Global Pulse

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  • Houthis told EU they have no intention to attack European ships: Report

    Houthis told EU they have no intention to attack European ships: Report

    As Yemen’s Houthi movement consolidates territorial gains across key Red Sea waterways, the group has delivered a formal assurance to the European Union that it has no plans to target European-flagged or owned vessels, according to reporting from the Financial Times.

    The reassurance came in a written correspondence addressed to the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, delivered in the wake of a rapid, weeks-long Houthi offensive that seized the strategic Red Sea port city of Mocha and control of the Arabian Gulf flank of the Bab al-Mandeb strait—one of the world’s most vital maritime chokepoints for global trade.

    Diplomatic analysts frame the Houthi outreach to the EU as part of a deliberate strategic strategy: by reassuring outside powers that they are not targets, the movement seeks to isolate Saudi Arabia, its primary adversary in the long-running Yemeni conflict, and prevent a broad international coalition from forming against it. The Houthis have repeatedly clarified that their ongoing Red Sea blockade is restricted exclusively to vessels linked to Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which Riyadh backs.

    The Houthi advance along the Red Sea coast prompted Saudi Arabia to request direct military support from the United States, a long-standing security partner, but no assistance was ultimately provided. U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed earlier this month that the Houthis had explicitly communicated they have no desire to enter into direct conflict with the U.S., and Reuters has confirmed that Omani-brokered talks between U.S. and Houthi officials have already taken place.

    The Houthi message to the EU also highlights the outsized strategic importance of the Red Sea to European economic and energy security. Context for the current tensions includes a revelation that ahead of a planned 2025 U.S. bombing campaign against the Houthis, U.S. Vice President JD Vance privately complained that launching strikes on the group would amount to “bailing out Europe” at U.S. expense.

    It is no secret that the Red Sea serves as a non-substitutable artery for global trade: before the recent escalation of regional conflict, roughly one-third of all global container shipping transited the waterway, carrying energy cargo from Gulf producers to European markets and manufactured goods from East Asia to the Eurozone. Europe is already far more exposed to regional supply disruptions than many other major economies, following a recent attack on Saudi Arabia’s critical East-West Pipeline, which Riyadh blames on Iraqi militias. After that attack, Saudi energy giant Aramco notified European refiners that it would cancel scheduled October crude shipments, though the kingdom has since restored full operations to the pipeline, Reuters reported.

    Beyond its request to Washington, Riyadh has also sought security backing from its new defence partners under the recently agreed Mecca Pact: Pakistan and Turkey. While Pakistan maintains a small contingent of troops and weapons systems on Saudi territory, neither Islamabad nor Ankara have committed to entering the Yemeni conflict to support Riyadh.

    That has left European powers to step up their own security deployments to protect critical energy infrastructure. Greece already operates a Patriot air defence system at the Saudi Red Sea port of Yanbu, a major oil export terminal. On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Paris would deploy additional “military means” to shield the Yanbu terminal from potential Houthi attacks, clarifying that the deployment would not draw France into open conflict.

    “We are going to send military resources, that is to say, soldiers, radar systems and defence systems, to protect this site,” Macron told French media, adding, “but not to get us involved in any conflicts.”

  • Green Party leader Zack Polanski: ‘I’m an anti-Zionist’

    Green Party leader Zack Polanski: ‘I’m an anti-Zionist’

    On a heated Thursday evening hustings event focused on the upcoming Holborn and St Pancras parliamentary by-election, Green Party of England and Wales deputy leader Zack Polanski made British political history: he became the first leader of a major contemporary UK political party to openly declare himself an anti-Zionist. The event, co-hosted by two prominent pro-Israel groups—the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the London Jewish Forum— quickly grew tense as Polanski, who is himself Jewish and the Green Party’s candidate in the 8 October London by-election, laid out his unflinching views on the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.

    When asked directly by event organizers whether he identified as a Zionist, Polanski did not hesitate to answer. “I’m an anti-Zionist, which I know is difficult for people in this room to hear… I think countries have always been ideas and I think things change over time,” he told the assembled audience, most of whom held pro-Israel positions. Pressed further on whether he views Zionism as a racist ideology, Polanski framed his stance around the on-the-ground impacts of the movement for Palestinians: “If you’re defining Zionism as the displacement and genocide of the Palestinians, which is how in practice Zionism has become in truth, then that is racist.”

    Polanski doubled down on his characterization of Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, telling the crowd that “Many genocide scholars around the world recognise it as a genocide, and calling it that is not antisemitic.” Minutes earlier, after he referenced what he called “apartheid and genocide” in the occupied Palestinian territories, his remarks drew loud boos from audience members. Polanski acknowledged the backlash immediately, saying “Well, I know that that’s not popular in this room.”

    As audience members shouted back that labeling Israel’s actions as genocide is indeed antisemitic, Polanski pushed back against the common framing that conflates criticism of the Israeli state with antisemitism, arguing that this conflation ultimately puts Jewish communities across the world at greater risk. “I think as the Jewish community we need to come together to recognise when we call that antisemitic, we are making ourselves as Jewish people less safe,” he said. He rejected the idea that all Jewish people bear collective responsibility for the Israeli government’s actions, stressing that “We cannot hold Jewish people responsible for what happens in Israel. And when we conflate those things, that’s when the danger happens.” These closing remarks won partial applause from the room. One audience member pushed back, noting that the term “genocide” was coined in the wake of the Holocaust, the systematic Nazi murder of 6 million European Jews.

    As local journalist Richard Osley documented, all candidates contesting the by-election were asked the same opening question: a direct yes-or-no request to state whether they are Zionists. Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali, who is vying to succeed Labour leader Keir Starmer in the seat and drew criticism after skipping a Muslim community event earlier that week, declined to give a direct answer, only responding “I believe in a two-state solution.” Liberal Democrat candidate Patrick Stillman confirmed his identification as a Zionist, saying “As I understand it, it’s for a Jewish state and a right to exist, I think that’s important, so yes I am.” Conservative contender Ewan Cameron and Reform UK candidate Pete Newman, a former police officer, both also stated they were Zionists.

    After Polanski’s public declaration of anti-Zionism, multiple audience members pushed him with hostile questions, including “Where do the Jews go?” and “You’re not impartial if you’re an anti-Zionist, are you?” While some past leaders of major British political parties—including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and mid-20th century prime ministers Clement Attlee and Herbert Asquith—expressed opposition to Zionist goals in varying forms, Polanski is the first to explicitly embrace the label of anti-Zionist in modern British politics.

    To provide context for the debate, the Zionist movement emerged in late 19th century Europe, as Jewish communities faced violent, state-sponsored antisemitism and widespread pogroms across the continent. In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, which publicly committed the UK to supporting the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then a territory ruled by the Ottoman Empire since 1516. After Britain seized control of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire in 1918 during World War I, Jewish people made up just 5 to 6 percent of the territory’s total population. That number grew steadily in the decades leading up to World War II, as the British government supported the migration of Jewish refugees fleeing European antisemitism to British Mandatory Palestine. In 1948, the state of Israel was declared, realizing the core goal of Zionism—but this achievement came at a devastating cost to the Palestinian people, who experienced the Nakba, or “catastrophe”: an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their ancestral land and homes to make way for the new Jewish state.

  • Zaidi calls for economic investment in Iraq as Salam urges Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon

    Zaidi calls for economic investment in Iraq as Salam urges Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon

    On the opening sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly on Friday, the heads of government of two crisis-battered Middle Eastern nations — Iraq and Lebanon — took the global stage to outline their administrations’ policy agendas, laying out starkly different priorities shaped by their unique domestic and regional challenges. While Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi centered his address on anti-corruption crackdowns and a broad push to attract global foreign investment, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam focused his remarks on demanding an end to Israeli occupation of sovereign Lebanese territory and addressing the catastrophic humanitarian fallout of months of cross-border conflict.

    Both leaders share a diplomatic alignment generally viewed as favorable to Washington, and their mandates both prioritize consolidating state authority and strengthening independent judicial institutions, but their political backgrounds differ dramatically. Zaidi, a relatively young former businessman and banker with limited prior political experience, took office earlier this year amid ongoing efforts to reset Iraq’s post-occupation trajectory. Salam, by contrast, boasts a decades-long career in international law and diplomacy, including a term as a judge at the International Court of Justice, and assumed his post in 2024.

    For Lebanon, the immediate existential challenge remains the illegal Israeli occupation of more than 600 square kilometers of southern Lebanese territory seized since the escalation of regional conflict following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on southern Israel. Following the February 28 launch of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, Israel expanded its military incursion into southern Lebanon, and a June report from *The Times of Israel* confirmed Israel has no plans to withdraw from the over 1,000 square kilometers of territory it has seized across Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Since Hezbollah began rocket strikes in response to Israel’s Gaza offensive, Israeli military operations have killed nearly 9,000 Lebanese people and displaced more than one million southern Lebanese residents from their homes.

    Salam made clear that Lebanon cannot achieve full sovereignty and national unity until Israel withdraws all forces to the country’s internationally recognized borders, in line with the 1949 General Armistice Agreement and UN Security Council Resolution 1701. “Lebanon is affected by developments in its surroundings. That does not mean, however, that we accept its becoming once again an arena for the conflicts of others or a bargaining chip in their hands,” Salam told the assembled delegation in New York. “Lebanon’s future will not be decided on its behalf, nor may its security and stability become the price of settlements concluded in its absence.”

    In addition to full withdrawal, Salam outlined four core non-negotiable demands: the release of all Lebanese detainees held by Israel, the safe and dignified return of all displaced residents to their homes and communities, and full reconstruction of all infrastructure destroyed by Israeli bombardment. To advance these goals, he confirmed Lebanon has agreed to enter US-mediated negotiations with Israel led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but stressed that tangible action matters far more than symbolic agreements. “The success of any agreement is measured not by declared intentions but by fulfilment of commitments,” Salam said. “What is required today, therefore, is to complete the translation of this framework into practical steps within a clear timetable and with a verification mechanism that ensures the implementation of all its provisions.”

    Addressing the longstanding issue of non-state military factions in the country, including the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, Salam reaffirmed his government’s commitment to extending full state authority across all Lebanese territory, noting that only the Lebanese state should legally hold weapons. He also called for expanded humanitarian and development aid from the UN and broader international community, emphasizing that his administration has followed through on its domestic reform commitments to earn international support. “The war has left behind a vast humanitarian crisis in Lebanon,” he said. “We are shouldering our responsibility for reform… We are entitled to ask the international community to shoulder, in turn, its responsibility to ensure respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty.”

    Halfway across the regional political landscape, Iraq’s prime minister framed his address around a very different set of goals: transitioning Iraq away from its decades-long reliance on oil revenues and rebranding the country as a stable, attractive destination for global direct investment. Zaidi first laid out this economic agenda during a July appearance at the Iraqi American Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C., and doubled down on that vision at the UN. “Here, from the United Nations, we say to the world: Invest with Iraq. Iraq has resources, markets, a good location, and the necessary will to build a new economy,” he said Friday.

    Since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, oil revenues have accounted for roughly 90% of the country’s annual state budget, with all proceeds held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — requiring US approval for all cash shipments into the country, a dynamic that has limited Baghdad’s full economic sovereignty. To break this rentier economic model, Zaidi’s administration plans to expand private sector activity across key non-oil sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, technology, transportation, energy infrastructure and non-oil exports.

    To lay the groundwork for increased global investment, Zaidi’s government has already prioritized two critical domestic reforms: a sweeping nationwide crackdown on systemic corruption, and the disarmament and consolidation of Iran-backed militias that have long operated outside of state control. Zaidi framed the post-coalition era of Iraq’s relationship with Western strategic partners as a turning point: “With the end of the international coalition’s mission in Iraq, we are moving our relationship with our strategic partners to a new phase, moving from military cooperation to economic and development cooperation in service of our common interests.”

    Beyond economic diversification, the Iraqi government plans to expand crude oil production aligned with Iraq’s massive proven reserves, develop untapped natural gas fields, and expand domestic refining capacity for energy derivatives. Zaidi’s long-term vision for Iraq is to reemerge as a global energy hub, leveraging its geographic position to advance regional and global stability. He highlighted the ongoing development of a cross-regional energy corridor connecting Iraq to Turkey, Jordan and Syria, which would serve as a direct energy gateway to European markets. “Economic interests create prosperity,” he said. “When the countries of the region are connected through ports, railways, power lines, trade, and investment, they have a greater interest in preserving stability.”

    Without explicitly naming the seven-month US-Israeli campaign against Iran that has upended regional security, Zaidi expressed measured concern over the ongoing crisis impacting regional maritime navigation. He closed by laying out Iraq’s overarching regional vision, built on mutual sovereignty and cooperation rather than conflict. “Iraq’s vision is based on contributing to the region’s transition from conflict to integration, from competition to cooperation, from resource depletion to investment in development,” Zaidi said. “We extend our hands to everyone on the basis of respect for sovereignty, non-interference, good neighbourliness, strengthening mutual interests, and adopting dialogue as a means to address differences.”

  • The treasured ‘eternal snow’ on this tropical island is about to disappear forever

    The treasured ‘eternal snow’ on this tropical island is about to disappear forever

    Tucked just a few hundred kilometers south of the equator on Indonesia’s Papua island, the Sudirman Range has held an extraordinary natural and cultural legacy for hundreds of years. Unlike most low-latitude regions, its highest peaks were capped by permanent snow and ice, earning the title of “eternal snow” that stood the test of centuries. Today, that legacy is on the brink of erasing entirely: only tiny scattered patches of snow remain around Puncak Jaya, the range’s highest peak also known as Carstensz Pyramid, and climate scientists project these last remnants will vanish completely within the next one to two years.

    A century ago, all four major peaks of the 190-mile Sudirman Range supported year-round snow and glacial ice. At their peak in the 19th century, the region’s glaciers covered approximately 1,900 hectares (nearly 4,700 acres). Today, that cover has shrunk to just 16 hectares (around 40 acres), with nearly the entire glacial system disappearing within a single human lifetime. The loss carries profound implications for both scientific research and Indigenous cultural heritage, touching on the global impacts of anthropogenic climate change that are reshaping even the most remote corners of the planet.

    For the scientific community, Papua’s tropical glaciers are one-of-a-kind natural archives. Isolated by thousands of kilometers from any other glacial systems, they are the only remaining tropical ice formations between the Andes Mountains in South America and the Himalayas in Asia. Ice cores drilled from Puncak Jaya’s slopes preserve layered records of thousands of years of climate history, allowing researchers to reconstruct past atmospheric conditions and trace long-term shifts in the tropical Pacific and Western Pacific Warm Pool — the planet’s warmest ocean bodies, which play a critical role in regulating global weather patterns. Yet this irreplaceable scientific archive is vanishing before researchers can fully extract and analyze its data, says Marie Šabacká, a Czech glacier ecologist who traveled to Puncak Jaya in March 2025 as part of an effort to document the remaining ice before it is gone.

    Šabacká emphasizes that the melting of Papua’s glaciers is driven by the same human-caused climate warming that is triggering glacial retreat across the globe. Burning of fossil fuels — coal, oil, and natural gas — has steadily raised global atmospheric temperatures, pushing the freezing line higher and higher up mountain slopes. As a result, most precipitation in the region now falls as rain rather than snow, even at altitudes that once saw consistent year-round snow accumulation. Natural climate cycles such as El Niño can accelerate the melting process, while local conditions including cloud cover, annual snowfall variation, and mountain topography shape the exact pace of retreat. Because Papua’s glaciers sit so close to the equator, they can only survive within an extremely narrow range of climatic conditions at very high altitudes. Even a small temperature increase or shift from snow to rain is enough to push the system past the point of no return, Šabacká explains.

    Beyond its scientific value, the Sudirman Range is the spiritual heartland for multiple Indigenous Papuan communities that have lived alongside its ice-capped peaks for generations. For the Amungme people, the range is called Nemangkawi, or the “White Arrow,” a symbol of honesty, purity, and moral integrity that has anchored cultural traditions for centuries. “Parents and grandparents prayed their children would have hearts like the White Arrow, never straying from the proper path,” explains Elfrida Natkime, a young Amungme community member. For the Moni people, the peak is known as Mbainggela, and traditional belief holds that their ancestors watch over the sacred mountain. Adolfina Kum, an Amungme environmental activist, compares the loss of the ice-capped peak to the destruction of a site central to a major world religion. “How would Muslims feel if Mecca were destroyed? How would Catholics feel if Rome or the Vatican were destroyed?” she asks. “For the Amungme people, that is what it feels like when Nemangkawi is destroyed.”

    For many Indigenous Papuans, the disappearance of the glaciers is not an isolated environmental change, but part of a decades-long transformation of their ancestral lands driven by extractive industry. The region is home to the Grasberg mine, operated by Freeport and one of the world’s largest gold and copper mining operations. The discovery of massive mineral deposits in the 20th century triggered large-scale industrial development that reshaped the landscape: entire mountain faces have been excavated, new roads and industrial infrastructure have cut through valleys, and expanding mining operations have displaced many Indigenous families from their traditional lands. While community members acknowledge the development has brought tangible benefits including jobs, improved access to education, and new economic opportunities, it has also come at the cost of widespread environmental degradation and long-running social conflict. “Every time I see the mountains, I feel amazed, but I also feel sadness,” Natkime says. “Since the company came, I have seen the exploitation. But the development has also provided a livelihood for many people.”

    As the final fragments of ice melt, both scientists and local communities are racing to document what remains of the glacial system before it disappears forever. Klaus Thymann, a Danish researcher leading the climate documentation initiative Project Pressure, has worked with a team to create detailed 3D maps of the remaining ice using drone surveying. His data confirms that between the early 2000s and 2025, the glaciated area of the Sudirman Range has receded by 95%. “There’s almost no ice left. Those are the facts,” Thymann says. He notes that glaciers are uniquely powerful messengers for climate change, because the disappearance of ice that was called “eternal” for centuries cuts through abstract data to drive home the reality of a warming planet. For Indigenous communities, the loss reaches far deeper than environmental change: it erodes the cultural foundation that has sustained their people for generations. Adolfina Kum compares the destruction of sacred landscapes to pulling a tree up by its roots: “Once the roots are removed, the tree loses its foundation.”

  • Who gets to be Italian? The rise and rise of Islamophobia in Italy

    Who gets to be Italian? The rise and rise of Islamophobia in Italy

    On a recent Sunday in Rome, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stood before hundreds of young activists from her Brothers of Italy party, framing a heated debate over national identity around the country’s public school classrooms. Drawing a sharp line between who she considers insiders and outsiders in Italian society, Meloni told attendees at Fenix, the annual youth gathering of Brothers of Italy, that it was unacceptable for native Italian children to feel marginalized as minorities in their own schoolrooms.

    Just three days later, Meloni’s right-wing administration turned rhetoric into policy: the government approved a full ban on face-covering Islamic garments including burqas and niqabs in all Italian schools, and imposed a binding 30% cap on non-citizen students or students with limited Italian proficiency enrolled in the first year of primary, middle, and high school. Meloni defended the new rules as pragmatic, common-sense measures designed to support integration rather than divide communities. The policy announcement lands as Italy prepares for a 2027 national general election, with immigration, the role of Islam in public life, and national identity already emerging as defining flashpoints for the country’s political right.

    The new rules immediately spark urgent practical and ethical questions: how exactly do Italian authorities distinguish between “foreign” and “Italian” students, and who bears the brunt of these new restrictions? Italy already had non-binding guidance recommending a 30% ceiling for non-citizen pupils, and the country’s classification of students relies entirely on citizenship status rather than place of birth or long-term residence. Unlike many European nations, Italy’s citizenship system is rooted primarily in jus sanguinis, or citizenship by blood descent, meaning children born and raised in Italy to non-Italian parents almost never automatically gain Italian citizenship at birth. As a result, thousands of third-generation immigrant youth who have never lived anywhere else remain officially classified as foreign citizens on school records – a fact that critics say makes Meloni’s cap inherently discriminatory.

    Meloni’s policy shift is not occurring in a vacuum. Tensions over immigration and the presence of Islam in Italy have escalated rapidly in recent weeks across the country. Just one week before the prime minister’s announcement, a hostile banner reading “Your integration is our ruin” was hung outside a public school in Mestre, the mainland district of Venice that is home to a large Bangladeshi community. Nearby, at a public park where local Muslims gather for weekly Friday prayers, graffiti reading “No Islam” alongside Christian crosses was painted on the ground and a local wooden structure.

    The vandalism coincided with a bitter, ongoing dispute over plans by Mestre’s Bangladeshi community to build a permanent mosque and Islamic cultural center on the site of an abandoned sawmill. The community has already purchased the land, but the project requires formal planning approval from local authorities, and opposition from right-wing politicians has turned the proposal into a national culture war flashpoint.

    Anna Maria Cisint, a right-wing Lega party Member of the European Parliament and one of the mosque project’s most outspoken opponents, has repeatedly campaigned against the construction of new Islamic places of worship across Italy. In February, at a Lega protest outside the proposed Mestre site, Cisint vowed that the mosque would never be built if right-wing parties retained power. On the same Sunday Meloni announced her school policies, Cisint spoke at Lega’s decades-old symbolic annual rally in the northern Italian town of Pontida, where she shared the stage with four activists from Nemesis, a French far-right group that identifies as feminist. The activists arrived wearing full-face Islamic veils, removed them on stage as the crowd chanted “take it off”, and Cisint used the moment to frame Islam as an existential threat to Italian identity. “We will never allow them to Islamise our home. Never,” she told the assembled crowd.

    The parallel rhetoric from Meloni in Rome, Cisint in Pontida, and anti-Muslim vandals in Mestre underscores a growing convergence of hardline anti-immigrant, anti-Islam messaging across Italy’s right wing. At the same time, a new far-right faction is pushing the entire political spectrum further to the right, intensifying competition for right-wing voters ahead of 2027.

    Roberto Vannacci, a former Italian army general who rose to national prominence after publishing a book attacking immigration, feminism, and LGBTQ+ rights, won a seat in the European Parliament in 2024 running as a Lega candidate. He soon split from the party to launch his own far-right movement, Futuro Nazionale, which has made “remigration” – the forced expulsion of existing immigrants from Italy – a core policy pledge. Recent opinion polls show Futuro Nazionale polling at around 8% ahead of the 2027 election, while Salvini’s Lega, the party Vannacci left, has fallen below 6%. The shifting poll numbers have amplified competition for right-wing voters, pushing all parties to adopt harderline positions on immigration and national identity.

    Against this backdrop, Vannacci made one of his most explicit arguments yet about immigration and citizenship during a September 18 urban security conference in Turin organized by a police union. He argued that Italy should never relax its strict citizenship rules to make it easier for immigrants to naturalize. “We cannot allow an immigrant to become an Italian citizen so easily because then this citizen votes,” Vannacci said. “And when he votes, he does not vote for the good of Italian citizens but for his own good.” When pressed on whether he was simply concerned that naturalized citizens would not support his party, Vannacci doubled down: “I’m not afraid that they won’t vote for me. I’m afraid that they won’t vote for Italy.”

    Vannacci’s comments lay bare a core contradiction at the heart of the current debate: how can a child born and raised entirely in Italy be classified as a permanent outsider to the nation? Advocates for immigrant rights say the new policies are deeply harmful to youth who have never known any other home. Fioralba Duma, an Italian-Albanian activist with the campaign group Italians Without Citizenship, says Meloni’s framing erases the reality of thousands of young people who are Italian in every way except for a legal technicality. “It is sad, because you realise how little responsibility those in power take when dealing with such important issues, and how little they do to protect children and guarantee them equal opportunities,” Duma told Middle East Eye. “Our struggle started 10 years ago – and for many people even earlier – but instead of reducing the number of people who are foreigners only on paper, that number continues to grow every year. We used to talk about newly arrived migrants. Today we are talking about third generations: the grandchildren of immigrants, born in Italy.”

    A 2025 referendum aimed at reforming Italy’s strict citizenship rules highlighted the divide over this issue. The ballot measure would have cut the required period of legal residency for non-EU adults seeking citizenship from 10 years to five. While roughly two-thirds of voters who cast ballots supported the reform, overall turnout hit only 30% – far below the 50% threshold required for the result to be legally binding, leaving the existing restrictive rules in place.

    Critics, including Italian Muslim community leaders, argue that the current focus on school caps and niqab bans is little more than political propaganda that distracts from pressing economic issues and targets a marginalized community over a non-existent problem. Ahmed Vall, president of the Islamic Community of Rome, said that there are virtually no cases of school-aged girls wearing niqabs in Italian classrooms. “Petrol is approaching three euros a litre, and she is talking about girls wearing the niqab at school when there are no girls wearing the niqab at school,” Vall said. His organization has already pledged to challenge the new measures through legal action, noting that it has already filed a complaint against Lega MEP Silvia Sardone for confronting and filming a woman wearing a niqab in Turin.

    Rula Mohamed, another activist with the Islamic Community of Rome, said that anti-Muslim sentiment in Italy has reached extreme levels after years of being normalized by political rhetoric and media coverage. “What we are seeing today is the extreme result of something that has been cultivated for years,” she said. “This climate has been built not just by the right wing, but through years of Muslims being portrayed in the media as dangerous and incompatible with Italian society. That has been compounded by the failure of much of the centre-left to seriously confront Islamophobia.”

  • Israel quietly lifts block on night flights at Syria’s airports

    Israel quietly lifts block on night flights at Syria’s airports

    Two major Syrian international airports, located in the capital Damascus and the country’s second largest city Aleppo, have resumed accepting nighttime commercial flights after months of restrictions, following an unpublicized shift in Israeli policy that removed its long-standing blockade on the activation of critical air navigation infrastructure, multiple regional officials confirmed to Middle East Eye in recent briefings.

    Last Thursday, Syria’s General Authority for Civil Aviation and Transport publicly announced it had finalized installation of new air navigation systems, including ILS/DME and DVOR/DME technology. These tools are designed to support precision aircraft landings during nighttime operations and low-visibility conditions, such as heavy fog and extreme storms, expanding the airports’ operational capacity beyond their previous daylight-only restrictions.

    What the public announcement did not disclose, however, is the months-long diplomatic and security standoff that delayed the activation of the already-installed equipment. Regional diplomatic sources told Middle East Eye that to bring the new navigation systems online, technicians were required to conduct calibration test flights across a 50-kilometer radius surrounding Damascus International Airport — a requirement Israel repeatedly blocked for more than six months. One senior regional official familiar with the negotiations said Israeli authorities issued an explicit ultimatum: they would shoot down any small aircraft conducting the calibration flights within that zone.

    The shift in Israeli control of territory around the Syrian capital following 2024 military operations changed the security calculus for the standoff. Prior to 2024, Israel’s formal border area was located roughly 60 kilometers from Damascus, putting the entire required test flight zone outside of direct Israeli occupied territory. After Israeli forces seized and occupied Mount Hermon earlier this year, they extended their area of control to within just 25 to 40 kilometers of the Syrian capital, putting the original calibration flight zone directly within range of Israeli military positions.

    A breakthrough was ultimately reached through a technical adjustment rather than a formal diplomatic agreement. Engineers and aviation technicians determined that calibration tests could be completed successfully within a reduced 25-kilometer radius, rather than the originally planned 50-kilometer zone. Syrian authorities officially notified Israel of their plan to conduct the restricted tests, and the Israeli government chose not to issue a formal objection or response, effectively allowing the work to move forward, a second regional official confirmed.

    This quiet compromise comes amid broader regional diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions between Israel and neighboring powers, after a series of provocative Israeli moves raised alarm in Western capitals. Earlier this year, Israel already opposed the deployment of a new civilian air traffic control radar system, the HTRS-100 manufactured by Turkish defense firm ASELSAN, at Damascus International Airport. Israeli officials argued at the time that the system would limit their military’s freedom of operation in Syrian airspace, despite the Syrian government confirming the radar was intended solely for civilian air traffic management.

    Regional diplomats assess that Israel’s decision to step back from its blockade on the navigation systems is a deliberate move to reduce tensions after a controversial Israeli airstrike last month targeting a Syrian airbase near the Turkish border. That strike drew sharp criticism from U.S. officials, who warned that the strike raised the risk of an accidental military confrontation between Israel and Turkey, a NATO member.

    In response to rising cross-tension risks, U.S. special envoy Tom Barrack has led recent diplomatic efforts to establish a formal trilateral deconfliction mechanism to prevent unintended clashes. Following these diplomatic pushes, Israel took steps to restore bilateral ties with Turkey, appointing a new charge d’affaires to its embassy in Ankara. While the envoy will remain based in Israel for ongoing security concerns, Israeli officials confirmed he will make regular trips to the Turkish capital to hold consultations with Turkish government officials.

  • Athen’s rebel quarter Exarcheia fights gentrification and state repression

    Athen’s rebel quarter Exarcheia fights gentrification and state repression

    For more than half a century, Exarcheia has stood as a one-of-a-kind social and political landmark in the heart of Athens. This central neighborhood has long functioned as a welcoming gathering space for grassroots movements, anti-authoritarian and left-wing activist networks, and displaced migrants and refugees, all of whom found mutual aid and a strong sense of community within its boundaries. Today, however, Exarcheia is undergoing an irreversible transformation, and the communities that forged its unique identity are being systematically pushed to the margins.

    Rising residential rents, booming tourism, surging foreign property investment, large-scale urban redevelopment schemes, and an increasingly visible police presence are combining to rewrite the neighborhood’s social map, eroding the tight-knit community that defined its character for generations. “The human geography of Exarcheia is changing a lot,” explains Nikos, a long-term resident and core organizer with the No Metro in Exarcheia Square assembly, a movement that launched five years ago to oppose the local construction project. “The cost of living crisis is rampant at the moment. Many people who have been active in our neighborhood’s social movements have been forced to relocate because of skyrocketing housing costs, and that has gutted the collective dynamics and strength of our community.”

    Exarcheia’s gradual shift began years before Greece’s center-right New Democracy party took national power in 2019. In the years during and after Greece’s devastating decade-long economic crisis, platforms for short-term holiday rentals like Airbnb exploded across central Athens, as international investors poured capital into the country’s relatively affordable property market. This trend was accelerated further by the introduction of Greece’s Golden Visa program, which grants five-year renewable residency permits to non-EU nationals and their families in exchange for property investment.

    The impact of these shifts has been uniquely dramatic in Exarcheia. Research from the Athens Social Atlas found that foreign buyers accounted for 42.5% of all property purchases in the neighborhood in 2018, with Israeli citizens making up the largest single group of foreign purchasers during that period. Since taking office, the New Democracy government has doubled down on a policy of expanding state control and pushing forward major redevelopment projects in Exarcheia, a combination that has accelerated the neighborhood’s transformation.

    The most visible and contentious of these projects is the construction of Athens’ new Metro Line 4 directly beneath Exarcheia Square, the historic heart of the neighborhood’s community and political life. Work began on the project in 2022, turning a beloved open public gathering space into a heavily fenced-off, restricted construction zone. Residents and activists have repeatedly raised urgent safety concerns over the site’s layout, which at one point left only 1.5 meters of clearance between the construction barriers and adjacent buildings – too little, they argue, for pedestrians and emergency vehicles to navigate safely.

    For opponents of the project, the reclamation of the square is a powerful symbol of the neighborhood’s broader erasure. For decades, the open space served as the primary meeting point for political organizing, community events, and grassroots mutual aid work. The construction has also brought with it a heavy, aggressive police presence, which Nikos frames as a deliberate effort to crush dissent against the government’s redevelopment plans. “We have faced extreme police presence and police repression around the construction site,” he says. The anti-construction movement has responded with a wide range of direct action tactics, including public cultural events, mass protests, site blockades, and confrontations with law enforcement.

    Greek government officials have framed their intervention in Exarcheia as a project to restore “normality” and reassert state control over a neighborhood long known for its autonomous organizing. In the days before New Democracy won the 2019 national election, current Migration and Asylum Minister Thanos Plevris released a viral campaign video filmed in Exarcheia, in which he pledged a hardline crackdown on the neighborhood’s culture of self-governance and anti-authoritarian politics. This framing became a core part of the party’s law-and-order election platform, with incoming leaders promising to bring state authority back to a neighborhood long associated with left-wing and anti-fascist movements.

    Years later, this policy is visible across Exarcheia, from the expanded riot police patrols to the Metro construction and a wave of other redevelopment projects that have reshaped the area. Activists reject the “restoring normality” framing, arguing that these changes are deliberately pricing out long-term low-income and activist residents to remake the neighborhood for wealthy new arrivals and foreign investors.

    The pressures facing Exarcheia extend far beyond the Metro construction. Nikos frames tourism, foreign real estate speculation, and gentrification as interconnected parts of the same deliberate transformation, as rising property values make it impossible for many generations of residents to stay. The new face of the neighborhood is visible immediately around the square: at the intersection of Themistokleous and Solomou streets, the historic Hotel Exarchion has been rebranded as the upscale Square Hotel by X&N, currently undergoing renovations.

    The 93-room property is under a 12-year lease awarded via public tender to Aura 1 Monoprosopis SA, a firm represented by Dan Israel Hineson, a partner of the Israeli investment firm Ficus Investments, according to Greek financial outlet Dnews. The hotel is just one high-profile example of the wave of Israeli property investment in Exarcheia: data from the height of Greece’s economic crisis shows Israeli buyers purchased 74 properties in the neighborhood, more than any other foreign nationality. Israeli investment in Greek real estate has continued to grow in recent years, hitting €129 million in 2024 – a 46.5% increase from 2023 – and Israeli buyers remain among the largest groups of foreign property purchasers in both Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city.

    Tourism has also become a core pillar of Exarcheia’s shifting economy. As demand for tourist accommodation outgrew Athens’ traditional tourist zones like Plaka, Monastiraki, and Psyrri, Exarcheia grew in popularity with visitors drawn to its alternative bars, restaurants, iconic street art, and reputation as Athens’ preeminent counterculture hub. Researchers have labeled this shift the “touristification” of Exarcheia, with the boom in short-term holiday rentals driving up housing costs for permanent residents.

    For many local activists and residents, the problem is not simply tourists visiting the neighborhood – it is the political tensions that arise from the intersection of massive Israeli investment and Exarcheia’s long-standing identity as a hub of Palestinian solidarity and anti-Zionist politics. Those commitments have been renewed with urgency since Israel’s 2023 military campaign in Gaza, and activists report open tension with Israeli visitors who publicly express support for the Israeli government and its military offensive. Pro-Palestinian graffiti and posters line the walls of nearly every street in the neighborhood, and mass solidarity demonstrations and actions have become a core part of Exarcheia’s modern identity.

    For Ahmed, a Palestinian activist originally from Gaza who has lived in Exarcheia for years, this political identity is personal. “Exarcheia for me means to fight for your right,” he says. Ahmed credits his time in the neighborhood with shaping his activist work, saying he built deep connections with other organizers who share his commitment to Palestinian freedom and resistance.

    Today, it remains uncertain whether Exarcheia can preserve the unique counterculture identity that made it famous around the world. Nikos acknowledges that the neighborhood can never return to what it was a decade ago, but he remains defiant about preserving its legacy. “The important thing is that memory doesn’t fade away. There is a community that is eager to uphold this memory and to preserve it in a way,” he says. “We are doomed to win. In a way, it is a necessity for us, for our community.”

    Still, as Exarcheia’s transformation accelerates, the core question remains unanswered: where will the communities that built the neighborhood’s identity go, and what will be left of the radical, welcoming culture that made Exarcheia unlike anywhere else in the world?

  • Trump and Xi exchange warm words at state dinner but little progress on key issues

    Trump and Xi exchange warm words at state dinner but little progress on key issues

    On a Thursday evening in Washington D.C., the White House opened its doors for a lavish state dinner hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump, marking Xi’s first visit to the United States in more than a decade. The high-profile gathering brought together the leaders of the world’s two largest economies, alongside a roster of America’s most prominent business and tech titans, but yielded little tangible progress on the long list of divisive issues that define the bilateral relationship.

    The diplomatic event was framed by warm public rhetoric from both leaders. In his toast, Trump emphasized that despite deep ideological and systemic differences between the two nations, bilateral relations have never been on friendlier footing, and he toasted to a future of harmony, peace and shared success for both countries. He also presented Xi with a custom sculpture of a bald eagle, America’s national emblem, which he revealed had been co-designed by First Lady Melania Trump.

    For his part, Xi framed the meeting as a critical historic juncture for U.S.-China ties, arguing that the two global powers have a shared responsibility as major nations to chart a new, constructive model for coexistence that meets the expectations of both peoples and aligns with the trend of the times. He noted that the two leaders held in-depth discussions and reached common ground on a range of issues, and stressed that both countries’ core ambitions can ultimately be mutually reinforcing. On the topic of artificial intelligence, a key area of strategic competition between the two nations, Xi pushed for a shared commitment to ensuring AI development remains under human control. Beyond this general statement, however, no details emerged about concrete agreements or progress on governing the rapidly advancing technology, an area where Trump has explicitly named China as America’s top rival.

    Beyond the ceremonial niceties, deep underlying tensions remain largely unaddressed. The most sensitive flashpoint, the Taiwan issue, hung over the talks. Earlier in the day, Xi privately urged the U.S. to handle the question with prudence and publicly called on Trump to adopt a correct position on the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as part of its sovereign territory. The issue has gained new urgency after Trump paused a long-planned $14 billion arms sales package to Taiwan, a move he described earlier this year as a “good negotiating chip” with Beijing, following a May warning from Xi that mishandling the issue could lead to open conflict between the two powers. Washington has not yet issued a public response to Xi’s latest closed-door remarks on the issue, and no breakthrough was announced during the Washington visit.

    Other core sticking points also remained out of public view. Beijing has grown increasingly concerned that Washington is pursuing a deliberate policy to contain China’s rise as a global superpower, particularly in the areas of trade and advanced technology, and has repeatedly called for the U.S. to step back from interfering in what it considers its core interests. Trump for his part entered the talks aiming to secure new trade concessions, including lower Chinese tariffs on American manufactured goods, increased access to Chinese rare earth mineral exports critical to U.S. tech and manufacturing sectors, and expanded market access for American agricultural producers. No details on any progress toward these goals were released following the dinner.

    The guest list for the extravagant dinner reflected the deep economic and tech ties that bind the two nations, even amid rising strategic rivalry. In attendance alongside top Trump administration officials — including Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Chief of Staff Monica Crowley, and senior advisor Jared Kushner — were dozens of the biggest names in American business and technology. Elon Musk, Tim Cook of Apple, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Sundar Pichai of Google, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, and billionaire TikTok investor Jeff Yass all counted among the attendees, with Musk, Cook and Huang sharing the main table with the two leaders. Executives from major traditional firms including General Motors, Visa, ExxonMobil and Paramount Skydance were also present. Trump noted ahead of the event that “everybody wanted to be there,” adding that the gathering drew leaders from across the entire tech sector, entire banking industry, and far beyond. One notable absence was leading AI firm Anthropic, which has not yet explained whether it was uninvited or declined to attend.

    The First Lady’s office, which organized the state dinner, designed the evening to blend American culinary tradition with subtle nods to Chinese culture. The menu featured first course of yellow squash, wild mushrooms and crispy pancetta, served atop bright red tablecloths — a choice that references red’s symbolism of luck and good fortune in Chinese culture. The main course paired sesame-crusted sea bass with braised bok choy and roasted eggplant, while dessert consisted of vanilla crémeux with sour cherry confit and ice cream made from honey harvested on the White House grounds. The wine selection included Schramsberg Blanc De Noir, a deliberate callback to the 1972 “Toast to Peace” between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, who shared a bottle from the same California vineyard to mark the normalization of U.S.-China relations five decades ago.

    The evening of diplomacy was not without opposition: as the two leaders arrived for the dinner, protesters gathered just outside the White House gates to shout demonstrations against the meeting, and a number of protesters were arrested by law enforcement.

    On Friday, Xi and Trump kicked off the final day of the visit with a private tea gathering in the White House Red Room alongside their wives, before traveling to the U.S. National Archives for a guided tour of the institution’s iconic exhibits, which house the founding documents of the United States including the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Xi was expected to depart Washington later that day.

    Looking ahead, the two leaders confirmed that they will hold two additional summits before the end of the year: first on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ meeting scheduled for Shenzhen, China, in November, followed by a second meeting at the G20 summit hosted in Florida later that same month. Xi framed the ongoing talks as a collaborative effort to “chart the course for the great shift of China-U.S. relations,” closing his remarks by thanking the Trumps and the American side for the “meticulous care and consideration” extended to him and his wife during the visit.

  • Thailand investigating Jewish group over ‘network of Israelis’ buying up land

    Thailand investigating Jewish group over ‘network of Israelis’ buying up land

    Thai national authorities have launched a broad regulatory investigation into as many as nine Chabad Jewish community centers, known as Chabad houses, spread across the kingdom, scaling up official scrutiny of the New York-based Chabad-Lubavitch ultra-Orthodox movement.

    Deputy Interior Minister Polpeera Suwannachawi has issued formal instructions to all provincial governors to carry out on-site inspections of these facilities, with a specific focus on verifying that all operating and construction permits meet national legal requirements. In comments reported by a local Thai media outlet, Suwannachawi added that local officials have been ordered to coordinate with multiple relevant government agencies to confirm land ownership titles, cross-check all construction approvals, and trace the original source of funding for the centers’ operations.

    The official inspection order, announced on Tuesday, comes at a moment of rising public and political backlash across Thailand against the conduct of Israeli tourists, a large share of whom are retired Israeli soldiers. Broader public anger over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, alongside long-simmering questions about whether Israeli-linked entities operating in Thailand are complying with domestic laws, has further amplified official scrutiny of Chabad-linked activities in the country.

    Chabad-Lubavitch is a messianic ultra-Orthodox Jewish movement with documented ties to radical settler politics in the occupied Palestinian territories, and it has grown into one of the most globally influential Jewish organizations in recent decades. High-profile figures linked to the movement include Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump, and Kushner’s wife Ivanka Trump.

    Suwannachawi confirmed that preliminary inspections have already documented multiple regulatory irregularities related to construction permitting. These violations include unapproved rooftop extensions and other structures built without formal authorization from Thai authorities. During an inspection of a Chabad house in the popular tourist destination of Phuket, officials also seized a stock of imported goods that investigators suspect were brought into the country and sold without the required trade permissions.

    The deputy minister added that multiple sitting members of Thailand’s parliament had alerted his office to a network of Israeli citizens involved in cemetery development and other commercial projects that have purchased land valued at nearly 100 million Thai baht, equivalent to roughly $3 million U.S. dollars. Amid widespread local concerns that the group’s planned land use would conflict with Thailand’s dominant local religious and cultural traditions, Suwannachawi noted that officials must fully clarify the intended purpose of all acquired parcels.

    The current expanded investigation follows an earlier probe opened in September by Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation, which targeted Thailand’s chief rabbi Yosef Chaim Kantor and Israeli-born businessman Maimon David Marciano, according to local Thai media reports. That ongoing investigation is focused on the legality of past land purchases, whether Thai citizens were used as illegal nominees to bypass foreign land ownership rules, and unapproved alterations to existing buildings. Kantor has obtained Thai citizenship, while no public records confirm whether Marciano holds citizenship, and as of the latest announcement, no charges have been filed against either man.

    Since Israel launched its military operation in Gaza in October 2023, the number of Israeli tourists visiting Thailand has surged dramatically. Official data shows that roughly 230,000 Israeli travelers visited the kingdom in 2023, and that number has nearly doubled in the years since. More than 410,000 Israeli tourists visited in 2025, and industry projections forecast the total will surpass 500,000 by 2026.

    A large share of these Israeli tourists are recent veterans of the Israeli military, many of whom have served in the military campaign in Gaza, enforced Israeli apartheid rule in the occupied West Bank, or participated in other Israeli military operations across the Middle East, including conflicts in Lebanon, Syria and strikes on Iran.

    Thai residents across popular tourist regions have filed repeated complaints about behavior from some Israeli tourists, ranging from pervasive arrogance and open disregard for local cultural customs to skipping restaurant bills and damaging rented private properties. These widespread community grievances have fueled growing grassroots campaigns calling for formal restrictions on Israeli tourism to the kingdom.

  • Gaza suffers ‘world’s most severe economic crisis on record’, UN says

    Gaza suffers ‘world’s most severe economic crisis on record’, UN says

    A devastating new report released Thursday by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has painted a catastrophic portrait of economic and social collapse across the Gaza Strip, documenting what the body calls the most severe economic crisis recorded in modern history after three years of intensive Israeli military operations.

    The report details that the ongoing conflict has left more than 92 percent of Gaza’s economic infrastructure damaged or destroyed, and displaced nearly the entire Palestinian population of the enclave. UNCTAD’s analysis estimates that a staggering $71.5 billion in funding will be required to kickstart recovery and reconstruction efforts once hostilities cease.

    “Gaza has experienced the world’s most severe economic crisis on record,” the report’s official summary confirms. The UN body called on the international community to move quickly once a permanent ceasefire is reached to mobilize massive financial and technical support aimed at rebuilding Palestinian productive capacity that has been entirely erased by the conflict. “A viable, sovereign, independent Palestinian State, as called for in United Nations resolutions, is a precondition for regional and global peace. Yet it cannot be built on a collapsed economy,” the report added.

    The analysis contextualizes Gaza’s current collapse as the culmination of 59 years of systematic “de-development” of the Palestinian economy under Israeli occupation, which began in 1967. Israel has imposed strict structural constraints on Palestinian economic activity for decades, but UNCTAD emphasized that the human and economic cost of occupation has skyrocketed dramatically since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023.

    Since that time, unprecedented military operations have brought almost all productive activity in Gaza to a complete standstill. By 2024, real GDP per capita in Gaza fell to $161 – the lowest figure recorded for any economy tracked by the World Bank’s global development indicators. That number rose only marginally to $212 in 2025, equal to roughly $0.58 per person per day in GDP terms. More than 90 percent of working-age Palestinians in Gaza are currently unemployed, pushing the entire population into severe multidimensional poverty.

    Nearly every critical sector of Gaza’s society has been completely destroyed or rendered non-functional. Around 90 percent of all housing units in the Strip have been damaged or destroyed, making the housing sector the hardest hit by military activity. The agricultural sector, once a core part of Gaza’s local economy, has collapsed entirely. The enclave’s public health system has been effectively eliminated, and an estimated 93 percent of all educational facilities require full reconstruction after being damaged or destroyed in operations.

    The report also warns that the catastrophic impact of the conflict in Gaza has spilled over into the occupied West Bank, where Israeli policies are increasingly reshaping the region’s demographic and economic landscape. Israel is currently fragmenting the West Bank into disconnected isolated areas, the report says, while accelerating settlement expansion amid a clear shift toward formal annexation of Palestinian territory.

    A range of Israeli policies are blocking the development of a cohesive, functional Palestinian economy in the West Bank, including expanded restrictions on Palestinian movement, ongoing home demolitions and forced displacement, denial of access to critical groundwater resources, frequent settler attacks on Palestinian agricultural operations including olive harvests, and continuous expansion of illegal settlements.

    The UNCTAD report highlights a stark system of dual legal governance in the West Bank that enshrines systemic inequality: one set of rules for Israeli settlers, and a separate, far less protective regime for Palestinians that creates unequal access to movement, land, livelihoods, and essential public services.

    Unemployment in the West Bank has surged since 2023, climbing from 13.1 percent in 2022 to 31.4 percent in 2024, before dipping slightly to 28.7 percent in 2025. The destruction of public and private assets and the intentional elimination of livelihoods, the report argues, creates a coercive environment that pushes Palestinians to leave their homeland. When combined with the steady growth of the settler population, this process is gradually altering the demographic makeup of the West Bank. Displacement figures underscore this trend: 1,697 Palestinians were displaced from the West Bank in just the first three months of 2026, already exceeding the total number of Palestinians displaced across the whole of 2025.