标签： Asia

Against a backdrop of plummeting global standing sparked by its military actions in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, Israel has been pursuing new diplomatic partnerships with self-declared breakaway regions across the globe in a bid to shore up international recognition and weaken coordinated global pushback against its policies. The newest such alliance is taking shape with Republika Srpska, the Serb-led separatist entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to regional and international analysts who spoke to Middle East Eye.

Recent high-level diplomatic activity has underscored this growing alignment. Zeljka Cvijanovic, the Serb representative to Bosnia’s tripartite collective presidency, just concluded a week-long working visit to Israel, where she held closed-door and public meetings with top Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. The encounter immediately ignited widespread controversy across Bosnia: photos released from the meeting showed Cvijanovic standing alongside Netanyahu with only the flag of Republika Srpska and the Israeli flag displayed, with no official Bosnian state flag present. Republika Srpska, like Somaliland — another breakaway region that has recently secured formal Israeli recognition — has long sought full international sovereign status separate from Bosnia.

Cvijanovic’s ruling party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), has led a decades-long campaign to pull the majority-Serb entity, which controls nearly half of Bosnia’s total territory, out of the Bosnian state. In response to the meeting’s protocol breaches and what Sarajevo frames as a violation of Bosnia’s territorial sovereignty, Bosnian Foreign Minister Elmedin Konakovic formally submitted a diplomatic protest note to the Israeli government.

This recent meeting is far from an isolated encounter: cooperation between Israeli leaders and Republika Srpska’s separatist leadership has accelerated sharply in recent months. In March 2025, Netanyahu hosted then-Republika Srpska president Milorad Dodik for talks in Jerusalem, and the pair met again earlier this year, months before Dodik was removed from his post in June 2025.

Political analysts say both sides have clear strategic calculations driving the growing partnership. For Republika Srpska’s leadership, Israel is seen as a valuable gateway to influential political networks in Washington, particularly through pro-Israel lobbying groups that hold significant sway in U.S. politics. “They perceive Israel and its lobby groups as a gateway to the White House,” explained Vuk Vuksanovic, a political analyst and lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Vuksanovic noted that Dodik’s previous outreach through channels linked to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has already yielded tangible results: in October, the U.S. lifted long-standing sanctions that had been imposed on Dodik and dozens of his associates since 2017, over charges of corruption and efforts to undermine the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the Bosnian War.

Dodik, who has pushed for secession for 20 years, has long maintained close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but Vuksanovic said that in recent years, Washington under Trump and Israel have overtaken Russia as the entity’s most important international partner. While full independence for Republika Srpska remains unlikely, Vuksanovic noted that separatist leaders believe building ties to outside powers will give them greater room to maneuver politically and advance their secessionist goals over time.

For Israel, the alignment is explicitly designed to undermine European unity on the question of Palestine, as global anger grows over Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. “The whole world is angry at how [Israel’s] government has handled Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. There is a strong degree of antipathy towards Israel, so they are always looking for people who are willing to communicate with Israel, to show that they are not fully isolated,” Vuksanovic said. This strategy is not limited to the Balkans: last year, Israel became the first country in the world to formally recognize Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, and the two sides have held multiple rounds of talks on economic and security cooperation.

During her visit, Cvijanovic publicly reiterated her opposition to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu, and told Israeli media that she and her delegation “unequivocally support [Israel’s] right to self-defense.” In a post on social media following the meeting, Saar noted that the pair had discussed “the need to safeguard the Christian minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina” — a claim that many observers have dismissed as unfounded. Christians make up roughly half of Bosnia’s total population, and the country’s constitution enshrines the three major ethnic groups — Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats — as equal constituent peoples, with no group legally classified as a minority. Observers also note that false claims of threats to Christian communities in Bosnia were a core part of the nationalist propaganda that preceded the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.

Denijal Jegic, an assistant professor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, argued that the two entities share deep ideological and historical parallels, as both have faced growing international scrutiny and isolation. “Republika Srpska and Israel are natural allies… both entities were built on ethnic cleansing and their identities are constructed on supremacist concepts,” Jegic said. “Both entities’ existence depends on narratives of ethno-nationalism and self-segregation.” As international courts have confirmed, Serb forces committed genocide against Bosniak Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995, and carried out widespread war crimes against non-Serb populations across Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 as part of a campaign to create an ethnically homogeneous “Greater Serbia”. The Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war divided Bosnia into two semi-autonomous entities: the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the Serb-led Republika Srpska, leaving the central state with limited sovereign power. Jegic noted that this weak institutional structure makes it easy for Israel to expand its influence in the country.

Historical records show that this partnership between Israel and Serb nationalists dates back decades: declassified documents confirm that the Israeli government provided weapons and military training to Serb forces during the 1990s Bosnian War. Formal diplomatic ties between Republika Srpska and Israel stretch back at least 15 years: in 2011, then-Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman made multiple visits to meet Dodik in Bosnia, both for official talks and private travel. That same year, Dodik used his position as the Serb member of the Bosnian presidency to block Bosnia from voting in favor of Palestine’s bid for United Nations membership.

Israel’s growing influence extends beyond Republika Srpska to the central Serbian government as well. In May, shortly after the two countries announced a joint program to produce combat drones, Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Djuric formalized a new strategic partnership between Serbia and Israel during a visit to Jerusalem. Arms exports from Serbia to Israel have surged by 140 percent since October 2023, reaching $131 million by March 2026, according to reporting from Haaretz — even though Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic publicly pledged to halt all weapons exports to the region in June 2024. A decade and a half ago, Belgrade maintained a cautious neutrality, maintaining friendly ties with both Israel and Palestine, and was the only Western Balkans country to support Palestine’s upgraded non-member observer status at the UN in 2012. But in recent years, Serbia’s position has shifted sharply in Israel’s favor, as Vucic, like Dodik, has courted pro-Israel lobbying groups to build closer ties to the Trump administration. “Definitely, Belgrade has been something of a small diplomatic win for Israel, because Belgrade hasn’t fully abandoned, but has slightly toned down some of the friendliness it used to have with the Palestinians,” Vuksanovic said.

Analysts note that Israel’s outreach in the Balkans is not limited to Serb political elites, with collaboration extending across the region, including to Albania. “The Israelis believe, like many other players in the Balkans, that Serbs and Albanians are the two most strategically consequential ethnic groups in the Balkans, being the largest, so they want to have a diplomatic foothold for both of these ethnic groups respectively,” Vuksanovic said. Deepening ties with Republika Srpska also serves another goal: putting diplomatic pressure on Turkey, which maintains close relations with the Bosnian central government, Vuksanovic added. Still, he warned that allowing the Balkans to become a proxy battleground for Middle Eastern conflicts serves no long-term good for either Bosniaks or Serbs.

The quiet homes of grieving Indian families across Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and beyond hold the same unbearable weight: a framed photograph of a loved one who will never come home, taken by a military strike thousands of miles from shore in the increasingly volatile waters of the Gulf of Oman. For Bhargavi Suresh, 36, every hour brings a cycle of longing: she wipes clean the glass holding her husband Patnala Suresh’s image, kisses it, holds it tight, then reaches for it again just minutes later, her grief spilling over into sobs.

Patnala, 14-year veteran of the merchant navy and chief engineer of the commercial oil tanker MT Settebello, was one of three Indian crew members killed when the United States military struck the vessel near the Strait of Hormuz on June 10. US authorities claimed the tanker ignored repeated warnings to comply, but that justification holds no weight for the families of the dead civilians.

“My husband was not a soldier,” Bhargavi told Middle East Eye. “They could have stopped or detained the ship if they wanted to. Why fire a missile at a vessel carrying unarmed civilians?” The strike was an unjustified violation of international law, she says, and the US must be held fully accountable. To the couple’s two young sons, aged 13 and 10, Patnala was far more than a crew member: he was their superhero, a man who crossed rough seas and braved storms to keep global trade moving, and whose strength they admired in everything.

Aditya Sharma, a 23-year-old deck cadet on probation, was the other Indian fatality of the MT Settebello attack. His 60-year-old father Rajesh, from Hamirpur district in Himachal Pradesh, still cannot bring himself to accept that his only son will never make his daily morning and evening check-in calls home. “He never started his day without calling us, once before work and once before bed,” Rajesh recalled through tears. “He was our only child, we were so proud of him, one in a million. How do we live with this loss?”

Like Bhargavi, Rajesh holds the US responsible for destroying his family in seconds. He also joins a growing chorus of criticism accusing the Indian government of failing to match the gravity of the tragedy with a strong response. After the strike, New Delhi issued only a diplomatic protest to Washington, declining to summon the US ambassador— a step it did take against Iran following the deaths of four Indian seafarers in earlier attacks that Iran denied carrying out. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised general concerns about seafarer safety during a side meeting with former US President Donald Trump at the mid-June G7 Summit in France, families of the deceased point to a complete lack of a specific public statement, formal press release or public condemnation of the attack that killed their loved ones. “A diplomatic protest alone is not enough,” Rajesh said. “Our prime minister should have spoken directly about this, addressed the grieving families, and condemned the attack himself. We expected far stronger intervention, and it never came.”

The deaths of Patnala and Aditya are just a small part of the growing human and economic toll of the ongoing US-Israeli conflict with Iran, which has turned one of the world’s busiest and most critical maritime corridors into a deathtrap for civilian seafarers. India, the world’s third-largest supplier of seafarers with more than 300,000 Indians working on merchant vessels (comprising 10 to 12 percent of the global seafaring workforce), has been disproportionately affected by the chaos. Since the conflict began in late February, more than 40 commercial vessels have come under attack, leaving at least 14 non-Iranian and 44 Iranian maritime workers dead. At least seven Indian seafarers have been killed, and more than 1,100 Indian crew members on 37 Indian-flagged vessels remain trapped in the volatile region.

A fragile June 17 ceasefire between the US and Iran briefly opened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic, but the truce has already teetered on collapse. In recent days, the two sides have exchanged fire near the strait and traded accusations of ceasefire violations, bringing shipping traffic to a halt once again. Washington blames Tehran for attacking commercial vessels, while Iran says foreign ships have violated its navigation rules and accuses the US of intentional provocation.

Maritime experts and union leaders warn that prolonged anchoring of commercial vessels carries enormous, underreported risks for both ships and crews. Unlike stationary infrastructure, commercial tankers and cargo ships are designed to sail continuously; sitting anchored for weeks or months leads to rapid deterioration of critical systems. Manoj Yadav, general secretary of the Forward Seamen’s Union of India (FSUI), explained that extended idleness allows rust, barnacles, algae and marine growth to accumulate on hulls, while many ships cannot get critical spare parts needed to restore operability when tensions finally de-escalate. More dangerously, long-term inactivity creates hazardous onboard conditions, including the buildup of toxic gases in enclosed spaces, that directly threaten crew health and safety. “Ships are meant to move, not remain idle for months,” Yadav said.

That risk has already claimed another life. Nishanth Uirthanathan, a 35-year-old second officer on the MT Celestial tanker and father of two, died in early June after falling seriously ill while his ship was anchored at Oman’s Duqm Port. His brother Prashant told MEE Nishanth suffered from fever, vomiting and extreme fatigue for nearly a month, conditions exacerbated by the prolonged anchoring that destroyed onboard living standards: sanitation and food quality had deteriorated sharply, he said, and Nishanth told his wife just days before his death that conditions onboard were unsafe. The family also blames the shipping company for dangerous delays in accessing emergency medical care. “We were poor before Nishanth became a seafarer; he lifted our whole family out of poverty,” Prashant said. “If the conflict hadn’t trapped his ship, he would have come home months ago, and he would still be alive today.”

Risks of death in these unsafe conditions are well-documented. The International Maritime Organization’s 2025 report records that since 1996, roughly 350 seafarers have died from exposure to oxygen-deficient or toxic atmospheres in ship confined spaces; since 2022 alone, 43 such accidents have killed 70 workers.

Beyond the immediate safety risks, grieving families say the Indian government has also failed to deliver adequate support and compensation. India’s Director General of Shipping says 10 lakh rupees ($10,500) has been distributed to the families of deceased seafarers via the Seafarers’ Welfare Fund Society, and efforts are ongoing to secure additional aid. But Yadav points out that this funding comes from a pre-existing industry welfare pool, not direct government compensation. “These were not accidental deaths,” he said. “These were civilian seafarers killed in military strikes.” The FSUI is demanding 1 crore rupees ($105,000) in compensation per family, a government job for a next of kin, and has petitioned the United Nations for $5 million in total damages for the bereaved. “There was an expectation that the government would stand strongly with these families,” Yadav said. “Many feel that promise has not been kept.”

As the Strait of Hormuz remains closed once again, hundreds of Indian seafarers remain trapped in the region, living with constant fear, anxiety and chronic psychological trauma. The Indian government says its Directorate General of Shipping has handled more than 12,331 calls and 27,515 emails from seafarers and their families since the crisis began, and has facilitated the repatriation of 3,537 Indian seafarers. But Yadav says the FSUI still receives hundreds of desperate pleas for evacuation from trapped crew members.

For those who have already survived attacks, the psychological scars never fade. Bhumesh, an Indian seafarer who survived a March 1 attack on the tanker Skylight that killed one crew member before he was rescued by Omani forces, says the memories still haunt his every day. “When the ship was hit, all I could see was my parents’ faces,” he said. “I still live with that trauma. The images never leave. Seafarers can barely sleep from fear. Living out here now is like living in hell.”

In a damning new report released Monday, leading Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has exposed an unprecedented crisis of civilian harm in the occupied West Bank, documenting that Israeli forces are killing Palestinian children at a rate not seen since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the territory began. The group’s figures show 54 Palestinian children have been shot dead by Israeli forces in the West Bank in 2025 alone, with minors accounting for nearly one in every four Palestinians killed by Israeli troops in the territory since October 2023 – the highest share of child fatalities recorded in 58 years of occupation.

Crucially, B’Tselem emphasizes that these child deaths are not accidental or rogue violations of military protocol. Instead, the organization attributes the soaring fatalities to a deliberate Israeli state policy that enforces loose rules of engagement, broadly labels Palestinian people as “terrorists” to justify lethal force, and systematically shields soldiers from legal consequences for unlawful killings. As of the report’s release, no Israeli service members have faced indictment or any form of accountability for child killings in the West Bank carried out since October 2023.

“The widespread, unprecedented killing of Palestinian children and teenagers in the West Bank is the result of a broader Israeli policy that enables the killing of Palestinians with virtually no accountability,” stated Yuli Novak, Executive Director of B’Tselem. Novak pointed to recent public comments from Israel’s top military commander for the West Bank that confirm this institutional pattern: when commander Avi Bluth openly boasted that Israeli forces are killing Palestinians “like we haven’t killed since 1967”, he inadvertently confirmed that the Israeli system not only backs troops who use lethal force, but grants them effective license to kill.

Bluth, a West Bank settler who has led Israeli military operations in the territory since 2024, made the remarks during a closed-door forum earlier this year. In those comments, he explicitly defended the relaxed rules of engagement that allow troops to open fire on unarmed Palestinians, and acknowledged a stark discriminatory double standard: Jewish Israeli civilians who engage in stone-throwing are never targeted with lethal force, while Palestinians who carry out the same action are shot. Bluth also framed the escalating killing campaign as a deterrence strategy, claiming that the high death toll has prevented a new mass uprising, noting “the Arabs understand that ‘if someone rises to kill you, kill him first’ is part of the rules of the Middle East, and therefore we are killing like we have not killed since 1967.”

Beyond the permissive rules of engagement and discriminatory targeting, B’Tselem documented additional contributing factors to the child death toll. In nearly 25 percent of the cases the organization investigated, Israeli forces deliberately delayed or denied access for medical teams to reach wounded children, directly worsening fatality outcomes. Israeli authorities have also seized the bodies of dozens of Palestinians killed in operations, and as of the report, 18 of the children killed in 2025 remain withheld from their families for burial.

Official United Nations data aligns with the scope of the crisis outlined by B’Tselem: the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirms that Israeli forces have killed 1,105 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, 2023, a count that includes at least 242 children.

B’Tselem also draws a direct connection between the escalating killings in the West Bank and the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza, where Israel has been accused of genocide that has disproportionately targeted children. The organization notes that more than 21,000 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza to date, and argues that the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for mass casualties in Gaza has directly encouraged the expansion of the same lethal policy into the West Bank.

“By allowing Israel to kill on such a scale in Gaza without consequences, the international community has effectively given it a green light to pursue the same lethal policy in the West Bank,” the report reads. “As long as Israel continues to enjoy near-total impunity in the world, the lives of Palestinians – including children – will remain unprotected and exposed.”