🌳 After Easter, what?

TOP STORIES

Israeli Strikes Systematically Dismantling Bekaa Valley's Roads and Routes

• Israeli strikes on the Dalafa Bridge and villages including Sohmor, Yohmor, Zellaya, Qellaya, and Libbaya are fragmenting the southern West Bekaa into isolated pockets, cutting vital routes linking the south to the Bekaa hinterland.
• Military analysts identify four emerging scenarios: fragmentation of Shiite villages into encircled pockets, control of Mount Hermon slopes down to Qaraoun Lake, severing the international Beirut highway via Masnaa and Dahr al-Baydar, and isolating Hermel from Baalbek by targeting the Assi Bridge.
• Controlling the elevated line running through Rashaya would give Israeli forces fire coverage over roads ascending from the Bekaa toward Mount Hermon and Mount Lebanon's Barouk area—strategic high ground, not just road interdiction.
• What's unfolding, analysts warn, is not conventional escalation but a systematic geographic dismantling, breaking Lebanon's interior into isolated zones controlled by whoever holds the roads, bridges, and hilltops.

Why it matters: If the international highway linking Beirut to central Bekaa is severed, Lebanon's interior could be cut off from the capital entirely, turning a military campaign into a full-scale geographic siege.

Post-Easter Diplomacy: French and Egyptian Efforts Stall—Washington Holds the Keys

• A senior Lebanese source told Al Joumhouria that Lebanon is in a tense waiting period, with the diplomatic push to end the war expected to gain momentum after the Easter holiday break.
• French and Egyptian mediation efforts have so far failed to produce viable exit scenarios, with the source stating plainly that "the final word belongs to the Americans" in any ceasefire or settlement framework.
• Despite continued Israeli threats to sustain military operations, the source expressed cautious belief that whatever resolution emerges on the Iran front will ripple through to Lebanon—for better or worse.

The backstory: Since the war escalated, France and Egypt have both attempted shuttle diplomacy to broker a ceasefire, but neither has secured American backing—and without Washington's involvement, no deal has historically held in Lebanon.

What to watch: Whether U.S. envoys re-engage after Easter will be the clearest signal of whether a diplomatic window is genuinely opening or quietly closing.

Europe Watches Lebanon Burn—and Reaches for More Words

• More than 1,240 people have been killed in Lebanon over the past month, including at least 124 children, while over 1.1 million have been displaced—yet the EU has not moved beyond diplomatic statements, according to The Guardian.
• Irish MEP Barry Andrews, who visited Beirut last month, described the EU's response as "weak and pathetic," calling for the bloc to activate its association agreement with Israel—a €68 billion trading relationship that grants significant economic leverage.
• The EU remains historically divided: Ireland, Spain, and Slovenia back Palestinian and Lebanese causes strongly, while Germany, Austria, and Hungary's Viktor Orbán have blocked or diluted punitive measures against Israel at critical moments.

Zooming out: The EU's paralysis reflects a wider Western dilemma—economic and historical ties to Israel on one side, mounting civilian death tolls and international law obligations on the other, with no consensus on which wins.

QUICK HITS

• The ambassador who won't leave: Iran's designated ambassador to Lebanon is still in Beirut despite being declared persona non grata—openly defying the Lebanese government's expulsion order. Lebanese columnists are now calling Iran an "occupying state" and demanding Beirut sever diplomatic relations entirely.
• Dahiyeh at dawn: Israeli warplanes struck Beirut's southern suburbs early Saturday, hitting the Madi neighborhood and Amaneh station, while separate strikes near Tyre wounded 11 people—including 3 Civil Defense paramedics—and damaged the Lebanese-Italian Hospital.
• Villages gone, buffer zone in: The Israeli army is preparing to present political leadership with a plan to demolish all villages within 3 to 4 kilometers of Lebanon's southern border and establish a permanently depopulated security zone—modeled on what it calls a "yellow line" like Gaza's.
• 53 medics, 87 ambulances: One month into Israel's intensified strikes, Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health reports 53 medical workers killed, 87 ambulances or medical centers destroyed, and five hospitals forced to close—part of what MSF calls a documented pattern of attacks on healthcare.
• Shiites unwelcome next door: Over 1 million displaced Lebanese—most of them Shiite, among the more than 1.1 million displaced overall—face inflated rents, sectarian suspicion, and outright evictions in Christian and Sunni areas. One man in central Beirut chose a tent that floods over housing where, he said, "we would be humiliated."

INTERNATIONAL

Six Weapons Experts Say the US—Not Iran—Hit a Civilian Sports Hall in Southern Iran

• Six independent weapons analysts have disputed the U.S. military's claim that Iran struck its own town of Lamerd on February 28, the first day of the war, killing 21 people including 4 children.
• Analysts from Janes, McKenzie Intelligence, and Bellingcat identified the munition in verified CCTV footage as likely a PrSM—a Lockheed Martin precision strike missile—based on its shape, airburst explosion, and fragment pattern, all inconsistent with Iran's Hoveyzeh cruise missile.
• BBC Verify confirmed three separate strikes that day hit a sports hall, a residential area, and near a primary school; a nearby IRGC compound appeared undamaged in satellite imagery taken on March 9.
• When BBC Verify presented the expert analysis to U.S. Central Command, it replied it had "nothing to add" to its original statement denying involvement.

What to watch: Whether the Pentagon opens a formal independent investigation—or continues stonewalling—will shape how much credibility the U.S. retains in its account of the war's opening hours.

Trump Requests $1.5 Trillion for the Military—the Largest Defense Budget in U.S. History

• President Trump's 2027 budget request, released Friday, calls for $1.5 trillion in defense spending—a nearly 40 percent increase over fiscal year 2026 and the largest such request in decades, according to Al Jazeera.
• The proposal includes a separate $200 billion emergency request already submitted to Congress to fund the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, on top of the record baseline defense figure.
• To offset the military surge, the budget proposes a 10 percent cut to non-defense programs, a 19 percent reduction to the Agriculture Department, a 12 percent cut to Health and Human Services, and eliminating refugee resettlement aid entirely.
• The national debt currently sits at $39 trillion, with the U.S. running annual deficits of roughly $2 trillion; the budget is non-binding and faces a contested path through a divided Congress.

The bigger picture: The budget crystallizes a deliberate ideological shift—treating military dominance as the primary function of the federal government while devolving healthcare, housing, and social programs to states with uneven capacity to fund them.

UNRWA Chief Warns: Let Israel Dismantle Us, and No UN Agency Is Safe

• Outgoing UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini warned in a final interview that Israel's campaign to destroy the agency—which has killed 391 UNRWA staff and demolished its Sheikh Jarrah headquarters—sets a precedent that could be used against any UN body.
• Funding has collapsed on multiple fronts: the U.S. has halted contributions entirely, Sweden has withdrawn, and Arab state funding has dropped by 90 percent since 2024, threatening the agency's long-term viability.
• Despite the pressure, UNRWA still provides 20,000 primary healthcare consultations daily in Gaza, has returned up to 70,000 children to in-person learning, and serves more than 250,000 through distance education with around 11,000 staff still operating in the territory.

Zooming out: Lazzarini's warning reframes the UNRWA fight not as a dispute over one agency's conduct, but as a stress test for whether international institutions can survive sustained pressure from powerful member states acting with impunity.

GHER HEK

• Beirut's moon, forever: Lebanese musician and poet Ahmad Qa'bour—beloved voice behind the iconic "Unadikum" and generations of songs about Beirut, Palestine, and the south—has passed, leaving behind a career spanning theatre, cinema, and a musical legacy that shaped Lebanese cultural identity across five decades.
• Fairuz at 91, still electric: A new Guardian feature explores how Fairuz's "Bahebak Ya Lebnan," released 50 years ago, has become far more than a song—it's a generational mirror, interpreted differently by grandparents who lived Lebanon's golden age, diaspora kids on TikTok, and young Lebanese who find both comfort and complexity in her voice.
• Iraq's poet wins Beirut prize: Iraqi poet Rasal Al-Musawi has won the inaugural Arabic Poetry Prize from Beirut's Marfa' publishing house, earning the honor in a competition built entirely on merit—judges didn't even know her name—with her collection described as redefining what Arabic verse can say about silence, grief, and resilience.
• Switzerland's Leicester moment: Newly promoted FC Thun sit 15 points clear at the top of the Swiss Super League with 7 games remaining, closing in on their first-ever title despite having the second-lowest squad market value in the league at just £13.8m—a story that has all of Switzerland cheering.

Yalla, go make it a good one.