Another mass casualty event has occurred in Lebanon, as national media says that on Wednesday eight people died, including two children, when Israeli strikes targeted cars on a highway south of Beirut.
Israeli media itself described that "The three separate airstrikes were carried out well beyond the main theater of conflict in the south, targeting vehicles on the coastal highway in an area around 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Beirut, security sources said." The attack was reportedly carried out by drones.
EPA image"Images showed a burnt-out car in the middle of the road and rescuers carrying a body at one of the sites, near Jiyeh," Times of Israel continues. "On Saturday, similar strikes targeted two other cars in the same area."
There was no immediate comment or explanation from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in wake of the bombings. Photographs of bombed-out and charred cars have widely circulated in the aftermath.
Hezbollah has meanwhile remained opposed to formal talks between the Israeli and Lebanese governments, with the Iran-backed Shia paramilitary group not participating.
The next round of negotiations are expected in Washington on Thursday, and they will be overseen by the State Department.
From Israel's perspective, this means the ceasefire doesn't extend to Hezbollah, and it currently has an IDF ground force inside southern Lebanon, amid tit-for-tat drone and missile strikes.
According to the latest on evacuation orders in the south, Al Jazeera writes:
On Wednesday morning, the Israeli military issued forced displacement orders for the residents of Meiss el-Jabal, Yanouh, Burj Shemali, Hula, Debl and Aabbasiyyeh, warning that it will soon act against these six southern Lebanese villages “forcefully”.
Anyone who remains “endangers their life,” the military said, warning residents to move at least 1,000 metres (0.6 miles) away to “open areas”.
At least seven villages in the area have been subject to evacuation order, but Lebanese officials have complained that in some cases civilian areas are hit which were previously deemed safe zones.
The death toll continues to mount, per the same report:
On Tuesday, 13 people were killed in attacks on towns in the south, including two Lebanese Civil Defence paramedics, Hussein Jaber and Ahmad Noura, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
The ministry reported that at least 380 people have been killed during the truce, bringing the total death toll since the Israeli invasion and bombardment began on March 2 to more than 2,800.
Jiyeh coastal road, south of Beirut:
Israel targets a car on the Jiyeh coastal road, south of Beirut
Follow https://t.co/B3zXG73Jym pic.twitter.com/LobCfOs4hz
Iran has meanwhile insisted that the Lebanon conflict be part of any final ceasefire deal between Tehran and Washington. However, talks are at a standstill, with Iran having issued five conditions as a basis for the resumption of talks.
Tyler Durden Wed, 05/13/2026 - 23:00Authored by Steven Edginton via American Intelligence,
While many warn that artificial intelligence itself will displace American workers, far less attention is paid to the fact that the very companies building AI are already replacing American employees with cheaper foreign labor. In many cases, though, the immediate threat to American workers is not the technology itself, but the hiring practices of the firms developing it.
In 2025, 406,348 H-1B visas were given to foreign workers in the United States, according to the latest U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. For hundreds of thousands of Americans, that figure is a nightmare.
The H-1B visa program, created in the 1990s as a temporary work visa supposedly for highly-skilled migrants, has flooded America with millions of cheap foreign workers.
For the last few months, I have been investigating the issue of the H-1B program and its impact on Americans for a new documentary for GB News. During that process, I received a flood of messages from workers across the country describing how they were forced to train their foreign replacements, saw their jobs were sent overseas, or witnessed ethnic tribalism in hiring that shut Americans out of jobs altogether.
The largest users of the H-1B program are Big Tech companies, many of which lobby Congress aggressively against reforms that could disrupt their pipeline of foreign labor.
Tech workers in Silicon Valley, one of America’s great civilizational achievements, are now overwhelmingly foreign born. According to the 2025 Silicon Valley Inde, roughly two-thirds of Silicon Valley tech workers were born outside the United States. There are more Indian-born tech workers there than those born in California. Highly-educated tech workers from India and China outnumber those from the United States, making up 41 per cent of the workforce compared with 30 per cent.
Lawmakers should evaluate the national security implications of a strategically vital American industry becoming taken over by, and increasingly dependent on, foreigners.
But the most visceral impact of this change has been on American tech workers.
According to an analysis by Harvard economist George Borjas, H-1B workers are on average 16% cheaper to employ than their American counterparts. For each H-1B worker employers save an average of $100,000 over the six-year term of the visa. Employers then have the ability to sponsor H-1B workers for green cards, ensuring they replace American workers in perpetuity.
One Silicon Valley based employee told me she lost her job after her Indian manager forced her to hire an Indian assistant, who she was later told to train so that he could replace her. Since then, she has been struggling to find work for two years, and was forced to sell her home.
In another case, a whistleblower, who until recently worked at FedEx, said her entire team’s jobs were off-shored to India. A former Google contractor said he was told to train his replacements in the Philippines. These stories are not atypical, especially for older workers who are competing for jobs with young, cheaper foreigners.
Many have also seen ethnic tribalism in hiring. At Google one former employee said he saw Indians give other Indians confidential interview questions to help them secure jobs. Others told me similar stories, where ethnic nepotism has led to workplaces becoming hives for foreign workers who all spawned from one particular city or even village in India. One high-profile example of this can be seen in the case of Cognizant Technology Solutions, an IT consulting company founded in India. Several successful lawsuits against the company in recent years have found discrimination against non-Indian employees in hiring and promotions.
To deal with these challenges, the Trump administration has attempted to crack down on the H-1B visa. Last year a new $100,000 fee was announced which would apply to employers hiring foreign talent. While official figures on the impact on H-1B applications are not yet available, experts estimate that applications may have fallen by between 30 and 50 per cent.
However, veteran anti-immigration campaigner and lawyer Rosemary Jenks said the new fee has had little overall impact as it doesn’t apply to domestic H-1B applications. Those who convert their visas to H-1Bs, such as students, or those renewing their H-1Bs are exempt from the $100,000 charge. Jenks’ view was confirmed to me by an immigration lawyer in Silicon Valley, who said she had seen a significant increase in domestic H-1B applications.
And when it comes to foreign competition for jobs, the H-1B program isn’t the only challenge for American workers.
This week Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced it has found more than 10,000 cases of potential fraud in the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program. This scheme allows foreign students to work in the United States for up to two years after graduating (who can then convert their student visas into H-1Bs, and eventually green cards). ICE officials said they had found “empty buildings and locked doors at addresses where hundreds of foreign students are allegedly employed”.
Unlike the H-1B program, which requires employers to pay the “prevailing wage” for roles, those employed under OPT can be paid any wage. The result is that American graduates are competing for entry level jobs with foreigners who are willing, and able, to work for far less. As of last year, 294,253 students are in the US on the OPT program.
Some Republicans, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, have called for the H-1B visa to be abolished entirely. But until Congress is willing to confront the political influence of the Big Tech lobby, America’s dependence on cheap foreign labor is unlikely to end. The irony is that while Americans are told to fear displacement by artificial intelligence in the future, many are already being displaced in the present by hiring practices of the very firms building it.
Tyler Durden Wed, 05/13/2026 - 22:35Amid the fog of the Iran conflict, some serious geopolitical chess moves were happening in the shadows, with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu having slipped behind what were once enemy lines, into the the quarters of UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, for a clandestine summit which could help realign the region.
"This visit has led to a historic breakthrough in relations between Israel and the UAE," Netanyahu's office confirmed in a Wednesday statement.
It provides top level confirmation of a new CBS report, which revealed that "Netanyahu made a secret visit to the United Arab Emirates recently, where he met with Mohammed bin Zayed, the country's president."
The clandestine meeting occurred in late March, and out of that grew out of the Abraham Accords, given UAE was the first to sign onto normalization with Israel back in 2020. Strangely, later in the day Wednesday, the UAE Foreign Ministry denied the trip ever took place.
It was also revealed this week Israel actually deployed its prized Iron Dome batteries and IDF personnel directly onto UAE soil during the conflict to defend against the significant Iranian attacks.
But the diplomacy didn't stop with the heads of state. Intelligence sources indicate that Mossad chief David Barnea has been a frequent flier to the UAE, making at least two trips during the heat of the Iran war to synchronize "military operations" - a move first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee "There’s an extraordinary relationship between the UAE and Israel." This developing realignment means that the defense of the Gulf is now inextricably linked to Israeli tech and intelligence.
"I'd like to say a word of appreciation for United Arab Emirates, the first Abraham accord member," Huckabee said at a Tel Aviv Conference this week. "Just look at the benefits. Israel just sent them Iron Dome batteries and personnel to help operate them."
"The Gulf states now understood they will have to make a choice - is it more likely they will be attacked by Iran or Israel?" Huckabee posed before the Israeli audience. "They see that Israel helped us and Iran attacked us. Israel is not trying to take over your land, and is not sending missiles to you."
So clearly there is a coordinated effort to finally make public very sensitive information - that for the first known time in history Israel is directly transferring weapons to a Gulf Arab state, while its head of state is making personal secret drop-ins for direct face time.
So during the war we saw Saudi Arabia bombing Iraq and Iran, UAE bombing Iran and Kuwait bombing Iraq https://t.co/NDweJxldFu
— Faytuks News (@Faytuks) May 13, 2026Even long before the current Iran conflict, there was a growing covert relationship between Israel and some Gulf states going back to the early phase of the Syrian proxy war, in the last decade.
Israel and the Sunni autocrats conspired to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, a longtime key ally of Iran, and they cooperated on funding and supplying anti-Damascus jihadi insurgents. Out of this shadow war came a greater mutual understanding.
Tyler Durden Wed, 05/13/2026 - 22:10