🌳 Water used as weapon

TOP STORIES

Israel Is Targeting Lebanon's Water—And Experts Say It's Deliberate

• In the first four days of renewed conflict this March, Israel damaged at least seven critical water sources—including reservoirs, pipe networks, and pumping stations—cutting off water to nearly 7,000 people in the Bekaa area alone, according to Oxfam International.
• Key infrastructure in areas like Britel, Nabi Chit, and Marjayoun has been hit, with attacks targeting both pumping stations directly and electricity infrastructure that powers them—a two-pronged strategy experts say is designed to make southern Lebanon uninhabitable.
• Israel has also damaged six water facilities in southern Lebanon during previous rounds of conflict since 2023, and Netanyahu has publicly stated Israeli forces are "not leaving" a 10-kilometer security buffer zone inside Lebanese territory.
• "Without electricity, you can stay in the dark and cook with gas, but without water, how will you live?" said Nadim Farajalla, environmental engineer at the Lebanese American University—adding that 91 percent of households in Bint Jbeil and Marjayoun districts were already experiencing moderate-to-high water insecurity before strikes intensified.

The bigger picture: Oxfam's Lebanon director warns that the same "water war crimes" playbook used in Gaza is now being replicated in Lebanon, with the international community again standing by as civilians pay the price.

Lebanese Journalist Amal Khalil Killed in Strike—Body Recovered Six Hours Later

• Al-Akhbar reporter Amal Khalil was killed Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the southern village of al-Tiri, where she had taken cover after an earlier strike hit near the car she was traveling in with a colleague.
• Rescue workers were initially forced to halt retrieval attempts after Israeli forces fired on them at the scene; Khalil remained under rubble for at least six hours before the Lebanese army, civil defense, and Red Cross could reach her.
• Her death brings to nine the number of journalists killed in Lebanon this year, and comes one day before the second round of direct Lebanese-Israeli talks in Washington on extending the ceasefire that took effect last Friday.

What to watch: The Committee to Protect Journalists warned the obstruction of rescue efforts "may amount to a war crime," and Lebanon's Information Minister Paul Morcos has called for accountability—watch whether Washington raises this at Thursday's talks.

Lebanon Launches National Immunization Strategy Amid War and Displacement

• Health Minister Dr. Rakan Nasser Eddine launched Lebanon's National Immunization Strategy this week at Hariri Governmental University Hospital, timed to World Immunization Week, with backing from the EU, UNICEF, the Lebanese Red Cross, and Gavi.
• The strategy targets vaccine coverage for all children in Lebanon, with particular urgency for displaced families—many of whom have missed essential doses of vaccines against measles and polio during the ongoing conflict.
• The WHO representative noted vaccines have saved the lives of more than 150 million children over the past five decades, while warning that cuts to global health funding now threaten those hard-won gains.

Why it matters: With more than 1 million people displaced since March 2 and vaccination rates under pressure, Lebanon is racing to prevent a secondary public health crisis layered on top of an active war.

QUICK HITS

• 1975 is calling: A Reuters report finds that Lebanon's 2026 war scenes—Israeli strikes on the south, mass displacement, and sectarian fault lines cracking open—are echoing the 1975 civil war for those who lived it, with one former fighter warning: "Do not repeat our experience."
• Washington, round two: Lebanon's delegation heads to Washington Thursday for a second ambassadorial-level meeting with Israel, pushing to extend the 10-day ceasefire by 20 to 40 more days and demanding a halt to the systematic demolition of villages inside Israel's self-declared "yellow line" security zone.
• Negotiate or fight—that's the choice: Carnegie's Mohanad Hage Ali warns Lebanon must lower public expectations going into talks with Israel, or any setback will hand Hezbollah its next narrative—that only armed struggle works. Both Israel and Hezbollah, he argues, are quietly converging to undermine the Lebanese state's agenda.
• France turns up the heat: French authorities have expanded their criminal investigation into illegal money transfers during Lebanon's collapse, now targeting the French branches of Bank Audi and Banque Richelieu France—with anti-corruption group Sherpa calling it "a European first" for bank criminal liability.
• Lebanon's invisible displaced: Separately, over 37,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers—many from Dahieh—are surviving Lebanon's latest war through community networks and informal shelters, largely excluded from state aid and still being turned away from official shelters despite a government policy requiring otherwise.

INTERNATIONAL

UN's Hormuz Fertiliser Plan Is Racing the Planting Season—And Losing

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres has proposed a task force to open a fertiliser corridor through the blockaded Strait of Hormuz, but the plan has stalled—the US, Israel, and Gulf states have offered no public commitment, while the planting season closes in late May.
• The World Food Programme warned on March 17 that 45 million people could face starvation if the strait remains closed; currently, about 10 to 12 percent of the world's fertiliser supplies are blocked, with Sudan and Somalia among the most exposed nations.
• Iran's UN envoy told France 24 that UN ships are permitted to pass and that Tehran supports the initiative, but added that further US-Iran talks in Islamabad are contingent on Washington ending its naval blockade of Iranian ports.
• Saudi Arabia accounts for up to 46 percent of Gulf fertiliser output; a third of global maritime fertiliser trade passes through Hormuz, according to UNCTAD.

What to watch: Whether the US publicly endorses the UN mechanism before late May will determine if the corridor launches in time to prevent a cascading global food crisis driven by the regional conflict.

Gaza's Newborns Are Paying a Price the Bombs Didn't Cause Directly

• Cases of congenital anomalies in Gaza doubled in 2025 compared with 2022, while the rate of stillbirths surged by 140 percent over the same period, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health.
• Last year alone, there were 457 neonatal deaths—a 50 percent increase from pre-war levels—with doctors attributing the surge to widespread hunger, contaminated water, severe overcrowding, collapsing healthcare, and ongoing exposure to the effects of Israeli air attacks.
• At Nasser Hospital's neonatal unit, doctors report treating infants born with holes in the heart, hydrocephalus, and multiple physical deformities—conditions they describe as linked to the harsh conditions of pregnancy during wartime, not genetic factors.

The bigger picture: Gaza's health system now operates at less than 30 percent capacity, with 55 percent of essential medicines fully out of stock, meaning many of these affected newborns cannot receive the treatment their conditions require.

Chinese Solar Exports Smash Records as Oil Crisis Reshapes Global Energy

• Chinese solar exports reached 68 gigawatts in March 2026—equivalent to Spain's entire solar capacity—surpassing the previous record set in August 2025 by 49 percent, according to energy think tank Ember.
• At least 50 nations set all-time records for Chinese solar imports in March, with Africa seeing a 176 percent surge from February levels and Asia doubling to roughly 39 GW—both all-time records driven by the energy crisis sparked by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
• China's battery exports also rose 44 percent from February to reach $10 billion in March, as countries rushed to store solar electricity; India's solar imports rose 141 percent, Nigeria's 519 percent, and Ethiopia's 391 percent in a single month.

Zooming out: Ember's analysis found that record solar growth in 2025 was already sufficient to displace gas-fired electricity equivalent to all liquefied natural gas exports through the Strait of Hormuz last year—meaning the clean energy transition is now moving faster than the crisis that's accelerating it.

GHER HEK

• Your Lebanese cookbook shelf: Lebanon Traveler rounded up the definitive guide to Lebanese cookbooks, from Anissa Helou's In Lebanon with over 160 home-cooking recipes, to Michelin-starred chef Alan Geaam's 80-recipe street food journey—proof that Lebanese cuisine is as much memory and identity as it is meze.
• Rookie breaks Magic's record: Philadelphia 76ers rookie VJ Edgecombe dropped 30 points and 10 rebounds in Game 2 against the Celtics—the first rookie to do that since Tim Duncan in 1998, and now the youngest player with such a postseason performance, surpassing Magic Johnson himself.
• Texas doctor, AUB grad: The Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies has published the Nassour Family Papers online—the remarkable story of Herbert Nassour, a Texas-born Lebanese American who was rejected by two medical schools for being non-white, attended AUB in 1937, and became a celebrated surgeon and community doctor.
• Prada's back, darling: The Devil Wears Prada 2 premiered in London this week with the full original cast—Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci—all reprising their iconic roles, with Emily Blunt calling her return "effortless, like a comfortable pair of old slippers."

Thanks for reading—see you tomorrow.