L'Orient Today

14/05/2026

For weeks now, a draft General Amnesty law has been fueling controversy inside Parliament and beyond. During parliamentary debates, each community and political group appeared to be trying to protect their own detainees, reviving old alliances, reigniting old wars, and clinging on to old grievances.

From Lebanese citizens living in Israel and accused of collaborating with the enemy, to Sunni Islamist detainees involved in clashes with the Lebanese Army and accused of killing soldiers, to drug traffickers often associated politically or socially with Shiite areas — every camp is reading the law through its own lens.

So what is this General Amnesty bill really about and why has the issue resurfaced now? What does each community and political camp stand to gain? Where do things stand now?

Sahar Ghoussoub breaks it down for you.

🔗 Read the full article through the link below
olj.me/1506851

14/05/2026

Israel targeted ambulances in front of the Civil Defense center of the Risala Scouts in Qsaibeh (Nabatieh). One man, Abbas Said, was killed in the strike.

An airstrike also targeted Sinay near the town of Ansar in the Nabatieh district. Another strike targeted the town but the rocket did not explode.

An Israeli strike hit a house and a lumber yard belonging to the al-Tawil family and the Hammoud family in Kfar Melki (Saida).

Three were injured in the strike, one in critical condition, our correspondent in the south reports.

🔗 Follow our live blog for updates

14/05/2026

Few laws in Israel today generate such broad consensus. On Monday, May 11, the knesset (parliament) approved a bill backed across party lines providing for the creation of a special military tribunal to try Palestinians accused of taking part in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres carried out by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups.

Following public hearings — some of which will also be filmed and broadcast live — the defendants could face the death penalty under charges likely to include crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The bill passed unanimously, with all 93 MPs present in the 120-seat parliament voting in favor.

It was a rare display of political unity, presented as commensurate with the stated objective: helping the country heal from the “national trauma” of the Oct. 7 attacks.

🔗 Read Clara Hage's article through the link below
olj.me/1506718

📸 AFP

14/05/2026

“Secularism,” “Islamism,” “Islamophobia”… For years, these terms have been central to political and media discourse about relations between the West and the Arab-Muslim world, but also between Western states and their Muslim communities.

Amid this turmoil, Islamists and Islamophobes converge on at least one point: Both reduce Muslims to a fundamental singularity.

Born in Damascus, Aziz Al-Azmeh is Professor emeritus at Central European University — CEU — in Vienna.

His work argues that Islam is always contextual. In this interview with L’Orient Today, he discusses the pitfalls of ontological views of Islam, whoever promotes them, and criticizes what he calls the “talismanic” conception of democracy defended, in his view, by part of the Arab democratic intelligentsia.

🔗 Read Soulayma Mardam-Bey's interview with Aziz Al-Azmeh through the link below
olj.me/1506193
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📸 AFP

14/05/2026

An Israeli strike destroyed the village well in Deir Mimas and the solar panels powering it, cutting off one of it's main sources of potable running water.

Israel has now targeted Deir Mimas three times. At the start of the renewed war between Hezbollah and Israel in March, Israel struck a house in the village after alleging the presence of fighters inside. After the April 17 cease-fire, Israeli troops fired smoke grenades into the area, though no one was injured, Abou Jamra said.

After the attack on the well, the municipality called on its residents to conserve water, as homes' water tanks were filled. "We don't know how long this can last... Water is the most important thing for our survival," he said.

🔗 Read Lyana Alameddine's article through the link below
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📸 Photo provided by the municipality/ Photo sent to our correspondent

13/05/2026

Once lined with luxurious seaside resorts, these impoverished coastal neighborhoods of Beirut have taken in waves of displaced people throughout Israel's successive wars on Lebanon. With Israeli reoccupation of the South, the latest arrivals fear they may have reached their last stop.

🔗 Read Emmanuel Haddad's report through the link below
olj.me/1506558

📸 / L'Orient Today

13/05/2026

In this Beirut school, hundreds of children are still displaced because of the Israeli bombings, despite a cease-fire signed on April 17. According to several NGOs, nearly 390,000 children are believed to be displaced.

Every week, the rescue team visits these centers to offer them a few hours of relief.

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13/05/2026

Our generation was born into a world of mass tragedy. From COVID-19 to the Beirut Port explosion, instability was never distant from us. In Lebanon, moments of crisis are often met with the phrase “taawadna”— meaning “we’re used to it.” But something is troubling about this acceptance.

People often say our generation is “too soft.” I beg to differ. If anything, we are desensitized. We are constantly exposed to the world's suffering. We scroll, thinking we’re informed and aware. But in reality, “bread and circuses” are constant distractions that keep us from processing and feeling. We scroll past suffering until it no longer moves us.

🔗 Read Angy Choufani's opinion piece through the link below
olj.me/1506701

📸 Edited screenshot from The Simpsons circulating on social media/ Mohammed Yassin/ L'Orient Today

13/05/2026

Israel has carried out another drone strike on a car, this time near the Shaaitiyeh junction on the road to Maaliyeh (Sour). Preliminary reports indicate one fatality, according to our correspondent in southern Lebanon.

This is the fourth Israeli drone strike this morning targeting a car in Lebanon.

An Israeli drone strike targeted a car traveling on the main road in Naqoura (Sour), near the Relax Hotel, injuring at least one person, according to reports from our correspondent in southern Lebanon.

In addition, an Israeli drone strike targeted Braasheet (Bint Jbeil), and an Israeli air strike targeted areas in Mansouri and Majdal Zoun (Sour), as well as Kounin (Bint Jbeil).

🔗 Follow our live blog for updates
olj.me/1506694

📸 Photo sent to our correspondent

12/05/2026

Negotiations with Israel: Is Saudi Arabia restraining Lebanese diplomacy?

At a time when Riyadh is drawing red lines in the talks, Beirut insists the two countries share the same vision.

There are lines that must not be crossed. In recent weeks, it has become clear that Saudi Arabia, which backed efforts toward a cease-fire in Lebanon, has drawn boundaries in the negotiation...

12/05/2026

In Lebanon, a life on hold.

Since the cease-fire, life has resumed before there was even time to grieve or understand what had just happened. Because here, life has never felt normal. It is like something temporary, a short pause between one crisis and another.

By Gilles Khoury

Last Thursday early in the morning, she woke up to the sound of the school bus horn coming back to pick up children in her street. For weeks, schools had been closed because of the war, and the bus...