-liter canister of 95-octane gasoline fell by 77,000 LBP to 2,492,000 LBP (about $28). The 98-octane canister fell by the same amount to 2,510,000 LBP.
• Diesel dropped 25,000 LBP to 2,579,000 LBP (about $29).
• The gas cylinder held steady at 1,610,000 LBP (about $18).
• Brent rose 0.95% to $99.31 a barrel. Supply worries from the Middle East are limiting how far prices fall.

What to watch: With Brent hovering just under $100 and supply jitters still in play, the next price schedule will show whether this slide holds or reverses.

Lebanon has roughly 380,000 declared vacant housing units, yet homes remain out of reach for most people because incomes lag prices and housing loans have vanished. A proposed vacancy tax aims to push owners to rent or sell, but the head of the real estate brokers' syndicate warns it may not deliver.

• Proponents cite 380,000 empty units, 62% of them in Beirut and Mount Lebanon. Vacancy in the capital approaches 20%.
• Syndicate head Walid Moussa tells Lebanon 24 that more supply won't automatically lower rents, since many empty flats sit in upscale areas. He also warns owners could pass the tax on to tenants.
• He wants a national real estate survey first, plus exemptions for war-damaged or disputed properties.
• His proposed rate is gradual, starting at 25% of net rental value and rising to 50%.

The bigger picture: Behind the tax debate sits a financing gap, since housing loans have effectively disappeared, and Moussa argues revenues should go to reviving them.

Months after US and Israeli air strikes hit Iran's military sites, new satellite analysis shows Tehran rebuilding. Fresh excavation and construction are visible near at least two major missile bases, and repairs appear at a dozen more, according to analysts who reviewed the images for BBC Verify.

• Analysts at the British intelligence firm MAIAR say Nov⁠ember images show digging and new buildings at the Garmdareh base near Tehran and the Shahroud base in the north. At Karaj, one analyst sees what looks like a new portal for an underground facility.
• At least 12 other sites, including missile complexes and air bases, show signs of repair. Kermanshah has new roofs, and Parchin has been cleared of debris.
• Former CIA analyst Jim Lamson says the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is probably trying to move production underground. A MAIAR analyst describes "a pattern of moving infrastructure underground."
• A Pentagon spokesperson previously said the US had "destroyed up to 90%" of Iran's drone, ballistic missile, and naval industrial base. Iran says it still holds large stockpiles.

The bigger picture: With speculation mounting that Washington could resume strikes after this⁠ week's midterms, the images offer one outside read on how fast Iran is rebuilding, and why the war's outcome is still disputed.

Israel's Oct⁠ober 27 vote produced no clear winner: neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his main challenger, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, reached a majority. Avigdor Lieberman, a former Netanyahu aide turned fierce critic, now holds a kingmaker's votes and is bending on a long-held red line, the draft exemption for ultra-Orthodox men, to keep the country out of another election.

• Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, said Fri⁠day he would soften his opposition to exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service. He called ousting Netanyahu and avoiding another election the "two main priorities."
• His party won seven seats. He still refuses any alliance with Arab parties, whose seat count rose significantly, which narrows Eisenkot's other route to a majority.
• The two ultra-Orthodox parties hold a combined 13 seats, enough to give Eisenkot a slim majority. They left Netanyahu's government after he refused to pass a law enshrining the exemption. United Torah Judaism, one of the two, declined Thurs⁠day to endorse Netanyahu but did not endorse Eisenkot either.
• The exemption is deeply resented by many Israelis, since reservists have served multiple tours during the wars Israel has fought since Hamas's Oct⁠ober 7, 2023 attack.
• President Isaac Herzog is expected to name on Sun⁠day who gets the first shot at forming a government. Eisenkot is widely expected to receive the mandate.

What to watch: Sun⁠day's decision from Herzog will show whether Lieberman's shift opens a path for Eisenkot, or whether the conscription exemption becomes the next sticking point.

Rankous, a town in the Qalamoun mountains near the Lebanese border, sent hundreds of fighters against Bashar al-Assad's forces, and later against Hezbollah when the group entered Syria to back him. On Oct⁠ober 22, the new government's security forces raided it, rounding up 45 people and killing five, and residents now ask what the post-Assad order owes the towns that helped bring it about.

• The Interior Ministry says the dead had links to the Islamic State (IS) and had declared the state infidel. Residents say three of the five were unarmed, while two opened fire and killed two security members.
• Fathers of the victims say their sons were devout, unemployed, or rejected by the new army. A collective wedding was planned in the town square within weeks.
• Some media reports say a local commander flagged the men over ties to a sanctioned former Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham member. Both men deny a dispute.
• Many in Rankous, once an anti-Assad stronghold, feel sidelined by the new order, built by the rebel faction that took power in Dec⁠ember 2024. Residents say they have paid for street lighting, roads, schools and mosques themselves.
• Residents want an investigation and public evidence. Over 600 townspeople were killed or detained under the old regime.

Why it matters: Grievances in war-scarred towns are growing as Syria nears the second anniversary of Assad's fall, and the Rankous raid has become a test of how the new state treats its own former allies.