Global Pulse

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  • ‘We share the goal of stability’: Rubio remarks restrained as western allies sanction Israel

    ‘We share the goal of stability’: Rubio remarks restrained as western allies sanction Israel

    On Tuesday, in a striking break from long-standing Western alignment on Israeli-Palestinian policy, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada announced a coordinated package of unprecedented punitive measures targeting Israel, drawing an immediate split with the United States over how to address escalating tensions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

    During a press briefing while traveling in Colombia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a restrained tone, confirming that Washington would not align with the new actions taken by its allies. “We were made aware that they were going to make this decision,” Rubio told reporters. “We heard their argument as to why, but look, we share the goal of stability. We don’t want to see some uptick in violence or an uptick in conflict or tensions in the West Bank at a very tenuous time. In the region, there’s always tenuous times.”

    A Bloomberg report published Tuesday cited unnamed UK diplomatic sources who privately told their US counterparts ahead of the announcement that the new sanctions are largely symbolic and unlikely to deliver tangible economic or political impact on Israel. As part of the coordinated declaration, the three Western nations formally recognized claims of ethnic cleansing being carried out against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, but notably excluded Gaza from this designation. As of this reporting, Gaza has seen more than 73,000 Palestinian fatalities since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on southern Israel, and the besieged enclave is widely described as a decimated wasteland, with Israeli air strikes continuing despite a nearly year-old ceasefire agreement.

    Building on a 2024 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, the UK, France, and Canada also formally declared Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territory illegal, but again, the joint statement did not address Israel’s 19-year blockade of the Gaza Strip. The concrete measures announced include comprehensive economic sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and an immediate ban on new arms licenses that would support the Israeli occupation. Independent critics have already noted that these restrictions are easily circumvented through supply chain rerouting and product relabeling, echoing the earlier private assessment from UK diplomats.

    In their joint statement, the three nations framed the actions as a necessary step to preserve the internationally backed two-state solution, a framework that has been increasingly sidelined in recent years. “One year ago, we recognised the State of Palestine. The time has come to take further action to uphold our commitment to protect the two-state solution, our interests and to stand up for our values, before it is too late,” the statement read. This move comes despite a complete lack of public support for a two-state solution within Israeli political circles, extending even to the main opposition bloc that is widely expected to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in upcoming October national elections. The US has also effectively abandoned its decades-long official support for a two-state solution under current President Donald Trump.

    The joint statement reaffirmed that the three allies remain firmly committed to Israel’s security. “In taking this coordinated action, we reiterate our desire for a close and productive partnership with Israel, our enduring support for the Israeli people and our unwavering commitment to Israel’s security,” they added. Even so, the announcement drew fierce condemnation from pro-Israel American politicians even before it was made public. Earlier this week, as rumors of the impending declaration began to circulate, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee wrote on the social platform X that the British government had “lost it” and was driven by “Jew hate”. Florida Republican Congressman Randy Fine, a well-known anti-Muslim voice in Congress, similarly warned on X that Florida is one of the UK’s largest trading partners, and that what he called the allies’ “vanity project in support of Muslim terror could cost them billions of dollars” in bilateral trade.

    Reactions to the sanctions have been deeply divided among advocacy groups and policy analysts. Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the global Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement advocating for Palestinian rights, described the new measures as “largely performative and ineffective”. He added that the UK’s focus on allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza does not end its complicity in the ongoing conflict, noting that Israel has fully integrated the occupied territories’ economy into its own, making any differentiation between Israeli and settlement goods functionally impossible for enforcing import bans.

    In Washington DC, J Street, a pro-Israel advocacy group that has long supported a two-state solution, praised UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s public video announcement of the new measures. “Note to American leaders and those seeking future roles: this is what leadership on this issue looks like today,” J Street CEO Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote in response. However, Robert Satloff, head of the staunchly pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called the announcement a “sad day” on X, and slammed Miliband for simultaneously denouncing antisemitism while advancing what he called “anti-Israel policies”. Satloff argued that singling Israel out for this type of targeted treatment inherently aligns with the antisemitism that Miliband publicly condemned. This matches a long-standing pattern from the Israeli government, which routinely labels any criticism of its policies as antisemitism, regardless of whether the criticism stems from United Nations resolutions, foreign government policy, or even cultural expression.

    In Canada, the advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East welcomed Ottawa’s participation in the sanctions, calling it a “victory for the Palestine solidarity movement and everyone who wants Canadian trade policy to uphold human rights and international law”. Yara Shoufani, the organization’s president, noted that for years Canada has enabled illegal trade with Israeli settlement businesses, even extending economic benefits through the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement. “This announcement marks the first time that Israel will face material, economic consequences for its blatant violations of international law,” Shoufani said. Conversely, Noah Shack, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs in Canada, strongly condemned the Canadian government’s decision, arguing that Ottawa abandoned an independent foreign policy aligned with its own strategic interests to follow the UK’s lead, a move he claimed was driven by domestic political calculations to appease extreme elements of Canadian society. Shack added that the sanctions would do nothing to advance political reform or demilitarization in Palestinian territories.

    In response to the allied announcement, the Israeli government has already launched retaliatory diplomatic measures: it has announced the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem, imposed a travel ban on a dozen sitting British lawmakers, and expelled the British Support Team that trains security forces for the Palestinian Authority (PA). A progressive US think tank, A New Policy, founded by two former Biden administration officials who resigned in protest over Washington’s unconditional support for Israel, noted that this Israeli retaliation will ultimately harm US security objectives in the region, since the British Support Team operated under the umbrella of the US Security Coordinator (USSC) mission. That mission works closely with the Israeli military to maintain the level of stability that Israel demands in the occupied West Bank, and the British team provided critical on-the-ground intelligence for the USSC.

    To offset any potential backlash for targeting Israel, the UK government also included a package of expanded sanctions on Iran as part of Tuesday’s announcement, adding new trade restrictions on Iranian shipping and aviation. This move aligned with simultaneous action from the US Treasury Department, which announced sanctions on 36 individuals and entities accused of supporting Iran’s aviation sector through covert front companies, foreign intermediaries, and deceptive shipping routes that Iran uses to obtain US-origin aircraft and sensitive technology.

  • ‘Constantly on my mind’ – 9/11 agony goes on for bereaved, 25 years on

    ‘Constantly on my mind’ – 9/11 agony goes on for bereaved, 25 years on

    Twenty-five years ago, the deadliest act of modern criminal violence on U.S. soil unfolded across New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, leaving nearly 3,000 people dead and generations of families irrevocably broken. Today, as the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaches, the long-awaited trial of the plot’s alleged mastermind has still not begun – and grieving relatives are running out of time to see justice served.

    Tom Resta is one of those family members waiting for closure. On September 11, 2001, his brother John, a commodities trader, and John’s seven months pregnant wife Sylvia were at work on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. In the days before the attacks, the young couple had been hard at work painting their unborn child’s nursery with beloved characters from the children’s show *Blue’s Clues*, fulfilling a long-held dream of starting their own family after years of doting on their friends’ and relatives’ kids. Today, all that remains of that dream are memories that still bring Resta to tears a quarter-century later.

    “After all this time, it still chokes me up,” Resta told the BBC in an emotional interview. “9/11 is almost constantly on my mind.”

    Like many victims’ relatives, Resta has made repeated trips to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to observe the glacial pre-trial proceedings for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, widely known as KSM, and his four co-defendants. He describes the ongoing process as nothing short of “laborious and tedious.” Established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks as part of the U.S. global “war on terror,” Guantanamo’s military prison has held KSM for 20 years – and in all that time, he has never faced a final trial or been convicted of any crime.

    Access to the high-security Guantanamo courtroom is strictly limited: victims’ relatives must enter a lottery system just to win a spot to observe proceedings, where thick reinforced glass permanently separates observers and press from the defendants. The pre-trial process has dragged on so long that five different military judges have overseen the case to date.

    Last month, ahead of the 25th anniversary, a small flicker of progress emerged: military officials set a firm trial date for KSM of June 2028. Yet even this milestone has done little to ease the fears of grieving families, who have grown accustomed to decades of delays. Resta, for one, is already preparing for further postponements, and says many of his elderly family members doubt they will live long enough to see a verdict.

    “My father will be 98 in November, and I don’t think he’s expecting to see it,” Resta explained. “I have a lot of older family members – aunts, uncles – that all want to see justice done. But especially my parents, I don’t think they expect to live long enough to see this trial conclude. My biggest worry is that the defendants themselves won’t even be alive by the time we get to court.”

    Resta’s anxiety is widely shared among other 9/11 victims’ next of kin. Stephan Gerhardt, who lost his younger brother Ralph in the attacks, has made six separate trips to Guantanamo to follow the case. For Gerhardt, securing convictions for the plotters is non-negotiable, but he longs for the day he can stop devoting his energy to the legal process and focus entirely on preserving his brother’s memory.

    “I want to concentrate on the memories,” Gerhardt said. “I still have Ralph’s car. I’m trying to restore it and get it back in pristine shape… We recently visited my parents and found some of his old things they’d held onto. It’s just old stuff, but it belonged to my little brother, and that makes it mean everything.” Like Resta, Gerhardt’s greatest fear is that KSM and his co-defendants will die of old age before they can be convicted, a outcome he calls an unforgivable injustice.

    KSM has been charged with conspiracy and murder in connection with the attacks, with all 2,976 victims named on the official charge sheet. Prosecutors allege he developed the plan to train hijacker pilots to crash commercial jetliners into major U.S. targets, then presented the plot to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for approval. KSM has previously admitted he planned the “9/11 operation from A to Z.”

    Yet just days after the 2028 trial date was set, the presiding military judge threw out KSM’s key confessions to FBI agents obtained after he was transferred to Guantanamo from secret CIA “black site” prisons, where he was held for years in clandestine detention. In his ruling, the judge labeled KSM’s treatment at the hands of the CIA as “extraordinary physical and mental abuse,” finding the confessions were not given voluntarily and cannot be used as evidence against him at trial.

    Legal experts across the globe agree that the history of torture inflicted on KSM and his co-defendants is the single greatest cause of the decades-long delays in the case. “Every single legal issue in this proceeding has circled back to the torture,” explained Kasey McCall-Smith, an international law professor at the University of Edinburgh. She noted the defendants were subjected to “years of abuse,” including waterboarding and prolonged stress position detainment.

    John Ryan, author of *America’s Trial: Torture and the 9/11 Case on Guantanamo Bay*, says last month’s ruling strips prosecutors of what they themselves described as their strongest evidence against KSM, though the full impact on the case remains unclear. Prosecutors do hold other potential evidence, including intercepted communications and covert recordings, but Ryan cautions that defense teams are already expected to file motions to suppress much of this additional evidence as well.

    The history of U.S. interrogation policy in this case dates back to the George W. Bush administration, which publicly acknowledged using what it called “enhanced interrogation techniques” against terror suspects, claiming the methods saved lives and never amounted to torture. President Barack Obama banned these techniques on his second day in office, but the legal damage of the earlier practices had already been done.

    For victims’ families, that damage has meant decades of delayed justice, a right they say the torture has effectively blocked. “If we would’ve not tortured them, the legal process would’ve been much, much simpler,” Gerhardt said. “They probably would’ve been sentenced a long time ago. I can’t control what the government did, and we’ve got to live with the consequences.”

    In early 2025, Resta and Gerhardt both traveled to Guantanamo for a planned guilty plea hearing, under a controversial deal struck between defense attorneys and federal prosecutors that would have avoided a death penalty trial entirely. The hearing was halted at the eleventh hour after the U.S. government argued that cutting the deal would cause “irreparable” harm by “depriving the government and the American people of a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and the possibility of capital punishment.” Legal battles over the validity of the proposed plea deal are still ongoing.

    Victims’ families remain deeply divided over the proposed agreement. Some see it as the only path to secure final convictions after decades of delay, while others condemn it as overly lenient and lacking in transparency. Resta supports the deal, saying his only priority is securing convictions, not capital punishment. “My philosophy is these guys are not the kind of people that should be out walking the streets, but as far as I’m concerned, they can just stay right where they are,” he said. “I just want them convicted.”

    Brett Eagleson, who was just 15 years old when his father Bruce was killed in the attacks, rejects the plea deal and demands a full public trial. “It’s not so much that I’m taking an opinion on life or death for these prisoners, but I believe in the judicial system and I believe that the process works,” he said. “I believe that a full trial, with full disclosure of evidence and a public airing of the facts, is the only way to get the full truth out.”

    Eagleson has chosen not to attend any pre-trial proceedings at Guantanamo, calling the entire situation “a mess.” He says he feels a profound sense of betrayal by the U.S. government, and extreme frustration over how the case has been handled from start to finish. “They’ve botched every single part of this trial,” he said. After 25 years, while 9/11 remains a daily presence in his life, he notes that for most of the American public, it is slowly fading into history. “I think people just assume that we got Bin Laden, we’re out of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan’s over, and they just assume that chapter has ended,” he said.

    When the trial eventually does begin at the Guantanamo military court, experts estimate it will last approximately one year. Professor McCall-Smith explains that the entire point of the decades-long pre-trial process has been to resolve disputes over what evidence can and cannot be admitted in court. “If that is agreed in advance, the trial can proceed much more quickly,” she said.

    As families prepare to mark another anniversary of the attack that took their loved ones, many just long for the day the trial is over, and they can stop traveling to Guantanamo and refocus on their lives and their memories. “It’s a place I don’t want to come back to,” Gerhardt said. “I want to live my life, enjoy my passions and my memories of Ralph.”

  • Houthis target Saudi Arabia following air strikes as Yemeni forces push towards Sanaa

    Houthis target Saudi Arabia following air strikes as Yemeni forces push towards Sanaa

    Eight years after a devastating regional war began in Yemen, a sweeping new military campaign has shattered the fragile truce that has held large-scale fighting at bay since 2022, raising fears of a wider regional conflagration. Forces aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognized government have launched a coordinated counteroffensive against the Houthi movement, with top military officials publicly vowing to retake the capital city of Sanaa, which Houthi fighters seized from government control in 2014.

    Backed by air support from the Saudi-led coalition that has supported the Yemeni government since 2015, pro-government forces have opened intensive ground battles across three key governorates: Taiz, al-Bayda, and al-Jawf. Al-Jawf holds particular strategic importance, as it serves as a critical geographic gateway for any advance on Sanaa. Government military operations include ground pushes toward the al-Labanat mountain range in al-Jawf, heavy rocket bombardments of Houthi positions in Yatma, and incremental advances into the Dhi Na’im district of al-Bayda. According to government spokesman Majid al-Nuzaili, the overarching goal of the campaign is to fully liberate Yemen from Houthi control and restore Sanaa as an inclusive national capital for all Yemenis. Deputy Defence Minister Major General Samir al-Sabri confirmed the government’s formal decision to retake Sanaa in an interview with Yemeni state television.

    Houthi officials have rejected the government advance, claiming their forces have successfully repelled the attack on al-Labanat and inflicted heavy casualties on pro-government fighters, with dozens killed or wounded. Houthi sources added that the group used ballistic missiles to target incoming government reinforcements in al-Jawf. The Houthi-affiliated Saba News Agency also reported that a recent Saudi airstrike on a prison in Al-Hazm, northern Yemen, killed seven people, including one child who was visiting an incarcerated relative at the facility. Local Yemeni media has additionally reported intensive air raids targeting Houthi positions west of Taiz, confirming the sharp escalation of violence across multiple frontlines.

    The renewed fighting has already spilled across Yemen’s northern border into Saudi Arabia, triggering retaliatory threats from Riyadh. Houthi attacks on southern Saudi provinces have wounded at least 73 civilians, among them women and children. The Saudi Energy Ministry confirmed that the strikes also hit multiple energy infrastructure facilities in the kingdom’s southern region early Tuesday, wounding several citizens and residents, sparking multiple wildfires, and forcing temporary suspension of some energy operations. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah Al Saud condemned the cross-border attacks as a reckless and dangerous escalation, accusing the Houthis of attempting to export their internal conflict to the kingdom and its Yemeni government partners. He called the Houthi actions selfish, but added that diplomatic pathways to resolve the conflict remain open: “The road to diplomacy is not closed. Saudi Arabia will always support diplomatic solutions, but the kingdom will never hesitate to defend itself and its interests.”

    Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree hit back, claiming that Saudi Arabia has launched 121 separate airstrikes across five Yemeni governorates: Marib, al-Bayda, Hodeidah, Taiz, and al-Jawf. He warned that the Houthi movement would respond to the coalition airstrikes with even more powerful and expansive strikes in the future. The group has already announced plans to blockade Saudi commercial and military shipping in the Red Sea and the strategic Bab al-Mandeb strait, a move that comes as Iran has also restricted shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, amplifying regional tensions against the backdrop of ongoing conflict between Iran, Israel, and the United States.

    This current escalation marks the most severe breakdown of violence since the United Nations-brokered truce paused large-scale hostilities across Yemen in 2022. The original conflict began in 2014, when Houthi fighters seized Sanaa and pushed out the internationally recognized government, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention to restore the government in 2015. The human cost of the latest flare-up has already been steep: the World Health Organization reports that at least 728 people have been killed or wounded across Yemen since August 23, with the majority of casualties concentrated in Taiz and along Yemen’s western coastline. Multiple humanitarian and local sources also confirm that more than 21,000 people have been displaced from their homes in Taiz alone since last Thursday.

    Regional analysts warn that the current fighting is not an isolated Yemeni conflict, but rather a symptom of broader power struggles reshaping the Middle East. “This is not a war that is purely Yemeni. This is part of a struggle for dominance in the region,” explained Nabeel Khoury, a former U.S. diplomat and former chief of mission in Yemen. Al Jazeera has also warned that the ongoing escalation across multiple Yemeni provinces could lead to a full-scale expansion of the country’s decade-long war, threatening to draw in more regional powers and deepen one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

  • Israeli journalist says Palestinians face threat of expulsion from the river to the sea

    Israeli journalist says Palestinians face threat of expulsion from the river to the sea

    Decades of reporting on the Israeli occupation have given veteran Israeli journalist Amira Hass a front-row seat to shifting political tides and escalating pressure on Palestinian communities. Now, the Haaretz correspondent, whose parents survived the Holocaust and who has lived in Palestinian territories since 1993, is sounding an urgent alarm: Palestinians across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and even those holding Israeli citizenship face an accelerating risk of mass forced displacement from their homeland.

    In an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye, Hass explained that the threat of mass displacement is not speculative prophecy, but a grounded warning rooted in decades of observation of Israeli state policy. Over recent years, she argues, Israel has built a robust, interconnected infrastructure of ideological, political, economic, and military power that is fully capable of facilitating large-scale expulsion.

    Hass, who recently published a column arguing Israel’s end goal is the erasure of Palestinians rather than diplomatic negotiation for a sovereign Palestinian state, traces the current crisis to a long-running institutional shift that has outlasted multiple Israeli governments. What was once a fringe goal has become completely normalized across nearly the entire Israeli political spectrum, she says, and has now been codified into state institutions. Far-right and religious-nationalist factions, once on the margins of Israeli politics, have emerged as the most powerful political actors in the country, setting the policy agenda for the government and state bureaucracy.

    “This process didn’t start with this current government, or even the one before it. It’s been built up incrementally over decades,” Hass explained. “Today, these far-right forces believe the moment is right to move beyond the old framework of fragmented Palestinian enclaves, what she described as the ‘Bantustan’ model that emerged from the Oslo Accords, to a new phase: seizing additional land and pushing more Palestinians out entirely, erasing their presence from the region entirely.

    Open calls for expulsion from Israeli officials have become increasingly common in the past three years, particularly targeting Gaza’s population. Just last week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz publicly confirmed the Israeli government is waiting for U.S. approval to forcibly expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, stating there is “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration.” Katz added that Israeli authorities are already “organised and prepared to get them out by sea, by air, by every way possible.”

    In the occupied West Bank, Hass documented widespread suffering, saying Palestinian communities face “unprecedented despair, fear and helplessness” amid growing settler violence and state-enabled restrictions. Small groups of armed settlers, she reported, are able to paralyze entire Palestinian villages with near-total impunity, while Israeli soldiers often block Palestinians from coming to their neighbors’ aid. During her visits to affected communities, Hass met a Palestinian family whose home had been attacked by settlers months earlier and was now ringed by fencing and metal barriers, leaving them unable to access fruit trees just meters from their front door. In the village of Beit Ummar, she said settlers have already uprooted all 1,000 trees in a Palestinian-owned vineyard.

    Beyond violence, systemic restrictions including permanent checkpoints, movement limits, and routine home demolitions have cut Palestinians off from agricultural land, grazing areas, and basic community services. Hass notes that settler influence over the Israeli Civil Administration, which governs civilian life in the occupied West Bank, has grown dramatically in recent years, tying these punitive measures directly to national government policy. Compounding this crisis, she added, is the absence of effective Palestinian leadership to coordinate a response, leaving individual communities isolated and vulnerable.

    The threat of displacement does not end at the Green Line, Hass stressed: it also extends to Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up roughly 20 percent of the country’s population. Far-right Israeli factions increasingly frame their presence in the country as a problem, she said, and the state has employed a strategy of making daily life increasingly unbearable to push those with the means to leave to emigrate voluntarily.

    “There is a very thin line between forced expulsion and voluntary emigration when people have been pushed to the breaking point,” Hass explained. “When life becomes so unbearable that people feel they cannot stay any longer, those who are able to leave will choose to do so. That is exactly the outcome Israeli policy is designed to produce.”

    Across all areas where Palestinians live between the Jordan River and Mediterranean, Hass argues the Israeli state uses overlapping, coordinated tactics to pressure communities into leaving: economic strangulation, state tolerance of armed violence, and failure to intervene against actors that undermine Palestinian safety and security. In Gaza, she said the Israeli state supports armed militias that terrorize civilian populations; in the West Bank, armed settlers are allowed to attack Palestinian communities with near-total impunity; and inside Israel itself, deadly organized crime in Palestinian communities has surged, with almost no state intervention to curb the violence.

    “Israel pampers militias in Gaza and allows crime organisations in Israel proper to kill Palestinians every day,” Hass said.

    Beyond her criticism of Israeli policy, Hass also condemned the international community for its failure to take decisive, meaningful action to stop the escalating crisis. She says foreign governments have repeatedly found new excuses to delay meaningful intervention, enabling the expansion of displacement policies. Closing the interview, she reiterated the gravity of her warning, saying, “I am very afraid about what the Israeli state is capable of doing now.”

  • Albanian protests against Kushner-linked coastal development turn violent on 100th day

    Albanian protests against Kushner-linked coastal development turn violent on 100th day

    On Tuesday evening, a tense standoff between Albanian law enforcement and hundreds of anti-government protesters spilled over into clashes in central Tirana, marking the 100th consecutive day of demonstrations against a controversial luxury coastal development tied to Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

    The unrest coincided with the Albanian parliament’s first sitting following its annual summer recess, a moment demonstrators targeted to amplify their demands. Protesters attempted to break through a heavy police cordon erected to block access to the parliament building, pelting officers in full riot gear with eggs and tomatoes as they pushed forward. In response, police secured the perimeter and escorted seated lawmakers safely to and from the legislative chamber. Multiple demonstrators were taken into custody by authorities, though an official confirmation of formal arrests had not been released as of Wednesday morning.

    The ongoing protest movement has been dubbed the “Flamingo Revolution”, a name drawn from demonstrators’ signage highlighting the threat the construction project poses to local pink flamingo populations that inhabit the coastal project site. What began as a single-issue campaign focused solely on halting the large-scale coastal development has expanded over three months into a broad challenge to the authority of Albania’s long-governing Socialist Party, which has held power for over a decade.

    Critics of the project argue that the luxury resort development will cause irreversible damage to the Adriatic coastal ecosystem, and will close off miles of public shoreline to ordinary Albanian citizens. The investment project has remained a top policy priority for Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is one of the primary targets of the demonstrators’ anger. Rama has repeatedly defended the development, framing it as a critical catalyst for modernizing Albania’s tourism sector and growing the national economy after decades of isolation under communist rule. During Tuesday’s clashes, protesters chanted calls for Rama’s resignation and arrest, underscoring the deepening political divide around the project that has gripped the Balkan nation.

  • At least 1,360 doctors leave Israel since 2023 in healthcare brain drain

    At least 1,360 doctors leave Israel since 2023 in healthcare brain drain

    A groundbreaking new academic study has revealed that more than 1,360 doctors have departed Israel for extended stays abroad since the start of 2023, a brain drain that researchers warn poses severe, long-term risks to the country’s domestic healthcare system.

    The study, led by researchers at Israeli academic institutions, tracks physician departures of 12 months or longer projected across the three-year period from 2023 to 2025. Data compiled by the team shows 416 doctors left the country in 2023, followed by 530 departures in 2024, with an initial projected estimate of 419 additional departures in 2025. Combined, the total number of exiting doctors is large enough to staff an entire full-sized hospital, according to the research.

    Itai Ater, one of the lead professors behind the study, noted that Israel has been losing some of its most skilled medical professionals since 2023, the year Israel launched its large-scale military campaign in the Gaza Strip. Ater emphasized that the loss of nearly 1,400 physicians has direct, tangible consequences for Israeli patients, stating: “All of us have family members waiting for surgery or other medical care. The departure of nearly 1,400 doctors translates directly into longer wait times, less effective medical care, and ultimately severe harm to our quality of life.”

    The report also found that the exit rate is disproportionately high among specialized medical fields, including paediatrics, ophthalmology, dermatology, and otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat care). While the study did not draw an explicit causal connection between the ongoing political and military instability in the region and the growing wave of physician departures, Ater warned that the exodus is already causing measurable harm to Israel’s social and medical infrastructure.

    “If this trend continues, heaven forbid, there is growing concern of irreversible damage to Israel’s resilience,” Ater added.

    The mass departure of Israeli doctors comes amid a broader crisis for healthcare across the region. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has confirmed that at least 1,701 Palestinian health workers have been killed in Israeli military attacks across Gaza between October 2023 and October 2025, devastating the enclave’s already fragile healthcare system.

    Internationally, the conflict has also sparked growing professional backlash against Israeli medical institutions. In June 2025, more than 1,150 global health professionals and healthcare organizations signed an open petition calling for a formal boycott of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), accusing the body of failing to uphold core international medical ethics amid the war in Gaza. The petition also demands that the IMA be suspended from membership in the World Medical Association (WMA), the global governing body for national medical associations.

    This reporting is published by Middle East Eye, an independent media outlet focused on original coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa, and surrounding global regions.

  • Funding cuts are forcing dozens of health clinics in Sudan to close, aid groups warn

    Funding cuts are forcing dozens of health clinics in Sudan to close, aid groups warn

    CAIRO – A devastating new wave of global aid cuts is set to shut down 36 additional health facilities across Sudan this year, cutting off life-saving medical care for more than 470,000 vulnerable people and pushing an already collapsed humanitarian system to the breaking point, international aid organizations confirmed Tuesday. This latest development compounds three years of unrelenting crisis that has torn Sudan apart since full-scale civil war erupted in 2023.

    Sudan’s once-functional public health network, which boasted 6,500 primary care facilities and 300 state-run hospitals before the conflict, has suffered catastrophic damage since fighting broke out. By September 2024, World Health Organization data shows that between 70% and 80% of health facilities in the worst-affected regions of the country are already permanently shuttered or barely operating with minimal resources.

    The conflict that triggered this collapse began in April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between Sudan’s regular national army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) boiled over into widespread, cross-country combat. Three years on, the war has killed no fewer than 59,000 people, displaced 13 million more from their homes, and pushed large swathes of the population into catastrophic famine conditions.

    As funding dries up, more international aid groups are being forced to scale back or withdraw entirely, leaving clinics without access to essential pharmaceuticals and basic operating budgets. For Sudanese patients, this means enduring expensive, dangerous long-distance journeys to access even the most basic medical care, representatives from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) explained.

    Mesfin Teklu Tessema, senior technical health director for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), emphasized the irreversible damage these cuts are inflicting on what little remains of Sudan’s health infrastructure. “These cuts are stripping away what little capacity remains, closing facilities, sending health workers home, and cutting off supply lines for medicines and nutrition treatment. The system is already stretched past its limit,” Tessema said.

    Mohammed Mahdi, IRC’s director for East Sudan, told the Associated Press that all 36 facilities set for closure are currently supported by his organization. The shutdowns will cut off access to essential health and nutrition services for an estimated 473,700 people across the country. Mahdi added that a tiny handful of facilities may be able to stay open through the end of September using limited alternative funding, but no long-term solutions exist to keep them operating beyond that date.

    According to MSF, the funding crisis began after the U.S. announced sweeping aid cuts last year, which led to the expiration of core grants for many humanitarian organizations operating in Sudan by June 2024. Multiple major European donors have also reduced their aid allocations to the country, leaving providers with no way to secure replacement funding to keep services running.

    The scale of aid withdrawal is starkly visible in Um Rakuba, a vast displacement camp in eastern Sudan’s Gedaref State that hosts roughly 17,000 people forced from their homes by the war. In 2021, around 35 aid organizations operated in and around the camp; today, fewer than 10 remain. The MSF-supported hospital in the camp is now the only functional medical lifeline for camp residents and surrounding host communities, said Fabrizio Locuratolo, MSF’s humanitarian affairs manager.

    Public health experts warn that collapsing access to care has already set the stage for large-scale disease outbreaks across Sudan. Ali Almohammed, MSF’s emergency health manager, confirmed that “serious disease outbreaks are already happening” in multiple regions. Measles has reached what Almohammed called “major outbreak level” in Darfur, with roughly 75% of infected patients being unvaccinated due to collapsed immunization programs. Sudan is also currently grappling with concurrent outbreaks of cholera and malaria, which are spreading rapidly in overcrowded displacement camps with no access to clean water or sanitation.

    Multiple diplomatic efforts, including round after round of peace talks, have failed to end the conflict. Most recently, the United States has pushed the United Nations to impose new sanctions on both warring parties, in a bid to pressure army and RSF leaders to return to negotiations and end the catastrophic war.

  • Fourteen go on trial over deadliest Channel small boats disaster

    Fourteen go on trial over deadliest Channel small boats disaster

    One of the deadliest migrant tragedies in modern English Channel history has moved into the French courtroom, with 14 alleged people smugglers facing trial over their alleged roles in a 2021 sinking that killed at least 30 people, including children.

    The disaster unfolded on November 23, 2021, when an overloaded, unseaworthy motorized dinghy deflated and began taking on water mid-voyage between northern France and the United Kingdom. To reduce the vessel’s weight as it took on water, passengers jumped into the frigid Channel one by one, only to succumb to hypothermia and drown. Just two people on board survived the incident, which remains the deadliest small boat crossing disaster on record in the Channel.

    Official charging documents detail that the defendants supplied an unsafe, low-quality vessel unfit for open sea navigation, overloaded it with passengers, and provided inadequate life jackets for the group. In the aftermath of the sinking, rescue teams recovered 27 bodies, while four additional people were never found and are officially confirmed dead. The victims came from multiple countries across the Middle East and Africa: the majority were Iraqi Kurds, with others from Somalia, Ethiopia, Egypt and Afghanistan. The youngest victim identified was just seven years old.

    Most of the 14 defendants, who are mostly Afghan nationals, are being tried in court in Paris. They face two key charges: manslaughter and facilitating illegal immigration as part of a structured criminal network. The two alleged ringleaders of the smuggling operation are still at large and are being tried in absentia. The vast majority of the accused have rejected all charges brought against them. Many claim they are also migrants themselves, and argue any involvement they had was under coercion from the actual senior organizers of the crossing.

    Family members of the deceased traveled to Paris to attend the opening of the trial, which is scheduled to run for three weeks. Emmanuel Daoud, a lead lawyer representing multiple victim families, condemned the smuggling network for what he called deliberate, cynical disregard for human life. “Migrants are not sailors,” Daoud told reporters outside court. “The smugglers know perfectly well what they are doing. They take the deliberate, conscious risk of sending migrants to their deaths.”

    Beyond the charges against the accused smugglers, the tragedy has sparked official investigations into response failures on both sides of the Channel. Questions remain about why rescue agencies did not intervene sooner, despite multiple distress calls from the foundering vessel. In France, seven military personnel, including staff at a maritime rescue coordination center and crew of a French navy vessel, are currently under judicial investigation over potential charges of failing to assist people in danger. A judge will later decide whether these personnel will stand trial.

    A separate official inquiry conducted in the United Kingdom uncovered systemic gaps in the British response: the HM Coastguard station in Dover was operating with limited capacity due to long-term chronic staff shortages, a scheduled surveillance aircraft was not deployed because of poor weather, and rescue staff broadly held the assumption that migrants calling from small boats often exaggerated their level of distress, leading to a dangerous underestimation of the emergency.

  • RSF drone strikes shatter sense of optimism in Sudan’s el-Obeid

    RSF drone strikes shatter sense of optimism in Sudan’s el-Obeid

    On the early morning of August 12, a deceptive calm hung over the war-battered Sudanese city of el-Obeid. Children streamed toward school along packed streets, the calls of street vendors selling fresh fruit drowned out the low rumble of idling buses, and workers ducked into tree shade for a quick cup of tea or coffee before starting their workdays. A fragile wave of optimism had spread through the capital of North Kordofan state, rooted in two long-awaited shifts: the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) had partially broken a months-long siege imposed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and the annual rainy season had arrived, bringing hope of both agricultural relief and a turning point for a population that had endured crippling shortages of food and clean water.

    That fragile calm shattered in minutes. Crowds scattered in panic as residents pointed to the sky, where RSF drones had reappeared, bringing with them a flood of familiar, crippling fear. The thunderous roar of SAF anti-aircraft fire echoed across the city; on-the-ground reporting from Middle East Eye documented at least four drones shot down from the sky, drawing shouts of “Allahu Akbar” from watching bystanders. A young woman was struck and wounded by falling drone debris, and was rushed immediately to a nearby hospital for emergency care.

    This morning drone strike marked the first major RSF response to its recent significant defeat in Bara, a city located roughly 60 kilometers north of el-Obeid, and surrounding nearby towns.

    For el-Obeid, which has stood on the frontline of Sudan’s three-year civil conflict between the SAF and RSF, drone attacks are nothing new. The scars of constant bombardment are visible across every corner of the city: craters pockmark paved roads, vital oil and electricity infrastructure lies in ruins, and hospitals, public markets, and residential neighborhoods have been reduced to bombed-out shells. Yet, for the estimated one million people still calling the city home, the population has refused to surrender to chaos, clinging as tightly as possible to the rhythms of ordinary life.

    “ We adapted ourselves to these RSF attacks on civilians that happen from time to time. We won’t leave this city whatever happens,” Ahmed al-Mardi, a local taxi driver, told Middle East Eye as the drone strikes unfolded around him that August morning.

    A local market trader, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, questioned why the RSF consistently targets civilian infrastructure and populations rather than SAF military positions. “The RSF doesn’t care about the civilians or the life of the people of el-Obeid,” he said.

    Osman Abdullatif, who leads a civilian committee backing SAF and the auxiliary Popular Resistance units, accused the RSF of intentionally targeting civilian communities as part of a deliberate strategy to force mass population displacement. “We have seen in el-Genena, Khartoum, el-Jazira and el-Fasher that the RSF strategy is dependent on forcing people into displacement,” he explained. Abdullatif noted that el-Obeid residents have already witnessed the RSF’s tactics firsthand: the paramilitary group carried out massacres of Masalit communities in West Darfur’s el-Geneina in summer 2023, after which RSF supporters seized occupied abandoned homes and land belonging to displaced community members. “We understood the lesson and would never leave,” he stressed.

    Over the course of three years of war, el-Obeid has spent most of that time trapped under siege and under constant attack. While residents have displayed extraordinary resilience to maintain daily life, the city itself bears the heavy weight of prolonged conflict: streets lie uncleaned, public services are disjointed, basic goods are exorbitantly priced, and essential necessities are often completely unavailable.

    While hundreds of thousands of residents have fled the city to seek safety elsewhere, hundreds of thousands more have flooded into el-Obeid as a refuge after being displaced from their homes across other conflict zones in Kordofan, Darfur, and surrounding regions. Displaced person camps ring the city’s outer boundaries, yet daily life persists against all odds: markets stay open, universities and classes remain in session, and even wedding celebrations continue to be held, even as the threat of attack hangs overhead.

    One local activist, who also requested anonymity for security reasons, warned that the outward appearance of normalcy hides deep underlying tensions. The city is heavily populated by SAF troops, former Darfuri rebel fighters integrated into joint military units, and mobilized Popular Resistance civilians, a widespread armed presence that many residents find deeply intimidating. “We have seen more than 40,000 military personnel in the city, destruction and the wide deployment of the undisciplined Joint Forces of the former Darfur rebels. This situation has to be organised, or it will lead to serious consequences,” he warned.

    El-Obeid is surrounded by military barricades and checkpoints, with only one primary paved route connecting the city to the capital Khartoum through neighboring White Nile State. The stretch of road runs more than 700 kilometers, requiring roughly 10 hours of travel under the best of conditions. SAF is currently working to secure and reopen the Export Road, the historic strategic trade route connecting Kordofan to Khartoum that, before the war, carried the region’s valuable exports including gum arabic to global markets.

    SAF retook Bara and other key towns along the route in July 2026. But the RSF has launched a series of counterattacks in response, leaving control of the critical Export Road still contested. Drone strikes on el-Obeid have increased sharply over the past month, directly tied to these RSF counteroffensives. The RSF has claimed it inflicted heavy casualties on SAF and its allied forces in Gabrat al-Shiekh, Geraigikh, and Girfa – a claim SAF has repeatedly denied.

    El-Obeid holds unique strategic importance: it is the largest and most significant city in western Sudan still under full SAF control. For months, it has been the central frontline between the army and the RSF, which currently controls all of Darfur in western Sudan. Its strategic location previously made it a key humanitarian hub during United Nations peace operations in South Sudan and Darfur, a role it could step into again if fighting stabilizes. This status means both sides are desperate to hold full control of the city, to position themselves as the legitimate governing authority the international community must engage with.

    According to a senior SAF military source based in el-Obeid, the recapture of Bara has been a transformative turning point for the city’s future. “Our victory in Bara is very strategic, we seized a lot of weapons and military vehicles, lifted the siege of el-Obeid and opened access for more supplies to ourselves,” he said. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media, added that the RSF is now at its weakest position since Kordofan became the main theater of Sudan’s war, after the RSF seized el-Fasher in October 2025. “We cut the supplies coming from Libya to Kordofan through Darfur, which had been the lifeline for the RSF in North Kordofan,” he said. “We are now ready to move from North to West Kordofan, more specifically al-Nuhud, Mazrob, al-Kwai and Babanousa. If SAF seizes these areas during this rainy season, the way to Darfur would be opened. This is why we have seen the RSF trying to counterattack us in North Kordofan, but we repulsed all their attempts and kept the new areas that we liberated.”

    A retired military expert with decades of experience operating in North Kordofan told Middle East Eye that the conflict is currently at a critical juncture, entirely shaped by Kordofan’s strategic geographic position. “We have seen how the two sides have tried to gain more territory in Kordofan as international pressure has grown to stop the fighting and cease fire across the country. SAF wants to liberate the greater Kordofan region and be closer to the RSF capital in Nyala, while the RSF wants to remain a threat to el-Obeid and even Omdurman,” said the expert, who also requested anonymity for security reasons.

    He explained that el-Obeid is a critical supply hub for both sides, supporting the movement of fighters and materials. “SAF has managed to secure Omdurman and el-Obeid by seizing Bara and Gabrat al-Sheikh, where the drones were coming from,” he added. “However, the RSF is opening a new front and seized new areas in the Blue Nile State, but I think it is doing so to distract SAF, because the main battle is in Kordofan rather than anywhere else.”

  • British widow faces deportation from Sweden after 22 years

    British widow faces deportation from Sweden after 22 years

    Twenty-two years after moving to Sweden to build a new life with her husband, 78-year-old retired British nurse Joyce Thomas now faces the devastating prospect of being forced from the only home she has known, separated from her son, grandchildren and the grave of her late husband who died of cancer three years ago. Her nightmare stems from a missed post-Brexit residence application, a rule she says she and her husband never even knew existed.

    When the UK formally exited the European Union on 31 January 2020, British citizens lost their automatic right of residence across EU member states including Sweden. A transitional grace period under the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement allowed UK nationals already living in Sweden to apply for new legal residence status, but that window closed on 31 December 2021. Thomas told the BBC she and her husband received no official notification of their obligation to submit a formal application, and she only learned of the requirement when she tried to re-enter Sweden in 2023, long after the deadline had passed.

    Since that discovery, every one of Thomas’s multiple applications and appeals for legal status has been rejected by Sweden’s Migration Agency (Migrationsverket). Tuesday 8 September marked her final deadline for voluntary departure from the country she has called home for more than two decades. Speaking from her Swedish home, Thomas described the ongoing uncertainty as unmanageable for an elderly widow. “This is absolute hell,” she said. “I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. You get up in the morning, you don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m tired, I really am tired and I’m not young anymore. Where is the empathy? I’ve lived here for more than 20 years – I’ve got friends, I’ve got family.” For Thomas, the cruelest blow of the deportation order is that it would force her to leave behind her husband’s resting place, as well as her adult son and grandchildren who all reside in Sweden.

    Thomas is not an isolated case. Official data from Eurostat shows that between 2021 and 2025, 2,490 UK nationals received deportation orders from Sweden, accounting for nearly a third of all such orders issued to UK citizens across the 27 EU member states over that period. The Migrationsverket has confirmed that 458 British citizens have already been forcibly deported or removed from Sweden since Brexit, though it declined to comment on Thomas’s specific case without her explicit consent and would not share updated figures on how many other UK nationals currently face removal.

    Thomas’s case is the second high-profile example of elderly UK long-term residents facing deportation in Sweden in recent weeks. Last month, a family told the BBC their 78-year-old father, who lives in full-time care with dementia and vascular parkinsonism, also received a removal order after more than 20 years of living in the country.

    In response to growing public and media attention, Swedish Migration Minister Johan Forssell has signaled a potential shift in the government’s approach. Forssell told the BBC that the current strict regulatory framework was put in place by the previous Swedish administration, and his government is now re-evaluating the situation. “We will therefore look closely at the situation and examine whether there are measures we can take to make the process easier for those affected,” Forssell said. While he did not directly address Thomas’s individual case, he noted that “the government believes the rules should be applied generously. The UK is a very important partner for Sweden, and we want British citizens who live and work in Sweden to be able to remain here. We are currently in dialogue with the relevant Swedish authorities to get a clearer picture of what measures may be possible.”

    The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has also weighed in on the issue, welcoming Sweden’s promise to review the situation. “We welcome the statement from the Swedish authorities that they will look at this issue,” a FCDO spokesperson said. “We are ready to support them in doing so.”

    As of Tuesday’s voluntary departure deadline, Thomas remains in her home, with her legal team still fighting the deportation order. She is waiting anxiously for word on whether the Swedish government will grant her leniency to spend her final years close to her family and her husband’s memory.