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This summer, a striking and surreal offer laid bare the depth of Libya’s ongoing energy catastrophe. Al Robyan, one of Tripoli’s most beloved coastal seafood restaurants, took to Facebook earlier this month to advertise a deal no local business would ever normally propose: a full spread of fresh seafood for anyone willing to trade the restaurant “some fuel for the generator”.

In a raw, frustrated caption, the restaurant wrote, “We’ve run out of earthly solutions.” The post went viral, racking up thousands of comments, many from locals joking that a generator fuel tank would cost far more than the entire seafood spread the restaurant was offering.

Al Robyan’s desperate gambit is just one small example of how widespread the crisis has become. Across Libya this summer, residents have faced near-daily power outages stretching between six and 10 hours each day. The situation is all the more baffling and infuriating for Libyans, given that their nation is one of the most hydrocarbon-rich countries on the continent: it pumps more than 1.3 million barrels of oil per day, and counts a total population of just over 7.5 million people.

“Since these massive shortages started, every business in Libya has been affected,” explained Alaeddin Muntasser, a retired Tripoli-based businessman, who calls the current situation an “electricity disaster.” Speaking to Middle East Eye, Muntasser described the cascading impacts of extended blackouts, noting that one local water-bottling facility was knocked offline for weeks, leading to widespread drinking water shortages across parts of the capital. Without power to operate pumps and filtration systems, the plant could not produce bottled product, leaving communities without a reliable supply.

Muntasser added that the crisis has already pushed countless small local eateries to close permanently. Only a small number of operations that can afford to purchase and fuel a private generator have managed to stay open. For ordinary households, the impact has been equally devastating: many families enduring the longest blackouts have lost all the perishable food stored in their refrigerators and freezers, adding unnecessary financial strain to already stretched household budgets.

The crippling power shortages have already sparked mass public protests across multiple Libyan cities, including Tripoli, Zawiya, and Misrata. Demonstrators are not only demanding urgent action to restore a consistent power supply; they have also called for the resignation of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, whose internationally recognized government controls western Libya.

To understand why a nation with Africa’s largest proven oil reserves faces such constant power shortages requires looking at decades of structural collapse and political division. Libya generates roughly 70% of its electricity from domestic natural gas, with the remaining share coming from oil. This makes the national power grid extremely vulnerable to declining production and operational disruptions at gas fields and along pipeline networks, problems that have mounted for years.

“The electricity crisis and related protests is one of those problems that will not go away until Libya’s government can implement a longer-term strategy that ensures a more reliable electricity supply, whether that be through refined fuels or renewable energy sources,” explained Hamish Kinnear, principal Middle East and North Africa analyst at risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft, in an interview with Middle East Eye. Kinnear noted that while energy crises are not uncommon across the region, “for citizens of a country with the largest oil reserves and the fifth largest gas reserves in Africa, as well as significant solar power potential, blackouts are a particular source of frustration.”

The roots of today’s crisis stretch back more than a decade, to the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi and threw the country into years of chaotic division. In the years since the uprising, Libya has split into two rival governing blocs: the internationally recognized administration led by Dbeibah in the west, and a separate eastern government backed by military forces under General Khalifa Haftar and aligned with foreign powers.

Years of systemic underinvestment in both gas production and power grid infrastructure, combined with this year’s record-breaking heatwave that pushed temperatures above 50°C, have combined to create the perfect storm that collapsed the system this summer.

“Oil wealth only becomes reliable electricity when institutions can convert it, and Libya’s institutions have been fractured for over a decade,” said Karim Elgendy, executive director of the Carbon Institute, a think tank focused on energy and climate issues across the Middle East and North Africa. “Rival authorities issue competing decisions over the same grid and the utility recovers almost none of its costs. Years of deferred maintenance have left the network running on ageing equipment with no margin for error. So every summer becomes a stress test the grid is not ready for,” Elgendy told Middle East Eye.

In a bid to ease the immediate shortfall this summer, Libya turned to its neighbor Egypt for emergency assistance. Earlier this year, the two nations signed a memorandum of understanding to deepen energy sector cooperation, with senior officials from both sides meeting in July to discuss expanding energy ties. Following July’s widespread blackouts, Egypt increased its electricity exports to Libya by around 43%, bringing total shipments to 100 megawatts. Even with this sharp increase, however, the additional supply meets only a small fraction of Libya’s total needs, covering less than 10% of the country’s current generation shortfall. Libya also settled $90 million in outstanding unpaid energy dues to Egypt as part of the agreement.

On paper, energy cooperation between the two nations makes intuitive sense: Libya holds massive untapped hydrocarbon reserves, while Egypt has existing refining capacity, power generation infrastructure, and engineering contractors that could help Libya develop its resources. “The complementarity between the two economies is real: Libya has the hydrocarbons, Egypt has the refining, the generation fleet and the contractors,” Elgendy noted. But he added that “genuine integration begins when both sides commit to a long-term commercial framework with obligations running both ways,” a commitment that has yet to materialize.

There is also a hidden risk to Libya relying on Egyptian electricity imports: Egypt itself is facing growing energy security challenges, as its domestic natural gas production has declined amid depleting mature reserves. “Egypt’s own power system leans heavily on imported gas it does not control, and recent supply interruptions showed how quickly that exposure travels down the chain. A country importing electricity from Egypt is, indirectly, importing Egypt’s gas risk,” Elgendy explained. Egypt has already turned to foreign suppliers to meet its growing gas demand, signing a landmark $35 billion deal with Israel in 2025 that will nearly triple Egyptian imports from the Israeli Leviathan offshore gas field.

Many analysts remain deeply skeptical that the recent energy cooperation agreements between Libya and Egypt will deliver meaningful long-term relief for Libyans. Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya specialist at the Royal United Services Institute, argues that the recent diplomatic outreach is “not to be taken seriously” as a solution to Libya’s electricity crisis. Harchaoui believes that energy needs are not the primary driver of the recent diplomatic engagement, framing it instead as a superficial diplomatic gesture. “I think it would be very incorrect to say that the electricity situation is the reason for the meeting,” he told Middle East Eye. “There has been a pattern whereby Tripoli tends to say to Egypt: ‘Let’s talk. And by the way, I notice you’re suffering from energy shortages. Libya has a small population and a lot of energy, Tripoli is happy to help you, Egypt.’” He called the gesture “more of a diplomatic trick than something really genuine, especially during a summer when Libya itself is grappling with a very serious electricity crisis.”

Harchaoui argues that the core problem has been ignored by Libyan policymakers for more than a decade. Libya holds massive onshore and offshore natural gas reserves, “but the error that Libya made, and it’s a profound error with long-time consequences, is that it hasn’t kept up in terms of natural gas production capacity.” While natural gas generates roughly three-quarters of the country’s electricity, “years have gone by with no new natural gas project of any significance even being launched.”

As a result, existing gas infrastructure is seeing declining output, and even if a major new project were approved today, Harchaoui said it would take at least seven to eight years to come online. If current trends continue, he warned, Libya could be forced to import natural gas within just a few years — a deeply humiliating reversal for a major hydrocarbon producer that would eliminate any narrative of complementary energy ties between Libya and Egypt.

Harchaoui attributes the failure to both cultural priorities and systemic corruption. For decades, Libya’s economy has centered almost entirely on crude oil production, leading policymakers to treat natural gas development as an afterthought, even though it powers the vast majority of the country’s electricity. Systemic corruption has also slowed progress dramatically, not only diverting public funds away from infrastructure projects but also dragging out decision-making as officials negotiate bribes. “To do a corrupt project, you need more time than to do an honest project, because you have to make sure all the key officials are satisfied with their bribes,” Harchaoui said, alleging that some power plant units purchased between 2022 and 2025 were actually secondhand equipment that was misrepresented as new to siphon off public funds.

Political division has also shaped where public anger over the crisis has boiled over. Harchaoui noted that Dbeibah has repeatedly unfulfilled promises to “resolve” the electricity crisis since taking office in 2021, leading to concentrated unrest in western Libya, where public protest is far easier to organize than in eastern Libya under Haftar’s tighter authoritarian grip. Blackouts have hit eastern and southern Libya just as hard, Harchaoui stressed, but public discontent there has not translated into the same level of visible political unrest.

Volatility has surged across the Middle East this week, as overlapping diplomatic and military developments create a fragile security landscape spanning from the Persian Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean. The most consequential shift came from U.S. President Donald Trump, who announced Wednesday evening during a Las Vegas public event that Washington is currently engaged in direct talks with Iran, and that the administration prioritizes a negotiated agreement over new large-scale military action against Tehran.

Trump surprised attendees by revealing that the U.S. had finalized plans for what he called “the biggest attack since World War II” before Iranian leadership requested negotiations. “I would rather make a deal with Iran because I don’t want to kill people,” he stated, while doubling down on his long-held policy that Iran will never be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon under his administration.

Trump’s announcement comes amid conflicting reports surrounding severe munitions shortages within the U.S. military, which multiple anonymous sources have tied to the decision to halt planned large-scale strikes against Iran. The Washington Post first reported last week that Trump confronted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a cabinet meeting over the unaddressed critical deficit in key weapons stockpiles, which had been depleted by ongoing conflict with Iran. According to sources familiar with the exchange, Hegseth pushed back against criticism and placed blame on Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, accusing him of failing to keep the president fully informed about the true state of U.S. munitions reserves.

Multiple U.S. outlets have since corroborated the severity of the stockpile shortfall. CNN reported Wednesday, citing three unnamed defense sources, that the Pentagon’s stock of critical air defense interceptors has dropped to dangerously low levels following months of combat operations against Iran. The outlet confirmed that roughly 80 percent of the U.S. military’s pre-war THAAD anti-missile inventory has been expended, while half of all Patriot air defense interceptors have been used since the opening of hostilities. One senior defense source added that “virtually all” of the military’s most accurate long-range surface-to-air weapons have been deployed and exhausted in the same period.

The White House has forcefully denied all reports of a munitions crisis. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the Washington Post story as “100 percent fake news” and said Trump retains “the utmost confidence” in Hegseth. Trump doubled down on this pushback in posts to his social media platform Truth Social, insisting that the U.S. military maintains massive stockpiles of key munitions and that domestic weapons manufacturing is expanding at historic rates. “The US has massive amounts of ‘munitions’, especially of certain types,” he wrote, adding that large volumes of new weapons are being produced and shipped to the Middle East “as needed”. He also claimed that “Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country’s history”, before threatening harsh action against officials who leaked information about the stockpile issue, writing: “‘Leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down… long term jail sentences will be sought.”

Simultaneously, violence has intensified along the Lebanon-Israel border even as U.S.-brokered peace negotiations enter their third day in Rome, marking the seventh round of talks to de-escalate the months-long conflict. Lebanon’s health ministry confirmed Thursday that an Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese town of Burj Shemali left eight people wounded. The attack followed a broader escalation of Israeli operations across southern Lebanon, including what Lebanese state media called a “wide-scale aggression” targeting the coastal city of Tyre. The Tyre strikes wounded four people, forced their evacuation to nearby hospitals, and displaced dozens of local residents from their homes.

The current diplomatic push is deadlocked on core demands: Lebanese negotiators are insisting that Israel end all cross-border bombardment and withdraw its forces from roughly 60 Lebanese villages and towns that Israeli forces occupied during a ground offensive launched in March. Israeli negotiators, by contrast, are demanding that the Lebanese military fully disarm and dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure across southern Lebanon. Israeli military and political leaders have signaled they are prepared to escalate operations if talks do not deliver their desired outcome. Israel’s public broadcaster reported Thursday that the military’s response to alleged Hezbollah border violations “has not ended”, and that sensitive offensive operations are ongoing. Israeli Channel 12 also reported that senior military commanders are asking the country’s political leadership to approve a “stronger and more decisive” military campaign across southern Lebanon.

In a separate incident in the Persian Gulf early Thursday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported that a commercial tanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz recorded two explosions approximately nine nautical miles southeast of the Omani village of Kumzar. The advisory confirmed that the vessel and all crew members escaped unharmed, and no leaks or environmental damage have been detected. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical chokepoints for global energy supplies, with roughly 20 percent of the world’s daily oil consumption passing through the waterway.

The Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta is currently reeling from one of the largest unregulated migration events in recent history, after an estimated 72,000 people crossed irregularly from Morocco into the territory starting July 31, a date that coincides with Morocco’s annual King Mohammed VI Throne Day. As of the latest official updates, roughly 70,000 of these arrivals have already been forcibly returned to Morocco, leaving a growing trail of human tragedy and diplomatic fallout between the two neighboring nations.

No definitive explanation has yet emerged for what triggered the unprecedented crossing, but multiple theories have circulated among policymakers, analysts and migrants themselves. Some observers link the surge to a deliberate political signal from Rabat, coming just 10 days after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s high-profile visit to Algeria, Morocco’s long-standing rival in the region over the Western Sahara conflict. Other unconfirmed speculation has suggested external involvement from third parties, tied to Spain’s public stance opposing the ongoing conflict in Gaza and escalations against Iran. What remains undisputed is the deeply rooted human desperation driving the crossing: most migrants are young, educated Moroccans who see no viable future in their home country, and at least 141 people have already died during the dangerous journey, with the death toll projected to climb as recovery efforts continue.

Morocco’s leading independent human rights group, the Association for Human Rights (AMDH), has placed full blame for the crisis squarely on the Moroccan state. In an official statement, the organization described the harrowing border scenes as a direct reflection of systemic despair among Moroccan youth, fueled by mass unemployment, lack of economic opportunity, endemic corruption, growing authoritarianism and the absence of meaningful social justice. The AMDH drew parallels between the situation and humanitarian crises typically seen only in active war and conflict zones. In response, Morocco’s Ministry of Interior has pushed back against these claims, arguing the surge stemmed from misinformation spread virally on social media, combined with human trafficking networks exploiting a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling that banned immediate forced returns of migrants arriving by sea.

However, expert analysis and firsthand accounts from migrants directly contradict Rabat’s official narrative. Multiple migrants who completed the crossing told reporters that Moroccan border security actively facilitated their journey, standing aside and even encouraging groups to enter Ceuta. “The Moroccan border security stood back and watched us cross; they would tell us, ‘Go on, hurry up, get into the water,’” explained 19-year-old Hamza, a migrant from Kenitra who traveled more than 40 kilometers to reach the border. Hamza added that police only used violence against migrants who hesitated to cross, beating those who refused to move forward with sticks and ordering them to return home if they would not proceed.

Carla Hobbs, head of the Madrid Office and policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), confirms that the weight of evidence points to deliberate Moroccan complicity in the surge. “It would have been very hard for this to happen without Moroccan complicity,” Hobbs noted in an interview, pointing to multiple patterns that align with past uses of migration as a political tool by Rabat. She explained that reduced border controls, firsthand accounts of official encouragement, and the timing of the surge immediately after Sanchez’s Algeria visit all point to a deliberate strategic move. This pattern mirrors a 2021 crisis, when a similar mass crossing into Ceuta occurred amid a diplomatic breakdown between Madrid and Rabat over the Western Sahara dispute. Hobbs also highlighted a key shift in this latest crisis: unlike past crossing attempts that were dominated by sub-Saharan African migrants transiting through Morocco, this wave is made up almost entirely of young Moroccans, with reports that Moroccan police blocked sub-Saharan migrants from joining the crossing.

For the young people who made the journey, the decision to leave grew out of economic hopelessness that even advanced education cannot solve. Nineteen-year-old Hamza, who holds professional diplomas, explained that qualified young people can only earn a handful of dirhams for full-time work even in major Moroccan cities, leaving no path to stable, dignified living. “Even if they try to force me, I will never go back. Morocco has not given me anything,” he said. Twenty-three-year-old Asmae from Casablanca echoed this sentiment, saying she decided to make the crossing after seeing viral posts about the opening on Instagram. She confirmed that Moroccan police remained passive and did not interfere with migrants who chose to leave of their own free will. For 23-year-old Younes, a multilingual college graduate, the journey was driven by a simple hope: “I felt like in Ceuta I would finally get an opportunity in life.” That hope quickly turned to horror, as Younes witnessed three teenage migrants drown during the final swim to shore, and was beaten by Spanish authorities shortly after arriving. He described how Ceuta’s basic services collapsed under the sudden surge, with closed shops, no access to clean water, and widespread violence against new arrivals. “My dream was to get in, and now I swear to god I advise every parent to not send their kids here,” he warned.

The human cost of the crisis extends far beyond the crossing itself, as hundreds of families remain stranded on the Moroccan side of the border, waiting for any word of their missing loved ones. Najaat, a mother of six, told reporters that three of her children – two daughters aged 12 and 13, and a 14-year-old son – joined the crossing. Before leaving, the girls wrote down their mother’s phone number on their birth certificates, but she has received no word from them since. Overwhelmed with grief and fear, she said she only wants to know if her children are alive or dead, and expressed constant terror that her young daughters face the risk of sexual violence. “I work to take care of my children; I don’t want them to emigrate like this. I deprive myself of things to give to my children,” she said.

On the ground in Ceuta, humanitarian organizations are scrambling to respond to the crisis, while documenting what they describe as widespread abuses against migrants during deportation processes. No Name Kitchen (NNK), a humanitarian NGO that responds to migration crises, has expanded its small local team from 4 to 18 staff to meet the sudden demand for aid. NNK coordinator Ric Fernandez told reporters that Spanish authorities have used what he calls irregular, violent tactics to force migrants back across the border. “We’ve seen the army use ‘trawling’ tactics, forming human chains of people to force them toward the border with shoves, kicks, shouting and insults, threatening to beat them further if they didn’t move,” Fernandez said. Beatings of migrants who refuse to board deportation trucks are often carried out at night, out of public view, he added. “No one, including the police, the Guardia Civil or the military, asks people how they are, what they need, or why they came to Spain… Even though we sense they’re fleeing hell, the priority is to send them straight back into it,” Fernandez said. The organization is working to connect vulnerable migrants with shelter and resources, while carrying out a large-scale legal documentation effort to protect those eligible for international protection. Their biggest fear, however, is that many vulnerable people will be deported before their claims can be processed.

Diplomatically, the crisis is expected to cause lasting damage to the slowly rebuilding relationship between Spain and Morocco, which collapsed entirely in 2021 after Spain allowed Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali to receive medical treatment in Madrid, a move that infuriated Rabat over the Western Sahara dispute. While relations have been on the mend in recent years, Hobbs says the latest surge will leave ties “smooth on the surface but worsened underneath.” Spain has avoided public criticism of Morocco, Hobbs explained, because Madrid relies on Rabat for long-term migration and security cooperation. But the crisis comes ahead of upcoming Spanish elections, and the dramatic images of the surge are already being leveraged by Spain’s far-right anti-immigration party Vox, creating domestic political pressure on the Sanchez government that will not be forgotten. From Morocco’s perspective, the weak, divided response from the European Union has signaled that using migration pressure as a political lever carries very little cost, making it likely Rabat will use the same tactic again in the future, Hobbs added.

Human innovation has always held a dual nature: it can lift humanity to new heights of progress, or unleash destruction on a scale never before imagined. No invention embodies this contradiction more sharply than the atomic bomb, a scientific breakthrough that forever altered the course of global history when it was first deployed in warfare 78 years ago.

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the world’s first combat atomic bomb, codenamed “Little Boy”, an olive-green steel device, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The devastating explosion killed tens of thousands of civilians instantly, left countless more suffering from lifelong radiation-related illness, and redrew the map of global geopolitics permanently. Just three days later, a second atomic weapon, the plutonium-based “Fat Man”, detonated over Nagasaki, claiming another 70,000 lives and leaving tens of thousands more with life-altering injuries.

Unlike other transformative American innovations – from the airplane that connected continents, to the polio vaccine that eradicated a deadly disease, to the personal computer that revolutionized global communication – the atomic bomb carries an unresolvable dual legacy. While it accelerated Japan’s surrender and brought an end to the bloodshed of World War II, it also inaugurated an era of existential fear of total human annihilation and sparked a decades-long global nuclear arms race that continues to shape international security today.

Firsthand accounts from survivors and reporters on the ground bring the scale of this destruction into sharp, human focus. United Press International correspondent Leslie Nakashima traveled back to his native Hiroshima in the days after the bombing, and found the city of 300,000 residents completely reduced to rubble, though his own mother survived. In his August 27, 1945 report, he documented what he called the weapon’s “stupendous destructive power” that defied description.

In Nagasaki, 16-year-old Sumiteru Taniguchi was delivering mail just 1.8 kilometers from the bomb’s epicenter when the blast threw him from his bicycle. He suffered deep, scarring wounds across his back and three broken ribs that permanently damaged his lungs, causing chronic pain until his death in 2017 at the age of 88. Decades after the blast, Taniguchi remained one of the most prominent public voices speaking for nuclear disarmament, keeping the memory of the bombings alive for global audiences.

Then-U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who made the decision to deploy the weapons, framed the attack as a landmark scientific achievement upon hearing the news while returning from talks about Nazi Germany’s defeat. Back in the United States, crowds celebrated the end of the war, embracing the narrative that the bombings had cut short a years-long global conflict.

In the decades that followed the 1945 bombings, nuclear proliferation spread steadily across the globe. The Soviet Union successfully tested its own atomic weapon in 1949, followed by independent nuclear programs in the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Today, the status of nuclear capabilities in the Middle East remains one of the most contentious flashpoints in international relations.

Global debate over the impact of nuclear weapons continues to this day. Some security analysts argue that the mutually assured destruction doctrine born from nuclear proliferation has prevented large-scale direct conflict between major world powers. But other experts warn that the rising competition between states seeking nuclear status has created new, unquantifiable risks that threaten global stability.

In a recent analysis, former British diplomat Tim Willasey-Wilsey noted that while artificial intelligence has expanded nations’ capacity to defend against modern threats like terrorism, cyberattacks and drones, the gravest threat to modern civilization remains nuclear weapons falling into the hands of irresponsible leaders. “The greatest danger of a massive global shock would come from the use of a nuclear weapon in anger for the first time since 1945,” Willasey-Wilsey wrote. He added, “A nuclear war will not be about an inability to connect intelligence, but another massive failure of human imagination.”

This reporting is part of “American Objects”, a recurring series marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States that explores the inventions and artifacts that have shaped the nation’s history and global legacy.