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On a tense Monday in the Middle East, Yemen’s Houthi movement (officially Ansar Allah) made two sweeping announcements that sent ripples across the region: the group had launched a volley of missiles toward Israel, and it was imposing a full ban on all Israeli-flagged or affiliated maritime traffic traversing the Red Sea. Israeli media later confirmed the attack, noting that all incoming projectiles had been successfully intercepted by Israeli air defenses.

This formal declaration marks the Houthi’s official re-entry into open conflict against Israel, part of the Iran-aligned bloc known as the Axis of Resistance. The group has pledged to ramp up its operations until Israel halts military actions against Palestinian groups, Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah, and Iranian targets across the region.

Hours after the Houthi statement, Esmail Qaani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, doubled down on the bloc’s unified posture. In a public address on Monday, Qaani announced that a new coordinated “security belt” of the Axis of Resistance would stretch from the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance of the Persian Gulf all the way to the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern mouth of the Red Sea. He praised the Houthi’s latest actions as clear proof of deepening coordination among Iran-aligned groups, warning that the entire Resistance Front would respond collectively to any Israeli or American military moves in the region, and that additional factions would join the fight if escalation continues. “From the Strait of Hormuz to Bab al-Mandab and from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, a new security belt of the Resistance will be established,” Qaani said, adding that continued “aggression” from Israel and its allies would trigger a broader regional response.

Iran had already issued a stark warning the prior week: if Israel does not end its ongoing regional military campaign, the bloc will escalate by closing the Bab al-Mandab strait, a critical global maritime chokepoint that borders southeastern Yemen and carries roughly 10% of global maritime trade and 12% of global oil shipments. As the group that already controls most of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline and has targeted Israeli, American, and British-affiliated shipping in the region since 2023, the Houthis are the only faction in the bloc with the capacity to enforce such a closure.

The Houthi’s decision to re-escalate has exposed deep divisions within Yemeni society, where a decade of brutal civil war has already left millions grappling with humanitarian catastrophe and displacement. For some Yemenis, like 48-year-old Sanaa resident and independent food distributor Ahmed Al-Faqeeh, the move is a necessary and honorable stand in solidarity with co-religionists under attack across Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran.

Al-Faqeeh, who has no affiliation with the Houthis or any other Yemeni political faction, says the ongoing violence against Palestinian and allied groups demands a unified response from all Muslims. “It isn’t in accordance with Islam or humanity to see our brothers being subjected to genocide and remain silent,” he told Middle East Eye in an interview. “All Muslim countries have a duty and must participate in this fight against the primary enemy of Muslims, Israel.” Al-Faqeeh has already taken personal action, boycotting all goods from companies linked to Israel, and says he is proud his country has chosen to take a public stand. Even after experiencing the 2025 Israeli air strikes on Sanaa that killed multiple senior government officials and civilians in retaliation for prior Houthi operations, Al-Faqeeh says past losses should not deter the group from continued action. He points to the 2023 Houthi Red Sea shipping campaign, which included the seizure of the Israeli-affiliated cargo ship Galaxy Leader and its 25-member crew (who were ultimately released in January 2025 via Omani mediation) as proof that Yemeni action has had an outsized impact that other regional nations have failed to match. Al-Faqeeh added that Yemen has held a consistent opposition to Israel since the 1973 October War, when the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen collaborated with Egypt to enforce a Red Sea naval blockade on Israel targeting oil and cargo shipments bound for the southern Israeli port of Eilat.

But for many other Yemenis, who have already lived through 11 years of civil war that has killed an estimated 377,000 people and displaced more than 4.5 million, the prospect of dragging Yemen into a wider regional conflict is a nightmare they cannot bear. Ahmed Daghez, a 39-year-old bus driver who travels regularly between Houthi-held Sanaa and government-controlled Taiz, has seen the human cost of war firsthand: his childhood home in Taiz now sits in an active frontline conflict zone, and he has not been able to access it for years. “Eleven years of internal war is more than enough. The damage that has already occurred will take decades to rebuild, so we don’t need to be involved in a regional war that could have an even worse impact on us,” Daghez said. He still remembers the terror of the 2025 Israeli air strikes on Sanaa, and fears Israel could expand its attacks on Yemeni territory if the Houthis continue their campaign. “Wars bring nothing good; it is simply a source of misery. If the Houthis escalate further in this war, they could drag Yemen into a regional conflict that the country simply cannot afford,” he added.

Critics of the Houthi move go further, arguing that the group is acting as a proxy for Iranian regional interests rather than prioritizing the well-being of the Yemeni people. Mohammed Ali, a veteran Yemeni journalist, argues that the Houthis’ decision to re-escalate directly follows Iran’s threat to close the Bab al-Mandab, and that all key strategic decisions are made in Tehran, not Sanaa. “As a Yemeni, I don’t feel the Houthis care about us; they only care about their own interests. Iran helped them seize control of northern Yemen, and now they must serve Iranian interests,” Ali said. “The decision-making power is not in the Houthis’ hands, but in Iran’s. This was clearly reflected in the recent threats made by Iran.” Ali notes that the Bab al-Mandab has become an increasingly critical energy shipping route in recent months, as exports through Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz have dropped sharply amid ongoing regional tensions. He predicts that the Houthis will follow Iran’s lead and announce a temporary pause on Red Sea attacks in the coming days, pointing out that even after Iran announced a temporary halt to its own strikes against Israel on Monday morning, the Houthis launched another attack overnight. Late Monday, the Israeli military confirmed it had intercepted a suspicious aerial target originating from Yemen over the southern city of Eilat. Separately, Saudi Arabia announced Monday afternoon that a ballistic missile launched from Yemen had landed in an unpopulated area near the Saudi-Yemen border, after veering off course while en route to another country in the region.

A recent peer collaborative study has uncovered far-reaching environmental contamination stemming from ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza, with dangerous “forever chemicals” spreading across agricultural lands and water sources in southern Israel, miles away from the conflict zone. The research was carried out by a cross-institutional team of specialists from four leading Israeli bodies: Hebrew University, the country’s Ministry of Health, the Volcani Institute, and the Southern Arava Agricultural Research Organisation.

The investigation identified per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class of persistent synthetic industrial compounds, in potato samples harvested from dozens of cultivated fields located along Israel’s border with Gaza. Beyond agricultural produce, detectable levels of PFAS pollution were also recorded in soil and groundwater wells as far as 19 kilometers from the Gaza boundary. Research teams concluded that the chemical contaminants were most likely dispersed by wind currents after being released from military explosives detonated during Israel’s two-year military campaign in Gaza, laying bare the cross-border environmental fallout of the ongoing conflict.

Widely nicknamed “forever chemicals” for their ability to resist breakdown in both natural ecosystems and the human body, PFAS pose well-documented severe long-term health risks. Multiple public health studies have linked prolonged exposure to certain PFAS compounds to irreversible damage to reproductive and immune system function, abnormal developmental outcomes for fetuses, and a significantly elevated risk of several aggressive forms of cancer. Prior to this new finding, national data already showed that PFAS contamination is a widespread issue across Israel: roughly 15% of the country’s drinking water wells and 70% of its agricultural water sources carry PFAS residues, forcing authorities to shut down a number of major public water wells in recent years.

Beyond toxic chemical contamination, the conflict has also generated unprecedented carbon emissions that exacerbate the global climate crisis. Analysis published by the Social Science Research Network estimates that greenhouse gas emissions from the first 15 months of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza alone exceed the total annual emissions of more than 100 sovereign nations. When accounting for the full climate cost of the conflict – including emissions from the destruction of infrastructure, debris removal, and eventual post-conflict reconstruction – the total carbon footprint is projected to surpass 31 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. That figure is higher than the entire 2023 annual emissions of countries including Costa Rica, Afghanistan, and Zimbabwe.

Cumulatively, researchers calculate that the total climate impact of Israel’s recent military operations in Gaza, Lebanon, and earlier confrontations in Yemen and Iran equals the annual emissions output of 84 full-scale gas-fired power plants. This pattern of environmental harm tied to Israeli occupation and military action stretches back decades. Following the 1948 Nakba, when Zionist forces ethnically cleansed hundreds of Palestinian communities and destroyed hundreds of villages, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) planted extensive monoculture pine forests across the ruins of these displaced communities. A 2013 investigation by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel confirmed that these JNF projects caused catastrophic, long-lasting damage to native biodiversity in the region. In 2021, Palestinian agricultural officials told Middle East Eye that decades of environmental disruption have led to a sharp, steady decline in Palestinian agricultural output over the past ten years. Gaza’s already fragile environment and public health infrastructure have been disproportionately impacted by decades of Israeli occupation, military action, and climate change.

This reporting was produced by Middle East Eye, an independent outlet providing specialized, in-depth coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), the world’s only permanent tribunal prosecuting genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, has entered an unprecedented period of crisis and uncertainty, after its governing body voted to suspend its chief prosecutor Karim Khan in a move critics decry as politically motivated, unlawful, and a threat to the court’s core integrity.

Khan, a seasoned British barrister and former United Nations official elected as the ICC’s third chief prosecutor in 2021, has been at the center of escalating global pressure since his office moved forward with long-awaited arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories. The investigation into Palestinian war crimes was launched months before Khan took office by his predecessor Fatou Bensouda, who faced years of covert pressure, threats, and surveillance from Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in an unsuccessful bid to shut the probe down. That surveillance and pressure extended directly to Khan after he took office.

Months after Khan formally applied for the Netanyahu-Gallant arrest warrants in May 2024, which the court issued that November, a former staff member brought sexual misconduct allegations against the prosecutor, which Khan has vehemently denied from the start. Following two stalled internal investigations, the Bureau of the Assembly of State Parties (ASP) – the ICC’s executive governing body – commissioned an independent external investigation through the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). The ASP then appointed a panel of independent judges to review the OIOS findings, which in March 2025 delivered a unanimous ruling clearing Khan of any wrongdoing, concluding no evidence of misconduct or breach of duty had been established.

In a highly unconventional move that broke with the court’s own established procedures, a majority of the 21-member ASP Bureau voted Monday to disregard the independent judicial panel’s findings and move forward with Khan’s suspension. Even Ben Swanson, the former assistant secretary-general of OIOS who oversaw the investigation, submitted evidence to the ASP confirming that neither the final report nor underlying evidence met the standard of proof required to support a finding of misconduct. Khan’s legal team has called the suspension “unlawful, procedurally unfair and unsupported by evidence,” and has pledged to challenge the decision through all available legal channels.

The suspension comes amid years of escalating public and covert pressure on Khan from major world powers opposed to the ICC’s Palestinian war crimes investigation. In an explosive interview with Middle East Eye last month, Khan detailed the extraordinary intimidation he has faced: U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham explicitly threatened sanctions if he moved forward with the warrants, while then-British Foreign Secretary David Cameron warned the UK would withdraw from the court and cut its funding (the UK is one of the ICC’s largest contributors) if the warrants were issued. Shortly after Donald Trump returned to the U.S. presidency in January 2025, the U.S. imposed sweeping sanctions on Khan, later expanding sanctions to include two of his deputy prosecutors, eight ICC judges, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Palestine, and multiple Palestinian NGOs that provided evidence for the investigation. Russia also sanctioned Khan after he issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Khan has repeatedly argued that the misconduct allegations are a baseless, biased campaign to oust him over his commitment to pursuing the Palestinian war crimes investigation. He warned last month that the push to remove him has pushed the ICC into uncharted, dangerous territory, creating a precedent that allows political pressure to remove independently elected court officials on flimsy, unfounded grounds.

“ If a process can be suborned, if it can be subverted, if it can be undermined, because state appointees and diplomats, for whatever reason, think they know better, then this is a template for getting rid of any elected official, now or in the future, on spurious or flimsy or fabricated or unfounded grounds,” Khan told MEE.

Critics within the ICC membership have echoed these warnings. Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Andreas Kravik, speaking to MEE last week, emphasized that the ASP Bureau is bound to respect the court’s own established procedures for handling misconduct claims. “Otherwise, there will be at least a perception of politicisation of the process. And that would hurt the integrity of the court,” Kravik said. “That’s something that we cannot afford, especially in this time when the court is under real pressure by other states and where certain states are trying, at the best of their ability, to portray the court as a politicised entity not operating in conformity with core principles of international law.”

Khan has been on formal leave for over a year, and his removal will now go to a full vote of all 125 ICC member states at a special ASP session the Bureau has pledged to convene shortly. Under ASP rules, a two-thirds majority of voting member states must first uphold the Bureau’s finding of serious misconduct, followed by a second vote requiring an absolute majority of at least 63 votes to remove Khan from office permanently.

If the full ASP votes to remove Khan, the prosecutor has confirmed he will appeal the decision to the International Labour Organization Administrative Tribunal (ILOAT), the independent body that handles employment disputes for ICC staff. A former International Court of Justice judge, Abdul Koroma, issued a legal opinion last month warning that the ILOAT could order Khan’s reinstatement and order the ICC to pay up to €1.5 million in damages if his removal is found unlawful.

In a statement following the suspension vote, the ASP Bureau defended its action, noting its assessment drew on the OIOS report, underlying evidence, judicial advice, and written submissions, and added that all materials would remain confidential to protect the privacy and rights of all parties involved.

Today, both Khan’s future as chief prosecutor and the long-term integrity and legitimacy of the International Criminal Court hang in the balance, as the institution faces an unprecedented test of its ability to resist political pressure from major global powers and uphold its mandate to deliver impartial international justice.

In western Afghanistan’s Herat city, a rare public demonstration against the Taliban’s recent mass detention of women accused of violating hardline Islamic dress rules has ended in chaos, with conflicting accounts of violence that have drawn international condemnation.

The protest unfolded earlier this month, days after local Taliban authorities launched a new crackdown on women perceived to be failing to comply with mandatory hijab regulations. The enforcement push, announced publicly on Friday, saw morality police from the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice begin stopping vehicles and patrolling public spaces from Saturday onward, checking women’s compliance with the dress code. Multiple eyewitnesses confirmed to the BBC that they had directly observed women being taken into custody for non-compliance, though local Herat government officials have dismissed reports of dozens of arrests as false rumor.

Both men and women joined the street demonstration to oppose the detentions, in one of the most high-profile public challenges to Taliban rule since the group retook full control of Afghanistan in August 2021. Witnesses and participating protesters allege that Taliban security forces responded with excessive force, deploying batons, whips, and live ammunition to break up the gathering. One protester told AFP that officers fired shots into the air to scare crowds, while a press photographer on the scene confirmed seeing security forces strike demonstrators and fire weapons toward the assembled crowd. “A significant number of people were injured” based on his direct observation, the photographer stated, adding that the incident left local residents “extremely frightened.”

Videos circulated widely on social media in the aftermath of the crackdown, with audio that clearly captures the sound of gunfire and women screaming in distress as they plead for security forces to stop beating demonstrators. In one viral clip, protesters can be heard chanting three core demands: “education, work, freedom.”

Conflicting accounts of casualties have since emerged. Local medics told the BBC that two people were killed in the incident, though they did not confirm the cause of death, and multiple others were left wounded. Taliban authorities have pushed back on these claims: Herat Police spokesperson Sayed Masoud Hosseini denied any fatalities occurred, while acknowledging that officers had intervened in the protest to “ensure security and maintain public order.” Hosseini argued that the demonstration had “disturbed public order” and claimed protesters were “creating tension under the pretext of protesting issues related to the observance of hijab, which is considered a divine obligation.” The BBC has not been able to independently verify the conflicting claims of violence and casualties.

The incident has drawn immediate pushback from the international human rights community. Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur tasked with monitoring human rights conditions in Afghanistan, posted on social platform X that he was “alarmed by excessive use of force against seemingly peaceful protesters in Herat,” calling for all those responsible for the violence to be “held accountable.”

Public opposition to Taliban policy, particularly demonstrations led by women, has been extremely rare over the three years since the group returned to power. Early, small-scale attempts by women to protest the sweeping restrictions imposed on their access to education, employment, and public life gradually died out after harsh crackdowns: multiple women told the BBC they were intimidated into silence after experiencing beatings, arbitrary detention, verbal abuse, and even death threats including threats of execution by stoning. The mandatory hijab rule, imposed on all women across Afghanistan in May 2022, is one of dozens of restrictive policies that have rolled back decades of progress on Afghan women’s rights and access to public life. Local residents report that since the new crackdown began in Herat, public markets that once drew large numbers of female shoppers have been left largely empty, as women fear leaving their homes to avoid arbitrary arrest.