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On Friday, multi-agency search operations entered their third day to locate five missing crew members of a private Pakistani cargo plane that crashed into the Arabian Sea earlier this week, after search teams from the Pakistan Navy recovered additional fragments of the downed aircraft for official investigation.

Operated by Karachi-based private aviation firm K2 Airways, the cargo jet was en route from Sharjah, United Arab Emirates to Pakistan’s largest city Karachi when it vanished from civilian radar systems late Tuesday. Shortly before losing contact, the flight crew reported a critical malfunction in the aircraft’s navigation system. Official radar records show that at approximately 9:21 p.m. local time, around 287 kilometers west of Karachi, the plane made an unexpected sharp turn before plunging rapidly, after which all radar and radio communications were cut off.

The first fragments of wreckage were pulled from the water Wednesday by Pakistani Navy crews, roughly 100 kilometers off the coast of the southwestern town of Ormara, located in Balochistan province’s Makran coastal region. As of Friday, the plane’s main fuselage and all five crew members have yet to be located, according to government officials. All recovered wreckage will be turned over to air crash investigators for forensic analysis to determine the root cause of the disaster.

In a statement posted to the social media platform X, the Pakistan Airports Authority confirmed that coordinated search-and-rescue efforts are still ongoing in the deep-water crash zone, with both surface vessels from the Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Maritime Security Agency, plus airborne surveillance assets deployed to narrow down the search area. The agency declined to release additional operational details, noting that further public updates will be shared once more verified information becomes available. The official cause of the crash remains undetermined as the investigation progresses.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has already issued formal directives to all involved agencies, ordering them to deploy every available resource to locate the missing crew. For its part, K2 Airways has stated that it is providing full logistical and operational cooperation to Pakistan’s civil aviation authorities leading the crash investigation.

Search efforts have been significantly hampered by challenging marine conditions, including choppy rough seas, persistent strong winds, and shifting ocean currents. These environmental factors have spread floating debris across a vast stretch of open water, making it far harder for teams to pin down the exact location of the main wreckage.

This latest aviation incident adds to a long string of fatal air crashes that have occurred across Pakistan over the past several decades, raising ongoing questions about aviation safety oversight in the country.

Eight years after a landmark international arbitration tribunal delivered a historic ruling that reshaped global discourse over the contested South China Sea, the Philippines held official commemorations on Friday to reaffirm the legality and enduring importance of the 2016 decision. The ruling, which emerged from an arbitration case Manila launched under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 2013, invalidated Beijing’s broad territorial claims across the key strategic waterway, and has since been adopted by Western powers and regional allies as a cornerstone for challenging China’s growing maritime assertiveness.

China has consistently refused to acknowledge the process or the outcome of the arbitration. Beijing has labeled the July 12, 2016 ruling from the UNCLOS-backed tribunal “illegal, null and void,” calling the entire proceeding a political sham. To this day, China maintains territorial claims to nearly the entire South China Sea — a critical global trade route that carries an estimated $3.4 trillion in annual commerce, and one that is the site of overlapping competing claims from the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. For decades, the overlapping claims and frequent standoffs have marked the region as one of the most dangerous potential flashpoints for armed conflict in Asia.

In remarks released ahead of the anniversary, Philippine Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro emphasized the legally binding nature of the ruling, framing it as a steady guide for nations navigating competing maritime demands. “When the waters grow turbulent, when unilateral claims cloud the horizon and when the shadow of coercion looms, nations need something far more permanent than political convenience,” Lazaro said. “They need a lighthouse.”

The United States, which is the Philippines’ oldest defense ally in Asia, has repeatedly pressured Beijing to comply with the 2016 ruling. Successive U.S. administrations — from the prior Biden administration to the current Trump administration — have reaffirmed that Washington is legally obligated to come to Manila’s defense under their 1951 mutual defense treaty if Philippine military assets, commercial vessels or aircraft come under armed attack in the disputed waters.

Australia has also joined the international pushback against Chinese maritime activity. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong used the anniversary to criticize Beijing, stating that Australia would “continue to register our concerns about China’s vessels engaging in destabilizing and dangerous conduct in the South China Sea.”

As of Friday, China had not issued an immediate public response to the commemorations. But in a recent statement released through its embassy in Manila, Beijing reiterated its long-held position that it will never recognize the ruling. “The award will not alter the historical and factual basis for China’s sovereignty over the islands of the South China Sea and their adjacent waters,” the embassy said. It added that the ruling “will not weaken China’s resolve and determination to safeguard its sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.”

The 2016 tribunal’s ruling, which sided overwhelmingly with the Philippines on most core claims, explicitly stated that UNCLOS provided no legal foundation for China’s claims to historic resource rights across large swathes of the South China Sea that fall outside its internationally recognized territorial sea and exclusive economic zone. UNCLOS, the global treaty that establishes the legal framework for all maritime activity and national ocean claims, entered into force in 1994 and has been ratified by more than 170 nations and parties — including both China and the Philippines.

In recent years, territorial confrontations in the South China Sea have grown more frequent, with the most persistent standoffs occurring between Chinese maritime forces and fishing fleets on one side, and Philippine and Vietnamese counterparts on the other.

Escalating military tensions between the United States and Iran have triggered a rushed evacuation of Iranian crude oil exports, with Tehran deploying six tankers carrying a combined 11 million barrels of crude over a 24-hour window to avoid a potential new blockade of its key ports, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

According to Bloomberg’s real-time vessel tracking data, five of the six departing tankers have already moved into open water: four have signaled their positions in the Gulf of Oman, while a fifth is currently transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical chokepoint for global oil trade.

The urgent dispatch of the vessels came immediately after a second consecutive day of U.S. military strikes targeting Iranian territory. Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour confirmed that the airstrikes hit civilian infrastructure including railway bridges, leaving 14 people dead, 78 injured, and 47 people still undergoing hospital treatment as of Thursday.

The resumption of large-scale offensive strikes has put the recently signed Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which was meant to de-escalate tensions around the strategic waterway, at severe risk of collapsing. Already, commercial maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a cautious standstill as shipping companies reroute vessels to avoid the conflict zone.

The escalating conflict has already sent shockwaves through global energy markets. Oil prices have jumped nearly 9% this week, trading close to $79 per barrel by Thursday trading sessions. The 11 million barrels of crude being rushed out of Iran is roughly equivalent to the volume of Iran’s total pre-conflict weekly crude exports, though market analysts note it remains unclear if pre-negotiated buyers are lined up to take delivery of the cargoes.

Tensions flared earlier this week after the Trump administration revoked a 60-day sanctions waiver that had temporarily allowed unrestricted Iranian oil sales. The waiver was canceled after Iran launched attacks on commercial vessels off the coasts of Qatar and Saudi Arabia earlier this week, which halted tens of millions of barrels of Iranian crude already in transit.

On Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy issued a stark warning in response to the U.S. airstrikes and attempts to redirect commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC statement said U.S. actions were disrupting the temporary reopening of the waterway, and any further American intervention would be met with a “crushing response.”

In a significant shift from years of tension centered on Iran’s nuclear program, the Strait of Hormuz has now emerged as the primary flashpoint for conflict between Washington and Tehran.

The now-fragile Islamabad MoU was reached in June, after Iran’s earlier blockade of the strait inflicted widespread economic damage that pushed the Trump administration to agree to a 60-day ceasefire extension. Speaking on the sidelines of the G7 summit ahead of the signing, Trump noted he “didn’t want to see an economic catastrophe,” and the White House framed the agreement as a first step toward permanent peace through follow-up negotiations.

Under the terms of the MoU, the Strait of Hormuz would remain open and toll-free for 60 days, with long-term governance of the waterway to be negotiated later. The framework left open the possibility of future transit fees and granted Iran more control over the strategic waterway than it had held in decades. A formal Iranian briefing confirmed that Tehran planned to coordinate future waterway management with Oman and other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with international law.

The U.S. oil sales waiver, which was tied to progress in ceasefire talks and set to expire on August 21, was the biggest sticking point in negotiations between the two sides. Its revocation earlier this week followed Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels, ending the temporary de-escalation.

Trump had foreshadowed the current collapse of the agreement back in June, when he downplayed the durability of the MoU in public remarks. “It’s a memorandum of understanding. And if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head,” Trump said at the time. “If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?”

After months of a fragile truce that held from an initial April ceasefire through a mid-June bilateral memorandum of understanding, armed conflict between the United States and Iran has reignited, with Washington launching a wave of targeted strikes against Iranian assets in response to Tehran’s harassment of commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This escalation marks the most severe breach of the June 17 agreement, and has led former U.S. President Donald Trump to formally confirm what many regional analysts had feared: the months-long truce is definitively over.

The root of the latest breakdown in tensions is a high-stakes dispute over strategic control of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical global energy chokepoints. Under the terms of the now-defunct memorandum, Iran committed to using its best efforts to guarantee unimpeded, toll-free passage for commercial vessels through the strait for a 60-day period. Almost immediately, however, tensions flared over competing shipping routes through the waterway. The U.S.-backed corridor hugs the Omani coast, relies on international maritime coordination, and remains outside direct Iranian oversight. Tehran, by contrast, has pushed aggressively to force all commercial traffic to use an alternative route that runs along Iran’s territorial coast, where it can enforce strict monitoring and full control. At its current width, the strait cannot support two separate controlled corridors without Iran resorting to force or credible threats of force to deter use of the U.S.-endorsed route, and Tehran has already deployed live fire to push ships away from the Omani corridor.

Analysts note that the lopsided balance of strengths between the two nations has made a lasting ceasefire nearly impossible to achieve. The U.S. retains overwhelming conventional military superiority over Iran, but lacks the domestic political will to commit to a prolonged conflict or a large-scale ground invasion that would force regime change in Tehran. Washington has made clear it has no interest in expending military resources or shifting its global defense priorities to focus on a long-term war with Iran, even as it retains the capability to inflict widespread damage on Iranian military and infrastructure targets.

For Iran, the opposite dynamic holds: the regime boasts unwavering political resolve to assert its regional dominance and ensure its own survival. Since the outbreak of the current war that saw key Iranian political and military leaders killed early on, the regime has grown increasingly hardline and militaristic, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cementing its grip on national power. Ideologically driven, strategically shrewd, and willing to use ruthless tactics to achieve its aims, Tehran has prioritized demonstrating its control over the strait over the economic benefits it would gain from concessions, including a promised $300 billion post-conflict reconstruction fund and relief from crippling international sanctions. To enforce its claims, Iran has deployed low-cost, effective tactics including weaponized drones and fast attack craft to threaten civilian shipping, a strategy that lets it assert control without matching U.S. military power. Even so, Iran’s greatest vulnerability remains its fragile economy, which has already suffered massive damage from months of conflict and could not withstand a prolonged U.S. blockade or sustained air campaign against critical infrastructure.

Domestic political pressures on both sides have further pushed the truce toward collapse. In Iran, any leader that entertains talks with the U.S. or makes concessions on the Strait of Hormuz risks being branded a traitor by hardline IRGC factions, a danger highlighted by historical precedents: the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, both killed for making peace deals with rivals deemed unacceptable by domestic hardliners. For Trump, domestic opposition rules out a return to full-scale all-out war, but pressure from foreign policy hardliners in the U.S. who oppose walking away from the conflict without progress on Iran’s nuclear program and leaving Tehran in full control of the strait has forced his hand to launch retaliatory strikes after Iran’s attacks on shipping. Analysts point out that Trump significantly underestimated Tehran’s commitment to asserting regional dominance and control over the strait, relying instead on the promise of economic benefits to force compliance with the memorandum.

Looking ahead, the most likely outcome is not a return to the all-out full-scale war that preceded the April ceasefire, nor is a lasting permanent peace agreement on the horizon. Instead, the region is set to return to the precarious status quo that held between the April 8 initial ceasefire and the June 17 memorandum: a frozen conflict that falls below the threshold of all-out war, but offers no path to substantive peace. Over the coming months, experts expect tit-for-tat strikes to continue, with the Strait of Hormuz remaining partially closed and maritime security in the waterway highly uncertain.

Longstanding neighbors and once-close partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia are seeing mounting geopolitical and economic tensions spill over into the business sector, bringing significant disruptions to cross-border commerce and financial transactions. Multiple independent reports published in recent weeks have confirmed that delays at the primary land crossing connecting the two nations have stretched into days, and in some extreme cases, more than a week, leaving commercial truck drivers stranded without clearance to enter Saudi territory.

Media outlet Semafor first reported Thursday that wait times for border crossing have steadily worsened over the past several months, with some drivers forced to camp out under their vehicle trailers for up to seven days while awaiting administrative approval to proceed. These trade disruptions follow weeks of unconfirmed reports of blocked and delayed bank transfers originating from Saudi institutions and bound for UAE-based accounts, a situation that was corroborated this week by reporting from the *Financial Times*. According to the *Financial Times*, payments from Saudi banks to corporate and personal accounts held by Dubai-based individuals and companies have been either returned to senders or put on indefinite hold since May, with most affected parties receiving no official explanation for the disruption.

The emerging pattern of trade and financial friction echoes the opening stages of the 2014 Gulf rift that saw Saudi Arabia and the UAE lead a years-long economic and diplomatic blockade of Qatar, a crisis that reshaped regional alliances for a decade. Today, the shifting landscape of Middle Eastern geopolitics has flipped traditional alignment patterns, with Saudi Arabia now moving closer to Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt, while the UAE has diverged from Riyadh’s policy agenda and deepened its strategic partnership with Israel.

Geopolitical disagreements have played out openly across multiple regional conflicts in recent months. The two Gulf powers back opposing factions in Sudan’s ongoing civil war, while in Yemen and Somalia, the UAE has provided open support to secessionist movements that Saudi Arabia openly opposes. Tensions over Yemen boiled over into open crisis last December, when the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) launched a major offensive against forces aligned with Saudi Arabia. Riyadh responded with direct airstrikes targeting STC positions, forcing the UAE to withdraw its military personnel from the country.

Beyond geopolitics, the two nations are increasingly direct economic competitors as both pursue ambitious growth and diversification agendas. The most high-profile public split came in May, when the UAE withdrew from the Saudi-led OPEC production bloc over long-running disagreements about mandatory oil output limits. As the largest economy in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia has accelerated its push to diversify beyond oil dependence, investing heavily in expanding its presence in global critical minerals markets, international tourism, and regional logistics networks — sectors that have long been core strengths of the UAE’s open economy.

This is not the first time trade frictions have emerged between the two GCC members. While the GCC has maintained a regional free trade agreement for decades, Saudi Arabia implemented new rules in 2021 that stripped products manufactured in UAE free trade zones of preferential tariff treatment. The UAE hosts more than 45 dedicated free trade zones across the country, including the massive Jebel Ali Port, one of the busiest cargo hubs in the Middle East. Under the 2021 rules, Saudi authorities began targeting goods bearing a “Made in the UAE” label that Riyadh determined did not meet requirements for local production value addition.

The regulatory crackdown also coincided with a sustained Saudi campaign to pressure multinational corporations to relocate their regional headquarters from traditional bases in Dubai to Riyadh, as part of the kingdom’s Vision 2030 economic transformation plan. Analysts note that the ongoing trade and banking disruptions represent the most tangible sign of how deep the rift between the two once-close allies has become, raising questions about the future cohesion of the GCC and the stability of cross-border commerce across the Gulf region.

On Wednesday, the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan (FFMS) published a fresh batch of harrowing survivor testimonies collected from the aftermath of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) capture of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. The new accounts reinforce the mission’s earlier finding that the RSF, Sudan’s powerful paramilitary group, has carried out acts of genocide targeting non-Arab communities in the region.

Established by the UN Human Rights Council as an independent oversight body, the FFMS is tasked with documenting violations of international human rights and humanitarian law amid the ongoing civil conflict that erupted between the RSF and Sudan’s regular armed forces (SAF) in April 2023. Since its last public update in February, the mission has expanded its evidence base to 333 interviews with people who survived the el-Fasher offensive, adding 13 new firsthand accounts that solidify its original assessment.

The mission reaffirmed Wednesday that three core elements required to classify atrocities as genocide under international law are overwhelmingly present in attacks carried out by the RSF in and around el-Fasher: the systematic killing of members of the targeted non-Arab groups, the infliction of severe physical and psychological harm, and the deliberate imposition of living conditions designed to eradicate the group. Investigators added that clear genocidal intent can be inferred from multiple patterns observed during the offensive: the large-scale scope of targeted killings, the consistent use of ethnically charged rhetoric by RSF commanders and foot soldiers, and the deliberate practice of sparing Arab civilians while attacking, detaining, or sexually assaulting non-Arab residents.

Currently, the mission is conducting a formal review to determine whether the widespread patterns of sexual violence documented in el-Fasher — including mass rape, forced pregnancy, and the deliberate denial of reproductive health care to non-Arab communities — qualify as a fourth act of genocide: measures intended to prevent births within the targeted group, as defined under Article II(d) of the UN Genocide Convention.

Beyond documenting atrocities committed by the RSF itself, the FFMS also addressed the potential legal complicity of foreign states that continue to provide military, financial, logistical, or intelligence support to the paramilitary group. Under Article I of the Genocide Convention, all states hold a binding legal obligation to prevent acts of genocide. The mission noted that any state that continues to supply support to the RSF despite awareness of a credible risk of genocide could be found in violation of this obligation, and may face allegations of complicity under Article III(e) of the convention in some cases.

Extensive independent reporting, including multiple investigations by Middle East Eye, has repeatedly linked the United Arab Emirates to the provision of arms and other critical supplies to the RSF, claims the UAE has repeatedly denied. Sudan previously attempted to file a formal genocide case against the UAE at the International Court of Justice, but the proceedings were unable to move forward after the UAE invoked a reservation it made to Article IX of the Genocide Convention, which excludes the ICJ’s jurisdiction over such disputes against the country. However, the FFMS emphasized that other states that supply the RSF have not made similar reservations, leaving them vulnerable to identical legal claims in the future. In recent weeks, international human rights organizations have submitted two formal communications to the International Criminal Court calling for an investigation into the role of foreign actors, specifically senior UAE officials, for aiding and abetting RSF atrocities.

“The obligation to prevent arises at the instant a State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide may be committed,” the FFMS wrote in its conference room paper. “It is an obligation of conduct rather than result, requiring States to employ all means reasonably available to them, within their capacity to influence the relevant actors, to prevent the commission of genocide.” The mission issued an immediate call for all states to halt all flows of weapons, ammunition, and logistical support to the RSF and its allied militias, a move that would comply with the existing UN arms embargo on Darfur.

The new testimonies released Wednesday add graphic, previously undisclosed details of atrocities carried out by RSF fighters during and after the October 2024 takeover of el-Fasher. Investigators confirmed that foreign fighters have been identified among RSF ranks, and that many of these fighters have participated in acts of sexual violence against non-Arab civilians. RSF fighters are readily identifiable by their distinctive sandy-colored uniforms.

One newly published account describes RSF fighters storming a takiya, a communal shelter for displaced civilians, on October 26. Fighters killed men, women, and children inside the shelter indiscriminately. As a survivor attempted to flee with her husband, fighters grabbed the woman and raped her. When her husband tried to intervene, one fighter slit his throat with a knife, killing him instantly. In another incident, RSF fighters stormed El Saudi Hospital, a major medical facility in el-Fasher, killed wounded civilians sheltering inside its wards, and raped multiple women within the hospital grounds.

In the town of Shagra, one witness told investigators that RSF fighters stopped a convoy of civilians attempting to escape the city, then gang-raped between 15 and 20 women and girls, some as young as 13 years old. One of the victims, a woman in her 70s, later died from the injuries she sustained during the attack. Along the road leading to Tawila, a survivor recounted being intercepted by RSF fighters alongside a group of women. Fighters separated several of the women to rape them while forcing the other women to watch, telling the waiting group, “Sit here until we ‘marry’ your sister.”

Multiple testimonies confirm that fighters explicitly targeted and spared civilians based on their ethnicity. In one incident, a RSF fighter who had already begun assaulting a woman stopped when she told she belonged to the Arab Fallati tribe, saying “you are my cousin” and allowing her to leave unharmed. Another woman was released after claiming membership in the Masri neighborhood, which is majority Arab. The testimonies also include new accounts of brutal sexual violence: multiple survivors described rapes committed with sharp objects, which resulted in at least one victim’s death, and witnesses reported that perpetrators laughed while carrying out their assaults.

The FFMS also documented that women who resisted rape or attempted to protect their family members were extrajudicially killed by RSF fighters. On the road to Tawila, a mother was shot dead after trying to stop fighters from abducting her daughters. Two young women being held captive by the RSF were killed immediately after fighting off an attempted rape. The mission also received multiple new accounts of abductions of women and girls, which investigators are treating as part of a broader pattern of enforced disappearances. One witness described seeing RSF fighters tie the hands of three girls she knew, force them into a military vehicle, and drive away.

Newly recorded statements from RSF fighters further reinforce the ethnic motivation behind the atrocities. Direct quotes from fighters include statements such as “The Rapid Support Forces are above everything” and “Any Zaghawa we will capture will not survive the night.” Investigators said these statements confirm that ethnicity is the primary criterion used to target victims for killing and sexual violence.

The testimonies also lay bare the horrific conditions faced by thousands of civilians detained by the RSF after fleeing el-Fasher. The FFMS confirmed that detainees were first held in makeshift facilities across el-Fasher, including local schools, El Saudi Hospital, and abandoned government buildings, before being transferred to the main prison in Nyala — known as Daqris Prison — by the end of 2024. Daqris Prison was already severely overcrowded with detainees captured in other regions of Sudan, but thousands of additional el-Fasher detainees were sent there anyway. Thousands of detainees remain in the facility to this day, held without any formal legal process, denied access to legal counsel and blocked from receiving visits from family members. Even humanitarian workers who attempted to gain access to the detention sites have themselves been detained by the RSF.

Former government employees — particularly teachers and doctors — were separated from the general detainee population and face a far higher risk of extrajudicial killing, the mission found. In many cases, these separated detainees have not been seen again by family members or witnesses. At a former children’s hospital in el-Fasher that the RSF repurposed as a detention and execution site, detainees were forced to drink contaminated water, resulting in a cholera outbreak that killed multiple people in custody.

Conditions inside the besieged El Saudi Hospital during and after the RSF offensive were also documented: medical staff ran out of critical supplies, forcing them to clean open wounds with only salt water. Specialists reported that they lacked the equipment and medication needed to provide adequate medical and psychological care to survivors of rape. Women who became pregnant as a result of rape were forced to seek unsafe illegal abortions due to the lack of timely reproductive care, and several of these women died from hemorrhage. Pregnant women across el-Fasher also suffered higher rates of stress-induced premature labor due to constant shelling and violence.

On the question of command responsibility for the atrocities, the FFMS presented verified video evidence placing RSF deputy commander Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo at the captured 6th Infantry Division base in el-Fasher delivering a speech between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on October 26, just hours after the RSF secured control of the city. Dagalo was also spotted in el-Fasher two days after the takeover and again on November 4. The commander has already been sanctioned by the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the UN Security Council for his role in overseeing the RSF’s military campaign in Darfur.

The FFMS shared the final draft of its new report with Sudan’s transitional government on July 3 but has not received any formal response to date. The RSF answered a small number of questions from investigators in a June 7 letter but has not followed through on public promises to meet with investigators, the mission confirmed.

The release of these new findings comes just days after the FFMS issued an urgent warning that the RSF appears to be preparing to replicate its el-Fasher offensive in another major Sudanese city: el-Obeid, home to more than 500,000 permanent residents plus more than 100,000 people who have already been displaced from el-Fasher and other war-ravaged regions. During an urgent debate at the UN Human Rights Council on July 3, FFMS member Mona Rishmawi reported that the RSF has built up military forces on all approach routes to el-Obeid except the eastern corridor. Local residents have reported a sharp increase in drone strikes targeting critical infrastructure including power stations, fuel depots, water treatment facilities, and transport routes, alongside repeated strikes on hospitals, markets, schools, and residential neighborhoods.

“We have seen this modus operandi by the RSF before. In El-Fasher and elsewhere, growing encirclement was followed by restrictions on movement, disruption of aid and food supplies, damage to critical infrastructure, aerial and artillery bombardment and ultimately indiscriminate attacks against civilians,” Rishmawi told the council. “The warning signs are unmistakable.”

A decades-high number of British citizens moved to Israel in 2025, with 742 Britons completing the migration – the largest annual figure recorded since the 1980s. An investigation by Middle East Eye (MEE) has revealed that UK-registered charities and advocacy groups are actively facilitating this migration through structured programs, including subsidized travel, gap year placements, and direct migration support, many of which operate in violation of international law by accessing illegally occupied Palestinian and Syrian territories.

The most influential of these groups is the United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA), a UK charity that reported a £12.8 million ($17 million) annual income in 2024. UJIA’s public mission centers on cultivating a connection between young Jewish people in the UK and Israel through funding for travel and educational programs. The organization traces its roots back more than a century to Keren Hayesod, a global fundraising body established to support the Zionist movement and the state of Israel, which maintains formal institutional ties to the Israeli government. A 2010 cooperation agreement was signed between then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Keren Hayesod, which remains a registered UK charity in its own right and is still listed as UJIA’s parent affiliate. Neither organization responded to MEE’s requests for comment on the extent of their ongoing collaboration.

While UJIA does not publicly advertise direct migration (called Aliyah under Israeli law, which grants automatic citizenship to any Jewish person who immigrates), it lays early groundwork for permanent relocation through subsidized “birthright” tours and gap year programs. Keren Hayesod, by contrast, has partnered with the Israeli government to facilitate the migration of more than 3 million Jews to Israel since 1920.

MEE’s investigation found that multiple gap year programs promoted on UJIA’s official website include scheduled excursions into territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War, which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in July 2024 are held under unlawful occupation. For example, Aardvark, an Israeli-run organization, offers the UJIA-advertised Israel Classic Track 5-to-10 month gap year program, which includes weekly trips to sites in the occupied West Bank such as Ein Mabua Natural Spring and the Judean Desert. The group’s Tech Track and Culinary Track programs, also promoted by UJIA, add visits to Hebron, the occupied West Bank Palestinian city where illegal Israeli settlers are stationed under military protection, as well as the West Bank’s Herodian fortress and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights for overnight trips. Another UJIA-endorsed program, run by Israeli educational group Bina, also includes excursions to Hebron and the Golan Heights marketed as travel “throughout Israel.”

Beyond visits to occupied territories, the Aardvark program gives participants the option to join Marva, a voluntary Israeli military simulation course run jointly by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Jewish Agency for Israel. The program’s marketing frames it as a hands-on opportunity to experience IDF enlistment life, with participants living on an active IDF base for 6 to 8 weeks, wearing official Israeli military uniforms, carrying firearms, and receiving training in combat survival, navigation, self-defense, and field tactics. The IDF describes the program’s goal as giving participants a first-hand understanding of military service for Jewish youth from abroad.

UJIA also provides substantial funding to Bnei Akiva, the world’s largest religious Zionist youth movement, which operates 20 local branches across the UK. UJIA awarded £194,000 ($260,000) in grants to Bnei Akiva in 2023, following a £214,000 ($287,000) grant in 2022. Bnei Akiva’s UK operations are supported by the registered charity Friends of Bnei Akiva (Bachad), which reported a £141,735 ($189,000) income and £390,347 ($522,000) expenditure in 2025, with reserves totaling approximately £1.86 million ($2.5 million). The charity shares a registered address with Bnei Akiva UK’s London office and explicitly states its core activity is providing grants to the youth movement.

Like the other programs MEE investigated, Bnei Akiva’s gap year initiatives operate in illegally occupied West Bank settlements. The movement’s Mechina Olamit pre-army gap year program housed participants in Migdal Oz, an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank, listing the settlement as the program’s base on its website until shortly after MEE reached out for comment. While the international website was updated to list Jerusalem as the base, the FAQ section still confirms Mechina Olamit is based in Migdal Oz, where international participants live alongside Israeli peers. Google Maps records additional Bnei Akiva operations in multiple other illegal West Bank settlements, including Giv’at Ze’ev, Ofra, and Sha’arei Tikva. Bnei Akiva also posts images of its youth excursions to other occupied West Bank locations such as Wadi Qelt, framed as exploring “the beauty of Israel.”

While Bnei Akiva claims it does not require Mechina Olamit participants to enlist in the IDF, it confirms it prepares any participants who wish to join the military, offering specialized classes on military service and mandatory physical training three times a week. British program graduates have posted public testimonials describing the program as inspiring pre-enlistment preparation. Bnei Akiva’s UK-based Kadima gap year program also regularly sends participants to the Marva military course, posting public images of participants in IDF uniforms posing with firearms.

The movement’s stated core goal is to encourage permanent migration to Israel, and it has partnered with the Israeli Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption to facilitate more than 100,000 migrations since its founding in 1929. MEE was unable to clarify whether UK-raised charitable funds are used to support activities linked to the IDF or illegal settlements, as Bnei Akiva and UJIA declined to respond to questions on the topic. UJIA’s annual report claims its Israeli expenditures are “restricted to projects within its internationally recognised borders,” despite advertising programs that explicitly operate in occupied territories.

Legal experts from the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) note that the activities of these UK-based charities raise serious compliance issues under international law, following the ICJ’s 2024 ruling that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is unlawful and requires all states to avoid aiding or recognizing the illegal occupation. “The UK government cannot simply disregard that legal position; it is the authoritative statement of international law on the issue,” the ICJP told MEE, adding that the UK is legally obligated to prevent organizations operating within its jurisdiction from assisting the illegal occupation. “You cannot promote settlements or take participants there, because settlements themselves are illegal.”

On the Marva military program, the ICJP added that the activities go far beyond cultural or educational exchange: “Carrying guns, wearing uniforms and staying on an army base resembles pre-enlistment military training rather than cultural exchange.”

This investigation was published by Middle East Eye, an independent media outlet covering the Middle East and North Africa region.