Global Pulse

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  • AP, Reuters, Minnesota Star Tribune among Pulitzer winners for 2025 work

    AP, Reuters, Minnesota Star Tribune among Pulitzer winners for 2025 work

    NEW YORK — The 2026 Pulitzer Prizes, one of the most prestigious honors in global journalism, have named their latest recipients, recognizing groundbreaking investigative work spanning international surveillance, U.S. presidential power shifts, and community tragedy, just one week after a high-profile security incident targeting a major Washington journalism event.

    The Associated Press took home the coveted 2026 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for a years-long probe into mass surveillance infrastructure and its human and societal impacts within China. Over three years of work that involved combing through thousands of official documents and conducting dozens of on-the-ground interviews, the AP investigation uncovered a key, underreported link: U.S. tech firms have contributed to building the foundational framework of the Chinese government’s mass monitoring and citizen policing system. The project also exposed longstanding regulatory gaps across multiple U.S. presidential administrations that have allowed both American technology companies and Chinese officials to evade rules designed to block Beijing from accessing sensitive restricted materials, including cutting-edge advanced computer chips.

    In this year’s award cycle, Reuters secured two Pulitzer distinctions. The outlet won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for its in-depth examination of how former President and current U.S. President Donald Trump has leveraged the authority of the federal government and the influence of his political base to expand unilateral executive power and target political opponents, award judges confirmed. Reuters also took home a prize in the newly revived beat reporting category for its rigorous coverage of social media conglomerate Meta.

    The breaking news Pulitzer went to the *Minnesota Star Tribune* for its on-the-ground coverage of a 2025 mass shooting at a Minneapolis-area Catholic school. Judges commended the outlet’s work for its remarkable “thoroughness and compassion” in covering the devastating attack that unfolded during the first school Mass of the academic year. The shooting left two children dead and more than a dozen other people injured; the gunman was later found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

    This year’s award announcement, delivered via online livestream with the traditional awards dinner scheduled for later in the year, comes just over a week after a violent security incident outside the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington D.C., one of the most high-profile annual gatherings for U.S. journalists. A gunman rushed a security checkpoint outside the venue and exchanged gunfire with Secret Service agents; he has since been charged with attempting to assassinate Trump, who made his first appearance as sitting president at the annual event.

    Administered by Columbia University in New York, the Pulitzer Prizes recognize outstanding journalism produced in 2025 by U.S.-based newspapers, wire services, digital news outlets, magazines, and broadcaster websites that center text-focused submissions. Entries can include multimedia components such as video, photography, graphics, and audio alongside core written work. Beyond journalism, the 2026 awards also honor outstanding achievement in books, music, and theater.

    Established in 1917 through a provision in the will of iconic newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, the awards carry a $15,000 cash prize for most winning entries, while the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Public Service is awarded a gold medal. All winners are selected by the Pulitzer Prize Board, which counts AP Executive Editor Julie Pace among its newest appointed members this cycle.

  • Russia declares a unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine to mark Victory Day

    Russia declares a unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine to mark Victory Day

    Russia’s Defense Ministry has announced a unilateral ceasefire that will be in effect across Ukraine on Friday and Saturday, timed to coincide with the 81st anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, while issuing a stark warning that it will respond with force if Kyiv attempts to undermine Russia’s Victory Day commemorations.

    In an official statement released Monday, the ministry expressed hope that Ukrainian leadership would match the ceasefire announcement for Russia’s most meaningful national secular holiday. As of Tuesday morning, Ukrainian officials had not issued any public response to Russia’s proposal.

    The announcement comes one week after Russian authorities confirmed they would drastically scale back the traditional annual Victory Day military parade on Moscow’s iconic Red Square, a decision directly tied to growing security fears over potential cross-border attacks from Ukraine. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine has carried out a growing number of deep-strike drone attacks targeting locations inside Russian territory as part of its counter-offensive operations.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry went on to issue an explicit threat: if Ukraine carries out any action to disrupt Saturday’s Victory Day celebrations, Russian forces will launch a massive missile strike against central Kyiv. The statement also included a formal warning to civilian residents of the Ukrainian capital and staff working at foreign diplomatic missions, urging them to evacuate the city immediately to avoid harm.

    The ceasefire discussion was first raised last week during a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and former U.S. President Donald Trump, where Putin first floated the idea of a truce to mark the national holiday.

    For decades, the Kremlin has leaned on the elaborate, spectacle-driven Victory Day parade as a platform to display Russia’s military power and diplomatic standing on the global stage, and the holiday has long served as a unifying source of national patriotic pride for the Russian public. This year, however, the Moscow parade will proceed without the traditional display of tanks, ballistic missiles, and other heavy military equipment for the first time in almost 20 years. Many smaller regional parades held across Russia’s vast territory have also been cut back or canceled entirely due to persistent security concerns.

    World War II holds a unique, unifying role in modern Russian national memory. For the Soviet Union, the conflict—referred to domestically as the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945)—cost 27 million lives, a staggering national loss that remains etched into the collective Russian psyche decades later, standing as one of the few shared historical touchstones across Russia’s turbulent modern political history.

    Over his 25-plus years in power, Putin has elevated Victory Day into a core ideological pillar of his presidency, frequently framing the ongoing conflict in Ukraine through the lens of the World War II anti-Nazi struggle to justify the invasion. Last year’s 80th anniversary commemoration drew the largest gathering of global heads of state to Moscow in a decade, with high-profile international guests including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in attendance. For that 2024 event, Putin declared a 72-hour unilateral ceasefire starting May 7, and authorities shut down cellular internet access across Moscow for multiple days to reduce the risk of Ukrainian drone attacks.

  • Greens compare Reform UK’s detention centre pledge to racist 1960s Tory campaign slogan

    Greens compare Reform UK’s detention centre pledge to racist 1960s Tory campaign slogan

    Days ahead of the UK’s May 7 local elections, where both Reform UK and the Green Party are projecting major gains, the right-wing populist party has sparked national outrage with a controversial pledge that weaponizes migration policy for partisan gain.

    Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, has already made clamping down on unauthorized migration a core campaign promise, previously committing to deport 600,000 people residing in the UK illegally and construct a network of new detention facilities with capacity for up to 24,000 detainees. In a provocative announcement Sunday, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf laid out explicit partisan criteria for where these facilities will — and will not — be located.

    Yusuf confirmed that no detention centres would be sited in any parliamentary constituency represented by a Reform UK MP, nor in local councils controlled by the party. “Of the remaining areas, we will prioritise Green-controlled parliamentary constituencies and Green-controlled councils to locate the detention centres,” he said. Yusuf framed the policy in blunt electoral terms: “Put simply, if you vote in a Reform council or Reform MP, we guarantee you won’t have a detention centre near you. If you vote Green, there’s a good chance you will.”

    Yusuf justified the policy by pointing to an internal Green Party policy document that states the party “wants to see a world without borders,” arguing the partisan siting was a fitting consequence of the Greens’ open-borders stance. To pre-empt expected legal challenges to the plan, Yusuf added that a Reform UK government would push through new legislation to block courts from halting construction, mandating that facilities be built in Green-leaning areas regardless of legal pushback. He framed the upcoming local elections as a fundamental clash for the UK’s future, claiming “the failed era of the Tory-Labour uniparty is over” and that the 7 May votes are “a battle for the soul of Britain between Reform and the Greens.”

    The pledge has drawn fierce condemnation from across the political spectrum, starting with the Green Party. A senior Green Party source told Middle East Eye that the policy is “reminiscent” of the racist 1960s campaigning by the Conservative Party, specifically calling out parallels to the 1964 election campaign of Conservative politician Peter Griffiths. Griffiths infamously distributed racist flyers in the Smethwick constituency urging voters: “If you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Labour.” The source also dismissed Farage as a desperate “establishment stooge” whose credibility is eroding among his own base.

    Criticism has also extended to figures on the British right, who have rejected the policy as an unacceptable abuse of state power. Fraser Nelson, a conservative columnist for The Times, described the pledge as a “new departure for UK politics” that rejects the longstanding principle of a prime minister governing for all citizens, in favor of an overtly partisan approach to state policy.

    Simon Clarke, director of centre-right think tank UK Onward, called the proposal “abhorrent.” Clarke noted that the policy explicitly targets sites for detention centres as political punishment for communities that do not support Reform UK — a penalty that would not only apply to Green voters, but to supporters of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour as well. He added that the plan would “almost certainly be deemed an abuse of ministerial power for political purposes, and as such would likely be struck down in court before ever being implemented, wasting millions for the taxpayer without detaining anyone.”

  • US downs Iran missiles and drones, destroys six of Tehran’s boats

    US downs Iran missiles and drones, destroys six of Tehran’s boats

    Fresh clashes between United States and Iranian forces have sent tensions soaring in the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, with a top American military commander confirming that US forces have shot down multiple Iranian missiles and drones and destroyed six small Iranian boats targeting commercial and military shipping. The outbreak of hostilities unfolded as Washington deployed forces to reopen the key oil and gas transit chokepoint under a newly launched initiative dubbed ‘Project Freedom’, announced by former President Donald Trump just one day prior.

    Admiral Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), outlined the details of the confrontation to reporters on Monday. He confirmed that American Apache attack helicopters and Seahawk maritime helicopters engaged and destroyed six small Iranian craft that had been posing a direct threat to commercial vessels transiting the waterway. Beyond the destruction of the boats, Cooper added that US forces successfully intercepted and eliminated every incoming missile and drone launched toward both American naval assets and civilian commercial ships passing through the strait.

    According to Cooper, most of the Iranian cruise missiles and multiple combat drones were aimed at commercial shipping, with only a smaller number targeting US Navy vessels. “We defended both ourselves and, consistent with our commitment, we defended all the commercial ships,” the CENTCOM chief told reporters. The official account from the admiral contradicts a post Trump made on his Truth Social platform, which put the number of destroyed Iranian boats at seven and noted that one South Korean-flagged ship had been hit, though no further details on that incident were provided. Trump also claimed there had been no other major damage to vessels transiting the strait as of his post.

    The current escalation comes against a backdrop of open conflict that began in late February, when US and Israeli forces launched military operations against Iran. In response, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, the passage through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas exports move daily. American forces subsequently imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports in the aftermath of the closure.

    Earlier on Monday, Iranian state television reported that the country’s navy had fired cruise missiles, rockets and combat drones near US destroyers moving through the strait, framing the action as a deliberate warning shot. For its part, CENTCOM confirmed that two US guided-missile destroyers had completed a transit of the strait into the Persian Gulf as part of Project Freedom, while two US-flagged commercial ships moved in the opposite direction and are now continuing their voyages without incident.

    Cooper clarified that the US military operation is not traditional direct escorting of commercial vessels. Instead, Washington has assembled a multi-layered defensive framework that includes surface warships, attack helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, airborne early warning systems, and electronic warfare capabilities, creating what he described as a much more comprehensive defensive umbrella than simple escort missions would provide. Over the preceding two weeks, Cooper said, US forces used advanced, unspecified “exquisite technology” to clear a transit corridor through the strait, and the current defensive operation is meant to protect that cleared path.

    While the long-term goal is to establish a fully open two-way transit route through the strait, Cooper noted that the immediate priority is extracting commercial vessels that have been stuck in the Persian Gulf since the closure. Maritime intelligence firm AXSMarine data as of April 29 shows more than 900 commercial vessels have been stranded in the Gulf during the closure.

  • Spain seizes record amount of cocaine in Atlantic Ocean, authorities say

    Spain seizes record amount of cocaine in Atlantic Ocean, authorities say

    In a landmark operation that marks a massive blow to international drug trafficking networks, Spain’s Civil Guard has intercepted a cargo freighter in international waters off the Canary Islands and seized what officials confirm is the largest cocaine haul in the country’s modern history.

    According to announcements from the AUGC, the main union representing Civil Guard personnel, the intercepted shipment contained between 30,000 and 45,000 kilograms, or 33 to 50 metric tonnes, of cocaine. Around 20 crew members and suspected traffickers were taken into custody following the Friday interception, the union confirmed to AFP. The vessel had departed Sierra Leone and was en route to Libya when it was stopped.

    Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska emphasized the scale of the operation during a press briefing in Madrid, noting that the seizure ranks among the largest not just in Spain, but across the entire world. Law enforcement has not released further details on the ongoing investigation to preserve investigative integrity, as required by Spanish legal procedure.

    The Civil Guard shared visual evidence of the seizure on social platform X, showing large quantities of cocaine packed into the freighter’s cargo hold. In its post, the agency wrote, “Today history is being written in the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard. Intercepted in international waters the largest known seizure: between 30,000 and 45,000 kg of cocaine on board a freighter.”

    Though the ship’s stated final destination was Libya, industry observers and law enforcement patterns point to a planned diversion for European distribution. Per AFP reporting, it is standard for trafficking networks to use large bulk cargo vessels to move drug shipments across the Atlantic, before transferring cargo to smaller speedboats that offload the contraband into European ports across the Iberian Peninsula and beyond.

    Prior to this operation, Spain’s largest at-sea cocaine seizure stood at just under 10 tonnes, a haul intercepted back in January 2024. This new record is more than three times the size of that previous capture, underscoring both the scale of drug trafficking activity across the Atlantic and the expanding reach of Spanish law enforcement counter-narcotics operations.

  • What is hantavirus, and can it spread between humans?

    What is hantavirus, and can it spread between humans?

    A suspected hantavirus outbreak aboard an international cruise ship traveling between Argentina and Cape Verde has resulted in three fatalities, triggering global public health scrutiny over how the typically rodent-borne pathogen spreads in enclosed passenger settings. The World Health Organization (WHO) has formally confirmed one case of the potentially lethal virus so far, while moving quickly to reassure global populations that the overall public risk remains low. Even with this official assessment, the unusual cluster of illnesses on the vessel has reignited longstanding questions about whether hantaviruses can spread from person to person in closed environments. Virginie Sauvage, who leads France’s National Reference Centre for Hantaviruses, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that genetic sequencing of the virus strain involved will be the critical next step to unpack what occurred during the voyage.

  • Israeli MP calls for ‘conquest, expulsion, settlement’ as she tours Gaza boundary

    Israeli MP calls for ‘conquest, expulsion, settlement’ as she tours Gaza boundary

    Against a backdrop of growing speculation that Israel is preparing to restart large-scale military operations in Gaza, a senior far-right Israeli lawmaker has reignited controversy with extreme new calls for the full occupation of the Gaza Strip and the forced expulsion of its civilian population, framing the move as the sole path to long-term Israeli security.

    Limor Son Har-Melech, a parliament member from the far-right Otzma Yehudit party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, made the remarks in a social media post on X Sunday following an official inspection tour of communities along the Gaza-Israel border. In the post, which included photos and video from her tour, she argued that Israel remains trapped in what she called a failed strategic framework for Gaza, and that there is no substitute for military conquest, mass displacement of local residents, and the establishment of new Jewish settlements across the enclave.

    “Any other solution is unfeasible and will bring upon us the next massacre,” she wrote. Son Har-Melech also emphasized that Israel has no choice but to seize full control of the Netzarim Corridor, a strategic strip of land that splits Gaza into separate northern and southern zones, and to build a permanent chain of Israeli settlements along the route.

    This latest statement is far from an outlier for the hardline politician, who has a long track record of incendiary rhetoric targeting Palestinians. In previous public remarks, she has praised an Israeli citizen convicted of murdering three members of a Palestinian family, and backed a group of Israeli prison staff accused of sexually assaulting Palestinian detainees, falsely claiming the officers were framed. Son Har-Melech has also organized and participated in multiple public events advocating for Israeli resettlement of occupied Palestinian territories, including a conference hosted inside Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, that explicitly called for the expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza and laid out detailed plans for Jewish settlement construction in the enclave.

    Son Har-Melech’s comments come as Israeli military leaders are pushing for an immediate resumption of offensive operations in Gaza, according to reporting from Israeli Army Radio. The outlet cited senior defense officials who argue that the current moment presents a unique and optimal window to defeat Hamas, the governing group of Gaza. Planners have already finalized military blueprints for the renewed offensive, Army Radio reported, with only a final sign-off from Israel’s top political leadership required to launch hostilities.

  • War in the Middle East: latest developments

    War in the Middle East: latest developments

    Tensions across the Middle East have surged dramatically in the last 24 hours, with a series of interconnected clashes, competing claims from Tehran and Washington, and spillover violence hitting regional states that has sent global energy markets into a sharp upward swing. The escalation centers on the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical chokepoint for global oil supplies, where U.S. and Iranian forces have exchanged hostile actions and conflicting accounts of what unfolded.

    Admiral Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, confirmed to reporters that American military forces destroyed six small Iranian boats that posed a direct threat to commercial shipping moving through the strategic waterway. The operation, carried out by U.S. Apache and Seahawk helicopters, was paired with a successful defense against a barrage of projectiles: all missiles and drones launched by Iranian forces at both U.S. Navy vessels and nearby commercial shipping were intercepted and neutralized, Cooper said.

    Iran has quickly and categorically rejected the U.S. claims. A statement from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards dismissed the assertion that any Iranian boats were sunk as entirely false. The Guards also pushed back on a separate U.S. announcement that two U.S.-flagged merchant vessels had passed through the strait under American military escort, calling that report “baseless and completely false” in a Telegram statement and denying any commercial ships had transited the waterway following the clashes.

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump, commenting on the situation on his Truth Social platform, sought to downplay the severity of the escalation. He acknowledged that Iran had fired on vessels moving through the Strait of Hormuz after U.S. warships entered the area, but claimed that only a South Korean vessel suffered any damage, with no other harm reported as of his statement.

    Beyond the direct U.S.-Iran confrontation, spillover attacks have been reported across the Gulf region. The United Arab Emirates confirmed it was targeted by Iranian strikes, including an attack on the key Fujairah energy infrastructure hub that left three Indian nationals wounded. The UAE Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes as a dangerous escalation and an unacceptable violation of the country’s sovereignty, noting that it reserves the full right to respond to the aggression. A senior Iranian military official denied the claim, saying Iran had no plans to attack the UAE.

    Neighboring Oman also reported casualties from an attack on a coastal residential building in Bukha, a town located along the Strait of Hormuz. Oman’s state news agency confirmed two expatriate workers suffered moderate injuries in the strike, with four additional vehicles damaged in the incident.

    The sudden escalation has already roiled global energy markets, as nearly 20% of global oil supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz annually. The Brent crude contract for July delivery jumped more than 5% within minutes of news of the clashes breaking, reflecting widespread investor concern over potential disruptions to global oil supplies.

    The United States has confirmed that it deployed destroyers to the Gulf to carry out escort missions for commercial shipping transiting the strait. Following that deployment, Iranian state television reported that the Iranian Navy launched cruise missiles, rockets, and combat drones near the U.S. vessels after firing multiple warning shots.

    Tensions also remain high along the Israel-Lebanon border, where a fragile ceasefire that has held since mid-April is facing new strains. Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group, announced that its fighters had engaged in heavy clashes with Israeli troops in southern Lebanon near the border. The clash followed an attempted advance by Israeli forces near the town of Deir Seryan, located inside an Israeli-declared “yellow line” zone where Lebanese residents have been ordered not to return. Israeli military officials confirmed that the Israel Defense Forces remain on high alert and are closely monitoring all developments across the region following the U.S.-Iran confrontation.

    Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has pushed back on U.S. calls for a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that any such summit can only take place after a comprehensive security deal is reached and all Israeli attacks on Lebanese territory end. Aoun’s office added that the current moment is not appropriate for any meeting between the two leaders, given the ongoing volatility.

  • Mali junta leader names himself defence minister after predecessor killed

    Mali junta leader names himself defence minister after predecessor killed

    Mali, the West African nation grappling with a decade-long Islamist insurgency, has entered a new phase of political and security upheaval after a devastating large-scale coordinated attack by an insurgent alliance left its sitting defense minister dead and triggered a major cabinet shakeup.

    The violence that unfolded across the country starting on April 25 marked one of the most sweeping insurgent offensives in recent years. Residents of towns and cities from the northern desert regions to areas near the capital Bamako awoke that morning to the sound of sustained gunfire and explosions, as two disparate armed groups — the separatist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist organization — launched synchronized raids targeting military and government positions across the country.

    Among the highest-profile casualties of the offensive was Sadio Camara, Mali’s then-defense minister, who died in a suicide truck bombing targeting his residence just outside Bamako. More than a week after the initial attacks began, the country remains mired in a spiraling security crisis that has called into question the capability of Mali’s ruling military government to contain the decade-long insurgency.

    In an official decree broadcast on Malian state television Monday, junta leader General Assimi Goïta announced he would step into the vacant defense minister role to lead the government’s counter-insurgency response. General Oumar Diarra, the Malian army chief of staff, was appointed to support Goïta as a delegate minister, according to the announcement.

    Goïta, who first seized power in a 2020 military coup, initially rose to prominence on a promise to resolve Mali’s long-running security crisis and restore stability to the conflict-torn nation. But the recent offensive has delivered a major blow to the junta’s credibility: the coordinated attacks forced Malian government forces and their Russian allied fighters to withdraw from Kidal, a key strategic city in northern Mali, a retreat that has fueled widespread public and international skepticism about the government’s military hold on the country.

    In the days following the offensive, Malian authorities have moved to crack down on alleged internal complicity in the attacks. Over the weekend, security services announced the arrest of a group of active and retired Malian soldiers suspected of providing support to the insurgents. The public prosecutor for a Bamako military court confirmed that an ongoing investigation has confirmed links between both serving and former military personnel and the planning and execution of the April 25 raids.

    To ramp up counter-insurgency operations, Mali has partnered with military forces from neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso to launch joint air strikes against the insurgent alliance. Officials from Niger confirmed that the coordinated cross-border operation began just hours after the initial insurgent attacks were launched. All three Sahel nations are currently led by military governments, and together they formed the Alliance of Sahel States in recent years after expelling French counter-insurgency troops, the former colonial power that had deployed to the region to combat the insurgency. The three governments instead turned to Russian military fighters to support their counter-insurgency campaigns.

    Despite this shift in military partnerships, the insurgency has continued to expand across the Sahel region. Large swathes of territory in all three countries remain outside of government control, and coordinated attacks on military and civilian targets have become increasingly frequent, leaving local populations trapped between ongoing violence and ineffective government security provision.

  • Smart borders, military gates and land seizures: How Israel is encroaching in southern Syria

    Smart borders, military gates and land seizures: How Israel is encroaching in southern Syria

    Two years after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, a comprehensive new report from Syrian monitoring group the Sijil Centre has laid bare the full scale of Israel’s systematic military incursion and territorial expansion across southern Syria, documenting more than 1,600 violations of Syrian sovereignty between August 2024 and May 2026. The report, shared exclusively with Middle East Eye, reveals a sharp escalation of Israeli activity following the 2025 US-Israel war on Iran, with March 2026 alone seeing a record 321 military operations, 121 aerial strikes and the detention of 41 Syrian civilians.

    Israel’s steady encroachment into Syria began within hours of Assad’s government collapsing on 8 December 2024, when Israeli ground forces crossed the 1974 ceasefire line in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to seize the UN-monitored buffer zone between the two countries. This marked the first major breach of the ceasefire line by Israeli ground forces since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Within 48 hours of Assad’s fall, Israeli troops had seized 350 square kilometers of Syrian territory stretching from Mount Hermon in the north to the Yarmouk Basin in southern Daraa province. Simultaneously, Israeli fighter jets carried out more than 350 air strikes across multiple Syrian provinces, destroying dozens of Syrian military aircraft, air defense systems and weapons stockpiles.

    In the 21 months since that initial incursion, Israel has consolidated its control over the region through a expanding network of military infrastructure. Hamza Ghadban, director of the Sijil Centre, told Middle East Eye that Israel has already completed construction of nine permanent military bases in southern Syria, with a 10th currently under development. The international community has largely remained silent on this expansion, with no major diplomatic or political pushback to curb Israel’s territorial advances.

    After two large-scale ground incursions into southern Daraa in March and April 2025 that resulted in deadly clashes between Israeli troops and local Syrian fighters, Ghadban said Israel shifted its strategy to what he terms “silent strangulation”: a sustained campaign of small-scale raids, cross-border incursions, and permanent checkpoint establishment. Israeli operations are concentrated in a 15-kilometer deep triangular zone running from Mount Hermon in the north to the Yarmouk Basin in the south, which Ghadban describes as the consistent “hotspot for Israeli activities in Syria.”

    The report’s detailed geographic analysis finds that over 80% of all documented violations are concentrated in Quneitra governorate, making it the primary theater of Israeli operations, followed by Daraa and Rif Dimashq. Within Quneitra, central and northern rural areas see the highest intensity of incursions, driven by topography and population distribution, while southern Quneitra sees systematic targeting of sheep herders grazing near the ceasefire line. Satellite imagery collected between December 2024 and November 2025 confirms a continuous chain of fortified military outposts stretching the full length of Quneitra’s countryside, built on seized civilian and agricultural land. In Jubata al-Khashab, Israeli forces cleared 2,500 dunams of forest and farmland to build a fortified outpost that has since been expanded into a full military base. In al-Hamidiya, 16 civilian homes were demolished to make way for a new base completed in just 50 days, displacing 12 local families and turning the area into a key surveillance and control hub.

    In Daraa province, Israeli operations are less frequent but more targeted, consisting primarily of selective artillery strikes and midnight raids on specific homes and individuals, rather than large-scale sweeps. Israeli forces have turned frontline Syrian villages into tactical entry corridors, with four dedicated “military gates” serving specific operational functions for armored vehicles, troop movements and heavy weapons convoys entering Syria. Ghadban explained that Israel’s end goal is to establish a continuous geographic security belt spanning the entire length of southern Syria, anchored on strategic high ground that allows full surveillance and fire control over all of southern Syria.

    Beyond direct military incursions, the report documents a systematic campaign of environmental damage targeting agricultural and grazing lands near the buffer zone, which Ghadban labels “environmental genocide.” Since January 2026, Israeli aircraft have sprayed unidentified chemical substances across more than 65 kilometers of land along the 1974 ceasefire line. Within days of spraying, vast stretches of vegetation withered, damaging an estimated 3,500 dunams of pasture land and 1,500 dunams of woodland in southern Quneitra alone. Agriculture and livestock herding are the primary livelihoods for local communities, leaving hundreds of families directly impacted. Ghadban said the spraying is a deliberate tactic to force civilian displacement by destroying local income sources. While Syria’s Ministry of Agriculture did not find acute toxicity in tests, it did not identify the chemicals used. The tactic mirrors spraying along the Israel-Lebanon border, where the substance used was confirmed as glyphosate, a herbicide classified by the World Health Organization as probably carcinogenic to humans.

    Israel is also moving forward with major long-term infrastructure projects to formalize its control over the expanded border area. In early 2026, the Israeli government announced a $1.7 billion plan to build the 500-kilometer “Eastern Border Security Barrier”, a continuous fortified line running from the southern Golan Heights to the Samar Dunes north of Eilat on Israel’s southern tip. Israel claims the project includes $80 million in contracts for demining with U.S. technology firm Ondas Holdings and its Israeli subsidiary 4M Defence, but the Sijil Centre analysis concludes demining is merely a cover for building an AI-powered “smart border” equipped with sensor networks, military drones and ground-based autonomous robots. Ghadban noted that the topographical changes and scale of equipment deployed far exceed what is required for demining, indicating the technology is intended for permanent long-term border security.

    The new smart barrier is being integrated with the long-planned Sufa 53 military road running parallel to the ceasefire line in Quneitra, which Israel began constructing in 2022. Together, the two projects form a permanent fortified corridor under the command of the newly created 96th “Gilad” Division, tasked with securing the tri-border region where Israel, Syria and Jordan meet. Ghadban linked the project to Israeli plans to expand Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights: in April 2026, the Israeli cabinet approved legislation to bring an additional 3,000 Israeli settlers to the Golan by 2030, centered on expanding the main settlement of Katzrin.

    Israeli officials have become increasingly open about their long-term territorial ambitions in Syria. Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a leading settlement advocate, stated in April 2026 that Israel will formally annex the Mount Hermon strategic summit and the buffer zone at minimum, expanding Israeli borders alongside similar territorial gains in Gaza and Lebanon. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz doubled down on this stance, declaring Israel “will not move a millimetre from Syria.”

    For local Syrian communities affected by the incursions, little has changed from the era of Assad rule, the report finds. The marginalized southern border regions received almost no state support under Hafez and Bashar al-Assad, and the new post-Assad Syrian government has yet to provide any meaningful support, compensation or formal engagement with affected communities. The only exception was a brief visit by Syrian officials and small-scale infrastructure repairs after a 17-year-old boy was killed in an Israeli strike in April 2026, a step Ghadban notes “hasn’t happened at all before.” Syria’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Ibrahim Olabi, has formally raised the issue with the UN Security Council, accusing Israeli forces of terrorizing civilians, carrying out enforced disappearances, home raids and ongoing territorial encroachments in the buffer zone.