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It began with an unplanned detour at a wedding in Hama, but what three peace and conflict researchers discovered during their week-long 2026 field trip across Syria would upend distant, secondhand narratives of a country still reeling from more than a decade of war. Between June 1 and 7, 2026, Bahadir Dincer, Bahar Baser, and Zeynep Sahin-Mencütek became the first independent researchers to travel freely across government-held areas of Syria following the collapse of the Assad regime, documenting the messy, uneven coexistence of destruction and recovery that rarely makes global headlines.

The team’s journey started on a warm June morning in Damascus, where they set out to visit four key regions: Rural Damascus, Aleppo, Raqqa, and Hama. Before leaving the capital, they took a short detour through the war-scarred districts of Jobar and Yarmouk. Jobar, once one of the capital’s fiercest frontlines between 2013 and 2018, remains almost entirely reduced to rubble. A young local activist who had recently returned home put it simply: “Even though Jobar has always been part of Damascus, it was forgotten during the war and remained forgotten afterwards.” While returning residents clear rubble and patch damaged structures on their own, most long-term Damascenes have never set foot in the district since the regime fell, leaving recovery fragmented and incomplete.

Yarmouk, once Syria’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, paints an equally stark picture. The researchers encountered an elderly couple sitting on plastic chairs outside one of the only partially repaired homes, surrounded by crumbling ruins. The scene encapsulated a core contradiction of post-war Syrian life: life has returned to devastated areas, but for most residents, that means learning to live alongside wreckage rather than rebuilding beyond it. Even in Eastern Ghouta, where entire neighborhoods still bear the marks of intense fighting, small signs of daily life emerge: a bread shop opens beside a collapsed apartment block, children play on potholed streets that once saw active combat, and families ride together on a single motorcycle through former frontlines. Recovery, it turns out, often moves far faster than formal reconstruction.

As the team traveled north along the M5 highway toward Aleppo, the road itself told a story of shifting fortunes. Abandoned factories and depopulated villages lined the route, constant reminders of the war’s enduring legacy, but new signs of normalcy appeared just as frequently: roadside fruit vendors, newly reopened roadside cafes, and even newly imported SUVs – a sight that would have been unthinkable on Syrian roads just a year earlier, their driver noted. Outside Hama, they stopped at a fully stocked roadside supermarket, where local hospitality offered a quiet reminder that cultural traditions and daily routines persist even amid chaos.

Arriving in Aleppo, a city the researchers had only studied through news reports and refugee testimonies for more than a decade, they encountered a city divided between restoration and ruin. Parts of the historic Old City’s famous souk have been restored, drawing visitors back to its narrow stone streets, but large swathes of the Old City and working-class districts like Shaar and Hanano remain piled with rubble. Local guide Amr explained that returning residents have cleared blocked streets themselves, without formal government support, just to access the remains of their homes. Yet as evening fell, the city came alive: cafes buzzed with conversation, crowded restaurants hosted family dinners, and pedestrians filled the streets to escape the summer heat. Aleppo is neither fully frozen in conflict nor fully rebuilt – it exists in the in-between, where destruction and daily joy coexist.

The next morning, the team set out on the long drive east to Raqqa, a route their driver Ahmed had not traveled in more than 15 years. For Ahmed, who grew up in Raqqa before displacement forced him to resettle in Damascus, the drive was as much a journey of personal rediscovery as it was research: a weathered roadside wall unlocked childhood memories of playing with his brothers, and a shuttered abandoned cement factory reminded him of the familiar landmarks that structured life before the war. When they crossed the Euphrates into Raqqa, rolling green fields replaced the arid plains west of the river, offering a brief moment of calm after a bumpy drive over cratered highway.

Raqqa carries a unique weight of trauma: after decades of neglect under the Assad regime, it became a hub of anti-regime protest, then the de facto capital of the Islamic State, then a region under separate Kurdish-led SDF administration until just months before the researchers’ visit. The cumulative effect of overlapping conflicts leaves the city and its residents visibly exhausted. Yet even here, small signs of connection and renewal emerge. During Friday prayers at a packed city mosque, the imam announced a national collection for flood-affected communities in Deir ez-Zor – a small act that carried enormous weight after years of fragmented governance and divided communities. Two local sisters who had recently returned to Raqqa shared their story of family separation: one had returned from Turkey to resume teaching, another from Jordan, while the rest of their large family remains scattered across Turkey, Germany, and other parts of Syria. “The others have scattered like leaves in the wind,” one sister said. “But we wait, hoping they will come home again.”

On the drive back to western Syria, the team encountered one of the most widely celebrated changes of the post-Assad era: freedom of movement. Where the road once was dotted with checkpoints that could delay travelers for hours, now convoys of commercial trucks move freely between regions, and even foreign researchers passed through checkpoints without delay. “Five months ago, I would have been stopped at ten checkpoints to get here,” a young 20-something shopkeeper who had recently returned from Turkey told the team. “Economically, life may have been easier then. But we had no freedom of movement. Now I can travel without anyone stopping me.” For Syrians across every region the team visited, this simple right to move unimpeded was described as a quiet revolution: “the road has become a road again,” multiple residents said.

For most Syrians, the post-Assad era is described as liberation – a shift that is felt not in abstract political speeches, but in small daily changes: working traffic lights, police officers managing intersections, the ability to speak openly without fear. This quiet hope is not just spoken, but acted on. In Aleppo, the team visited a former Baath Party youth center that has been transformed into a community education and support center for returnees, run by Syrians who gave up stable lives abroad to come home. “My country is trying to stand up again,” Esma, a teacher who returned from Turkey, told the team. “People here need us. If not now, when will we contribute?” In Raqqa, families gather for picnics along the banks of the Euphrates, young boys swim in the river, and local operators run sightseeing boat trips – ordinary activities that carry profound meaning, as people reclaim public spaces once defined by war.

Yet for every sign of hope, the researchers encountered constant reminders of the immense challenges that remain. More than 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line, 16.5 million require humanitarian aid, and the World Bank estimates total reconstruction costs will exceed $200 billion. As of mid-2025, the UN’s humanitarian response plan had received only 14% of its required funding, leaving basic infrastructure like water, electricity, and sanitation networks non-functional across large parts of the country. Nearly a quarter of all housing stock is damaged or destroyed, more than two million children remain out of school, and millions of acres of farmland are still littered with landmines and unexploded ordnance that kill civilians every week.

Experiences of recovery are deeply uneven too: wealthy Damascus neighborhoods like Abu Rummaneh boast crowded cafes and full restaurants, while just kilometers away, entire districts like Jobar remain abandoned. The return of displaced Syrians, many of whom settle in Damascus before returning to their hometowns, has put additional pressure on already strained housing, services, and food prices. The researchers heard firsthand from returnees navigating these barriers: a local research assistant who returned from Turkey cannot afford an apartment and lives in a room at the youth center where he works, and a university-educated taxi driver who returned from Idlib five years earlier relies on a constantly breaking old taxi for his only steady income. Returning home, it turns out, is only the first step toward rebuilding a life.

For policy debates in Europe that frame post-Assad Syria as ready for large-scale refugee returns, the researchers’ findings offer a sobering correction. The real question facing Syria today is not whether Syrians want to return – most do – but whether conditions exist for them to stay permanently. With widespread unemployment, severe housing shortages, and fragile public services, many returnees simply exchange one form of uncertainty for another. Rapid large-scale returns would overwhelm Syria’s already strained institutions and economy, leaving communities worse off. As one Damascus resident put it, “returnees will drown Syria” – not because they are unwelcome, but because the country is not yet able to absorb them.

The team’s journey ended where it began, with that wedding in Hama. As guests filled the church courtyard, traditional Ewiha wedding chants echoed through the building, punctuated by the joyful high-pitched ululation of zalghouta that has marked Arab celebrations for generations. On the surface, it was an ordinary wedding. But for the researchers, it was the most powerful reminder of what they had learned across 7 days of travel: Syrians are not just rebuilding buildings and infrastructure. They are rebuilding ordinary life, holding onto cultural traditions and social bonds even when the odds are stacked against them. Hope and hardship coexist, the team found – and so do recovery and ruin. This is the unspoken reality of Syria today.

This article is based on a two-year research project including more than 200 interviews with Syrian returnees, displaced people, officials, and humanitarian workers, republished with permission from The Conversation.

Tensions across the occupied West Bank have spiked sharply after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a stark warning: Israel will launch an all-out military campaign in the territory if any militant operations planned by groups affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA) are uncovered.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Katz outlined the scope of the potential operation, confirming that Israeli forces would target senior PA leadership, the organization’s formal security apparatuses, and what Israel classifies as “terrorist infrastructure” throughout the occupied West Bank. He added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already issued formal orders to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to finalize preparations for the campaign, should the regional security situation deteriorate further.

Katz emphasized that Israeli leadership would not tolerate a return to the sustained uprising that marked the Second Intifada, a period of widespread conflict between 2000 and 2005 that claimed thousands of lives, the majority of them Palestinian alongside hundreds of Israeli civilians and security personnel. “We will not allow a return to the reality of an intifada lasting for years, as was the case in the past,” he stated. “We will not allow a return to the reality of October 7 – we will ensure the security of Israeli residents and communities everywhere.”

Historical context frames Katz’s warning: during the Second Intifada, multiple factions tied to the PA, including the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades linked to the PA’s ruling Fatah party, participated in armed operations against Israeli targets. In the decades following the intifada, the PA has faced widespread domestic criticism for its long-standing security coordination with Israeli intelligence and military forces, including actions to suppress Palestinian armed groups and political activists in the West Bank.

Katz noted that any large-scale offensive against PA-linked targets in the West Bank would mirror the “security zone” model Israel has already implemented in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, a framework that creates heavily restricted military-controlled areas along Israel’s border.

The warning comes amid a fresh wave of deadly violence in the West Bank on the same day. The IDF confirmed it shot and killed a Palestinian man who carried out a stabbing attack against an Israeli settler in the northern West Bank. Israel’s national emergency service, Magen David Adom, reported that the injured settler, a man in his 20s, was transported to a nearby hospital in moderate to serious condition.

Separately, the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed that Jewish settlers fatally shot a second Palestinian man in Hajeh village, located east of the West Bank city of Qalqilya. The ministry also verified earlier reports that both Israeli forces and settlers opened fire on Palestinian residents in the village, leaving multiple other people wounded.

This ongoing escalation comes amid already heightened Israeli-Palestinian friction across the West Bank, with a sharp rise in settler violence and military raids since the October 7 attacks that triggered the current ongoing Gaza conflict.

On the opening day of preliminary hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Monday, Germany formally pushed to dismiss a landmark case filed by Nicaragua that accuses Berlin of facilitating genocide in the Gaza Strip through its ongoing military support for Israel. The proceedings currently focus on Berlin’s challenges to the court’s jurisdiction and the admissibility of Nicaragua’s claims, rather than the core question of whether Germany violated international law, with a ruling expected at an undetermined future date.

German officials argued to the ICJ that Nicaragua failed to meet basic procedural requirements before launching its 2024 lawsuit. In remarks to the court’s panel of judges, Julia Monar, legal adviser at the German foreign ministry, said Nicaragua had not established that a formal legal dispute existed prior to filing, and that portions of the suit fall outside the ICJ’s legal mandate. Monar added that Nicaragua had “not interested in hearing Germany’s view on its allegations, but simply in bringing Germany before this court,” noting that the Central American nation also failed to provide adequate notification of the claims or sufficient time for Germany to prepare a response before initiating proceedings.

At the heart of Germany’s preliminary objections is its reliance on the ICJ’s long-standing Monetary Gold principle. Berlin maintains that Israel qualifies as an indispensable third party to the case, whose legal responsibility would be the very core of any ruling against Germany. Since Israel is not a party to the proceedings and has never consented to the ICJ weighing its conduct, Germany argues the court cannot hear the claim. This stance reflects Berlin’s position that any finding of German complicity in alleged genocide or humanitarian law violations would first require the court to rule that Israel itself has broken the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Nicaragua is set to counter these arguments on Tuesday, arguing that the proceedings center exclusively on Germany’s independent conduct and obligations under international law, not a formal finding against Israel. Nicaragua’s suit accuses Germany of multiple violations of the Genocide Convention and international humanitarian law: Berlin has continued sending weapons and military support to Israel despite documented awareness that the arsenal could be used to commit widespread harm in Gaza, and it violated its duty to prevent genocide by suspending critical funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), deepening the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

Recent official data underscores the scale of Germany’s military supply relationship with Israel. As the second-largest arms supplier to Israel, trailing only the United States, new German government figures show that approvals for military exports to Israel surged dramatically in the first half of 2026, reaching a provisional total of €799.4 million ($865 million). This marks a nearly fourfold increase from the full-year total of €201 million recorded in 2025. Of the exports approved between April and June 2026, 67 percent were tied to a major maritime defense project, while 21 percent stemmed from bilateral German-Israeli industrial cooperation serving the German military.

Independent arms data confirms the depth of this relationship. A March 2026 analysis from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that between 2021 and 2025, Germany accounted for 31 percent of all major conventional weapons imports to Israel, cementing its position as Israel’s second-largest supplier, compared to 68 percent from the United States. German policy has shifted incrementally in recent months: Chancellor Friedrich Merz imposed partial restrictions on arms exports to Israel in August 2025, halting approvals for equipment that could be deployed in Gaza, but the government lifted those restrictions three months later after a US-brokered ceasefire took effect, announcing that future export applications would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

This is not the first time Nicaragua has sought action from the ICJ in this matter. In 2024, the country requested binding provisional measures that would have ordered Germany to immediately suspend all military supplies to Israel and reverse its funding cut to UNRWA. The ICJ declined to grant those measures in April 2024, noting that German arms exports had declined at that time and that Berlin maintained a formal legal framework for reviewing export licenses. However, the court also rejected Germany’s bid to have the case thrown out entirely at that stage, ruling that there was no manifest lack of jurisdiction over the claim. Germany submitted its formal preliminary objections in 2025 after Nicaragua filed its full written case, pausing all proceedings on the core merits of the claim.

Legal experts say the outcome of this preliminary phase will carry major implications for international law around the duty to prevent genocide. Mike Becker, an ICJ expert and law professor at Trinity College Dublin, explained that the case offers a critical opportunity for the court to clarify long-unresolved questions about states’ obligations to prevent genocide and ensure compliance with international humanitarian law. “The ICJ could decide that none, or only some, of Nicaragua’s claims can proceed to the merits,” Becker told Middle East Eye. If any portion of the claim survives Germany’s current challenge, Becker noted, a final ruling on the merits would not come until a later phase of proceedings, and could take years to resolve.

This case runs parallel to a separate high-profile ICJ case brought by South Africa against Israel, which accuses the Israeli state of committing genocide in its 2023–present military campaign in Gaza. Multiple independent bodies have already backed the core allegation that Israel’s campaign amounts to genocide: a panel of sitting UN special rapporteurs and the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the world’s largest body of genocide academics, have both formally concluded that Israel’s operations in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide.

As of 2026, the death toll from Israel’s campaign in Gaza stands at more than 73,650 Palestinians, according to on-the-ground counts. A fragile ceasefire brokered by the United States has been in place since October 2025, but even during the truce, Israeli forces have killed at least 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza, leaving the enclave’s population trapped in a catastrophic humanitarian situation that Nicaragua’s case argues Germany helped enable.

Following Nicaragua’s response to Germany’s objections on Tuesday, both parties will present a second round of legal arguments Wednesday and Thursday. The ICJ will issue its ruling on the preliminary objections at a later date, with no timeline currently set for a final decision on the case if it proceeds to the merits phase.

Overnight attacks carried out by Israeli forces on the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Rumman left 11 people dead, including two infants, Lebanese state media confirmed Monday. The violence marks a sharp escalation of hostilities in the region just weeks after a renewed ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

According to Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA), the first and deadliest strike leveled a three-story residential building in the town, killing nine people and wounding five more. In a separate coordinated attack, an Israeli drone targeted a civilian vehicle in the same town, killing two local paramedics identified as Ali Shahrour and Hadi Farhat. The pair were active volunteers with the Islamic Scout Association, the NNA reported.

By Monday morning, local rescue teams were still sifting through the concrete rubble of the destroyed residential block, searching for any trapped survivors or additional fatalities. Photos from the attack site distributed by international outlets show the entire building collapsed into a pile of debris, scattered with children’s school textbooks and broken household furniture. Adjacent structures also suffered heavy structural damage, forcing dozens of nearby residents to evacuate the area to avoid further risk, Agence France-Presse reported.

Kfar Rumman is located just kilometers from Nabatieh, one of the largest urban centers in southern Lebanon. Many of the town’s residents had only recently returned to their homes after being displaced by months of cross-border fighting, following the truce agreement reached in June. Notably, the Israeli military did not issue any advance evacuation warning to local residents before launching the strikes on Kfar Rumman, in contrast to a separate attack carried out the same period in nearby Deir Zahrani. In that incident, the IDF warned civilians to evacuate a building it claimed housed a Hezbollah facility before destroying it 22 minutes after the alert was sent.

The Israeli military justified the latest wave of attacks by stating it had responded to a drone laden with explosives that was launched toward its troops, though it did not confirm whether the drone caused any Israeli casualties. It added that ongoing Hezbollah activities in southern Lebanon forced it to carry out a forceful response.

The current cycle of cross-border conflict dates back to March 2, when Hezbollah launched strikes on Israel in retaliation for the killing of a senior Iranian leader and repeated Israeli violations of an earlier ceasefire arrangement. Israel responded with widespread air and ground strikes across southern Lebanon, triggering months of sustained fighting.

As of Sunday, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health reported that the ongoing conflict has killed 4,362 people and wounded an additional 12,378 since hostilities resumed earlier this year. While fighting calmed after a truce was first reached in April and renewed in June—following a bilateral memorandum between Washington and Tehran to de-escalate broader regional tensions—Israel has continued to carry out frequent strikes across southern Lebanon and maintain military control over a swath of Lebanese territory.

Israeli forces currently occupy a self-declared buffer zone that stretches up to 10 kilometers inside Lebanese territory. A June report from Amnesty International found this zone covers approximately 6% of Lebanon’s total sovereign land. Even after the June 26 renewal of the ceasefire, Israeli strikes have continued: on Sunday alone, attacks killed at least seven people, including two women, and wounded 20 others.

Israeli authorities have ramped up military operations in areas surrounding Nabatieh since last Thursday, when the IDF announced it had seized the strategically important Ali al-Taher ridge from Hezbollah. Hezbollah has not yet issued an official response to Israel’s claim of control over the site.

Israel has repeatedly accused Hezbollah of violating the terms of the ceasefire by attempting to rebuild its military infrastructure in southern Lebanon. “Repeated drone attacks. Weapons storage. Terror infrastructure. Command centres embedded in civilian areas,” Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a post to X on Monday. “These violations will not be accepted.” The current ceasefire agreement includes formal provisions requiring Hezbollah to disarm and withdraw its fighters north of the Litani River.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has issued an urgent appeal to the United States and the broader international community to intervene immediately to halt Israel’s ongoing attacks. In a statement Sunday, Aoun called the latest strikes—which have damaged official government buildings and destroyed a non-operational hospital—a “dangerous escalation” that now targets Lebanese state institutions and civilian health infrastructure. He called on Washington and other global powers “to urgently act to stop these violations” of Lebanese sovereignty and the existing ceasefire.

On Monday, a historic milestone in bilateral relations was reached as Russia and North Korea inaugurated their first ever road bridge across their shared border, a project that Moscow’s top officials say will accelerate the growing partnership between the two nations.

Stretching one kilometer (0.6 miles) across the Tumen River – the natural waterway that forms the eastern border between North Korea, Russia and China – the two-lane crossing is designed to accommodate up to 300 vehicles per day, paired with a newly built border inspection facility on the Russian side, according to an official statement from the Russian government.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin joined the opening ceremony remotely via video link, and emphasized the transformative potential of the new infrastructure. “I am convinced that the expansion of transport infrastructure near the border will give a powerful boost to the further development of trade, economic, technological, scientific and cultural cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” Mishustin said in his remarks.

The launch of the road bridge comes amid a steady deepening of diplomatic, economic and security ties between Moscow and Pyongyang over the past several years. Prior to this new automobile crossing, the two countries were already connected by a cross-border railway bridge and regular air links. Planning for the road bridge was formalized in 2024, with construction work kicking off last year to complete the project on schedule.

In recent months, Pyongyang has gradually loosened pandemic-era border restrictions, welcoming back Russian tourist groups starting in February 2024 as cross-border movement resumes. International observers have also noted growing military cooperation between the two nations, with reporting indicating North Korea has supplied ammunition and personnel to support Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, a partnership that has drawn international scrutiny amid ongoing global condemnation of Moscow’s invasion.

On September 7, 2026, Nepal marked a national day of mourning to honor the lives lost in a devastating glacial lake outburst flood that tore through Himalayan valley communities along its border with the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The occasion closed a 13-day traditional Hindu-Buddhist mourning period, with commemorative events scaled back to prioritize ongoing search and rescue efforts for hundreds of missing people.

The disaster, triggered by the sudden collapse of a glacial formation, unleashed a massive wall of water, ice, rock and mud across low-lying villages in the region. As of the day of mourning, Nepal’s official death toll stood at 1,287, with at least 5,083 people still unaccounted for inside the country. Across the border on the Tibetan side, Chinese media reported 31 confirmed deaths and 531 people missing as of the prior Friday.

In a sign of national respect, the Nepali flag was flown at half-mast across all government offices nationwide, as well as at the country’s diplomatic missions abroad. Phanindra Paudel, a representative from Nepal’s National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC), confirmed that no official government ceremonial events were scheduled, as all available resources remain focused on relief and search operations in flood-affected zones. Nepal’s President Ram Chandra Paudel also conducted an official tour of devastated communities across Nuwakot district on the day of mourning, a presidential aide confirmed to Reuters.

Rescue teams have not lowered the intensity of their search efforts, even nearly two weeks after the flood struck. Army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet told Agence France-Presse that operations are still progressing at the same pace as they did on the first day of the disaster. “Our focus is on search and rescue at three levels – on ground, by air, and in the tunnels,” Basnet said. “We are making sure that no one is still stranded.”

A key focus of ongoing search efforts are the tunnels associated with regional hydropower infrastructure, where hundreds of missing workers were last located. Arnold Dix, an Australian tunnel rescue specialist advising Nepali rescue teams, outlined the extreme complexity of the operation in an update posted to social media platform X. “The operation meant facing multiple potential rescues, unfolding at the same time, in different places, each with its own dangers, uncertainties and lives that may still be saved,” Dix wrote.

Against the grim backdrop of rising death tolls, small glimmers of hope have emerged in recent days. Four people have been pulled alive from flood debris since last week, three of them from hydropower tunnels and related infrastructure. Most notably, on September 5, more than 10 days after the flood partially buried her home in Nuwakot’s Dhunge village, a 64-year-old Nepali woman was discovered alive on the fourth floor of her mud-buried building by members of Nepal’s Armed Police Force. She was immediately airlifted to a specialized hospital in Kathmandu for urgent medical care.

Across the border, Chinese search teams recovered 12 additional bodies from the disaster site on September 6, using heavy excavators, hand tools and ground-penetrating radar to comb through debris. As the nation mourned on Monday, communities across Nepal gathered for quiet candlelight vigils in the evening to remember those lost, while oil lamps were lit in Dhunge to mark the official close of the 13-day mourning period.