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  • Oil ‘powder keg’: Trump says Hormuz blockade may last all summer

    Oil ‘powder keg’: Trump says Hormuz blockade may last all summer

    On Wednesday, former U.S. President Donald Trump offered a cautiously upbeat outlook on negotiating an end to the ongoing conflict with Iran — a conflict widely characterized as an illegal war initiated under his leadership — even as he conceded that the standoff could stretch on for multiple additional months.

    During an interview with *The New York Post*, Trump was asked whether the current U.S.-led blockade of Iran would remain in place through this year’s Labor Day, which falls on September 7. Responding to the question, Trump stated, “I don’t know. I mean, I think it could be, but I think it’s unlikely.” He went on to assert, “I think this will resolve itself fairly quickly.”

    For months, Trump has leveraged incremental hints that the conflict could wrap up imminently as a tool to prevent global oil prices from surging to catastrophic levels, even as the war drags on with no clear end in sight. While the Trump administration has repeatedly maintained that a previously agreed ceasefire remains in effect, new developments have shattered that narrative: CNN reported Wednesday that Iran launched retaliatory strikes against U.S. military bases stationed in Kuwait and Bahrain, after U.S. forces fired a Hellfire missile at a Botswana-flagged oil tanker en route to an Iranian port.

    Al Jazeera further confirmed that Iran’s retaliation included drone and missile strikes targeting Kuwait’s international airport, which left one civilian dead and dozens more wounded. The fresh escalation has amplified already grave warnings about the fragility of global oil markets, particularly amid the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global crude oil supplies.

    Days before the latest exchange of fire, prominent oil industry analyst Patrick De Haan issued a stark warning that oil prices are on the cusp of a sharp upward spike if the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked. De Haan explained that U.S. petroleum stockpiles, which have been drawn down at an unprecedented rate since the outbreak of the war, are set to hit their lowest level in more than 20 years. In a public social media post, De Haan wrote: “US distillate inventories will likely fall under 100 million barrels for the first time in over 20 years, exacerbated by high exports due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This is a powder keg waiting to go off if a deal to reopen the strait doesn’t happen soon.”

    Ryan Cooper, an analyst with *The American Prospect*, echoed that warning in an analysis published Wednesday, noting that the emergency strategies global governments have relied on to cap oil prices — most notably coordinated releases from strategic petroleum reserves — are fast approaching their limits due to crippling supply constraints. “As storages dwindle and run out, the only way to match demand to supply will be for the price to rise high enough to destroy something like 10 to 20% of global oil consumption,” Cooper wrote. He added that because much of global oil demand is driven by non-negotiable, essential use cases that are largely insensitive to price shifts, benchmark crude prices could surge past $150 per barrel.

    Such a price jump would not only send gasoline and diesel costs soaring for consumers around the world, Cooper added, but would trigger corresponding price increases for nearly every goods category, as almost all products rely on oil for transportation or as a raw material for plastic production.

  • Why bringing down oil’s price is so hard

    Why bringing down oil’s price is so hard

    Global energy markets have been stuck in a chaotic whipsaw for months, swinging wildly with every shift in headlines around the ongoing US-Iran war: bullish drops on rumors of a pending peace deal, sharp spikes when fighting reignites, even as President Donald Trump repeatedly claims a final agreement is within reach. Yet even at their most recent lowest levels, international crude prices remain 40% higher than they were in late February, when the conflict first began. While markets hold out hope that a coming US-Iran agreement could bring relief, two key factors mean consumers and producers should not expect an immediate return to stable, affordable energy.

    Diplomatic observers widely expect that any forthcoming announcement of a peace deal will only address broad terms, kicking thorny, core issues such as Iran’s uranium stockpile and the full lifting of international economic sanctions to future negotiating rounds. Even so, a preliminary agreement would theoretically be welcome news for two groups hit hardest by the price surge: agricultural producers, who have seen margins crushed by spiking fertilizer and diesel costs, and everyday motorists, who have faced sticker shock at gas pumps across the United States and beyond. But the certainty of this relief is far from guaranteed, for two critical reasons.

    First, the Strait of Hormuz—through which roughly a fifth of global oil supplies pass daily—remains Iran’s primary bargaining chip in negotiations. Few analysts expect Tehran to surrender full control of the strategic waterway, even if it agrees to formally reopen the lane for commercial shipping and rule out collecting transit tolls. After demonstrating its ability to disrupt traffic through the strait, Iran could easily reimpose restrictions at any time in the future, keeping persistent upward pressure on global oil prices.

    Second, even if Iran fully honors commitments to keep the strait open, long-lasting supply disruptions will keep energy markets tight for months, if not years. Clearing mines laid during the conflict will take weeks, restarting production at idled oil wells will require months of work, and repairing war damage to refineries, pipelines and other critical energy infrastructure across the Middle East will stretch into multiple years. These long-term constraints mean supply cannot rebound quickly enough to bring prices back to pre-conflict levels immediately, even if diplomatic progress is made.

    These projections all assume a deal will be finalized in the near term, a timeline that is far from certain. Negotiations have dragged on because both sides believe they hold the upper hand and can outwait the other. The Trump administration insists that crippling economic sanctions have left Iran’s economy in catastrophic condition, forcing Tehran to accept unfavorable terms. For its part, Iran believes Trump cannot politically afford to enter upcoming US midterm elections with persistently high gas prices, leaving Washington motivated to concede more to get a deal done. The question, then, is which side can tolerate sustained economic and political pain longer.

    By all public indications, Trump is eager to end the conflict. Reports have suggested he is growing frustrated with the war, which poses growing political risk for his administration. The conflict, which Trump as a candidate promised he would avoid, has started to take on the contours of a foreign policy quagmire, though it differs from past protracted conflicts: the war has only lasted three months, with more than half that period spent under a ceasefire, and has not resulted in the thousands of American casualties that marked decades-long conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Still, the current stalemate fits a long historical pattern: great powers have repeatedly struggled to achieve decisive victory against much weaker adversaries. This pattern includes the US failure to subdue North Vietnam, the Soviet Union’s costly defeat in Afghanistan, the 21st century’s protracted US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which has already outlasted the Soviet Union’s fight in World War II.

    Looking at broader great power involvement in the conflict, Russia has provided Iran with intelligence and military supplies, a point Trump’s critics have seized on to argue that the president’s close relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin has yielded no benefits for US interests. While the critics have a valid point, any pressure on Moscow to end support for Iran would likely be met with a reciprocal demand: Russia could tie cutting aid to Iran to the US ending its own military support for Ukraine, which continues even at reduced levels. Meanwhile, China has maintained quiet ties to all parties to both the Ukraine and US-Iran conflicts: critical components for the military drones used by every side in both conflicts are sourced from Chinese manufacturers.

    If negotiations continue to stall amid a shaky ceasefire, Trump has multiple military options to escalate, though none offer a guarantee of success. He could resume large-scale bombing campaigns against Iran, but there is no evidence that increased pressure would force Tehran to buckle. He could authorize a raid to seize Iran’s uranium stockpile, or help Israeli forces carry out such an operation, but such a mission would be extraordinarily complex and high-risk, and would likely have been attempted already if it were easily achievable. Another option is a forced military opening of the Strait of Hormuz, with US naval and air assets escorting commercial shipping through the waterway. This course of action would almost certainly result in casualties, and still cannot guarantee long-term security for shipping. If successful, however, it would eliminate Iran’s core leverage over global oil markets, cutting off Iran’s main oil export revenue and increasing pressure on Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.

    For the foreseeable future, however, Iran retains its chokehold over the critical strait—and the economic impact of that leverage continues to be felt by consumers and businesses across every region of the world.

  • Iran slams Kuwait airport in response to US attacks as ceasefire comes under pressure

    Iran slams Kuwait airport in response to US attacks as ceasefire comes under pressure

    A dangerous escalation of conflict between the United States and Iran has left the small Gulf nation of Kuwait reeling from deadly missile and drone attacks, pushing an already fragile ceasefire to the breaking point. On Tuesday night, Iranian forces launched a heavy barrage of projectiles that targeted Kuwait’s main airport, leaving at least one person dead and 63 others injured. Graphic footage from the scene confirms widespread destruction: Terminal 1 is engulfed in active fire, its partial roof has collapsed, and thick plumes of dark smoke have blanketed the airport area.

    Kuwaiti officials have issued a sharp denial of Iranian claims that the country allowed the U.S. to use its airspace to launch pre-emptive strikes against Iran. In an official briefing, Kuwaiti Defense Ministry spokesperson Brigadier General Saud al-Otayan publicly denounced the assault as “criminal Iranian aggression.” In a coordinated diplomatic response, Kuwait summoned Iran’s acting chargé d’affaires to formally protest the attack and ordered two Iranian embassy personnel to leave the country within a 24-hour window.

    The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed its responsibility for the assault in an official statement posted to its Telegram channel, noting that the strikes targeted two key sites: Ali Al Salem Air Base, a major facility that hosts U.S. military helicopters, and the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters based in neighboring Bahrain. The attack followed a chain of escalating tit-for-tat strikes that began when U.S. forces targeted an empty oil tanker Tehran was reportedly attempting to bring to one of its ports. This action came amid a broader U.S. naval blockade on Iranian shipping, imposed after Iran took control of key transit areas in the Strait of Hormuz and began demanding new transit fees for commercial vessels passing through the strategic waterway. U.S. officials say Iran first opened fire on American sailors after the tanker strike, prompting the U.S. to launch its own counterstrikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island. Following the Iranian assault on Kuwait and Bahrain, U.S. military officials announced they had “successfully defeated” the wave of missile and drone attacks and reaffirmed their counterstrikes on Qeshm Island.

    This latest attack marks one of the most severe strikes on Kuwait since Iran launched a series of retaliatory assaults against Gulf states earlier this year, in response to a joint U.S.-Israeli offensive that began on February 28. Kuwait currently hosts approximately 13,500 U.S. troops, one of the largest American military deployments in the entire Gulf region. Earlier this year, Kuwait and other Gulf Cooperation Council states pushed the U.S. to avoid military confrontation with Iran, but regional alliances have shifted rapidly in recent months: the United Arab Emirates has launched dozens of its own strikes against Iran, while Saudi Arabia initially granted the U.S. expanded access to its military bases before shifting its stance to back Pakistani-mediated diplomatic negotiations.

    The latest flare-up has thrown already shaky ceasefire talks between Washington and Tehran into further disarray. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed the two sides are close to reaching a new negotiated deal, but Iranian officials have consistently denied any willingness to compromise on either their nuclear program or their demands to impose transit fees in the Strait of Hormuz. Just this week, Iran’s official Tasnim News Agency confirmed Tehran has cut off all direct contact with U.S. negotiators, though Trump insisted Tuesday that discussions remain ongoing. Talks have stalled over two core sticking points: the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to unrestricted commercial traffic and the full sanctions relief Iran has demanded to extend the current fragile ceasefire.

    Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio doubled down on Washington’s hardline stance, saying Iran will only qualify for sanctions relief if it completely abandons its nuclear enrichment program. “Iran is being sanctioned because they’ve highly enriched uranium. Iran is being sanctioned because of their nuclear activities; if they agree to give up those things, there will be sanctions relief,” Rubio told lawmakers. “They have to agree on negotiating severe and long-term limitations and/or cancellation of enrichment activity.”

    Rubio claimed Iranian negotiators have recently begun discussing aspects of their nuclear program that were previously off the table, but he offered no concrete details to support the assertion. Iranian officials flatly rejected the claim Friday, stating explicitly that “no negotiations” are currently underway over the country’s nuclear program. Rubio’s comments also make clear the U.S. has no immediate plans to release the billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets that Tehran has made a core requirement for any permanent ceasefire agreement.

    Caught between competing regional and global powers, Kuwait finds itself in an increasingly vulnerable position. With a total population of around five million, the country lacks the extensive military capabilities of larger Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and has less diplomatic leverage than neighboring Qatar to de-escalate tensions. As fighting reignites along the Gulf, this small nation has become an unintended casualty of the escalating standoff between the U.S. and Iran.

  • Eight Muslim countries denounce Israeli incursions at Al-Aqsa

    Eight Muslim countries denounce Israeli incursions at Al-Aqsa

    In a unified show of diplomatic pushback against shifting territorial and religious dynamics in Jerusalem, the foreign ministers of eight major Muslim-majority nations have issued a sharp condemnation of Israeli settler incursions into Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, while demanding formal international recognition of Jordan’s long-held legal jurisdiction over the sacred site.

    The joint position was released Wednesday in an official statement shared via social media by Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The statement, signed by ministers from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, argues that the intrusions—carried out with explicit protection from Israeli security forces—represent a blatant breach of international law, binding United Nations resolutions, and the established historical and legal framework governing holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem.

    The coalition of foreign ministers went on to reject all Israeli efforts to unilaterally revise the centuries-old legal and religious status quo that protects both Islamic and Christian holy sites across Jerusalem. They reiterated their urgent call for the global community to formally uphold and recognize Jordan’s centuries-old custodianship mandate over the entire Al-Aqsa compound.

    Further emphasizing their stance, the ministers stressed that Al-Aqsa Mosque remains a sacred space reserved exclusively for Muslim worship. They also placed full accountability for the rising wave of intrusions carried out by settlers under Israeli military protection squarely on Israeli national authorities.

    The Al-Aqsa compound has operated under a carefully negotiated status quo arrangement for decades, an internationally agreed framework that enshrines its identity as an exclusive place of Islamic worship. The current governing structure was established following the 1967 Six-Day War, when Jordan and Israel reached a consensus: the Jordanian-backed Islamic Waqf would oversee all internal religious and administrative affairs of the site, while Israel would retain control over external security operations. Under this long-standing agreement, non-Muslim visitors are allowed to tour the compound during scheduled time slots, but are explicitly prohibited from conducting private or communal prayer on the grounds.

    In recent years, however, the site has seen a steady and alarming increase in intrusions by Israeli settlers, most of which proceed with armed military escort. This escalation comes amid broader reported efforts to alter the site’s governing status: independent regional outlet Middle East Eye previously revealed that the U.S. and Israel have been actively working to revoke Jordan’s historic custodianship of the Al-Aqsa complex, according to anonymous senior sources.

    Under the drafted plan first exposed by MEE, future management of the revered Muslim site would be restructured to align closely with Israeli strategic and political interests. The initiative is being spearheaded by former White House advisor Jared Kushner and current U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, according to accounts from U.S., Jordanian, Palestinian, Western and Gulf Arab diplomatic sources. If implemented, the plan would dissolve the existing authority of the Jordanian-backed Islamic Waqf and replace it with a new regulatory body appointed by the Israeli government, which would reclassify Al-Aqsa Mosque as a multi-faith religious site.

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has publicly denied the existence of such a plan, but has stopped short of explicitly affirming Jordan’s long-standing custodianship rights over the compound, leaving the diplomatic status of the agreement in question.

  • British MP asks government to clarify stance on Jordanian custodianship of Al-Aqsa

    British MP asks government to clarify stance on Jordanian custodianship of Al-Aqsa

    A British independent lawmaker has launched a formal call for the United Kingdom to take an unambiguous public stance against reported covert efforts by the United States and Israel to revoke Jordan’s centuries-old custodianship of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, a move that has sparked widespread outrage among Muslim communities globally.

    Shockat Adam, who represents Leicester South in the UK Parliament, made the demand in an official letter dated May 29 addressed to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, days after independent outlet Middle East Eye (MEE) published an exclusive report outlining the proposed power grab that would upend decades of agreed status quo for the holy site.

    MEE’s reporting, which cited anonymous confirmation from American, Jordanian, and Palestinian officials, details a plan spearheaded by former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. Under the proposal, Israel would secure unilateral authority to appoint imams and senior administrative staff at Al-Aqsa, and would also gain veto power over the content of weekly Friday sermons delivered at the mosque. Two senior US officials additionally confirmed to MEE that Washington has drafted a formal policy document outlining its vision for the site, which includes stripping Al-Aqsa of its exclusive Muslim religious identity to rebrand it as a multi-faith tourist landmark open to all three Abrahamic religions. One alternative provision floated in the proposal would replace Jordan’s permanent custodianship with a rotating oversight model involving multiple Arab states, according to a Western official and a source briefed by Jordan’s government.

    While a single unnamed US official has issued a blanket denial of the reported conspiracy, the revelations have already triggered sharp pushback from Muslim communities and political leaders. Adam confirmed in a public Twitter post accompanying a photo of his letter that his urgent appeal comes against the backdrop of ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, framing the proposed change to Al-Aqsa’s status as unacceptable interference in a highly volatile regional context.

    In his letter, Adam notes that he has been inundated with messages from constituents in Leicester South expressing profound anger and deep alarm over the reported plans. He emphasized that for Palestinian people and Muslim communities across the globe, Al-Aqsa is far more than a site of daily worship: it stands as a core symbol of national and religious identity, collective dignity, and a bulwark against the ongoing displacement of Palestinian people from their historic lands.

    Adam has put four key questions to the UK Foreign Secretary to force a clear government position: whether ministers have already raised the controversial reports directly with their US and Israeli counterparts; whether the UK continues to formally recognize and support Jordan’s long-standing custodianship role; what official assessment has been made of the risks of escalating ethnic violence, further displacement of Palestinians, and regional instability that would follow any attempt to alter the holy site’s existing status; and whether the government will commit to a clear public rejection of any effort to undermine Jordan’s internationally recognized custodianship.

    The UK has long held an official policy of acknowledging Jordan’s custodianship over all Muslim and Christian holy sites located in East Jerusalem. MEE has contacted the UK Foreign Office for official comment on Adam’s letter and the reported plan, but has not yet received a public response.

    MEE, an independent media outlet focused on exclusive coverage of the Middle East and North Africa, first broke the story of the proposed US-Israeli plan last week, bringing international attention to the highly sensitive issue that threatens to upend decades of fragile regional diplomacy around Jerusalem’s holy sites.

  • Starmer accuses Farage of inciting rage in wake of Southampton riot

    Starmer accuses Farage of inciting rage in wake of Southampton riot

    A fierce political debate has erupted in the UK Parliament after Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called for “pure cold rage” over the conviction of a murderer in a high-profile stabbing case, drawing sharp condemnation from Prime Minister Keir Starmer for overriding the explicit wishes of the victim’s grieving family.

    The case at the center of the controversy is the 2023 murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, who was stabbed to death in Southampton by 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, a British Sikh man. Digwa was found guilty of murder last week, but new details that emerged after the verdict amplified existing tensions. Circulating police body camera footage shows Digwa falsely claimed Nowak had assaulted him, leading officers to handcuff the teenager even as he repeatedly told them he had been stabbed and could not breathe. Nowak died at the scene.

    Right-wing political and media figures have seized on the case to push claims of so-called “two-tier policing”, alleging authorities deliberately prioritized Digwa’s account over Nowak’s because of the victim’s white identity and the perpetrator’s non-white background. Under mounting pressure from Restore, a new far-right party founded by former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe – who once led Southampton Football Club and is currently mired in scandal over an unexplained £5 million donation from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne – Farage doubled down on the rhetoric this week.

    In a post on X Tuesday, ahead of a violent far-right riot in Southampton that saw known neo-Nazis clash with police, Farage wrote: “The fear of being called racist was greater than dealing with Henry Nowak’s murder. We should respond to this with pure cold rage. Britain’s historic way of life is being thrown away.” A close ally of Farage told Middle East Eye the Reform leader was standing firmly by his conviction that two-tier policing is a national reality, and that he has no concern about being outflanked on the far right by Lowe’s new party. “The issue isn’t Nowak, but what caused Nowak,” the source said.

    What makes Farage’s call for rage particularly controversial is that it directly contradicts a clear public plea from Nowak’s own family. On Monday, outside the courtroom following the guilty verdict, Henry’s father Mark Nowak addressed reporters, urging political actors not to twist his son’s death for divisive ends. “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension. We want his story to make our streets safer for everyone,” Mark Nowak said. “As the prosecution lawyer summed up in court: This is not a case about Sikhism. This is not a case about racism. This is a case about murder.”

    When the matter came to Parliament on Wednesday, Starmer echoed the family’s plea and launched a blistering attack on Farage for his actions. The prime minister accused the Reform leader of exploiting the tragedy to stoke national grievance and division, in open disregard of the family’s explicit request.

    Starmer said: “A grieving family have asked us not to respond in the way that the leader of Reform has responded… They have lost their son in the most appalling circumstances. They make a simple plea of us as human beings to please not exploit that. Rage – that’s his response to a father who has lost his son and asked for that not to happen. Exploiting this tragedy to create grievance and division would be wrong in any circumstance, but to do it when the family are expressly saying ‘please don’t’ is unforgivable.” He also rejected the core of Farage’s claim, stating: “I don’t believe there is two-tier policing in this country.”

    During his own parliamentary address, Farage doubled down on his claims, repeating that “it is now clear to growing millions in this country that we are living under two-tier policing” and calling on Starmer to acknowledge what he called reality. When Farage referenced the violent unrest that had erupted in Southampton the previous night, multiple members of parliament interrupted in outrage, calling on him to condemn the rioting – a demand he did not fulfill. He only warned that public anger “is in danger of getting considerably worse if the public lose trust in being treated fairly by the police.”

    This incident has laid bare the growing friction between mainstream UK politics and an emboldened far right, which has increasingly sought to frame individual violent crimes as evidence of systemic bias against white Britons, even when victims’ families reject that framing.

  • More Israelis leaving country than arriving: Press review

    More Israelis leaving country than arriving: Press review

    Over the past two years, Israel has confronted a cascade of interconnected political, security and demographic challenges, alongside an unexpected milestone in its defense export industry, according to multiple official findings and leading Israeli media reports.

    First, a new demographic study commissioned by Israel’s parliament has uncovered a troubling net emigration trend that experts warn poses a long-term strategic risk to the country. Data published by Israeli outlet Ynet this week reveals that more Israelis have left the nation than have returned in recent years, with a dramatic acceleration of this outflow following the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023. Between 2022 and 2024 alone, more than 210,000 Israelis emigrated — a sharp jump from the annual average of roughly 40,000 recorded between 2009 and 2021. Over this two-year period, the net outflow of citizens hit 140,000.

    Most alarmingly, the departure rate is disproportionately high among the country’s most highly skilled young demographics, the core of Israel’s technology and knowledge-driven economy. Of all recent emigrants, 48% fall between the ages of 20 and 44, a group that makes up just 32% of Israel’s total population. In terms of educational attainment, 33.2% of emigrants hold a bachelor’s degree, 21.5% have a master’s degree, and 3.7% hold a PhD. Graduates specializing in high-demand fields including mathematics, computer science and physics are particularly overrepresented among those leaving. The study also notes that a slight majority of 2024 emigrants — 52% — were born in Israel. Knesset member Gilad Kariv of the opposition Democratic Party emphasized that the exodus of tomorrow’s leading scientists and entrepreneurs, leaving at a rate far exceeding their share of the population, constitutes a clear strategic threat to Israel’s long-term future.

    In a separate development related to Israel’s military leadership, Ynet confirmed that Yisrael Shomer, head of the Israel Defense Forces Operations Division, has been removed from his senior post amid an active investigation into sexual misconduct involving a subordinate. Shomer, who had been widely tipped for promotion to lead either the IDF Personnel Directorate or the West Bank Command, was ousted over the alleged inappropriate relationship with a junior service member. This dismissal comes nearly 11 years after a controversial 2015 incident in which Shomer shot and killed 17-year-old Palestinian Muhammad Ali Kosba in the occupied West Bank town of al-Ram. Kosba, who was shot three times including once in the head while fleeing after allegedly throwing a stone at Shomer’s armored vehicle, became a symbol of excessive military force after the killing was captured on camera, sparking widespread international criticism that delayed Shomer’s promotion at the time. No criminal charges were ever filed, however, as the Military Advocate General closed the case in 2016. The IDF characterized this week’s dismissal as a response to clear moral violations.

    On the political front, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s already fragile right-wing governing coalition is facing a growing threat of collapse, centered on a long-running dispute over military conscription exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men. Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party and a decades-long ally of Netanyahu, has publicly held the prime minister responsible for the growing rift, accusing him of putting coalition unity at serious risk over the failure to pass the desired exemption legislation. The crisis came to a head this week when the Knesset held a vote on self-dissolution, after Dov Lando, spiritual leader of Degel HaTorah (one of two factions making up the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party), ordered his party’s lawmakers to support the dissolution motion in protest of Netanyahu’s handling of the conscription issue. Deri warned in closed-door discussions, as reported by Israel’s Channel 13, that UTJ lawmakers are willing to defect to form a left-wing government if new elections are held, adding that one senior UTJ figure is already actively working to bring such a center-left coalition to power. While Deri confirmed he personally would not join a left-wing administration, the warning aligns with recent opinion polling that puts Netanyahu’s current right-wing bloc on track to win only around 50 of the Knesset’s 120 seats — 11 seats short of the 61-seat majority required to form a new government.

    Against this backdrop of domestic political and demographic unrest, Israel’s defense export sector has hit an unexpected all-time high. The Israeli Defense Ministry announced this week that total arms sales revenue reached a record $19.2 billion in 2025, marking a 30% increase from the previous year’s figures. According to reporting from Haaretz’s economic affiliate TheMarker, sales to countries that signed the Abraham Accords — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — have surged dramatically, rising from just 3% of total Israeli arms exports in 2023 to 15% in 2025. More than half of 2025’s total revenue, approximately $10 billion, came from direct government-to-government arms deals. Regional export shifts show that European purchases fell from 54% of total sales in 2024 to 36% in 2025, while sales to Asia and the Pacific rose from 23% to 32% over the same period. Smaller export volumes were recorded for North America, Latin America and Africa. By product category, missile, rocket and air defense systems made up 29% of total revenue, while sales of surveillance and optronic systems jumped from 6% in 2024 to 22% of 2025 sales. Overall, Israeli arms exports accounted for 12% of the country’s total $160 billion in national exports in 2025, up 4.5 percentage points from 2022 levels. Defense Minister Israel Katz celebrated the record figures, attributing the growth to the combat experience and proven capabilities of the IDF and Israeli security forces operating across Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen.

  • Israeli study finds starvation in Gaza was result of deliberate policy

    Israeli study finds starvation in Gaza was result of deliberate policy

    Two years into the war that began in October 2023, a new study from an Israeli genocide scholar has upended the Israeli government and mainstream media’s repeated denials, concluding that the widespread starvation ravaging the Gaza Strip was the result of deliberate, pre-planned state policy.

    Authored by Shmuel Lederman, a researcher specializing in genocide studies, the report titled *Data for Denial: The Smokescreen Behind the Starvation of Gaza* was published last month by the Forum for Regional Thinking at Jerusalem’s Van Leer Institute. Lederman told Middle East Eye he launched the research in response to what he calls pervasive denial across Israeli society of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza, a pattern he says aligns with public responses to historical cases of mass violence.

    “There is a thirst for denial,” Lederman explained, noting that most Israeli citizens seek to frame the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza and the broader occupied territories as entirely morally justified and free of systemic abuse. A separate August 2025 investigation from Israeli news outlet Walla corroborates this pattern of denial, confirming that mainstream Israeli television outlets routinely minimize or erase coverage of Gaza’s starvation crisis entirely.

    Lederman’s study pushes back against the belated, limited acknowledgement of food insecurity that emerged in some Israeli circles by mid-2025, where commentators framed starvation as an accidental, isolated bureaucratic miscalculation rather than a product of intentional state decision-making. Drawing on core principles of famine research, which holds that hunger is driven not just by total food availability but by equitable access to food, the scholar documents how Israeli policy systematically stripped Palestinians of access to sustenance. Restrictions on the entry of aid, fuel, and cooking gas, the deliberate destruction of critical food infrastructure including bakeries, and repeated disruption of humanitarian operations all combined to create catastrophic levels of food deprivation.

    The study’s core conclusion leaves little room for ambiguity: Gaza’s starvation is the product of “deliberate planning, experimentation, and manoeuvring around the humanitarian ‘red line’”, designed in large part to manage mounting international pressure on Israel throughout the course of the war.

    A central point of contention in public debates over Gaza’s hunger has been the number of daily aid trucks required to meet the enclave’s basic needs, a metric that Israeli officials have repeatedly manipulated to downplay the crisis. COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for civil administration in occupied Palestinian territories, claimed in August 2025 that just 80 daily aid trucks would be enough to meet Gaza’s population’s needs, a figure that was widely repeated by sympathetic Israeli researchers and journalists.

    This claim has been rejected by nearly every independent and international body: human rights organizations, UN agencies, and even the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden disputed the number. The Biden White House estimated roughly 250 trucks per day were required to avoid mass hunger, while international humanitarian organizations put the necessary number between 500 and 600. What is more, COGAT’s own past data undermines its current claim: in 2008, when Gaza’s population was 1.5 million people, 500,000 less than its current population, COGAT itself stated 178 trucks per day were needed to meet basic needs. As recently as last month, Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported that COGAT urged the Israeli government to cut aid truck entries to 250 per day after an October 2025 ceasefire, claiming that level met basic needs. For Lederman, this revelation is an implicit admission that the earlier 80-truck claim was a deliberate falsehood: “In practice, this is an admission of starvation,” he told MEE, speaking after COGAT released its post-report statement.

    Lederman traces the origins of Gaza’s starvation to the very start of the war in October 2023. For the first five months of the conflict, until March 2024, Israel allowed only a tiny fraction of the recommended number of aid trucks into the Strip, rapidly deepening the food crisis. UN agencies, human rights groups, and on-the-ground Palestinian testimonies all documented extreme food shortages during this period, with women and children bearing the brunt of the deprivation.

    In May 2024, mounting U.S. pressure following Israel’s deadly assault on Rafah forced Israel to allow more commercial trucks into Gaza, but the government simultaneously restricted access for humanitarian convoys. Last month, Wala also revealed that 11 major Israeli supermarket chains won an exclusive tender to supply food and aid to Gaza, generating hundreds of millions of shekels in profit. Lederman argues that this privatization of aid delivery created a profit-driven monopoly that actively worsened the humanitarian crisis, allowing a small number of connected actors to enrich themselves, often in coordination with Israeli authorities, while the vast majority of Gazans go hungry.

    While U.S. pressure produced a brief easing of the crisis, Israel reversed course in October 2024, slashing aid shipments back to minimal levels. By March 2025, Israel imposed a full blockade on all food and humanitarian aid entry, pushing Gaza over the edge into full-scale famine. In August 2025, the Integrated Food Phase Classification (IPC), the UN-backed global body that monitors hunger, officially declared famine in Gaza City.

    The report also reveals that even as COGAT publicly disputed international warnings about growing hunger, the agency privately warned the Israeli government as early as 2025 that Gaza was on the brink of catastrophic famine. Despite this internal warning, the Israeli government pressed ahead with its policy to advance a clear strategic goal: using starvation as a tool to pressure Palestinians to relocate south out of northern and central Gaza, and ultimately to leave the territory for third countries. This tactic aligns with the controversial “voluntary emigration” plan publicly backed by both the Israeli government and former U.S. President Donald Trump. Lederman cites the creation of the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as further evidence of this strategy, writing: “Severe food deprivation in Gaza that would compel Gazans to travel to aid distribution centres was not a ‘mistake’, it was part of the plan.”

    Beyond the immediate humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the study frames the territory as a testing ground for a new model of population control through hunger. “Over the past two and a half years, Gaza has served to a large extent as a testing laboratory not only for methods of warfare, but also for the architecture of starvation and the management of a population through deprivation,” the report reads. Lederman warns that the implications of this experiment will extend far beyond Gaza’s borders, noting that while starvation has been used as a weapon of war in other recent conflicts, few if any cases have so systematically and openly undermined the long-standing international norm banning the practice.

    Lederman also emphasizes the shared responsibility of the United States, under both the Biden and Trump administrations, as well as other Western governments, for enabling Israel’s policy, arguing that their diplomatic and military support made the starvation campaign possible. He warns that Israel’s tactics will spread to other conflicts around the globe, as other actors feel empowered to adopt similar methods, shielded from criticism by charges of Western hypocrisy. “What Israel did in Gaza will not stay there, it already has not remained there,” Lederman said. “Therefore, this is not only a struggle against what Israel did to the Palestinians in Gaza, but a global struggle against these kinds of actions.”

  • From butterflies to breast milk, Uber’s list of lost items reveals wild backseat discoveries

    From butterflies to breast milk, Uber’s list of lost items reveals wild backseat discoveries

    A ankle monitor, an industrial meat slicer, a container of expressed breast milk, and a sealed package of live butterflies – these are not punchlines to a absurdist comedy sketch, but some of the weirdest items left behind in Uber vehicles over the past year. To mark the 10th anniversary of its annual Lost & Found Index, the leading US rideshare platform has released its decade-end roundup of the most unusual, unexpected, and culturally telling items forgotten by riders across the country.

    For 2026, New York City claimed the unenviable title of America’s most forgetful major city, with Sunday taking the crown as the day of the week when riders are most likely to leave belongings behind in backseats. Beyond this year’s rankings, the 10th anniversary edition of the index doubles as a retrospective of changing cultural trends across the past decade, turning the collection of lost items into an unofficial pop culture time capsule.

    “From AirPods becoming an everyday essential that’s constantly left behind, to vaccine cards and cloth face masks dominating lost item reports in 2021, Ozempic pens turning up in backseats in 2025, and viral Labubu plushies claiming a spot on this year’s list, the Lost & Found Index has become an unexpected time capsule of the past decade,” Uber explained in an official press release.

    As the dominant player in the US rideshare industry, Uber handles a staggering volume of lost item reports every year. Per 2024 market data from Bloomberg Second Measure, Uber controls 76% of the US rideshare market, far outpacing rival Lyft and smaller competitors. That massive market share translates to more than one million phones reported lost in Uber vehicles in just the past 12 months alone.

    This year’s roundup of the 50 most unique lost items includes a lineup of deeply unusual belongings that range from the surprising to the slightly shocking: George Washington University hospital discharge papers, a textured portrait of Jesus embellished with rhinestones, a two-pound container of blue raspberry Gushers candy, a set of partial teeth wrapped in tissue, 20 pounds of duck sausage, medical pelvis implants, a child’s prosthetic eye, and a signed group photo of 1970s pop icon Donny Osmond, among many others.

    Looking at 2026’s top trends in lost items, vapes and e-cigarettes, viral Labubu plush dolls, all types of dental items (including gold grills and cosmetic veneers), and Croc sandals were the most commonly forgotten unique belongings over the past year.

    The index also looks back at the most headline-grabbing unique lost item from each year the project has run: a live lobster in 2017, finalized divorce papers in 2018, a raw salmon head in 2019, a lanyard emblazoned with the phrase “virginity rocks” in 2020, an oversized oil painting of Kate Middleton in 2021, 500 grams of high-end caviar in 2022, a live toy poodle (accompanied by a frantic note that read “MY DOG IS IN THE CAR!!!”) in 2023, a prosthetic fake butt in 2024, a taxidermied rabbit in 2025, and a full 75-gallon fish tank in 2026.

    To coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Lost & Found Index, Uber announced it will roll out a streamlined, updated lost item reporting process to its mobile app, with a full national launch scheduled for the end of 2026. The new feature is designed to make it faster and easier for riders to reconnect with belongings they left behind.

  • Congo’s soccer team seeks alternatives after Spanish city cancels World Cup warmup game due to Ebola

    Congo’s soccer team seeks alternatives after Spanish city cancels World Cup warmup game due to Ebola

    MADRID – A pre-World Cup friendly match between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chile scheduled to take place in the Spanish coastal city of La Linea de la Concepcion has been blocked by local authorities over public health fears tied to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in central Africa, leaving the Congolese national team scrambling to rearrange the warm-up fixture ahead of their first World Cup appearance in nearly half a century. Local government officials in La Linea confirmed Tuesday that they had formally rejected authorization for the June match, citing unacceptable public health risks linked to the regional Ebola epidemic that has spread across eastern DR Congo and neighboring Uganda. The outbreak, caused by a rare strain of the Ebola virus, was designated a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization weeks ago, prompting widespread precautionary measures across global sporting and political circles.

    In response to the cancellation, DR Congo’s national soccer federation announced it has opened active discussions with the Royal Spanish Football Federation and global governing bodies to identify an alternative host for the planned warm-up match, with the federation confirming it remains committed to holding the fixture ahead of the tournament.

    Notably, the entire Congolese squad and its French head coach Sébastien Desabre are currently based outside of DR Congo, with the vast majority of players competing for club sides across France. The team was already in Europe this week for a pre-tournament warm-up against Denmark in Liege, Belgium, Wednesday, as they wrap up preparation ahead of the World Cup in North America.

    The Ebola outbreak has already forced major changes to DR Congo’s pre-World Cup planning: the federation previously scrapped a three-day pre-departure training camp in the capital Kinshasa, along with a planned public fan farewell event, to limit potential exposure for the squad amid the ongoing public health crisis in the eastern region of the country.

    Global soccer governing body FIFA has confirmed it is closely monitoring the situation, maintaining constant communication with Congolese federation officials to ensure the squad follows all updated medical and security guidance to mitigate any health risks.

    DR Congo, which will compete under Group K at this year’s World Cup, is set to kick off its tournament campaign against Portugal in Houston on June 17. The team, nicknamed The Leopards, will then face Colombia in Guadalajara on June 23, before wrapping up group stage play against Uzbekistan in Atlanta on June 27. This marks the country’s first qualification for the World Cup since 1974, when it competed under the former name Zaire. The historic qualification sparked widespread jubilation across the nation, which has struggled with decades of political instability and armed conflict. For a country that has faced persistent hardship, the 2024 World Cup berth represents a rare moment of national unity and global recognition.