Global Pulse

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  • Trump says US to hit Iran hard

    Trump says US to hit Iran hard

    A fragile lull in Middle East hostilities has collapsed, sparking fears of a broader regional conflict after Iran launched missile strikes against U.S. bases in Jordan, prompting a harsh warning of massive retaliation from U.S. President Donald Trump. The resumption of cross-front attacks has sent global energy markets into turmoil, with oil prices surging 5% in a single day as investors braced for potential disruptions to critical global energy supply chains.

    The latest wave of violence ended a brief ceasefire that had raised cautious hopes for renewed diplomatic negotiations to de-escalate the years-long regional standoff. On Wednesday alone, multiple fronts flared up simultaneously: Saudi Arabia and the United States carried out joint air strikes on militant positions across Iraq, while Israel accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of breaking an existing truce along the Lebanon-Israel border.

    For two consecutive days, Saudi Arabia — the world’s largest crude oil exporter — has suffered drone attacks on its critical crude production infrastructure, which Riyadh has blamed on Tehran-aligned Iraqi armed groups. In response to the Jordan strike, Trump made his stance clear in an interview with Fox News, saying: “We’ll be hitting them hard…We are going to beat the ‘effing s’ out of them.”

    Saudi security researcher Hesham Alghannam told Agence France-Presse that Iran is leveraging its network of regional proxy groups to maintain strategic pressure on Western and allied Arab states, even as diplomatic channels remain open to absorb international scrutiny. After Iran’s missile attack on Jordan, Jordan’s military confirmed it intercepted five incoming Iranian projectiles, while Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed it targeted U.S. military bases stationed on Jordanian territory. “As long as the threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran continue…the resistance will continue,” the IRGC statement added.

    Iranian state media later reported a U.S. counter-strike near the border town of Piranshahr adjacent to Iraq, with initial reports indicating the strike hit an unpopulated area and caused no casualties. Along the Lebanon-Israel border, the Israeli military accused Hezbollah of launching a drone attack against an Israeli vehicle overnight inside Lebanese territory, labeling the incident a “blatant violation of the existing ceasefire”. Israel joined U.S. operations against Iranian targets in the early weeks of the current conflict while fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, but has not yet joined the latest round of strikes against Iran.

    The sudden escalation sent shockwaves through global financial markets on Wednesday. U.S. stock indexes closed sharply lower amid the oil price jump, while yields on 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds hit their highest level since 2007, reflecting growing investor anxiety over inflation risks from higher energy costs.

    The joint U.S.-Saudi air strikes in Iraq targeted logistics and weapons depots belonging to an Iran-aligned militant faction, according to statements from the U.S. military. Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces, PMF), an integrated state security alliance originally formed in 2014 to fight extremist jihadist groups, said the strikes killed at least 20 of its members. The PMF denounced the attack as a “dangerous escalation” targeting an official Iraqi security institution. Two senior PMF officials confirmed five Iranian military advisors were among those killed, and AFP correspondents on the ground saw coffins draped in Iranian flags prepared for burial. The PMF includes multiple brigades aligned with Iran that often operate independently of Iraqi central government command.

    The Iraqi government formally condemned the joint strikes, releasing a statement rejecting “all acts of aggression, regardless of the party responsible or the justifications presented”. Iraq’s Ministerial Council for National Security said it would “confront any violation of Iraq’s sovereignty, and prevent any source from using Iraqi territory to threaten neighbouring states”. Despite this condemnation, President Trump told Fox News the strikes were “coordinated with the Iraqi government”. The operation comes amid mounting U.S. pressure on Baghdad to disarm pro-Iran militias operating within its borders; earlier this month, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi conducted official visits to both Washington and Tehran in an effort to balance competing demands.

    The days-long ceasefire that collapsed this week had been billed by U.S. officials as a window to restart negotiations on multiple flashpoints, most notably the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global energy chokepoint that Iran has blockaded for much of the ongoing conflict. The IRGC recently announced it intercepted and seized three commercial tankers transiting the strait, insisting Iran exercises “full control” over the waterway that was previously open to unrestricted international passage. Tehran has stated it will maintain control of the key energy conduit, and has announced plans to charge transit fees for commercial ships passing through the strait — a policy the U.S. strongly opposes. In response, Washington announced new sanctions targeting entities linked to the IRGC, accusing the Guard of extorting fees from transiting commercial vessels.

    Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has increased the strategic importance of the Red Sea, which Riyadh now uses as its alternative primary export route for crude oil, amplifying existing tensions over security in that critical waterway as well.

  • Nigeria dismantles meth lab, but fears of Mexican cartel links linger

    Nigeria dismantles meth lab, but fears of Mexican cartel links linger

    Deep within a dense forest straddling two rural villages in Nigeria’s southwestern Ogun State, an abandoned shed hid a chilling secret: tons of unprocessed chemicals, large cooking cauldrons, and crude filtration equipment, all remnants of an alleged $360 million transnational methamphetamine operation. On Wednesday, Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) oversaw the full dismantling of the facility, the largest meth production hub ever uncovered in the country, a move that has renewed long-simmering concerns about the expansion of Mexican cartel influence into West Africa.

    The dismantling came one week after an unprecedented on-site court proceeding, held as part of an ongoing trial of three Mexican nationals linked to the facility. An AFP correspondent accompanied NDLEA officers as they brought in local tradespeople to cut apart and remove the lab’s production infrastructure, nearly five months after the operation was first raided. In May, law enforcement teams arrested 10 suspects – seven Nigerians and three foreign nationals – during raids on the forest lab and two high-end residential properties in Lagos’ upscale neighborhoods. When the dust settled, they had seized finished meth and precursor chemicals worth an estimated $360 million on the illegal market. While the trial has moved back to indoor courtrooms in Lagos, a judge ordered the site cleared for urgent environmental reasons, with residual toxic chemicals posing a major risk to local groundwater and air quality. When the AFP visited the site this week, abandoned barrels of chemicals and partially processed meth were still emitting acrid, choking vapors that lingered across the surrounding forest.

    For decades, West Africa has served as a key transit hub for drug trafficking, most commonly for cocaine moving from South America to consumer markets in Europe. But the Ogun State bust marks a significant shift: rather than just moving drugs through the region, transnational criminal networks are now setting up local production operations for highly addictive synthetic drugs like meth. Local security officials say the scale and professional structure of the Nigerian lab is clear evidence of direct involvement by Mexican cartels, which have been exporting their illicit production expertise to West Africa since at least the early 2010s. A 2019 report from the Institute for Security Studies already documented a steady rise in meth seizures and lab raids across Nigeria since 2011, a trend that has continued into 2024: just last June, another Mexican national was arrested during a separate meth bust in Oyo State, central Nigeria.

    Despite the growing threat from transnational cartels, NDLEA officials say they are prepared to contain the crisis. “About our readiness to combat the cartel… yes, we are ready,” James Taalba, the NDLEA’s deputy commander of narcotics, told AFP. “We have people who are capable of curtailing such a situation.”

    For local residents living just kilometers from the lab, the discovery came as a shock. Florence Banjo, a 59-year-old farmer who lives in Abidagba, one of the villages bordering the forest site, said she had noticed a foul stench drifting from the forest for months, but assumed it came from a local pigsty. Like many other area residents, she had heard rumors the cleared forest land was being prepared for a new housing development – a prospect that left her excited, as she hoped the project would bring paved roads to her isolated community. “We heard rumours that they were going to build an estate there, and I was happy that they’d finally pave the road that leads into our village,” Banjo said. “We were disappointed.”

    Public health experts warn that the rise of local meth production in Nigeria poses an acute threat to the country’s already overstretched healthcare system. Small amounts of contraband that slip past traffickers have already begun to enter domestic drug markets, creating a public health crisis that poorly funded local health services are ill-equipped to address.

  • Photo of Israeli soldiers posing next to blindfolded Palestinian fuels anger online

    Photo of Israeli soldiers posing next to blindfolded Palestinian fuels anger online

    A photograph showing two female Israeli soldiers posing beside a bound, blindfolded Palestinian young man has ignited widespread public fury across social media platforms after it spread virally online last week.

    The image was originally published this Tuesday as part of a photo carousel on the personal Instagram account of Nikol Stelmashvski, an Israeli woman who had just completed her term of mandatory military service. In the photo, the two uniformed soldiers are seen smiling for the camera while standing next to the unidentified Palestinian, who sits on the ground with his head bowed. No clear details have been released about the exact date or location where the photo was captured.

    Stelmashvski’s caption, written in Hebrew, framed the post as a reflection on wrapping up her military service, reading: “Two years and eight months, four wars… Thousands of memories, a million and one experiences. And here came the end of a chapter of my life that I will never forget.”

    By Wednesday, amid a flood of angry and critical comments from users across the globe, the controversial photograph was removed from the Instagram carousel, and the account was switched to private status within a few hours of the backlash beginning. Even after the original post was taken down, hundreds of screengrabs of the image had already been saved and shared across alternative platforms, allowing the photo to continue circulating widely online.

    Palestinian academic and prominent human rights advocate Ramy Abdu condemned the image in a post on X, writing: “Turning his humiliation into a moment of celebration.” Other social media users drew comparisons to the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq, noting that global audiences were similarly horrified by images of Iraqi detainees being dehumanized by U.S. soldiers. One user, journalist Mohammad Alsaafin, wrote: “IDF revel in depravity and no one is holding Israel to account.” He added that the image required no contextual labels “and everyone will immediately know where it was taken and what country these women are from.”

    This viral incident is not an isolated case, experts and activists note: since the outbreak of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, Israeli soldiers have repeatedly shared graphic content online depicting actions that human rights groups say may constitute war crimes. The range of content shared by active and recently discharged soldiers includes footage of troops celebrating as they destroy civilian infrastructure, including private family homes, community mosques, and university buildings. In one notable earlier incident, a soldier posted a photo that used a blindfolded Palestinian man as a prop to advertise the soldier’s private commercial business. Other images that have circulated show soldiers posing with stacks of cash looted from Palestinian homes in Gaza, and wearing women’s underwear stolen from displaced civilians’ residences.

    Just one month prior to this latest controversy, an Israeli soldier sparked widespread backlash after posting a photo of a blindfolded, partially undressed Palestinian man lying in a stress position on a cot, his hands zip-tied behind his back and bound to a metal rod. The soldier’s caption simply read “Good morning” in Hebrew. That image, which was reposted by Palestinian activists, drew global condemnation and renewed calls for formal accountability for crimes against Palestinian detainees.

    In response to this week’s viral photo, the Israel Defense Forces released a brief statement acknowledging that it had “identified the incident” and launched an internal command investigation. The statement added that “those involved will be dealt with in accordance with the findings that emerge.” However, data from independent war monitoring organization Action on Armed Violence casts doubt on the likelihood of meaningful consequences: an AOAV investigation published last year found that nearly 90 percent of all Israeli military investigations into allegations of soldier abuse against Palestinians launched since October 2023 have either been closed without action or concluded with no actionable findings.

  • Hundreds of migrants are swimming from Morocco to the Spanish territory of Ceuta

    Hundreds of migrants are swimming from Morocco to the Spanish territory of Ceuta

    CEUTA, Spain — The small Spanish autonomous territory of Ceuta, nestled on Morocco’s northern coast, is grappling with an extraordinary crisis of irregular migration, as hundreds of migrants have taken to swimming across the short strait separating Morocco from the enclave, stretching local border security and reception infrastructure to its breaking point, local government officials confirmed Wednesday.

    While summer months typically bring an uptick in maritime migration attempts due to calm, favorable weather conditions, Ceuta’s leadership says the current volume of people attempting the dangerous swim is far outside normal patterns. Over the past several days alone, more than 1,500 migrants — including both adults and unaccompanied minors — have successfully reached Ceuta’s shores via the crossing, Juan Jesús Vivas, the president of Ceuta’s regional government, told reporters. The territory’s dedicated migrant reception centers are already completely overwhelmed and operating far beyond their designed capacity, he added, with hundreds of new arrivals forced to sleep outside the facility’s walls.

    Vivas also noted the deadly risks inherent in this crossing attempt: over the past year alone, at least 60 bodies of migrants who died attempting the journey have been recovered from the surrounding waters.

    Spain’s national interior ministry, which holds federal oversight of border management and irregular migration tracking, declined to immediately confirm the total number of crossings or successful arrivals, instead directing media requests to the ministry’s upcoming bimonthly migration report, scheduled for public release on August 3. Speaking in an interview with Spanish broadcaster laSexta, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska acknowledged the crisis qualifies as an “extraordinary, exceptional situation,” but stressed that authorities are responding with all permanent resources already deployed to the enclave. Spain’s Civil Guard, national Maritime Rescue Service, and the Red Cross have all been mobilized to intercept swimmers in open water and transport them to shore for processing.

    Local and migrant rights activists report the vast majority of those attempting the crossing are Moroccan nationals, with a smaller contingent of Algerian migrants who had previously been residing in Morocco while organizing their journey to the European Union.

    To date, there is no clear consensus on what has driven this sudden massive surge in crossings. Vivas pointed to a recent ruling from the Spanish Supreme Court, issued earlier this month, that bars authorities from immediately turning back sea arrivals without first conducting formal due process — a different standard than that applied to migrants who cross the land border by scaling Ceuta’s perimeter fence. But that explanation is disputed by independent migrant rights advocates.

    Omar Naji, president of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights in Eastern Morocco, argues that most migrants planning the crossing would not have been aware of the nuanced legal ruling, making it an unlikely trigger for the surge. Naji instead drew a parallel to the 2021 Ceuta border crisis, when more than 8,000 migrants entered the enclave over just 48 hours. That event came shortly after a high-level diplomatic meeting between Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, mirroring the timing of the current surge.

    The 2021 crisis was widely linked to a diplomatic dispute between Spain and Morocco: at that time, Morocco was accused of intentionally relaxing its border controls to allow mass crossings after Spain allowed Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario Front — the pro-independence movement seeking sovereignty for the disputed territory of Western Sahara — to enter Spain for medical treatment. That incident triggered a major diplomatic rift between Madrid and Rabat that lasted for months.

    This week, however, Grande-Marlaska struck a positive note regarding relations with Morocco, saying Moroccan authorities are actively cooperating with Spanish efforts to manage the crisis. “Our relationship with the kingdom is close and based on loyalty,” he told laSexta, adding that “they are also limiting irregular departures” from their coast.

    Reporting from Casablanca, Morocco, contributed by AP journalist Akram Oubachir.

  • ‘The war caused this’: Miscarriages soar in Gaza amid Israeli bombing and siege

    ‘The war caused this’: Miscarriages soar in Gaza amid Israeli bombing and siege

    Seven years of waiting for a child ended in heartbreak for 34-year-old displaced Palestinian Sahar al-Majdalawi, one of thousands of pregnant women in Gaza whose pregnancies have been lost amid the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe triggered by the Israeli military campaign launched in October 2023.

    Just one month after confirming her first pregnancy, al-Majdalawi was crippled by unrelenting abdominal cramps so severe they mirrored active labor pains. Fearing for the life of her unborn child, she and her husband set out on foot in the dark for the nearest functioning medical facility: Israeli bombardment had flattened key infrastructure, left all roads impassable and paralyzed public transport across the Gaza Strip, leaving no other option for evacuation. After walking for hours under the cover of night, the couple finally reached Al-Awda Hospital in the central Gaza Nuseirat refugee camp.

    “We had to walk so far because there was no transport despite my pain. The whole time, I was begging God to keep my baby safe,” al-Majdalawi recounted to Middle East Eye in an interview.

    An ultrasound delivered the devastating news she had dreaded. “They said: ‘The foetus is still in your womb, but there is no heartbeat,’” she said. “At that moment, it felt as though my own heart stopped beating. I realised I had lost the dream I had waited years to fulfil.”

    al-Majdalawi’s tragedy is far from an isolated case in Gaza, where ongoing conflict has gutted healthcare systems, erased food security and pushed public health to a breaking point. Official and international data confirms a catastrophic surge in pregnancy complications, led by a skyrocketing miscarriage rate that has overwhelmed already depleted medical services.

    According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, at the peak of active hostilities, miscarriage rates jumped 300 percent above pre-October 2023 levels. Current data places the miscarriage rate at 460 per 1,000 births, a stark jump from just 140 per 1,000 births recorded across Gaza in 2022. Palestinian Ministry of Health figures document 3,958 confirmed miscarriages in the first six months of 2026 alone — a figure senior obstetrics and gynaecology consultant Dr. Adnan Radi, head of the ministry’s advisory committee, calls “shocking.”

    Dr. Radi emphasizes that even these staggering official numbers underestimate the full scale of the crisis. “Official statistics, whether from international organisations or the Ministry of Health, undercount the true scale, but there is an undeniable and sharp surge in miscarriages during the war years,” he explained. Hundreds of additional cases go unrecorded, he noted, because most women cannot travel through war-damaged territory to reach care, and systematic data collection across Gaza’s sprawling, overcrowded tent camps for displaced people has become effectively impossible. “Although an exact number is hard to pin down, there is a consensus that miscarriage rates have multiplied. The Ministry of Health indicated the rate could be as high as 70 percent of total births in certain areas, which is a tragedy.”

    While there is no single standalone cause for the surge, medical experts uniformly link the crisis directly to the cascading consequences of war. Dr. Radi points to severe anaemia as a primary driver: an estimated 70 percent of all pregnant women in Gaza currently live with the condition, worsened by widespread acute malnutrition across the enclave.

    Last week, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) issued a grim warning that 67 percent of Gaza’s population — roughly 1.14 million people — will face critical or catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity through the end of December. The body estimates that nearly 25,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women will require life-saving nutritional intervention in the next year.

    Beyond hunger, Dr. Radi cites widespread infectious disease, contaminated drinking water, catastrophic breakdowns in sanitation, and constant exposure to toxic dust from the thousands of tonnes of explosives dropped by Israeli military forces as key contributing factors. “Although comprehensive studies are lacking, there is a clear link between environmental toxicity, malnutrition, anaemia and the rise in miscarriages and premature births,” he said. He added that toxic residues from bombardment may alter the genetic makeup of Gaza’s population, leaving a generational public health crisis that will persist long after active fighting ends.

    For al-Majdalawi, no clear medical explanation for her miscarriage was available at the overstretched hospital, but she holds no uncertainty about its root cause. “Deep down, I know the war caused this. I was displaced countless times, my body was completely exhausted, and I suffered five injuries in separate air strikes,” she said. “I endured famine in northern Gaza, lost weight, and my health deteriorated. On top of that came the psychological torment of losing our home when our neighbourhood was bombed.”

    Today, al-Majdalawi and her husband live in a flimsy tent in the Nuseirat refugee camp, their original home in Jabalia destroyed in Israeli airstrikes and the area now off-limits, lying close to the Israeli military’s designated “Yellow Line” security boundary. She is one of nearly 2 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza, all struggling to survive in overcrowded, unsanitary tent settlements that offer none of the basic conditions needed for a healthy pregnancy.

    “My husband did everything he could to make life in the tent easier so my pregnancy would go smoothly, but there is only so much anyone can do,” al-Majdalawi said. “Imagine sleeping on a paper-thin mattress on uneven ground inside a flimsy tent baking in the summer heat. Sometimes I feel my heart will stop because of how hot it gets. My back aches constantly.”

    Even after the October ceasefire, constant fear remains a daily reality. Intermittent Israeli bombardment and repeated evacuation orders keep Gaza’s civilian population in a state of chronic stress. “Not a day passes without the thunder of bombardment or the buzz of the quadcopter drones overhead. Sometimes they even open fire. It keeps me in a constant state of psychological distress,” al-Majdalawi said.

    Access to nutrient-dense food was another insurmountable barrier during her pregnancy. World Bank data puts unemployment in Gaza above 80 percent, with poverty approaching 100 percent. Nearly all families rely exclusively on limited food aid, which mostly consists of shelf-stable staples such as rice, beans, lentils, pasta and canned meat. “My husband lost his job because of the war, so we depend on charity kitchens for free meals. Buying fruit, vegetables or fresh meat regularly is impossible without money,” al-Majdalawi added.

    Rising miscarriages are just one dimension of the full-blown crisis unfolding in Gaza’s remaining maternity wards. Physicians across the enclave are also reporting unprecedented spikes in premature births and severe congenital birth defects, with almost no resources to treat vulnerable newborns.

    “We have seen a sharp increase in premature births before 26 weeks of pregnancy,” Dr. Radi said. “In recent months, we have observed a drastic increase in severe foetal abnormalities. In previous years, seeing a baby born without limbs or feet was an extremely rare occurrence. Now, it has become a recurring phenomenon in delivery wards.”

    The surge in high-risk births comes as Gaza’s hospitals face a catastrophic shortage of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) beds and equipment, drastically reducing the survival odds for premature and low-weight infants. In February, UNICEF reported that nearly one in five newborns in Gaza required intensive care or thermal incubation due to a combination of maternal malnutrition, chronic maternal stress and a near-total lack of accessible prenatal care.

    As frontline doctors fight to save as many mothers and infants as possible with depleted resources, al-Majdalawi remains in her tent, grappling with grief and a persistent, crippling fear that the conflict will rob her of the chance to have a healthy child. “I don’t know when the day will come when I can hold my baby in my arms without the terrifying fear of losing them or seeing them born with deformities,” she said.

  • Israeli defence minister boasts that US warplanes used Israeli bases to attack Iran

    Israeli defence minister boasts that US warplanes used Israeli bases to attack Iran

    In a surprising public confirmation that lays bare the deepening coordination between Washington and Jerusalem in escalating Middle East hostilities, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has revealed that United States Air Force fighter jets and bombers launched attacks against Iran from Israeli military bases in recent weeks. The revelation publicly confirms what many regional analysts have long suspected: that Israel is serving as a critical launchpad for the Biden administration’s expanding military campaign across the region.

    Katz made the remarks during an interview Tuesday with right-wing Israeli broadcaster Channel 14, noting that “The Iranians know” the American aircraft departed from Israeli territory to carry out the strikes. In a combative address, Katz also declared that “The arrogant empire that threatened to destroy Israel has collapsed,” before issuing a stark new threat to the Iranian government.

    “We announced in the clearest terms that if Israel is fired upon, we will attack with all our might. We are prepared to strike Iran,” Katz said, adding that “We know how to manage things, and we are prepared” to handle any escalating retaliation from Tehran. His comments came just days after Israeli air defense systems intercepted at least three unmanned aerial vehicles near the country’s Jordanian border over Monday and Tuesday, a minor escalation that has stoked fears of broader conflict.

    What makes this confirmation particularly notable is the carefully calibrated role Israel has taken in the latest round of US-Iran hostilities. Unlike the initial phase of conflict that began back in February, Israeli forces have not taken an active part in the recent wave of US and Gulf ally strikes targeting Iranian assets across the region. For its part, Iran has also intentionally centered its retaliatory attacks on US interests in the Gulf, avoiding direct strikes on Israeli targets to this point.

    This dynamic has drawn attention from critics of the expanding conflict, who argue that Israeli leadership has intentionally pushed the United States to carry the brunt of military action against Iran. Prominent American commentator and journalist Tucker Carlson has been one of the most high-profile voices making this argument, and the sentiment is openly shared by senior members of the current Israeli government.

    Influence Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a key figure in the country’s hardline ruling coalition, openly acknowledged the strategic calculation on Tuesday in comments reported by Israeli public broadcaster Kan news. Smotrich described the restarted US military campaign against Iran as the perfect outcome for Israel, so long as Israeli citizens do not have to join the fighting directly.

    “Israel has no interest in joining the campaign – the current situation is the best for us,” Smotrich stated.

  • Public inquiry into Creeslough explosion could be set up, say families

    Public inquiry into Creeslough explosion could be set up, say families

    Nearly four years after the devastating 2022 Creeslough service station explosion that claimed 10 lives, families of the victims have secured a key commitment from Ireland’s national government: if ongoing official investigations fail to deliver the transparent answers they demand, a full statutory public inquiry will be considered to unpack the disaster.

    The fatal blast tore through a village service station in County Donegal on 7 October 2022, leaving a tight-knit rural community shattered. The 10 victims ranged in age from 5 to adulthood, all hailing from Creeslough and its surrounding areas: Robert Garwe, his 5-year-old daughter Shauna Flanagan-Garwe, 14-year-old Leona Harper, Hugh Kelly, Jessica Gallagher, Martin McGill, James O’Flaherty, Martina Martin, and Catherine O’Donnell and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan. To date, no official cause has been confirmed, and no individuals have been formally charged in connection with the disaster, despite multiple arrests during the investigation.

    A high-stakes meeting between Taoiseach Micheál Martin and victim families at Dublin’s Government Buildings has brought new momentum to calls for full accountability. Donna Harper, whose daughter Leona died in the blast, spoke publicly after the meeting about the government’s commitment. She explained that Martin has expressed caution about disrupting the ongoing active police probe, but confirmed the administration would be open to launching a statutory inquiry if existing investigations do not resolve the families’ outstanding questions. Harper called the outcome one she was “very happy” with.

    Anthony Gallagher, another victim’s father who lost his daughter in the explosion, echoed the families’ core demand: full transparency. “Everybody needs to know what happened and why it happened and to be sure it never, ever happens again,” he noted, adding that the taoiseach did not rule out a full public inquiry.

    A government spokesperson characterized the discussion as “open and constructive”, saying that Martin “listened to the personal testimonies of the families and articulated his deepest sympathies for their loss and the trauma that they have suffered. He understands their need for justice and for answers and reiterated the importance of allowing the investigation that is currently underway to come to a conclusion.” The spokesperson also confirmed that the official incident report from the Health and Safety Authority, one of the multiple agencies contributing to the probe, is expected to be finalized in the near term.

    The current investigation is led by local officers of An Garda Síochána (the Irish national police service) in the Donegal Division, with backing from the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and other regulatory bodies including the Health and Safety Authority and the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities. Just months ago, in April 2026, Garda investigators submitted a second evidential file containing formal investigative recommendations to the Director of Public Prosecutions, supplementing an initial file sent to prosecutors in September 2025. Police have confirmed that families have been kept updated on all procedural developments, and dedicated liaison officers continue to provide support to grieving relatives.

    This meeting marks the latest chapter in a years-long fight for clarity from Creeslough families. In 2024, Donegal County Council passed a formal motion calling on the national government to launch a public inquiry into the blast. A year later, relatives successfully blocked a planning application to build a new service station, shop and post office on the site of the 2022 explosion. Their legal team argued the development was deeply inappropriate while the criminal investigation remained active, and Ireland’s national planning body, An Coimisiún Pleanála, ultimately sided with the families and rejected the planning permission.

  • Lebanese businessman Antoun Sehnaoui hosts Netanyahu in Washington

    Lebanese businessman Antoun Sehnaoui hosts Netanyahu in Washington

    A high-profile closed-door dinner in Washington D.C. has thrown regional tensions and cross-border legal norms into the spotlight, after a controversial Lebanese billionaire and banking executive hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at an event honoring U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham. The gathering, which took place Monday at the upscale Four Seasons Hotel, was co-hosted by Antoun Sehnaoui — chief executive of Lebanon’s Societe Generale de Banque au Liban (SGBL) and wealth management firm Fidus — and former U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus.

    According to independent Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, the guest list extended far beyond ceremonial attendees, drawing a cross-partisan mix of sitting U.S. senators, Graham’s immediate family, and prominent figures from U.S. political and business circles. Attendees included Stephen Miller, the far-right senior advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump; current U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin; Dina Powell McCormick, a senior Meta (Facebook) executive and former White House advisor; Katie Miller, a former advisor to the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency; and Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s sitting ambassador to the United States.

    The event is far more than a routine Washington social gathering, however: Sehnaoui has long been a polarizing figure in his home country, and the decision to openly host the leader of a state that Lebanon has no formal diplomatic relations with violates existing Lebanese law, which prohibits any formal contact between Lebanese citizens and Israeli individuals or officials. The dinner also comes at a moment of extreme escalation between Israel and Lebanon: since March 2, Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign across southern Lebanon has killed more than 4,300 Lebanese people, and Israeli military forces continue to occupy swathes of territory in southern Lebanon amid a months-long escalation of cross-border conflict.

    Sehnaoui’s legal troubles in Lebanon stretch back to the 2019 national financial collapse, which plunged millions of Lebanese into poverty and collapsed the value of the national currency. Lebanese national prosecutors have filed formal charges against both Sehnaoui and SGBL, alleging the pair engaged in large-scale money laundering connected to illegal currency trading amid the 2019 crisis and its aftermath. SGBL has issued a formal statement denying all wrongdoing in the case.

    Beyond the corruption allegations, Sehnaoui has long faced public accusations of ties to extreme right-wing Christian organizations within Lebanon, and has been publicly described as an open advocate for Zionist causes. While Lebanon officially maintains no diplomatic or official ties to Israel, observers have long noted that a small subset of Lebanese political groups — primarily drawn from the country’s Maronite Christian community — have maintained covert, unofficial connections to Israel and publicly advocated for the establishment of formal bilateral relations between the two states.
    This report was sourced from independent coverage by Middle East Eye, a outlet that produces original, independent reporting and analysis on the Middle East, North Africa and global affairs connected to the region.

  • Iraq calls urgent security meeting after US and Saudi attacks

    Iraq calls urgent security meeting after US and Saudi attacks

    Escalating cross-border hostilities across the Middle East reached a new flashpoint this week, after the United States and Saudi Arabia launched coordinated precision attacks against Iran-aligned militant groups in Iraq, prompting Iraq’s prime minister to convene an emergency national security gathering for Wednesday.

    The US Central Command (Centcom) confirmed earlier this week that it carried out the targeted air operations in partnership with Saudi Arabian Armed Forces, striking positions held by factions aligned with Tehran. The joint strike comes on the heels of a series of drone assaults on Saudi energy infrastructure launched by Iranian-aligned groups operating in Iraq over the past seven days.

    Two senior members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, a state-aligned military grouping made up of mostly pro-Iranian factions, told Agence France-Presse that at least 10 fighters from the organization were killed in the cross-country strikes. One official added that multiple additional casualties have been reported across other Iraqi provinces, and warned that the confirmed death toll is likely to climb as rescue teams access remote strike locations.

    The broader regional escalation traces back to mid-July, when Saudi warplanes bombed Sanaa International Airport in Yemen to block an Iranian aid flight from landing. Despite the attack, the aid flight successfully touched down, but the airstrike prompted Yemen’s Houthi administration—officially the Ansarallah movement—to retaliate. On Monday, the Houthis launched their own drone attack on Saudi oil infrastructure, and have paired these strikes with a partial blockade of the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait. The critical waterway links the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal, a key global trade route for energy exports. The Houthi blockade only targets Saudi shipping, but it has compounded existing energy export challenges for Riyadh. Tehran currently enforces its own restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, another pivotal chokepoint that carries Gulf energy exports to the Arabian Sea and global markets.

    Iran has pushed back against claims of its involvement in cross-border attacks on Saudi targets. A senior Iranian military source denied accusations that Tehran organized projectile strikes launched from third countries into Saudi territory, according to Iranian state media.

    Riyadh has long taken a cautious stance on open conflict between the US and Iran, agreeing to limited support for American operations—including opening its airspace and providing logistical backing for strikes—but avoiding full-scale military participation in tensions with Tehran. Prior to the recent wave of attacks, Iran had also focused its own military actions on US military assets deployed in the Middle East, rather than prioritizing strikes on Saudi infrastructure.

  • The fastest growing Ebola outbreak is worsening hunger in eastern Congo, a UN agency chief warns

    The fastest growing Ebola outbreak is worsening hunger in eastern Congo, a UN agency chief warns

    During an official visit to conflict-ravaged Ituri Province — the epicenter of the most rapidly expanding Ebola outbreak in recorded history — the acting executive director of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), Carl Skau, sounded an urgent alarm this week over a cascading humanitarian catastrophe that is pushing thousands more Congolese people into acute food insecurity.

    Eastern Congo has long been a region mired in persistent armed conflict and violent competition over valuable mineral deposits. Long before the first Ebola case was confirmed, millions of residents already faced catastrophic levels of hunger. Today, Skau framed the current crisis as a ‘crisis on top of a crisis’ that has drastically worsened already untenable living conditions. According to WFP data, the years-long violence across eastern Congo has forced nearly 10 million people into crisis or emergency-level hunger. Ituri alone accounts for 1.9 million food-insecure residents, out of more than 5 million people across the country already facing emergency food insecurity before the outbreak began.

    Declared in mid-May, this outbreak has already outpaced every previous Ebola event in its speed of spread. It took just over two months for the death toll to hit 1,000 — a milestone that took roughly eight months to reach during the 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak, long considered the worst in global history. As of the latest official update, the outbreak has recorded 3,360 confirmed cases and 1,487 total deaths, with 50 new fatalities reported in the 24-hour period before Skau’s briefing.

    Combatting the outbreak has been made uniquely challenging by the strain of virus responsible: the Bundibugyo virus, which has no approved vaccines or specific antiviral treatments, unlike strains involved in most of Congo’s previous Ebola outbreaks. While clinical vaccine trials are currently ongoing, UN senior Ebola coordinator Julien Harneis, who accompanied Skau on the Ituri visit, confirmed that a widely deployable vaccine is still months away from reaching affected communities. The UN and Congolese government are currently working with local community leaders to build public trust and encourage people with early symptoms to seek care quickly — a step Harneis says drastically improves a patient’s chance of survival.

    Public health measures implemented to slow transmission, including localized movement restrictions, border closures and bans on large public gatherings, have had severe unintended consequences for local livelihoods. Markets have been disrupted, key supply routes have been cut off, and food and fuel prices have spiked sharply across affected regions. For mining and farming communities that rely on daily informal work to feed their families, these restrictions have pushed already vulnerable households over the edge. In Mongbwalu, a mining town 43 miles from Ituri’s capital Bunia, local residents described how the crisis has made it nearly impossible for many families to feed their children. Forty-year-old mother of six Kahambu Deborah told reporters she had already been blocked from accessing her farmland by rebel violence, and Ebola-related restrictions have made her family’s food insecurity even more desperate. ‘Sometimes, because of the insecurity, we can’t even go to our fields, and our children are suffering as a result,’ she said.

    Across 48 affected health zones, WFP data shows more than 2.7 million people now face acute food insecurity, including 628,000 people in the most severe emergency category. Local hospital leadership confirms rising rates of malnutrition across the region, even among patients receiving Ebola treatment. ‘We are seeing more malnutrition cases in the region, compared to before the outbreak, even at the Ebola treatment center,’ said Dr. Richard Lokudu, director-general of Mongbwalu General Hospital. WFP’s targeted food aid has already helped reduce unnecessary population movement as people search for food, which in turn helps slow Ebola transmission, according to agency staff. The organization has so far delivered more than 160,000 hot meals to patients, contact tracing teams and frontline health workers across 17 treatment and isolation centers.

    But chronic underfunding has forced the agency to drastically scale back its reach in Congo. Skau confirmed that WFP has cut the number of people it assists from 3 million in 2023 to just 1 million this year. The overall $2.1 billion UN humanitarian appeal for Congo is only 45% funded, Harneis added, and the separate Ebola response appeal is being revised upward to cover four affected provinces — double the original number the appeal was designed to support.

    Speaking to UN correspondents during a video press briefing after his visit, Skau emphasized that the rapidly escalating crisis demands far greater global attention and immediate financial support. ‘My number one message is that this situation requires much, much more attention,’ he said. ‘This is the fastest growing Ebola crisis ever.’ Calling on international donors to step up, Skau added: ‘The World Food Program needs resources (and) donors to step up so that we can do more, to alleviate the pressures on the people here in Ituri.’