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Mali’s years-long internal conflict has entered a new phase of shifting alliances and diplomatic outreach, with the Tuareg separatist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) confirming it has held direct, tactical communications with Russia’s Africa Corps and publicly calling for open dialogue with Turkey to facilitate a negotiated political settlement to the country’s deepening crisis. The revelations came in an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye from FLA spokesperson Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, who detailed the complex web of battlefield coordination and competing political goals shaping the current conflict.

Today, the FLA is fighting alongside Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-aligned armed coalition, against Mali’s military-led government. The two factions have coordinated a series of successful offensives in recent months, capturing multiple urban centers and military outposts, blockading the capital Bamako, and even killing senior government military leadership including Defense Minister Sadio Camara. Despite this operational alignment, Ramadane emphasized that the two groups hold fundamentally divergent end goals: the FLA seeks to establish an autonomous independent state of Azawad in Mali’s resource-rich northeast, while JNIM’s core objective is to overthrow the Bamako government entirely.

The current military landscape in Mali is a dramatic reversal of just a decade ago, when French and Western coalition troops were deployed to prop up the Malian state against JNIM and its predecessor extremist groups. Today, the Malian junta relies on military support from Moscow, which first deployed Wagner Group mercenaries to the country in 2022. Following the short-lived Wagner mutiny against the Kremlin in 2023, the group’s Malian operations were reorganized into the official Russia Africa Corps.

A major FLA-JNIM offensive in April exposed critical weaknesses in Russia’s military deployment in northern Mali, with Africa Corps personnel withdrawing from the strategic northern city of Kidal shortly before FLA fighters seized full control of the area. By July, as fighting intensified around Anefis, a town located roughly 100 kilometers southeast of Kidal, unconfirmed reports began to circulate of informal arrangements between the FLA and Africa Corps.

Ramadane confirmed for the first time that direct contacts between the separatist group and Russia’s Africa Corps have indeed taken place, but stressed these communications are strictly tactical in nature and do not amount to formal political negotiations or a strategic shift toward rapprochement. “I can confirm that there were direct contacts in certain contexts, notably around questions related to movements, withdrawals and the situation in certain areas,” Ramadane told Middle East Eye. “In a conflict, there are sometimes channels of communication with the adversary to avoid incidents, manage certain situations or facilitate occasional arrangements. This does not mean that the political objectives of the parties have become compatible.”

The FLA spokesperson also stressed that the northeastern Azawad region must not be allowed to devolve into a proxy battleground for competing foreign powers, even as the group pursues new diplomatic overtures to Turkey. Over the past decade, Ankara has steadily expanded its diplomatic, economic, and military footprint in Mali, emerging as a key external partner for the Bamako junta. Since 2023, Turkey has supplied armed drones and other military hardware to the Malian government, and bilateral trade between the two countries has tripled since 2014. According to reporting from Le Monde, arms and ammunition made up 20 percent of all Turkish exports to Mali in 2024, making it Ankara’s top export category to the country ahead of electronics, industrial machinery, and cereals.

Ramadane acknowledged Turkey’s deepening ties to the Malian junta, noting that Turkish-supplied drones have allegedly been used in strikes that have caused civilian casualties in Azawad. “We note that Turkey has considerably developed its relations with the criminal junta in Bamako, particularly in the sale of drones,” he said. However, he argued that Ankara’s growing influence positions it uniquely to facilitate dialogue, and the FLA is not calling for Turkey to cut its ties with the Bamako government. “We do not ask Turkey to break its relations with the military junta. We ask it to look at the Malian reality in all its complexity and not to consider the question of Azawad solely through the prism of the authorities in Bamako,” Ramadane explained.

The FLA is seeking to open direct channels of dialogue with the Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, rather than limiting engagement to only military channels, Ramadane added. He emphasized that the outreach is not an attempt to recruit a new foreign military patron. “We do not ask Turkey to take a military side with the FLA. We ask it first to listen and understand,” he said. “Turkey’s influence in Africa and the Muslim world, combined with its close relationship with Bamako, gave it a particular responsibility. We do not ask Turkey to choose between Mali and Azawad. We ask it to contribute to ensuring that peace is not imposed on Azawad but negotiated with it. Our essential message is this: we are not seeking foreign patrons for our cause, we are seeking partners capable of contributing to a just, lasting political solution consistent with the aspirations of the populations concerned.”

A senior Turkish official familiar with African affairs responded to the FLA’s outreach, confirming that Ankara is open to engaging with a broad range of actors in Mali. “Ankara was open to dialogue with a range of actors and that channels could be found if the FLA wanted to engage with the Turkish government,” the official told Middle East Eye. “However, it doesn’t mean that we will take their side and be part of the internal conflict of a foreign state. But we would listen to them.”

Alongside its diplomatic overtures to Russia and Turkey, the FLA once again clarified the nature of its current cooperation with JNIM, stressing that operational coordination on the battlefield does not constitute a formal political alliance. Ramadane acknowledged that the two groups have grown closer operationally out of a shared opposition to the Malian junta and Russian military presence, but their core political projects remain distinct. “It is first necessary to distinguish two things that are often deliberately confused: operational convergence on the ground and political alliance,” he said.

Following coordinated April offensives across northern and central Mali, the two groups launched a second wave of coordinated attacks in July, including heavy clashes around Anefis and targeted strikes on military positions in Gao and Aguelhok. Ramadane argued that the ad-hoc cooperation is a pragmatic response to current battlefield conditions, not a merging of political goals. Any lasting peace agreement, he emphasized, must explicitly address the longstanding political demands for Azawad’s self-determination. “The FLA remains an Azawadian political and military organisation whose project responds to the aspirations of the people of Azawad,” he said. “That being said, lasting peace in Mali and Azawad will necessarily have to take into account the realities on the ground.”

Ramadane also argued that JNIM, which now draws the vast majority of its membership from Malian citizens, cannot be sidelined in any future peace process. “It is impossible to make peace in Mali or speak of stability without including JNIM,” he said, adding that the group has increasingly begun to articulate a political platform focused on local grievances, rather than only a transnational extremist agenda.

A prominent French actress and longtime gender-based violence activist Adele Haenel has become the center of a fierce free speech controversy after her on-air remarks condemning Israeli actions in Gaza resulted in the full removal of her television appearance from public access.

Haenel’s September 9 guest slot on France 5, a public French television channel, was originally arranged to promote her debut book, which details her decades-long fight for accountability over sexual abuse she endured as a child minor at the hands of acclaimed French director Christophe Ruggia. Just months prior, in April 2024, a French court handed down a conviction against Ruggia for sexual assault, a landmark ruling that became a national flashpoint for conversations about systemic silence around sexual violence in the French film industry.

The talk show she joined is structured around open, unfiltered debate, with a core premise that invited guests are granted full latitude to share their perspectives. During her segment, Haenel read a prepared statement to the live studio audience, drawing a thematic connection between the culture of silence that protects perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence and the global lack of accountability for what she described as widespread sexual violence against Palestinian people in Gaza perpetrated by Israeli forces.

In her unscripted closing remarks delivered live on air, Haenel stated plainly: “The State of Israel is committing genocide in Palestine, and France is complicit. Don’t accept the unacceptable; sanction Israel and liberate Palestine.” The statement was met with enthusiastic applause from the in-studio audience, but triggered immediate pushback from pro-Israel advocacy groups and far-right political actors, who filed formal complaints against the network.

Within 24 hours, on September 10, parent broadcaster France Televisions confirmed it had pulled the entire episode from its online replay platform, effectively erasing Haenel’s comments from public view.

In subsequent comments to French media, published in full by Middle East Eye, Haenel detailed how she intentionally altered her prepared remarks to name specific responsible parties. She explained that she had submitted a milder draft of her statement to producers ahead of the taping, because she was certain the full unedited text would be blocked from airing. That morning, she rehearsed the approved draft for production and technical teams, with no objections raised, even after sharing the modified script with the show’s lead producer that same day.

The key difference between the submitted draft and her live remarks, Haenel noted, was the explicit naming of the State of Israel as the perpetrator of genocide. “As long as there is no subject in the sentence, a genocide appears as an inevitable reality, a crime without a perpetrator,” she explained. “On the other hand, saying ‘the State of Israel is committing genocide’ points to this State as responsible for this ongoing crime against humanity.”

She further argued that naming the perpetrator forces Western governments, including France, to confront their own policy choices: namely, the decision not only to avoid acting to end the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, but to actively enable ongoing violence through arms sales to Israel. Haenel added that mainstream French media largely pushes a one-sided pro-Israel narrative that frames Palestinians as responsible for their own suffering, allowing Western governments to maintain a false veneer of innocence. This dynamic, she said, is what prompted the harsh media backlash and censorship of her comments.

The incident has reignited long-simmering debates in France over free speech, media bias and acceptable forms of protest against Israeli military action in Gaza, with free speech advocates decrying the removal of the episode as an act of overt political censorship.

Widespread public demonstrations have broken out across multiple regions of Syria after the government implemented sharp, emergency increases to domestic fuel prices, with demonstrators blocking critical transportation arteries, setting tires ablaze, and demanding the immediate resignation of the country’s energy minister amid growing public fury over skyrocketing living costs. As of mid-September 2026, protests have been documented in major urban centers and rural areas including Idlib, Hama, Raqqa, Deir al-Zor, Hasakah, and the town of Khan Sheikhoun, with protesters blocking oil tanker access in multiple border and countryside locations.

The price adjustments were formalized by Syria’s Permanent Committee for Pricing Petroleum Products and Mineral Resources in a new temporary price order, which took effect at midnight on Sunday of this week. Under the new framework, 95-octane gasoline now retails at 195 Syrian pounds (approximately $1.60) per liter, while 90-octane gasoline costs 185 Syrian pounds ($1.52) per liter – marking a 28% jump from pre-hike rates. Diesel saw an even steeper proportional increase, climbing 40% from 125 Syrian pounds per liter to 175 Syrian pounds per liter.

One of the most high-profile disruptions occurred on the M5 international highway, the critical trade and travel route connecting Aleppo and Damascus, where footage shows protesters blocking the road for several hours, burning debris, and chanting for the government to reverse the unpopular price decision.

In an official public statement, Energy Minister Mohammed al-Bashir defended the price increase, attributing the move to a perfect storm of persistent international market volatility and crippling domestic supply chain constraints. Minister al-Bashir explained that Syria has a total national demand of roughly 300,000 barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products per day, but domestic production only meets about one-third of that need, at approximately 100,000 barrels daily. As a result, the country is heavily dependent on imported fuel, with imports covering roughly 60% of the nation’s daily diesel consumption.

Syria’s reliance on foreign fuel has become far costlier in recent weeks amid ongoing geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran, which have disrupted global energy supply chains and key international shipping lanes including Bab al-Mandab, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden. Global crude oil prices have climbed above $100 per barrel amid continued shipping disruptions near the Strait of Hormuz, and repeated attacks on regional energy infrastructure and commercial vessels have amplified widespread concerns over fuel security across the Middle East.

Breaking down national diesel consumption, the Ministry of Energy reports Syria uses roughly 7.72 million liters of diesel per day: 4.63 million liters are imported, while only 3.09 million liters are produced domestically. Compounding domestic production shortfalls, much of the crude extracted within Syria is heavy crude, which is incompatible with the processing specifications of the country’s existing domestic refineries, further limiting the nation’s ability to replace imported fuel with local supplies.

Officials emphasized the price hike is a temporary emergency measure, and that rates will be re-evaluated regularly as global market conditions shift. They added that the current deficit has been worsened by scheduled ongoing maintenance at Baniyas Refinery, Syria’s largest fuel processing facility, which is expected to continue for approximately two months. Once the maintenance overhaul is completed, the refinery is projected to boost the country’s total domestic refining capacity, reducing long-term reliance on imports.

The widespread public unrest has pushed Syria’s national legislative body, the People’s Assembly, to summon Minister al-Bashir for a formal public hearing to answer questions about the fuel price decision. The hearing, requested by the chair of the Assembly’s Energy Committee, was approved under Article 30 of Syria’s constitutional declaration and Article 168 of the legislature’s internal rules. According to Syrian state outlet al-Ikhbariya, the hearing is scheduled for noon Thursday at the People’s Assembly headquarters in Damascus, where lawmaker will seek full clarification on the justifications for the increase and the policy considerations that shaped the government’s decision.

In a controversial move that has sparked global debate over free speech and accountability for military actions, Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar announced Sunday he will initiate legal action to strip citizenship from the creators of a hard-hitting new documentary that exposes an organized “system of killing” targeting Palestinian civilians in Gaza during Israel’s ongoing military campaign.

Titled NAZA, the film directed by Oscar-winning Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor took home the Special Jury Prize at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on Saturday, a recognition Zohar has decried as “shocking” and labeling the work itself “despicable”. Writing on the social platform X, Zohar argued that the filmmakers’ work amounts to treason, claiming they are driven by self-hatred and eager to undermine the Israeli state for praise from what he called antisemitic audiences across the globe. “The creators’ burning self-hatred, and their willingness to harm their homeland in order to receive applause from antisemites around the world, is beyond comprehension and constitutes a betrayal of the state,” Zohar stated. He added, “I will act immediately to revoke the Israeli citizenship of these despicable creators on the grounds of treason against the state.”

The feature-length documentary, which has earned unprecedented acclaim at major international film festivals, pulls back the curtain on the institutional structures that the filmmakers say enable the mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Drawing on on-the-record interviews with 24 anonymous current and former Israeli military and intelligence insiders, the film details how AI-powered tools are used to select bombing targets, even when commanders know the strikes will result in massive civilian casualties. One unnamed insider interviewed for the project recounted a single operation where the assassination of one high-profile Hamas figure was approved despite the expectation that it would kill up to 500 Palestinian civilians.

Following its world premiere at Venice on September 10, NAZA received a historic 24.5-minute standing ovation from audiences, marking one of the longest reception in the festival’s history. In comments after the award win, Abraham emphasized the urgent core of his work: “The core of the film is a system of killing that has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza,” he said, adding that independent estimates put the actual death toll far higher. He has called on the Israeli public to hear the testimonies directly, noting all insiders spoke in Hebrew so fellow citizens can understand firsthand what unfolded during military operations in the enclave.

The documentary has triggered fierce backlash from Israeli political and military leadership even as it gains international acclaim. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has issued a formal rejection of the film’s claims, arguing that the outlet cannot verify the identities or service backgrounds of the anonymous sources, questioning whether they actually served in the IDF or had direct knowledge of the operations they described. Prominent right-wing Israeli figures have doubled down on criticism: former defense minister and sitting member of parliament Avigdor Lieberman labeled Abraham and Szor “haters of Israel”, while Yoseph Haddad, a member of a new right-wing party that advocates for the permanent expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, called the film an “appalling” work that falsely accuses Israeli troops of genocide.

The debate over NAZA unfolds against the backdrop of a years-long military campaign in Gaza that has been widely condemned by the international community. Since the campaign began in 2023, Israeli military operations have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and wounded an additional 174,000 people, according to latest official counts from Gazan health authorities. Israeli forces have also imposed a total blockade on aid and commercial trade into the enclave, triggering widespread famine that was formally declared in Gaza City in August 2025. More than 70% of residential buildings, schools, and medical facilities across Gaza have been destroyed, pushing the 2.3 million-person population into what the United Nations describes as one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history. Multiple high-level international bodies, including a United Nations Commission of Inquiry, have issued formal findings concluding that Israel’s military actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide.

This documentary is far from the first account of systemic war crimes to emerge from the conflict; dozens of Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers have given anonymous testimonies to Israeli media outlets since the war began, detailing widespread violations of international law. Just last week, a reserve Israeli drone operator told leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz that senior commanders frame the entire population of Gaza as legitimate military targets. When the operator requested a formal list of approved targets earlier this year, he was told, “You have two million targets in Gaza.”

A major breakthrough by Houthi forces has upended military control along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, after a week-long offensive that began on September 3 captured key strategic sites including the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait and the coastal city of Mocha. The assault targeted multiple districts across southern Hodeidah — Hays and Al-Khawkha — and western Taiz governorate: Jabal Habashi, Maqbana, Mowza’a, and Al-Wazeyaha. These districts form a critical geographic link between Taiz’s mountainous interior and the Red Sea coastal plain, making them a high-priority objective for advancing forces.

Initially, troops aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognized government successfully repelled Houthi advances across both governorates, halting the group’s push toward Mocha for nearly seven days. But a surprise rapid overnight assault on Wednesday broke government lines, allowing Houthi fighters to seize Mocha in less than 24 hours. Pro-government units including the National Resistance Forces (NRF), the Nation’s Shield Forces (NSF), and the Giants Brigades (Al-Amaliqah) launched counterattacks to retake the city, but were ultimately forced to withdraw, falling back toward the Bab al-Mandab Strait and neighboring Lahj governorate.

By the following morning, Houthi forces had extended their gains to capture the Bab al-Mandab Strait itself and Mayyun Island, the strategic outpost that overlooks the critical waterway. Government troops pulled back further to the Ras al-A’ara area of Lahj, ceding full control of the strait to the Houthi movement. Throughout the fighting across Hodeidah and Taiz, Houthi forces held the initiative, leaving pro-government troops largely on the defensive, able to hold ground only in scattered sectors while ceding key territory elsewhere. Since the capture of Bab al-Mandab, Houthi forces have launched multiple missile strikes against remaining government positions past the strait, with the most intense clashes continuing to center on western Taiz, where fighters are pushing to secure additional territory across the governorate.

A pro-government fighter who escaped Mocha for Aden and spoke to Middle East Eye outlined the structural challenges that led to the government retreat. “We fought the Houthis for a week, but they received continuous reinforcements and relentless support from ground and air forces,” he explained. “We were divided into separate units, with each group taking orders from its own commander, leaving us scattered across the battlefield.” The fighter emphasized that his unit held its position for a full week before withdrawing, pushing back against public criticism of pro-government forces. “I am deeply hurt by the criticism directed at us. We were accused of fleeing by people who have no idea what actual battle entails,” he said. “When communication broke down amid the heaviest fighting, the retreat began. I am not trying to blame anyone, but when one group pulled back, the rest followed suit. We retreated to Mocha, and from there toward Bab al-Mandab and Ras al-A’ara.”

While minor clashes have erupted across six Yemeni governorates — Al-Jawf, Al-Bayda, Marib, Al-Dhale, Hodeidah, and Taiz — the most severe fighting remains concentrated in Taiz and the adjacent Red Sea coast. In response to the Houthi advance, the Yemeni Armed Forces announced it would deploy all available ground and air assets to target Houthi movements across an operational zone covering the Taiz–Mocha road, Jabal al-Nar, and Mocha itself, releasing a public target map alongside its statement. On September 10, official military spokesperson Colonel Majed al-Nuzaili urged civilians to avoid the Taiz–Mocha road until further notice and steer clear of all Houthi military concentrations. Since the announcement, government forces have launched air strikes against Houthi positions in Mocha and along the western coast to support a planned counteroffensive to retake the city, though no territorial gains have been reported to date.

Houthi officials have accused the Saudi-led coalition of conducting more than 100 air strikes across Yemen within a 48-hour period following the Houthi advance, though Saudi authorities have not yet claimed responsibility for the operations. The human cost of the offensive has already been severe: the NRF has confirmed more than 500 of its fighters were killed and over 1,500 wounded in the clashes. For civilians, the fallout has been even more widespread: the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports that more than 82,000 people have been displaced from their homes since fighting resumed on the west coast in early September. Thousands have fled beyond Yemen’s borders, with IOM confirming that over 2,000 people have reached the northern coast of Djibouti, landing at scattered sites near the town of Obock.

Despite the Yemeni government’s plans for a counteroffensive, morale among pro-government forces that retreated from the west coast remains severely damaged, creating major barriers to halting further Houthi advances in the near term. Yemeni political analyst Professor Abdulsattar al-Shamiri, CEO of the Johood Center for Studies and Research, attributed the government’s military setback to deep-rooted coordination failures among competing pro-government factions. “There are no explicit disagreements in the literal sense, but there are clear discrepancies in coordination methods,” al-Shamiri explained. “As for the setback that occurred in Mocha and the rest of the coastal areas, it stems from central factors — chief among them weak command and control, as the command structure within the Yemeni army units was not functioning as it should.”

Al-Shamiri added that multiple additional factors undermined government defenses, including a lack of effective air support. Today’s air operations do not match the scale and impact of the Saudi-led coalition’s support for ground forces a decade ago, he noted. Other contributing factors include critical supply shortages, rapid depletion of ammunition stockpiles, poor battlefield communication, and a complete lack of unified central oversight. Despite these challenges, al-Shamiri said he remains confident that Yemeni government forces can eventually recapture the lost territory, though the process will be long and difficult. “Recapturing areas is possible, but it will not be easy or quick. It will require organised effort, high readiness, and more time — especially given that these areas were previously under Houthi control before they were forcefully expelled,” he said. The coming phase of conflict will likely follow a strategy of deep attrition, he predicted, relying on targeted air strikes and small-scale surgical ground operations to weaken Houthi control. “This attrition may force them to withdraw from certain areas, despite Iran having secured a major strategic gain and potentially pushing further support to the Houthis,” al-Shamiri said. “The government forces are, therefore, facing a long-term war of attrition.”

Dr Mohammed al-Shuaibi, a professor of strategic planning at the University of Aden, echoed al-Shamiri’s assessment, noting that recapturing the Red Sea coastal areas remains achievable if pro-government forces implement structural reforms. “The government forces can unify their leadership and militarily recapture Mocha,” he said. “To achieve this, it requires forming a unified operations room, a single political decision, and subsequently selecting a unified field command — specifically from among those leaders who enjoy acceptance and possess sufficient battleground experience there.”

By seizing key sites along Yemen’s Red Sea coast including Mocha, Dhubab, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and Mayyun Island, the Houthi movement — officially known as Ansar Allah — has gained unprecedented leverage over one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints, which connects the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Suez Canal, carrying roughly 10 percent of global trade annually. Al-Shuaibi noted that control of Bab al-Mandab is an intermediate strategic objective, not the group’s final goal. “If the Houthis manage to consolidate their presence in Mocha and Bab al-Mandab, they will gain massive strategic leverage against Saudi Arabia, the United States, and international powers,” he explained. Beyond local military gains, the offensive is part of a broader push to reshape regional power dynamics, al-Shuaibi said, as the Houthis recognize the strait’s enormous global economic and political significance. “The more capable they become of threatening the strait, the more enabled they are to transform Yemen from an internal battleground into an influential player in global energy security and trade,” he added.

In response to growing international concern over maritime security in the region, Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam sought to reassure global powers in a post on X. “As for the freedom of navigation and international trade movement in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab, it is safe and orderly, and there is no cause for any international concern regarding it,” he wrote.

Across Latin America, a growing wave of right-wing governments has turned to increasingly militarized, technology-focused strategies to combat organized crime — and Israel has moved quickly to position its powerful cybersecurity sector as a go-to source of specialized expertise, surveillance infrastructure, and national security solutions. This expanding cooperation has unlocked lucrative new export markets for an Israeli industry deeply intertwined with the country’s military and intelligence networks, where core technologies are first developed and field-tested during Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories before being marketed to global buyers.

Recent high-level agreements across the region underscore this growing partnership. Colombia’s new hardline right-wing president, Abelardo de la Espriella, has publicly identified Israeli artificial intelligence and cybersecurity know-how as a critical tool to deliver on his campaign promise of a sweeping crackdown on organized criminal groups. “A collaboration with Israel would allow these resources to be applied directly to combating criminal structures within the national territory,” de la Espriella stated. In neighboring Ecuador, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Ecuadorian counterpart Roberto Kury signed new counterterrorism and cybersecurity cooperation pacts during an August 4 state visit. Israel and Argentina have also finalized new deals to deepen collaboration on artificial intelligence development and joint action against what they frame as “terrorist” cyber threats.

These agreements mark a major new opening for Israel’s cyber sector in Latin America, riding a regional political wave that has prioritized tech-driven responses to organized crime. But digital rights advocates warn that the line between defensive cybersecurity and intrusive mass surveillance can quickly blur when technologies refined in Israel’s military and occupation apparatus are sold to governments with weak regulatory safeguards and documented histories of human rights abuse.

Pepe Flores, program director at independent Mexican digital rights nonprofit R3D Mexico, notes that Latin American governments overwhelmingly prioritize a risk-focused approach to security, rather than a human rights-centered framework. “There is an illusion of control with technology,” Flores explained in an interview with Middle East Eye. This push for expanded security cooperation with Israel also aligns with growing U.S. efforts to leverage cyber capabilities against transnational criminal networks. On August 12, former U.S. President Donald Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum granting U.S. federal law enforcement agencies broad authority to use cyber tools “to disrupt transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) that operate in foreign jurisdictions to attack Americans.”

The turn toward closer Israeli security ties comes as part of a broader rightward political shift across Latin America, where multiple new administrations have aligned more closely with Washington and adopted hardline stances on organized crime, migration, and national security. Juan Diego Castaneda, co-director of Bogota-based digital rights and civil society group Fundacion Karisma, points out that new right-wing presidencies led by figures including Daniel Noboa, Antonio Kast, and de la Espriella represent a political pendulum swing away from the left-leaning governments of leaders like Hugo Chavez, Gustavo Petro, and Lula da Silva. In this context, Castaneda argues that selecting Israel as a security partner is not merely a choice based on technical quality. “Nothing particularly special” sets Israeli cyber tools apart from competing offerings, he noted. Instead, “the choice of Israel is ideological, meaning that when faced with two equal suppliers, they pick the one that aligns better with their values, or one that reinforces their own stance.”

Israel has long positioned itself as a global leader in defense, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism expertise for Latin American governments. But Castaneda cautions that the official framing of “defense” rarely stays limited to protection from external threats. “That is the official narrative but clearly it also involves defending against whatever is strategic. In other words, defending oneself can become a form of attack.” The language of defense has been repeatedly used to justify expanding state power, from the U.S.-led global “war on terror” to the decades-long “war on drugs” in the Western Hemisphere. In contemporary Latin America, this rhetoric and these hardline tactics are increasingly merging into campaigns against what governments label “narco-terrorism” — a shift that rights groups warn has already led to widespread militarization and severe human rights violations in countries including Ecuador and El Salvador. Critics note that Israel has used identical “defensive war” rhetoric to justify its ongoing military campaign in Gaza, framing the operation as a defensive action against Hamas rather than a conflict targeting the Palestinian people.

International criticism of Israel’s cyber industry has long centered on well-documented offensive tools such as Pegasus, the notorious Israeli spyware that has been used by governments worldwide to target journalists, human rights activists, and political opponents. But Flores and other digital rights advocates emphasize that even firms that market their products as purely defensive maintain deep institutional and operational ties to Israel’s military and security apparatus. “That is part of the selling point,” Flores said. He added that the U.S. has pushed a widespread narrative that cyber technology can dismantle transnational cartels, creating pressure on Latin American governments to deliver quick security results. In this environment, governments are often tempted to adopt Israeli security tactics, creating “a complex matrix where US interests, Israel’s interests and big-tech interests align.”

A core feature of Israel’s cyber industry that is rarely highlighted in global marketing is its direct origins in the occupation of Palestine. For decades, Israeli authorities have developed and deployed mass surveillance and digital tools on the Palestinian population, which has no ability to opt out of or challenge these systems. The commercialized expertise Israel sells is not generic intelligence capability — which many countries possess — it is hands-on experience running population-scale surveillance on a disenfranchised population that cannot resist, explained Lama Nazeeh, advocacy manager at 7amleh, the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement. “That is the intellectual property, and every Palestinian is an unconsenting contributor,” Nazeeh said. She detailed that since 2017, Israeli authorities have used predictive policing algorithms that scrape social media data to generate detention recommendations, leading to thousands of arrests based on flawed, error-prone systems. The use of these surveillance tools is part of a broader system of digital repression against Palestinians: 7amleh’s 2025 documentation recorded 3,452 digital rights violations against Palestinians, including 538 cases of censorship and 2,910 incidents of hate speech and incitement. “The absence of consent is not an unfortunate side effect, it is a design requirement,” Nazeeh emphasized.

This system of mass surveillance in occupied Palestinian territories has even expanded into biometric facial recognition, part of an official push for what Israeli officials describe as a “frictionless” occupation that reduces direct interactions between soldiers and Palestinian civilians by handing over identity verification to automated systems. Israeli firms including Corsight AI, Oosto, and Mabat 2000 have all integrated their facial recognition tools into Israel’s extensive surveillance network across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and occupied East Jerusalem. “Anywhere else deploying a biometric system at scale involves a procurement process, a data protection authority, legal basis, courts that enjoin you, journalists with access and a population that can refuse. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem there is none of that,” Nazeeh noted. It is these very technologies, refined in the occupation context, that are then marketed globally as defensive or civilian security solutions. For example, Corsight AI’s facial recognition software is already in use at Mexican hospitals and Brazilian schools, even as the Israeli military’s elite Unit 8200 cyber intelligence division uses the company’s technology to identify and track Palestinians in Gaza. While commercial deployments in Latin America may not currently serve the same military purposes as in Palestine, rights advocates warn that their shared technological and institutional origins raise urgent questions about oversight, data safeguards, and how these tools could be abused by governments seeking to expand intrusive surveillance powers.

The deep ties between Israel’s military and its cyber sector are no coincidence. Approximately 80 percent of founders of Israel’s 700 cyber technology companies are veterans of Unit 8200, the country’s elite cyber intelligence division, according to research cited by Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Unit 8200 is widely viewed as a foundational training ground for Israel’s multi-billion dollar cybersecurity industry. Leading Israeli cyber firms such as Check Point, whose founder Gil Shwed and CEO Nadav Zafrir are both Unit 8200 veterans, now actively market their services to Latin American governments and businesses. Check Point says it is committed to “empowering Latin America businesses and governments with cutting-edge security solutions to combat rising cyber threats.” The company recently held talks with a delegation from Honduras’ National Telecommunications Commission to discuss plans for a national cybersecurity strategy, and has partnered with Israel Aerospace Industries — one of Israel’s largest weapons manufacturers — through the Israeli Cyber Companies Consortium (IC3). Established in 2016 with Israeli government backing, IC3 brings together leading domestic cyber firms to deliver full-scale national cyber defense systems to government clients worldwide. In 2017, the consortium announced it had secured a tens-of-millions-of-dollar contract to build a national cyber center for an unnamed Latin American country, including national threat monitoring, intelligence sharing, forensic tools, cyber training, and attack detection systems. Israeli firm Cellebrite, another company staffed heavily by Unit 8200 veterans, announced in 2023 that it would supply a digital intelligence system to federal forces in an unnamed Latin American nation.

This current expansion of Israel’s cyber sector in Latin America builds on a decades-long history of military and security cooperation between the two regions. In the second half of the 20th century, Israel supplied weapons, training, and security assistance to multiple Latin American governments and armed forces that carried out violent campaigns against Indigenous communities and left-wing political movements. As journalist Antony Loewenstein wrote in his book *The Palestine Laboratory*, these tools and tactics were “conveniently tested on occupied Palestinians, then marketed as ‘battle-tested’.” As researcher Bishara Bahbah noted in his 1988 seminal work *Israel and Latin America: The Military Connection*, the significance of Israeli arms exports to the region extends far beyond the volume of equipment sold. “The significance lies in what has become Israel’s absolute imperative to export arms. From this dependence on arms exports, all else is derivative,” Bahbah wrote, pointing to Israel’s longstanding close cooperation with authoritarian regimes and its integration into U.S. global strategic goals.

Castaneda notes that this long history of trilateral relations between Latin America, the U.S., and Israel sets the context for today’s expanding cyber partnerships. “The history of relations forms the broader context in which we find ourselves today,” he said. “In other words, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that these threads are converging again.” The left-wing government of former Colombian president Gustavo Petro, which broke diplomatic relations with Israel over the Gaza war, represented a rare break from this long-running pattern. “What we’re seeing now is [a return to] the norm,” Castaneda added.

From northern Mexico to southern Argentina, digital rights advocates warn that the combination of militarized security policies and increasingly intrusive surveillance technologies creates significant risks of widespread abuse and targeted repression. For Castaneda, Colombia’s new de la Espriella administration will serve as a critical test case for how this partnership plays out in practice. “We have to keep watching how the Abelardo de la Espriella administration evolves and how it reconnects with Colombia’s long history of asserting that national security requires exceptional solutions,” he said. “That history justified secrecy. It justified the use of weapons, violence, killing of people and the notion that we should not complain.”