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  • Israeli bill to restrict call to prayer passes preliminary parliament reading

    Israeli bill to restrict call to prayer passes preliminary parliament reading

    On Wednesday, a contentious Israeli bill that would impose strict new restrictions on the Muslim call to prayer, known as the adhan, cleared its first major legislative hurdle, passing a preliminary reading in the Knesset by a vote of 50 to 36. The legislation, tabled by lawmaker Zvika Fogel of the far-right party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, now moves to a parliamentary committee for further review before advancing to a series of additional votes required to become law. If enacted, the bill would require all mosques to obtain official government approval to install and operate loudspeaker systems for the adhan, which is called five times daily.

    Permits would be issued at the discretion of Israeli authorities, with eligibility tied to a set of criteria including maximum noise levels, required sound-mitigation infrastructure, geographic location of the mosque, proximity to residential neighborhoods, and documented impact on local residents. The bill also grants Israeli police broad authority to immediately shut down any unapproved or non-compliant sound systems, allows for full confiscation of audio equipment after repeated violations, and imposes steep financial penalties: up to 50,000 Israeli new shekels (approximately $16,700) for operating without a permit, and up to 10,000 shekels (around $3,300) for violating permit terms. Ben Gvir and Fogel have framed the proposal as a necessary public health measure, arguing the volume of the adhan constitutes intrusive noise pollution that harms nearby communities.

    The legislation has triggered fierce condemnation from Palestinian leaders, rights advocates and religious communities, who decry it as an deliberate attack on Islamic religious practice and a declaration of religious war. Speaking to Middle East Eye, Khaled Zabarqa, a human rights lawyer based in Lod, called the framing of the adhan as a mere noise problem a direct insult to Muslim religious identity. “By justifying this proposed legislation, the Israeli government is laying the groundwork for a religious war within the country,” Zabarqa said, noting the bill forms part of a wider state-led campaign to “Judaise public space” by erasing non-Jewish religious symbols. He added that targeting the adhan and mosque minarets specifically, which anchor the Islamic and Palestinian identity of public spaces across historic Palestine, makes the legislation’s discriminatory goals clear, warning that Palestinian communities will not accept the targeting of their core religious rituals.

    The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Governorate has also joined in condemnation, warning that the bill could have severe ramifications for the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites located in occupied East Jerusalem. While the legislation’s text does not explicitly state whether it would apply to Al-Aqsa – a site that Israel annexed in 1980 in a move unrecognized by the international community, which universally classifies East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory – Palestinian officials warn the law sets a dangerous precedent for further interference at the site. “The proposed law exposes the true nature of the occupying state as an apartheid system that uses its legislative tools to impose religious persecution,” the governorate said in an official statement.

    Omar Rajoub, director of the Jerusalem Governorate’s media office, emphasized that the bill is not a targeted response to noise pollution, but part of a long-running policy to erode Palestinian religious and cultural identity, particularly in Jerusalem. “In Jerusalem in particular, the proposed legislation comes amid an unprecedented escalation in measures targeting the city’s Islamic character,” Rajoub told Middle East Eye, pointing to ongoing Israeli incursions into Al-Aqsa, restrictions on Muslim worshippers’ access, removals of senior Islamic religious leaders and mosque caretakers, and growing interference in the independent administration of Islamic religious affairs. Rajoub added that the bill’s impact extends far beyond noise regulation, as it would formalize Israeli state control over the internal affairs of mosques and open the door to even more raids and restrictions under the cover of legal authority.

  • ‘His death has killed a part of me’: The Ethiopians awaiting execution in Saudi Arabia

    ‘His death has killed a part of me’: The Ethiopians awaiting execution in Saudi Arabia

    Deep inside Saudi Arabia’s overcrowded Khamis Mushait detention center in Aseer province, hundreds of Ethiopian migrants sit on death row, trapped in harrowing conditions and dreading the early-morning knock that will mark their final day. On April 21, that knock came for three young men from Ethiopia’s war-scarred Tigray region, whose desperate search for a better life ended in execution by beheading.

    The executed men — Kibrom Gebremariam, 30, Tsigabu Hagos, 26, and Kidane Angesom — were among hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans who have fled their home region since the 2020–2022 civil war, which killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, and left the local economy in ruins. Crossing the Gulf of Aden and traversing war-torn Yemen to reach Saudi Arabia, the three carried small amounts of khat, a mild stimulant widely consumed and legal in Ethiopia and Yemen. They had no idea that possession of the plant is classified as a serious drug offense under Saudi law, carrying an automatic death sentence.

    Human Rights Watch records show the three men were arrested between 2023 and 2024, held in a series of detention facilities before being transferred to Khamis Mushait to await execution. They are not alone. On June 23, just two months after their deaths, five additional Ethiopian nationals were executed for non-violent drug crimes, according to multiple on-the-ground sources. Many foreign detainees report being forced to confess to crimes they did not commit, after being beaten and coerced into signing Arabic-language documents they cannot read.

    Hailay Berhane (a pseudonym granted for his safety), a Tigrayan migrant currently held on death row at Khamis Mushait, shared a firsthand account of the system’s abuses with Middle East Eye via a smuggled phone on the encrypted messaging app Imo. Three years ago, he was detained in the violent border region of Rago, where Saudi border guards have been repeatedly accused of indiscriminately shooting unarmed migrants. “They handed me 41kg of drugs and forced me to believe it was mine, and made me sign documents that I don’t even understand,” Berhane said. In the three years since his arrest, he has appeared in court three times — each hearing lasting only minutes, none with a translator to help him defend himself.

    “Foreign nationals who are on death row in Saudi Arabia are, most of the time, subjected to grossly unfair trials,” explained Yared Hailemariam, a prominent Ethiopian human rights advocate. Recent data from Amnesty International confirms this pattern: Saudi Arabia has executed nearly 100 people already this year, at least 61 of them for drug-related offenses. The organization’s latest report warns that “foreign nationals have borne the brunt of Saudi Arabia’s ruthless use of the death penalty for drug-related offences, frequently after grossly unfair trials.” At least 63 Ethiopian detainees are held in a single ward at Khamis Mushait alone, all at imminent risk of execution for non-violent drug crimes. Across Saudi Arabia, local officials and human rights defenders estimate as many as 200 Ethiopian citizens are currently on death row — a figure many prisoners believe is significantly undercounted.

    For the families of the three men executed in April, the grief is compounded by unanswered questions and a lack of closure. Back in Tigray’s Egela district, Kibrom Gebremariam’s family has already lost one son to migration: his older brother Merhawi was killed by Yemeni security forces three years ago, after crossing the border in 2020. “We anticipated Kibrom’s wedding, not his death. His murder has become an open wound for us,” said Gimja Gebremariam, Kibrom’s heartbroken mother. The 30-year-old had left Tigray 12 years earlier, fleeing a village with almost no economic prospects, dreaming of building a life that would let him support his family. He spoke to his father just one day before his execution, promising he would soon be home. His father, 60-year-old Gebremariam Gebrezgiabher, has been bedridden with shock since receiving word of his son’s beheading from fellow prisoners. “His death has killed a part of me and is made worse by the fact that I have nothing to bury,” he said. Saudi authorities have not released the men’s bodies to their families, leaving them unable to hold a proper burial.

    For Tsigabu Hagos’ family in Tigray, the pain is just as raw. The 26-year-old was the only son among eight children, who left in 2020 hoping to build a business and lift his family out of poverty. “He wanted to have his own business, be self-sufficient and live a productive life,” his father Hagos Gebremeskel said, glancing at his son’s photo on a mobile phone. His mother Letekristos Gebretsadkan still struggles to process the loss: “I never thought they would kill my son. I wonder how much our son had been tortured before he was killed, if the family would ever get justice, if we would at least get the body of our son back.”

    The flow of migration out of Tigray continues, even after the formal end of the war in 2022. Decades of political instability, armed conflict, and economic collapse have left youth unemployment at catastrophic levels, and many young people still face forced conscription into regional conflicts. Even the execution of her brother has not dissuaded Tsigabu’s 20-year-old sister Masho Hagos, who had to suspend her high school studies during the war, from planning her own journey to Saudi Arabia.

    “Political instability, armed conflict and economic crisis are the major factors affecting the life of Ethiopian youths,” Hailemariam explained. “They are also forcefully recruited for military training and deployed as soldiers for both internal conflicts and cross-border war.”

    Religious leaders from Tigray’s Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as the president of the Tigray region, have issued formal appeals to Saudi Arabia to grant clemency to the hundreds of Ethiopian death row prisoners. Human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are calling on Saudi Arabia’s international partners to intervene immediately to halt the executions.

    “Saudi Arabia’s willingness to execute foreign migrants for non-violent offences following trials that denied them basic due process reflects a profound disregard for their rights and lives,” said Nadia Hardman, senior refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Saudi Arabia’s partners should urgently intervene before it is too late.”

    Back in his Tigray village, Kibrom Gebremariam’s father has only one plea: an end to the wave of deaths that has shattered so many young Ethiopian lives, as migrants search for safety and opportunity abroad. “That must end,” he whispered, overcome by grief. For the hundreds of men still waiting on death row in Khamis Mushait, that intervention cannot come soon enough. “Every time the security guards knock on the door, we feel that our names will be called,” one unnamed prisoner told Middle East Eye.

  • Israeli press alarmed as criticism of Israel becomes winning recipe in US politics

    Israeli press alarmed as criticism of Israel becomes winning recipe in US politics

    A growing wave of primary election victories by left-wing Democratic candidates critical of Israel has sent shockwaves through Israeli media and pro-Israel advocacy circles, with commentators warning that unwavering backing for Israel can no longer be counted on as a path to political success in U.S. Democratic politics.

    The most high-profile of these upset wins came Tuesday in Colorado, where democratic socialist Melat Kiros defeated 15-term incumbent pro-Israel U.S. Representative Diana DeGette. Kiros’s triumph is not an isolated outlier: it follows a string of similar wins by left-wing candidates who have openly challenged Israel’s outsized influence on American policy, condemned the ongoing military campaign in Gaza, and labeled Israel an apartheid state. Prior to Kiros’s win, three democratic socialist candidates endorsed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani claimed victory in their primaries, alongside one winner in a Philadelphia congressional primary and another in the Democratic primary for Washington, D.C.’s mayoral race.

    The Democratic Socialists of America, a left-leaning faction that regularly challenges establishment Democratic candidates in primary contests, has rapidly emerged as a formidable force shaping the direction of the broader American left. For Israeli political and media institutions, however, these results are far more than a footnote in domestic U.S. politics. Israeli outlets have universally framed the upset wins as clear evidence that Israel’s standing among U.S. voters — and particularly among Democratic base voters — is crumbling in the wake of Israel’s concurrent military operations across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

    In a Thursday editorial from The Jerusalem Post, a publication whose owner has longstanding close ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, editors warned that the Democratic Party is drifting steadily further from its decades-long bipartisan alignment with Israel. “Who would have thought that we would ever be looking back nostalgically on the days when the anti-Israel ‘Squad’ in the US Congress numbered only four people?” the editorial read.

    The Squad, the informal caucus of progressive Democratic lawmakers first formed with four founding members — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib — first rose to prominence for pushing the Democratic Party leftward on issues including healthcare, climate justice, racial justice, and Palestinian rights. Nearly all of the newest wave of primary-winning candidates have built their campaign platforms around a shared set of progressive priorities that go beyond domestic policy: alongside calls for universal healthcare, a universal basic income, and publicly operated grocery stores, they demand an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, a halt to what they term the genocide in Gaza, and formal recognition of Israel as an apartheid state.

    The Jerusalem Post framed the string of left-wing upsets as a fundamental “Israel problem” for the Democratic Party, arguing that the growing influence of these candidates is already reshaping the party’s core priorities, altering how sitting Democratic politicians engage with the topic of Israel, and rewrites the rules of public debate around the U.S.-Israel relationship. That sense of anxiety is echoed across Israeli media, including another leading outlet, The Times of Israel.

    One Times of Israel contributor compared the recent democratic socialist wins in New York to the 1917 Russian Revolution that established the Soviet Union, framing the results as an urgent “cautionary tale” for pro-Israel groups. Another writer at the outlet argued that the resounding primary victories prove a new generation of Democratic voters has fundamentally turned against Israel.

    These election results align with a dramatic, well-documented shift in U.S. public opinion toward Israel. Recent polling from the Pew Research Center finds that nearly 80 percent of Democratic and independent voters hold critical views of Israel’s policies. A June 24 survey from Quinnipiac University further underscores this shift: 48 percent of all American voters say the U.S. is “too supportive” of Israel, compared to just 38 percent who say current levels of support are appropriate, and 7 percent who say the U.S. is not supportive enough.

    The Jewish Telegraphic Agency noted that New York’s recent primary results have felt far more seismic than Mamdani’s own upset win for New York City Hall last November. “Being staunchly anti-Israel is no longer a road block to success in Democratic politics… This is the first time that incumbent congressmen have lost their seats in campaigns in which they were repeatedly attacked for being too supportive of Israel,” the outlet reported. Regardless of the local issues that shaped each individual race, the JTA added, the success of candidates who openly criticized both Israel and the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) sends an unmistakable, transformative message to the party.

    The Free Press, a pro-Israel publication founded by Bari Weiss — the current controversial editor-in-chief of CBS News — framed the primary upsets as part of a growing ideological civil war within the Democratic Party, pitting the party’s old, pro-Israel establishment guard against an insurgent grassroots left it describes as “virulently anti-Israel”.

    Even among more liberal Israeli outlets, the implications of the shift are clear. In an opinion piece for Haaretz, one writer noted that “The new mayor [Mamdani] has remade his city’s politics, at the expense of pro-Israeli incumbents who were tossed aside”, adding that much of the “political ammunition” used against those incumbents was “Made in Israel” — a reference to growing anger over Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Another analysis in Haaretz argued that the victories of Israel-critical Democrats demanding a break from the long-standing status quo of the U.S.-Israel relationship are “now a feature of Democratic Party demands rather than a bug”. The analysis added that Democratic voters are not only frustrated with the Israeli policies AIPAC defends, but also with AIPAC’s outsized role as an outside spender in Democratic primary races — spending often fueled by mega-donors from the Republican party.

  • Birmingham University weakens restrictions on investing in arms companies

    Birmingham University weakens restrictions on investing in arms companies

    In a move that has ignited widespread criticism across UK higher education, the University of Birmingham has become the first major British university to roll back ethical restrictions on weapons industry investments, amid growing global scrutiny of commercial ties to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, Middle East Eye can exclusively reveal.

    The West Midlands-based institution has abandoned its 2022 responsible investment framework, which included formal exclusion criteria for arms firms and other high-polluting or harmful industries. Under the old policy, any company deriving more than 10% of its revenue from weapons system development, as well as all manufacturers of entire weapon systems, cluster munitions and anti-personnel landmines, were barred from the university’s investment portfolio. Tobacco, oil and mining companies were also excluded, with the university committing to minimize indirect investments in firms that failed to meet its ESG standards.

    That policy has now been replaced with a softer set of so-called “investment principles”, adopted in June and obtained by Middle East Eye, that removes all formal exclusion lists. The new framework only requires that “financially material” environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors be integrated into investment selection, monitoring and stewardship processes. As part of the policy update, the university has also tapped global banking giant JP Morgan to serve as its outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO), handling day-to-day investment decision-making.

    The new rules only mandate compliance with existing UK legal restrictions: bans on anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions, and UK obligations prohibiting trade in chemical and biological weapons, alongside general adherence to international sanctions regimes. Beyond that legal baseline, the policy states that for any investment with material exposure to high-risk activities, the OCIO simply needs to provide a rationale for the holding, outline existing risk controls, and explain its approach to managing ESG risks. No automatic exclusion applies to arms firms, tobacco, or fossil fuel companies that were previously barred.

    University administrators have pushed back against criticism, arguing the policy update does not represent a weakening of responsible investment standards. In a statement, a university spokesperson said no changes have been made to the institution’s actual investment portfolio following the rule change, and that the university still sets all core objectives and constraints for its holdings, with the OCIO only managing routine day-to-day decisions within those boundaries.

    The spokesperson added that the revised framework strengthens oversight and transparency, shifting from a rigid fixed exclusion list to clear, principle-based expectations that cover legal compliance, ESG integration, stewardship, voting, climate action, human rights and governance. They noted the university has been a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) since 2019, and the update merely aligns policy with the practical operation of its current delegated, pooled-fund investment model.

    That explanation has done little to appease student leaders, who have condemned the rollback as a betrayal of institutional commitments to human rights. Antonia Listrat, president of the university’s official Guild of Students, called the decision a devastating signal to the campus community. “This sends a devastating message to students and staff who believe our university should uphold human rights and invest in education, not the arms trade,” Listrat said. “Students voted for their university to strengthen its ethical standards, not make it easier to profit from companies connected to armed conflict.”

    The rollback is not the first time the University of Birmingham has faced backlash over its ties to the arms trade linked to Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Even under the previous stricter investment rules, the institution maintained a formal partnership with Rolls-Royce, a manufacturing giant that produces primarily civilian goods but also supplies military equipment to the Israeli army. In 2019, Birmingham also joined four other UK universities to launch a strategic partnership with BAE Systems, the UK’s largest arms manufacturer, which produces components for F-35 fighter jets that the Israeli military has deployed extensively in its Gaza operations.

    Across the UK higher education sector, the University of Birmingham’s move runs counter to a growing trend of institutions tightening arms investment restrictions in response to mass student protests calling for divestment from firms linked to Israeli human rights violations in Gaza. Most recently, Queen’s University Belfast announced it would divest all holdings tied to Israel in June 2025, joining a growing list of institutions adopting stricter ethical rules.

    Instead of loosening restrictions, Birmingham has taken a hardline approach to pro-divestment and pro-Gaza student activism on campus: the university launched legal action against student protesters occupying campus ground to demand divestment in July 2024. That hardline stance mirrors actions taken by the London School of Economics, which evicted its own pro-Gaza encampment of protesters the same year.

    Investigations by Middle East Eye in recent months have exposed extensive hidden investments in arms and firms linked to Israeli human rights violations across other top UK institutions. In October 2024, MEE revealed that the University of Oxford held indirect investments in at least 49 companies flagged by the United Nations and leading human rights organizations for their role in illegal Israeli activities in occupied Palestinian territories. A February 2025 investigation further found that the University of Cambridge’s endowment fund had more than £140 million ($189 million) invested in a fund that held shares in firms linked to Israeli human rights abuses, including tech firm Palantir Technologies, construction giant Caterpillar and aerospace manufacturer GE Aerospace.

    The policy shift at Birmingham also comes amid conflicting actions by the UK national government, which imposed a partial arms embargo on Israel in September 2024, but simultaneously approved $169 million in new military exports to the country, including more than 8,600 separate munitions categorized as “bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and other similar munitions.”

    Since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, Israeli military operations in Gaza and the West Bank have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and wounded an additional 170,000, according to latest health authorities in the region, triggering a widespread humanitarian crisis and global calls for a ceasefire and an end to arms sales to Israel.

  • Plaza Accord 2.0 talk won’t fix anybody’s China problem

    Plaza Accord 2.0 talk won’t fix anybody’s China problem

    In a recent call for coordinated global action on trade imbalances, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has emerged as the most high-profile advocate for a second Plaza Accord, a scheme designed to deliberately push up the value of China’s yuan to erode what he frames as the country’s unfair export advantage. Merz claims the Chinese currency is undervalued by roughly 30%, alleging Beijing deliberately keeps it cheap to flood global markets with artificially low-priced goods. He warns that state-subsidized overcapacity in key Chinese manufacturing sectors is destabilizing a global economy still recovering from years of successive shocks. Merz’s grievances are far from isolated in European leadership: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has previously estimated the yuan’s undervaluation at around 16%, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has publicly described China’s current export competitive edge as fundamentally unsustainable for the global trading system.

    Despite this broad European criticism of China’s currency and trade practices, economic analysts broadly agree that a 1985-style currency pact modeled after the original Plaza Accord – which forced a sharp appreciation of Japan’s yen to correct US trade imbalances – is deeply unlikely to resolve the grievances European leaders have raised, and carries major risks of unintended consequences. There are two core structural flaws in the proposal from the outset: first, China is not a member of the Group of Seven, the bloc that orchestrated the original 1985 agreement among major advanced economies. Second, the 2026 global financial system is unrecognizable from the mid-1980s landscape, making a four-decade-old framework a poor fit for modern challenges.

    Attempting to force a sharp, rapid appreciation of the yuan would carry significant downside risks for the global economy, experts warn. A sudden revaluation would exacerbate China’s already persistent deflationary pressures, deepen long-running structural imbalances in the country’s economy, and worsen the ongoing crisis in its struggling property sector. Many analysts argue that the economic damage from a forced yuan revaluation would ultimately outweigh any perceived benefits from reducing China’s export competitiveness, for both China and its global trading partners.

    History also directly undermines the case for Merz’s proposal, as the original Plaza Accord failed to deliver long-term benefits and triggered severe economic harm for Japan. Bill Mitchell, a leading currency expert at Australia’s University of Newcastle, points out that the United States is highly unlikely to succeed in bullying China into accepting a currency deal on the terms it forced on Japan in the 1980s. Mitchell notes the original accord was extremely economically disruptive, directly contributing to Japan’s massive 1980s asset bubble and the decades of stagnation that followed, with little to no lasting economic gain for the United States.

    Another major complication is that Merz’s proposal puts it on a potential collision course with US President Donald Trump’s own competing trade plan, the self-named “Mar-a-Lago Accord”, which attempts to revive a global trade framework that no longer exists in modern markets. Neither leader’s political track record suggests a coordinated US-Eurozone effort to pressure China on currency would proceed smoothly. Trump has long favored unilateral transactional pressure over multilateral coordinated diplomacy, making joint action unlikely.

    For its part, Beijing has closely studied the economic fallout of the 1985 Plaza Accord, which it views as the starting point of Japan’s decades-long stagnation. Chinese leaders have repeatedly made clear they have no interest in repeating Japan’s experience, a position that shapes the country’s ongoing tight management of the yuan via daily central bank fixings and strict capital controls. Chinese officials have also stressed that meaningful, externally forced revaluation is completely off the table until the yuan becomes fully convertible under Beijing’s policy timeline.

    Merz and Trump also underestimate the significant political and economic leverage Chinese President Xi Jinping holds to resist external pressure, a stark contrast to the position of Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in the 1980s. Xi also has a factually defensible argument: Chinese authorities have actively intervened to prop up the yuan’s value in recent months, even as domestic deflationary pressures would normally drive the currency lower.

    Today’s global power dynamics also make the original Plaza Accord playbook unworkable. The 1985 agreement succeeded because the US held overwhelming dominance over the then-Group of Five, and Japan relied heavily on access to American consumers to fuel its export-led growth. Today, US global economic influence has eroded significantly: years of Trump-era tariffs and ongoing geopolitical tensions over Iran have left the US more isolated internationally and its domestic economy more exposed to global shocks. By contrast, China is now the world’s largest trading nation, while the European Union’s 27 member states remain deeply divided on China policy and are still grappling with post-pandemic economic fragility. Germany alone runs a roughly 90 billion euro ($102 billion) annual trade deficit with China, leaving Berlin with very little bargaining leverage to force concessions from Beijing.

    Beyond currency dynamics, Merz faces far more pressing structural challenges to European industrial competitiveness. The real “China Shock 2.0” is not driven by exchange rates, but by the rapid rise of Chinese technology leaders in cutting-edge strategic sectors, from electric vehicle giant BYD to artificial intelligence innovator DeepSeek. These companies’ growing global market share is already reshaping Europe’s industrial landscape: German automaker Volkswagen is reportedly considering closing four domestic factories and cutting 100,000 jobs as Chinese brands expand their global footprint.

    Analysts stress that European industrial weakness cannot be blamed solely on Chinese competitiveness. Europe’s own weak domestic demand and longstanding industrial complacency are major contributing factors. As Volkswagen shareholder Ingo Speich noted in comments to Reuters, “The high costs are merely a symptom, not the cause… the root cause is weak sales.” His point underscores a core reality: unless European manufacturers develop products that global consumers actually want, debates about currency valuation and cost-cutting will do little to reverse declining market share. Volkswagen’s predicament is a microcosm of Europe’s broader challenge in an era of rising Chinese industrial power. While a stronger yuan might have boosted European manufacturers decades ago, China’s rapid ascent up the global value chain has completely altered this calculation. Today, China’s competitive advantage in electric vehicles, batteries, solar energy and advanced manufacturing stems from industrial policy, economies of scale and technological innovation, not cheap labor or undervalued exchange rates. Even a 10 to 20% yuan appreciation would not erase these competitive advantages, though targeted higher trade barriers might alter market dynamics at the margin.

    China is now accelerating structural shifts that are reshaping the entire global economy. When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it unleashed a wave of low-cost, subsidized exports of basic goods like textiles, furniture and entry-level electronics. Today’s phase of Chinese export growth is far more consequential: China is now targeting high-value growth sectors including electric vehicles, clean energy and advanced manufacturing, reshaping competitive dynamics in the industries that will define the 21st century global economy.

    Addressing this new wave of Chinese industrial competition requires far more than symbolic currency diplomacy, analysts argue. Chris Bradley, an analyst at the McKinsey Global Institute, notes that advanced economies need to pursue a deep transformation of domestic productivity, invest in innovation, specialize in less cost-sensitive high-value sectors, and implement policies that create a more level global playing field. Bradley’s analysis finds that a 30% boost to domestic productivity, combined with cost convergence in equipment, energy and raw materials, and faster execution of industrial projects modeled on China’s “speed to market” could close between 30 and 80% of the current cost gap between Western and Chinese manufacturers. Bradley adds that achieving a sustainable new global trade equilibrium requires advanced economies to specialize in future-defining industries, revive domestic innovation, and overhaul outdated industrial policy frameworks to address modern competitive distortions. In short, Europe’s core challenge is not just China’s economic rise – it is Europe’s own need to adapt to a new global economic order.

    For the euro area, China’s current deflationary pressures and manufacturing glut create unique spillover risks. Valentina Aprigliano, an economist at the Bank of Italy, explains that “For the euro area, the most immediate transmission channel operates through import prices.” Weak domestic price growth in China, combined with robust manufacturing output, is exported abroad via lower-priced imported goods. This channel is particularly impactful for the euro area, which imported more than 430 billion euros in manufactured goods from China in 2025. Import volumes from China grew across most product categories in 2024 and 2025, while per-unit import values declined sharply, especially in 2025.

    This dynamic has led many analysts to warn that Europe is at risk of misdiagnosing its trade problems with China. Focusing on currency valuation only addresses surface-level symptoms, not the underlying competitiveness gap between European and Chinese manufacturers. Given China’s ongoing industrial policy momentum, it is no longer credible to argue that yuan appreciation would halt China’s ascent up the global value chain, nor would exchange rate shifts suddenly restore Western Europe’s industrial dominance. A currency agreement alone cannot rebalance EU-China trade, or US-China trade for that matter.

    Scott Kennedy, an economist at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, notes that China’s high-tech industrial drive has made enormous, uneven progress across key sectors over the past few decades. “These advances have directly translated into enhanced international power and influence for China. The United States and like-minded countries need to respond pragmatically to maximize the opportunities and minimize the risks resulting from these developments,” Kennedy said.

    Exchange rate shifts will not slow the momentum behind China’s Made in China 2025 industrial strategy. Chinese firms like BYD, which now outsells Tesla globally, and AI firm DeepSeek, which has upended competitive dynamics among Silicon Valley’s leading technology giants, demonstrate that Beijing’s top-down industrial strategy is delivering tangible results. These successes stem not from an undervalued currency, but from coordinated long-term investment to dominate strategic growth sectors.

    Beijing’s latest Five-Year Plan pledges to accelerate China’s technological development and its ongoing structural pivot toward a consumption-led growth model. Keyu Jin, an economist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, explains that this shift is “not only about rebalancing growth, but also about anchoring it more firmly at home. Domestic demand offers insulation from external shocks, and along with developed capital markets, it can go a long way toward strengthening autonomy.”

    Jin notes that China currently faces a striking paradox: it is among the world’s most dynamic technological powers, delivering accelerating breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and advanced manufacturing, yet overall economic growth continues to slow. The reason is no mystery: as China’s latest Five-Year Plan recognizes, the country is undergoing a broad structural transition, not a temporary cyclical slowdown. The old investment and export-led growth model is giving way to a new consumption and innovation-led model that has not yet fully taken hold, and the transition is proceeding more slowly than many global investors would like. Economists broadly agree that Xi must accelerate the transition to convince global markets that technological self-sufficiency and ambitious industrial policy are not just core priorities, but achievable long-term goals.

    The yuan’s value plays a complex role in Xi’s current strategic priorities. A stable or gradually appreciating yuan serves three key Beijing policy goals: it reduces the risk of offshore defaults among heavily indebted Chinese property developers, supports the long-term goal of yuan internationalization to establish it as a major global reserve currency, and helps manage trade tensions with Washington, where the Trump administration remains highly sensitive to any hint of competitive devaluation. A firm yuan also helps China avoid importing additional inflation from global commodity markets: in May, Chinese producer prices rose 3.9% year-on-year, a “bad inflation” dynamic also being felt in Japan as Middle East geopolitical conflict drives up global commodity prices.

    Still, Beijing is increasingly sensitive to global perceptions that it is boosting American living standards at the expense of Chinese domestic growth. Premier Li Qiang’s recent “China Opportunity 2.0” branding at the Summer Davos forum reflects this sensitivity, a narrative that would be far harder to sell if Beijing allowed the yuan to weaken significantly while pursuing its 4.5 to 5% annual economic growth target.

    The yen’s recent dramatic slide to a 40-year low against the dollar adds another layer of complexity to the situation. With the Trump administration taking a largely hands-off approach to the yen’s decline, Beijing may feel it has greater political cover to allow the yuan to drift lower gradually. The yen’s 3.1% drop against the dollar has created broader regional currency ripples, and could tempt Chinese policymakers to test the limits of their currency management just as Merz and other European leaders push for a new Plaza Accord.

  • A local’s guide to Ankara ahead of the Nato summit

    A local’s guide to Ankara ahead of the Nato summit

    Long maligned as a dull, lifeless hub by many Turks—particularly Istanbul residents who dismiss the Anatolian capital as a “gray, soulless desert”—Ankara is stepping onto the global stage next month, when it plays host to the 2024 NATO Summit scheduled for July 7-8. For delegates, journalists, and visitors descending on the city for the high-stakes gathering, this will be their first chance to see whether Ankara really lives up to its unflattering reputation. As a long-time resident who has called Ankara home since 2019, I have a deeply biased take: this underappreciated capital is full of hidden surprises, with thousands of years of history and a booming culinary scene waiting to be explored beyond the summit conference rooms.

    Ankara’s roots stretch all the way back to the ancient Hittite civilization, and centuries later it grew into a vital Roman trade hub, renowned across the Mediterranean for its luxurious goat wool. For centuries, the trade sustained the city, but legend holds that 19th-century European smugglers managed to transport Ankara’s prized goats to South Africa and North America, collapsing the local wool industry and leaving the city overlooked by the Ottoman Empire for generations. That changed when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, selected Ankara as the new republic’s capital in the 1920s. Over the following two decades, Atatürk oversaw the construction of a purpose-built capital: grand tree-lined boulevards, world-class schools, grand theaters, government ministries, and sprawling public parks, most of which still stand and shape the city’s character today.

    For visitors with free time to explore the city ahead of or after summit events, here is my curated guide to the best of Ankara, from traditional Turkish fare to modern cultural hotspots.

    ### Culinary Highlights by Neighborhood
    If you are staying near the Cukurambar district, home to the JW Marriott and other major summit hotels, you will find no shortage of standout dining options:
    – **Muslum Kebap**: A favorite gathering spot for Ankara’s conservative politicians and senior bureaucrats, this spot is slightly higher-priced than local kebab chains, but its exceptional Adana kebab and melt-in-your-mouth kusleme (tender slow-cooked lamb cut) are well worth the cost. For dessert, walk next door to Sitki Usta to try the signature moist “islak baklava.”
    – **Bayram Usta Yaprak Kebap**: For a unique grilled meat experience, travel a short distance to this restaurant, famous for its yaprak kebab—thinly sliced marinated meat cooked slowly over open flame.
    – **Taka**: This Black Sea-region themed restaurant, located just steps from the ruling AKP party headquarters and popular with top government officials, serves stellar doner kebab, traditional bean stew, and fluffy Black Sea pide flatbread, but its standout dish is rich sea bass stew. For even more authentic Black Sea cuisine, don’t miss Niyazi Kesim, a beloved local hidden gem.
    – **1071 Manti Cukurambar**: Just a 10-minute walk from the Marriott, this spot serves solid Kayseri-style Turkish dumplings (manti), making it a great stop if you want to sample this iconic dish without traveling across the city.

    If your accommodation is near Tunali, where the Grand Ankara Hotel, Sheraton, and Hilton are located, you will have even more diverse options to explore:
    Turkey’s famous meze—small shareable plates of vegetables, seafood, and cured meat—are the centerpiece of the traditional meyhane (Turkish tavern), and pair perfectly with either anise-flavored raki (what many Turks consider the national drink, a label President Recep Erdogan famously argues belongs to yogurt-based ayran). For one of the best meyhane experiences in the city, visit Afitap Tunus, which serves more than 50 different meze using everything from cured pastirma to eggplant, yogurt, and fresh shrimp. Incir is another excellent option, while Ege Restaurant offers a more budget-friendly, laid-back experience with outdoor evening seating.

    Contrary to what many first-time visitors assume, Ankara boasts some of the best fish restaurants in all of Turkey, thanks to daily fresh shipments from the Black, Marmara, and Aegean Seas—all within easy driving distance of the landlocked capital. Trilye, located on a scenic uphill spot, is widely considered the city’s top fish restaurant, serving delicious Black Sea kalkan turbot and a range of standout hot appetizers. Chef Bros, Yelken Balik, and Deli Yengec are all great alternatives if Trilye is fully booked.

    For other local favorites near Tunali and Cankaya:
    – Masa Başı Kebapcisi serves reliably delicious traditional kebab
    – Mutlu Lokantası on Guvenlik Street offers what many locals call the best doner kebab in the entire city
    – Cankaya Lokantasi, located near Ankara’s iconic Atakule observation tower, was founded by a former personal chef for Turkish President Ismet Inonu, and serves a classic presidential-style feast
    – For pizza, try Studyo Pizza, where renowned local chef Murat Artukmac creates pies with fresh Anatolian ingredients. Unica on Simsek Street also serves exceptional crispy pizza, and its creamy hummus is a must-order.
    – Kokorec—grilled lamb intestines, a classic Turkish hangover cure and staple street food dating back to Byzantine times—can be enjoyed at Kitir, near Kugulu Park, one of the only spots in the country that serves the hearty dish alongside cold beer.
    – For a leisurely Turkish breakfast, don’t miss Vina Bakery on Cinnah Street and Kakule Bakery on Buklum Street, both long-favored by locals.

    ### Trendy New Hotspots and Cultural Attractions
    Beyond traditional dining, Ankara has a fast-growing modern scene, and one of the most popular new hubs is the recently renovated Esat Hal market district near Tunali. This trendy space hosts boutique shops, cafes, community projects, and some of the city’s best modern dining:
    – Poche, a modern sandwich shop inspired by the flavors of northeastern Kars, serves rich cheesy and meaty sandwiches, but its signature sutlac (Turkish rice pudding) is the real star
    – The Log Burger is widely agreed to serve the best burger in Ankara, no competition
    – Celebrity chef Tolgar Mireli recently opened Halden, a restaurant highlighting innovative modern Turkish cuisine; don’t miss the sea bass ceviche, half-baked chicken, Cafe de Paris burger, and silky chocolate mousse
    – After a meal, grab a coffee at the sleek, modern Kakule Coffee, or walk next door to the lush Amelie’s Garden
    – Soul Kitchen combines an independent apparel and gift boutique with a casual cafe, serving great pizza and tiramisu for shoppers stopping for a break.

    For visitors looking to stretch their legs during the summit—including a certain French president who has sparked local speculation about where he will go for his daily morning run—Ankara has no shortage of green space. Botanik Park, Portakal Cicegi Parki, and Segmenler Park offer shaded, hilly trails perfect for running or hiking, while Dikmen Vadisi, a man-made urban valley, offers sweeping scenic views, and Kurtulus Park is ideal for runners who prefer flat terrain. The best option for a casual walk or run, though, is the sprawling Genclik Parki, which was commissioned by Ataturk himself in the 1920s.

    No trip to Ankara is complete without a trip to Atakule, the iconic observation tower that offers unrivaled panoramic views of the entire city center. History and culture buffs will also want to add these spots to their itinerary:
    – The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, an award-winning museum housing thousands of priceless ancient artifacts from across Anatolia, is an absolute must-visit
    – The Ankara Art and Sculpture Museum, Rahmi M Koc Museum, and CerModern (one of Turkey’s top modern art spaces) are all worth a stop
    – To learn about the early years of the Turkish Republic, visit the Is Bankasi Museum, housed in a stunningly preserved early republican-era building
    – In the historic Ulus district, don’t miss the ancient ruins of the Temple of Augustus, the nearby Haci Bayram Veli Islamic shrine, and the Column of Julian, a Roman monument erected in 362 CE to mark the visit of Emperor Julian to the city.

    As NATO’s summit draws thousands of global visitors to this often-overlooked capital, there has never been a better time to discover everything Ankara has to offer beyond its unfair reputation as a boring government town.

  • Israel’s largest oil refineries to undergo years of repairs after Iranian strikes, report says

    Israel’s largest oil refineries to undergo years of repairs after Iranian strikes, report says

    For months, Israeli officials and the operator of the country’s largest oil refining complex downplayed the impact of Iranian missile attacks on the strategic Haifa Bay facility. But new reports from multiple Israeli media outlets have pulled back the curtain on far more extensive destruction than was originally disclosed to the public, revealing a years-long reconstruction timeline that will reshape the site’s operational capacity for the foreseeable future.

    The revelation comes amid longstanding Israeli military censorship that has restricted the flow of information about damage from Iranian strikes during ongoing US-Israeli military conflict with Iran, raising new questions about government transparency around the economic and security costs of regional hostilities.

    Israeli Channel 12 News first broke the revised account of the damage on Monday, confirming that two separate Iranian strikes carried out earlier this year inflicted critical harm to the refinery complex, directly contradicting prior statements from Energy Minister Eli Cohen and Bazan, the private company that manages the site. Just months ago, in a formal filing to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in March, Bazan sought to downplay the incident, acknowledging only “localised damage” to the roof of a single distillate storage tank, and insisting all production infrastructure remained fully operational. “The company estimates that the damage is not significant. As of the time of this announcement, all the company’s facilities remain operational,” the company stated at the time.

    But an unreleased official internal report from Israel’s Ministry of Interior, cited by Israeli outlet Yeshiva World, documents harm to critical infrastructure that was never made public: gas turbines, steam boilers, and central electrical rooms all sustained heavy damage that was hidden from public view. The Interior Ministry has now approved a massive reconstruction project that is not scheduled to reach full completion until 2028, a timeline that would have been unthinkable based on the original, minimal damage assessment.

    Worse still, one large oil derivatives storage tank hit in the March 2025 strike is completely beyond repair, and cannot be salvaged or returned to service. The damage did not begin this year, either: Channel 12 confirmed the refinery also sustained significant damage during the 12-day 2024 Israel-Iran war. In that June 2025 strike, three Bazan employees were killed after Iranian missiles successfully penetrated the US-backed Iron Dome mobile air defense system, a defensive barrier that Israeli officials have long claimed provides near-total protection against incoming projectile attacks. After that earlier strike, Bazan publicly pegged losses at only $150 million to $200 million, and officials insisted domestic fuel supplies would remain completely unaffected, a claim that can now be reexamined in light of the new disclosures.

    The Haifa Bay refineries are far more than a standard industrial site: they are one of Israel’s most strategically critical energy assets, meeting the majority of domestic demand for refined oil products that power manufacturing, agriculture, national infrastructure, and household consumption across the country. Per Bazan’s own public data, the complex processes roughly 26,000 tonnes of crude oil per day, and has an annual throughput capacity of 9.8 million tonnes of crude oil.

    The facility also carries deep historical significance: it was originally constructed during the British Mandate for Palestine, when British authorities built the complex to receive crude oil transported from Iraq via the historic Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline. When Israeli forces seized control of Haifa during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and established the State of Israel, the new government nationalized and took full control of the refineries, and the site’s iconic Bazan cooling towers have since become one of the most recognizable landmarks of the northern port city.

    The underreporting of damage to the refinery is not an isolated incident: for years, Israel has enforced strict military censorship to conceal the full extent of damage caused by Iranian missile attacks across the country. Data collected by independent Israeli outlet +972 Magazine, which has tracked military censorship trends since 2011, shows that censorship reached a 13-year peak in 2024, when roughly 8,000 articles were either fully banned from publication or partially redacted. While the total number of censored articles declined slightly in 2025 to around 5,000, that still marks the second-highest annual censorship total recorded since +972 began its tracking.

    Iran has targeted a wide range of high-value strategic sites across Israel during the ongoing conflict, beyond the Haifa Bay refineries: reported targets have included the Kirya, Israel’s central military headquarters in Tel Aviv, the prestigious Weizmann Institute of Science, the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel, and the commercial port of Haifa. Earlier this month, the Times of Israel published confirmation of additional damage at the Ramat David airbase, based on analysis of low-resolution satellite imagery of the site.

    This story was originally published by Middle East Eye, an independent outlet specializing in original, on-the-ground coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region.

  • Iranian press review: Calls grow to maintain military pressure on Gulf states

    Iranian press review: Calls grow to maintain military pressure on Gulf states

    Against the backdrop of a turbulent year marked by the U.S.-Israeli military campaign that eliminated dozens of Iran’s top political and military leaders, four distinct but interconnected developments have emerged to reshape the country’s geopolitical strategy, internal dissent, institutional power struggles, and national sports landscape. A rising cohort of hardline Iranian analysts affiliated with the country’s ruling establishment has carved out greater influence in policy discourse, advancing a controversial stance that unwavering military pressure on southern Gulf Arab states is the only viable path to securing meaningful economic and trade agreements with the bloc. Majid Shakeri, an analyst closely aligned with Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, laid out this position during a recent televised roundtable discussion, arguing that decades of diplomatic outreach to neighboring Gulf monarchies have produced nothing but empty promises. Shakeri emphasized that this hardline approach should apply equally to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, noting that regional leaders have repeatedly pledged large-scale investment during high-level official meetings only to backtrack on commitments once Iranian policy shifts are pursued. He went a step further, arguing that Iran should sustain targeted strikes on U.S. military bases located across the region — particularly installations in the UAE — to force American forces to withdraw from the Persian Gulf and strengthen Tehran’s leverage in future economic negotiations. “Having a trade agreement with the Persian Gulf countries is not incompatible with continuing military pressure on them because previous experiences have shown that pursuing a neighbourhood policy with them leads nowhere,” Shakeri stated. Parallel to this geopolitical debate, grieving Iranian mothers have leveraged the sacred Shia Muslim mourning period of Ashura to openly commemorate their children killed during the January nationwide crackdown on anti-government protests, turning a religious observance of resistance against injustice into a public rebuke of state authorities. Ashura, which marks the 7th-century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, at the Battle of Karbala, has long carried dual meaning for Shia communities as both a time of collective mourning and a symbol of resistance against oppressive rule. In recent days, Persian-language media outlets have circulated widely shared videos showing these mothers publicly honoring their slain children, with informal mourning processions stopping outside victims’ homes to pay respects. One widely circulated clip captures the mother of 18-year-old Mani Safarpour, who was killed during unrest in southern Tehran, clutching her son’s portrait as mourners beat ceremonial drums, repeatedly crying out “My son, my dear son” while striking her head and chest in ritual grief. Another video records the mother of 22-year-old university student Matin Parvizi, who was shot dead in the northwestern city of Zanjan, speaking at her son’s graveside, drawing a direct parallel between modern Iranian authorities and the historical tyrant Yazid who ordered Imam Hussein’s killing. “The Yazids of our time shot my son in the back while his hands were in his pockets,” she said. “He had nothing with which to defend himself.” Official Iranian government figures put the total death toll from the January unrest at 3,117 people, but independent human rights organizations have challenged that count, documenting far higher casualties. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana) reports it has confirmed the identities of 6,488 killed protesters. Meanwhile, internal tensions have erupted within Iran’s legislative branch over the four-month-long suspension of parliament, with sitting lawmakers accusing Speaker Ghalibaf of an illegal power grab that sidelines the legislature and concentrates wartime decision-making exclusively in his own hands. Parliament has not held a public plenary session since February 28, the date the U.S. and Israel launched their current military campaign against Iranian targets. In recent weeks, criticism of the continued suspension has grown into open dissent among sitting lawmakers. Ghalibaf has justified the closure by claiming the decision was mandated by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, but multiple lawmakers have directly refuted this claim, labeling it a falsehood. Conservative lawmaker Kamran Ghazanfari was among the most outspoken critics, noting: “We have repeatedly said that Mr Ghalibaf has been illegally keeping the parliament’s public sessions closed for the past four months.” Fellow lawmaker Ali Akbar Alizadeh echoed that skepticism, confirming that after official inquiries, neither the Supreme National Security Council nor its executive secretariat issued any formal order to shutter the legislature. Turning to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Iran’s national football team has found itself at the center of a sharp divide in public assessment: eliminated from the knockout stage after drawing all three of its group matches, the team has won widespread praise from international fans and analysts for its performance under extraordinary external pressure, while domestic experts have lambasted its tactical shortcomings and the corrupt, government-aligned management that they blame for the early exit. As one of the tournament’s co-hosts, the United States imposed unprecedented barriers on the Iranian delegation: it barred the team from establishing a domestic training camp, denied visas to multiple technical and coaching staff members, and required the entire squad to cross the border into Tijuana, Mexico, for overnight stays after each match played on U.S. soil. International observers have largely framed the team’s ability to earn three draws against these odds as a remarkable achievement. Back inside Iran, however, leading football figures have dismissed these off-field challenges as a distraction, arguing that the elimination stems from deep structural flaws in Iranian football, including what they describe as a “mafia-like” governing structure controlled by government-backed interests. Former national player and veteran coach Mohammad Kalhor placed the blame squarely on the Iranian Football Federation, arguing that the shadowy network of interests has shaped both the selection of an over-age playing squad and the appointment of the current head coach. Assessing the team’s on-pitch performance, Kalhor told the Etemad newspaper: “In terms of tactics and style of play, our team did not perform well. The reason is that our national team had no plan to build attacks from the beginning to the end of the matches, except when we received a goal and had to attack. We had the ability to attack before that, but I do not know why it did not happen.” This report is compiled from an Iranian press review, and its content has not been independently verified by Middle East Eye.

  • Trump’s Board of Peace says Unrwa has ‘no place’ in Gaza

    Trump’s Board of Peace says Unrwa has ‘no place’ in Gaza

    A controversial proposal from former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza-focused Board of Peace has thrown the future of humanitarian aid in the embattled enclave into question, with the group publicly asserting that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has no place in a restructured Gaza.

    In a social media post published on platform X, the Board framed its call for UNRWA’s ouster as a long-overdue break from decades of failed policy. “We are turning a page on the complex of perpetual aid dependency and conflict. The people of Gaza deserve better,” the post read. The statement shared and amplified a speech delivered Tuesday by U.S. envoy Jeff Bartos at the annual UN pledging conference for UNRWA, where Bartos urged donor nations to halt all direct funding to the agency and redirect their financial support to the Board of Peace instead.

    “You can choose to fund incitement, terrorism, and stagnation, or you can choose to fund the Board of Peace, giving Gazans a path to peace, prosperity and real, durable change,” Bartos told attendees.

    For over seven decades, UNRWA has stood as the backbone of Palestinian humanitarian support, serving roughly 5.9 million registered Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. It is the lead UN agency operating in the occupied Palestinian territories, managing the vast majority of aid distribution across the blockaded Gaza Strip. Today, 2.2 million Gazans—nearly the entire population of the enclave—rely on UNRWA for basic needs including food, emergency shelter, primary healthcare, and primary education. Local and international aid groups alike depend on UNRWA’s extensive on-the-ground distribution networks to deliver their own assistance to vulnerable communities.

    But since March 2025, an Israeli government ban on UNRWA operations within Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories has severely limited the agency’s ability to function, blocking UNRWA staff and direct aid shipments from entering Gaza and crippling its activities in the besieged enclave. UNRWA officials have confirmed that thousands of tons of aid, including enough food parcels, flour, and emergency shelter supplies to support hundreds of thousands of displaced people, are currently stuck in warehouses outside Gaza, unable to reach those in need due to the restrictions.

    The Palestinian Authority has flatly rejected the Board of Peace’s calls, reaffirming that UNRWA remains “an indispensable lifeline” for all Palestinians and fulfills an “essential role” in delivering education, healthcare, and emergency assistance across the occupied territories.

    The latest debate over UNRWA’s future unfolds against a backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis that has already drawn widespread international condemnation. In February, Israel’s High Court issued a temporary stay on a planned ban targeting 36 major international aid organizations, including Medecins Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, Save the Children, ActionAid, and the Norwegian Refugee Council. Those groups had received orders in December requiring them to comply with strict new regulatory requirements—including the full disclosure of all staff personal details—to continue operating in Gaza, a mandate many organizations have said is unworkable and puts their teams at severe risk.

    A June 2025 report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) painted a grim picture of conditions inside Gaza, describing the overall situation as “volatile and insecure.” The report noted that the vast majority of Gaza’s population is now confined to shrinking, massively overcrowded displacement camps and residential areas, where core public services are stretched far beyond capacity. Most residents lack consistent access to safe drinking water, and mountains of uncollected solid waste are piling up in residential neighborhoods, creating major public health risks.

    The crisis has been deepened by progressively tighter Israeli restrictions on aid entry into the enclave. Currently, the Kerem Shalom crossing remains the only official entry point for approved humanitarian and commercial cargo bound for Gaza. Starting June 1, Israeli forces began redirecting all incoming humanitarian convoys through a newly built checkpoint, where deliveries have been consistently held up by long delays, heavy congestion, technical malfunctions, and extremely slow screening processes.

    On Tuesday, Israeli media shed new light on the Board of Peace’s broader plans for Gaza, revealing that the group intends to launch so-called “Hamas-free humanitarian zones” in the enclave. Under the proposal, Palestinian civilians would be relocated to these designated zones while the Israeli military expands its full military control over the rest of the Gaza Strip. Israeli national newspaper Israel Hayom reported that the first such zone will open in Tel Sultan, near the southern Gazan city of Rafah, within the next several weeks, and will only house civilians confirmed to have no weapons and no affiliation with Hamas.

    According to the report, the zone will be policed by a newly formed multinational contingent called the International Stabilisation Force (ISF), which will be equipped solely with non-lethal weapons and based at Israel’s Amitai Camp near the Gaza border, operating under the command of the Board of Peace. While the plan states that humanitarian aid will be delivered to the zones, no details have been released about how aid will be distributed, who will manage distribution, or whether existing international aid groups will be allowed to operate inside the sites.

  • Rescue teams in Venezuela cling to hope as US rebuffs criticisms of government earthquake response

    Rescue teams in Venezuela cling to hope as US rebuffs criticisms of government earthquake response

    CATIA LA MAR, Venezuela – One week after a pair of devastating earthquakes ripped through Venezuela’s northern coastal region, the acrid stench of smoldering wreckage and decomposing human remains hangs heavy over the flattened neighborhoods of La Guaira state, where international rescue teams continue to cling to faint hopes of pulling more survivors from tons of concrete and rubble.

    On Thursday morning, that faint hope became a rare moment of joy cutting through the pervasive despair that has shrouded the hard-hit port city of Catia La Mar. After 100 consecutive hours of painstaking excavation by search-and-rescue teams from across the Americas, crews pulled 43-year-old Hernán Alberto Gil Flores alive from the collapsed ruins of a local shopping mall, where he had been trapped for nearly eight full days. Rescuers say a narrow, stable air pocket kept Gil Flores alive, and he was able to stay hydrated and nourished using supplies that teams lowered through gaps in the rubble before reaching him. As he was carried out on a stretcher and loaded into an awaiting ambulance, crowds of onlookers who had gathered at the site burst into cheers, marking one of the few unqualified victories for rescue teams amid a relentless, devastating recovery effort.

    The miracle rescue comes against a backdrop of staggering loss that has left the country reeling. As of Wednesday, Venezuelan government figures put the confirmed death toll at 2,295, with more than 11,000 people injured by the quakes. Thousands more remain unaccounted for, as desperate family members sift through wreckage searching for any sign of missing loved ones. Tens of thousands of displaced residents are now living in overcrowded emergency shelters or sleeping in the open air along the coast, a reality that has medical professionals sounding the alarm over a looming secondary public health crisis. With Venezuela’s already teetering national healthcare system stretched beyond its breaking point, untreated injuries and the spread of infectious disease threaten to push the death toll even higher in the coming weeks.

    Beyond the human catastrophe, the disaster has amplified already fierce political pressure on interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, whose government is facing widespread backlash from Venezuelans over what critics call an inadequate, under-resourced official response to the quakes. On the ground, civilian volunteer teams and international rescue efforts have outpaced official government action, drawing sharp condemnation from citizens grappling with the aftermath.

    The criticism comes at a pivotal political moment for Rodríguez: her 180-day mandate as acting president was set to expire at the end of Thursday, leaving the country’s interim leadership status unclear amid a lack of transparency from government officials. Rodríguez, who previously served as vice president to Nicolás Maduro before Maduro was ousted by U.S.-backed opposition in January, has held the interim presidency with formal backing from the Trump administration. Under Venezuela’s constitution, an interim vice presidential appointment can only extend 90 days before requiring an additional 90-day extension from the National Assembly, which is controlled by Rodríguez’s party. If the seat is declared permanently vacant, the assembly has the authority to call a snap national election.

    Despite growing domestic discontent over the disaster response, the Trump administration reaffirmed its full support for Rodríguez’s government on Wednesday. U.S. officials confirmed that roughly 900 American military personnel are currently deployed in Venezuela to support rescue and humanitarian relief operations. John M. Barrett, U.S. chargé d’affaires to Venezuela, pushed back against claims that Rodríguez’s administration had politicized disaster response efforts during a press call with reporters. “The U.S. response does require a high level of coordination with local authorities to be successful,” Barrett said. “And what I can say with confidence is that the local authorities have fully complied with our requests and have accelerated this massive humanitarian response.”

    Gen. Francis Donovan, head of U.S. Southern Command, added that decades of systemic underinvestment in Venezuelan public infrastructure and social services had created pre-existing conditions that made responding to a disaster of this scale far more difficult for any sitting government. “It is a big problem for any leader to deal with a challenge of this magnitude,” Donovan noted.

    Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press journalist Ben Finley contributed reporting from Washington D.C.