The United States has imposed sanctions on a gold firm in Lebanon that it accused of having ties to Hezbollah as Washington pushes to choke off the group's revenue streams. The administration of US President Donald Trump blacklisted Jood SARL on Tuesday, saying the company is helping convert Hezbollah's gold reserves into usable funds to help sustain efforts to rebuild itself after a series of deadly attacks.
Israel carried out several airstrikes on southern Lebanon on Wednesday targeting what it said was Hezbollah infrastructure, as a new year's deadline for the Lebanese state to disarm the group in the south of the country loomed. Israeli warplanes bombed the valleys of Houmin, Wadi Azza and Nimeiriya in the southern Nabatieh area on Wednesday morning. Residents reported that Israeli drones continued to hover over the area and other areas of south Lebanon and its eastern Bekaa valley after the strikes.
"You are located near buildings used by Hezbollah, and for your own safety you must evacuate them immediately," the Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli military said on Saturday afternoon. Then something rather unusual happened. The Lebanese army requested that, instead of an Israeli air strike, it should be allowed to inspect the premises for weapons itself. In what Israeli media would later describe as a "rare" and "unprecedented" event, the Israelis agreed and called the air strike on Yanouh off.
An Israeli drone strike has killed two people in southern Lebanon, according to the country's Ministry of Public Health, a day after Israeli warplanes launched a series of deadly strikes on the country's eastern mountain range and south. It's the latest in near-daily Israeli violations of the United States-brokered ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah that began in November.
Prosecutors will appeal against a court's decision to throw out a terrorism charge against the Kneecap rapper Liam Og O hAnnaidh. The 27-year-old was accused of displaying a flag in support of the proscribed terrorist organisation Hezbollah at a gig in November last year until a technical error in the way he was charged led to the chief magistrate ruling he could not try the case.
Israeli-Russian academic and Princeton University student Elizabeth Tsurkov, who was held captive in Iraq for more than two years, was released earlier this week in an exchange deal with Israel, according to a report by Iran's Tasnim News Agency. Two prisoners, including a Lebanese national seized in 2024, were released by Israel in exchange for the freedom of Tsurkov, whom Tasnim described in its report on Thursday as an Israeli spy.
The Metropolitan Police has imposed conditions limiting where the demonstration outside the court can take place on Wednesday, saying they were needed to "prevent serious disruption". In response the rap group described this move as a "calculated political decision" that was "designed to try and portray support for Kneecap as somehow troublesome" and "asked supporters to go out of your way to be compliant with all instructions issued, irrespective of how pitiful".
Liam O'Hanna, 27, has been charged with a terror' offence for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag. A member of the Irish rap group Kneecap is due to appear in court, charged with a terror offence for allegedly supporting Hezbollah. Liam O'Hanna, 27, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, will appear at the Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London on Wednesday after he was charged in May for displaying a Hezbollah flag during a London concert in November.
Roule notes that some of the region's long-simmering challenges-from Lebanon's unresolved tensions with Hezbollah to the humanitarian disaster in Gaza-remain dangerously unresolved.
