Global Pulse

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  • Israel pitched advanced drones to UAE, leaked emails reveal: Report

    Israel pitched advanced drones to UAE, leaked emails reveal: Report

    Fresh details of a secret arms deal negotiation between the United Arab Emirates and Israel have come to light, following a leak of internal emails from Israel’s largest defense contractor, Elbit Systems. The correspondence, published for the first time by Haaretz and Drop Site News, lays bare how Abu Dhabi accelerated push for the purchase of Israeli intelligence and surveillance drones just weeks after a deadly cross-border attack by Yemen’s Houthi movement in early 2022.

    The hacked emails, which cover a period from 2021 through the start of 2023, outline early discussions between Elbit Systems and UAE parties over a package of Israeli defense technology. The proposed deal includes Hermes 900 reconnaissance drones, SkyEye wide-area surveillance sensors, ground control infrastructure, as well as personnel training and long-term logistical support. According to the leaked documents, the entire transaction was reclassified as an “urgent priority” immediately after the January 17, 2022 Houthi missile and drone assault on Abu Dhabi that targeted key infrastructure including oil tanker facilities and Abu Dhabi International Airport.

    The cache of executive emails was obtained by Handala, an anonymous online hacking group that open-source intelligence researchers claim has ties to the Iranian government. Both Haaretz and Drop Site News independently verified the authenticity of the documents before publishing their reporting. Initial projections valued the core drone deal at $154 million, with optional system upgrades pushing the total projected contract value to $225 million. To date, the leaked correspondence offers no confirmation on whether the ordered drones and systems have been delivered to the UAE.

    To understand the scope of the technology on offer, the SkyEye surveillance system integrates high-resolution electro-optical cameras that allow aircraft to capture vast swathes of territory in real time. Footage captured by the system can be reviewed from multiple vantage points, enabling operators to trace moving objects and personnel back to their point of origin. The Hermes 900, Elbit’s flagship medium-altitude long-endurance drone, is designed for advanced reconnaissance and surveillance missions, with a maximum payload capacity of 990 pounds. Multiple defense industry reports note the platform can also be configured to carry up to eight surface-to-air missiles for offensive operations.

    Internal correspondence shows that just two months after the 2022 Houthi attack, a senior leader from the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s arms development directorate traveled to Abu Dhabi to present a formal proposal for the Hermes 900 sale. The proposal framed the drones as a critical operational solution to extend cross-border surveillance capabilities, specifically to detect incoming missile and drone launches before they reach UAE territory.

    The emerging drone deal negotiations come against a backdrop of rapidly warming bilateral defense ties between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, which date back to the 2020 Abraham Accords. Brokered by the first Trump administration, the normalization agreement between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco was explicitly positioned as a framework to deepen security and defense cooperation across the region. This new leak confirms long-held analyst assessments that cutting-edge Israeli defense technology has been a key driver of growing security partnerships between Israel and Gulf Arab states.

    Beyond the core Hermes 900 and SkyEye package, the emails also include passing references to two additional Elbit Systems products: the SkyStriker loitering munition – more commonly known as a “suicide drone” – and the smaller Hermes 650 reconnaissance drone. Today, the UAE stands as one of Israel’s closest partners in the Arab and Muslim world, and has joined Israel and the United States in a series of coordinated military strikes targeting Iranian assets across the Middle East in recent months. As early as May of this year, Middle East Eye first reported that Israel and the UAE had launched a joint defense investment fund to develop and acquire new advanced weapons systems, amid escalating regional tensions with Iran.

  • Pentagon is emailing military experts and asking best way to ‘punish’ Iran: Report

    Pentagon is emailing military experts and asking best way to ‘punish’ Iran: Report

    The Trump administration finds itself mired in a diplomatic and military quagmire of its own making over Iran, with new revelations showing the U.S. military is actively crowdsourcing innovative strategies from defense experts to break the prolonged stalemate and force Tehran into a deal favorable to President Donald Trump.

    According to a Monday report from CNN, a recent email circulated by an intelligence officer within U.S. Central Command (Centcom) explicitly called for “new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran”, a signal that senior defense officials never anticipated the ongoing conflict would stretch on for as long as it has. While a Centcom spokesperson pushed back on framing the move as unusual, noting the command has a long track record of pursuing innovative problem-solving, the public request for outside ideas underscores the lack of a clear path forward for the White House.

    The intermittent, tit-for-tat military escalation between the U.S., Israel and Iran that began in late February has triggered cascading global consequences. In response to the hostilities, Iran moved to close off shipping access through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint that carries roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supplies. The closure sent global energy prices soaring, a development that has directly hit the economic interests of Trump’s core voter base ahead of any potential election.

    Amid growing regional pressure to de-escalate, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman emphasized in a Sunday phone call with Trump the urgent need for dialogue to cool tensions, urging all parties to prioritize a truce that would open the door for negotiated diplomatic solutions.

    The situation has been further muddled by conflicting public statements over the status of talks. Last Saturday, Trump announced he had called off planned military strikes against Iran and claimed negotiations between Washington and Tehran would officially kick off on Monday. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump argued that Iran had clear motivation to negotiate: “Obviously, they don’t want to be attacked. Now what we’re doing is we’re talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon.”

    But Iranian officials have flatly denied Trump’s claim that bilateral talks are underway. Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, clarified during a press briefing that Tehran is currently holding only “constructive” discussions with Oman, focused on establishing new secure shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz. “We are not currently negotiating with the United States. Our negotiations are with Oman to secure passage through the Strait of Hormuz,” Baghaei stated. He added that the status quo in the strait will remain in place as long as the U.S. maintains its naval blockade of Iranian ports, and urged both regional and international powers to respond to Iran’s responsible diplomatic outreach with a constructive approach.

  • Jack Letts appeals for repatriations from Iraq in ‘out of the blue’ phone call to parents

    Jack Letts appeals for repatriations from Iraq in ‘out of the blue’ phone call to parents

    Nine years after the last direct conversation with their son, the parents of Jack Letts – a British-born Canadian man who traveled to Islamic State (IS) controlled Syrian territory as an 18-year-old in 2014 – have opened up about the chaotic mix of shock, relief, and lingering frustration that followed an unexpected phone call from their son, who is currently detained in Iraq.

    Sally Lane, Jack’s mother, told Middle East Eye she believes the unexpected three-minute call, which took place last month, signals growing pressure from Iraqi authorities to push Western governments to repatriate their citizens who are held on alleged IS links. The call came entirely without warning: Lane nearly ignored the unfamiliar call, but answered after recognizing the Iraqi country code, only to hear her son’s voice greet her with a simple “Hello Mum.”

    “It was very short and he said there were a million things he wanted to say to me. The good thing is he sounded perfectly sane and normal,” Lane shared in her interview.

    Lane is convinced Iraqi authorities facilitated the call, amid mounting frustration from Baghdad that Western nations including Canada and the United Kingdom have refused to take back responsibility for their nationals detained over suspected IS ties. Jack conveyed a clear message to his parents: Iraqi officials have made clear they do not want to continue holding these foreign detainees, and are pushing for their repatriation to their home countries before any legal proceedings begin. He told his mother that an Iraqi legal delegation had already met with Canadian detainees days earlier to deliver this same demand. John Letts, Jack’s father, confirmed he received an identical brief call from his son carrying the same message, quoting Jack as saying “The Iraqis don’t want us here and the Iraqis are desperate to send us back.”

    Now 30, Letts first traveled to IS-held Syria and Iraq in 2014 when he turned 18. Three years later, as IS territorial control collapsed, he was captured by Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, and was stripped of his British citizenship shortly after detention – a common measure taken against UK citizens who traveled to Syria during the civil war. For nearly a decade, Letts has been held without charge alongside hundreds of other suspected IS affiliates. Prior to last month’s calls, his parents had only received sporadic, limited updates on his condition and location, with the last direct communication via voice message shortly after his 2017 capture. In a 2024 interview, after a Canadian media crew located him in a Syrian prison, Letts denied ever being an IS member, though he noted he could not share full details while still in detention.

    In January of this year, Letts was one of more than 5,000 former detainees held in northeastern Syria transferred to Iraqi custody in a US-supported operation, part of the handover of security control from regional Kurdish authorities to Syria’s central government. Data from Iraq’s Ministry of Justice, reviewed by Middle East Eye, shows that more than 3,500 of the transferred detainees are Syrian, with dozens of other Western citizens among the group: at least five Canadians, 10 Britons, 27 Germans, and 13 Australians. Larger cohorts come from Arab nations including 187 from Morocco, 116 from Egypt, and 68 from Saudi Arabia, as well as 130 from Russia and 165 from Turkmenistan.

    Today, Letts is held in a foreign national detention facility run by Iraq’s Directorate for General Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism, located near Al-Karkh Central Prison on the outskirts of Baghdad. While Canada has previously repatriated female citizens and children held in Syrian displacement camps for families of IS affiliates, it has refused to repatriate male detainees on national security grounds. Since the transfer to Iraq earlier this year, Canadian embassy officials have visited Letts and other Canadian detainees, and facilitated the exchange of letters and photos between detainees and their families. But the Canadian government continues to reject calls for repatriation, advising families to hire Iraqi-based legal representation for their relatives.

    “The Canadian government has said that they can’t interfere in the judicial affairs of another country,” Lane explained. “They’ve just said you need to get a lawyer, either somebody appointed by the Iraqi court, or an international lawyer who is approved by the Iraqi Bar Association.”

    Legal experts and global human rights organizations have raised urgent alarms over the fate of foreign detainees transferred to Iraq, who face potential trials in Iraqi courts for alleged offenses committed in Syria after a decade of detention conditions widely condemned as unlawful. In February, Human Rights Watch warned that detainees transferred to Iraq face severe risks including enforced disappearance, unfair trials, torture, ill-treatment, and even violation of the right to life, due to well-documented failures of due process in Iraqi counterterrorism cases.

    Prominent human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith told Middle East Eye that prosecuting these detainees in Iraq for crimes not committed on Iraqi soil is “legal nonsense.” He argued that any accused individuals should face trial in their home countries, noting that most have already spent nearly 10 years imprisoned in what he described as “pretty barbarous conditions.”

    John Letts accuses the Canadian government of “hiding behind words” to avoid repatriation, pointing out that Ottawa’s position has not shifted even after the transfer to Iraq. When his son was held in Syria, Canada routinely refused to provide consular assistance to Letts and other detainees on the grounds that it had no diplomatic representation in the country during the civil war. “In practical terms, nothing has actually changed. The Canadian position is still no repatriations,” John Letts said. He remains deeply concerned about his son’s treatment in Iraqi custody, and even during the brief three-minute call, Jack shared the names of two fellow detainees he said were in urgent need of legal help before the line cut out. “He sounded together, but the bittersweetness is that you know he’s had a terrible time and that terrible time is still continuing,” John Letts added.

    Both of Letts’s parents say they plan to travel to Iraq in the near future to visit their son in detention. Middle East Eye has reached out to both Canadian and Iraqi foreign ministries for comment on the case.

  • Why keeping youth discontent in check remains Indian PM Modi’s biggest challenge

    Why keeping youth discontent in check remains Indian PM Modi’s biggest challenge

    Last month, widespread street protests led by India’s Gen Z over repeated incidents of standardized entrance exam leaks forced the resignation of then-Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. While the resignation allowed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration to defuse an immediate political crisis, analysts warn that simmering youth discontent over systemic failures in education and employment will remain a persistent, long-term challenge for the government. In the immediate aftermath of Pradhan’s departure, Modi moved quickly to implement immediate, visible reforms: he established fast-track courts to prosecute individuals accused of orchestrating exam leaks, and tapped Nandan Nilekani, a prominent Indian tech billionaire, to lead a national initiative to overhaul the country’s flawed examination system. But experts agree that these targeted steps are not enough to address the deep-seated anxiety gripping India’s young population, who have grown increasingly frustrated with a system that fails to deliver quality education pathways to stable, productive livelihoods.

    Veteran economist Santosh Mehrotra, author of *India Out of Work: Rethinking India’s Growth Story*, described the dual crisis facing Asia’s largest economy in comments to the BBC. “The labour market has become brutal in the last 10 years. Non-farm jobs have not been growing and real wages have stagnated,” he explained. “India has a simultaneous problem. The economy is structurally weak as a result of which demand for labour is not growing. And our education system is so poor, that it is unable to supply new labour that is employable.” For years, the Modi government has leaned on rapid GDP growth driven by large-scale public infrastructure spending to push back against criticism of India’s uneven economic expansion. But the mass youth uprisings of last month may finally force policymakers to confront the interlocking crises of failing education and soaring youth unemployment, according to policy experts. Mehrotra notes that the expansion of India’s welfare state, particularly the rollout of direct cash transfers to low-income households, signals that the government has already recognized the severity of the crisis in private — even if it has not yet articulated a comprehensive public solution. The scale of the problem, however, is enormous.

    India is home to the world’s largest youth population: more than 360 million people between the ages of 15 and 29. Over the past two decades, the country has made notable gains in expanding access to education, with enrollment rates climbing and the number of private colleges and vocational training institutes growing exponentially. Yet the 2026 *State of Working India* report from Azim Premji University confirms that the transition from classroom to the workforce remains one of the country’s most intractable social challenges, especially for young graduates. Data from the report shows that youth unemployment rates are nearly four times higher than unemployment among older workers, and far outpace global averages. Graduate unemployment has hovered between 35% and 40% for the last 25 years, but the crisis has been amplified in recent decades by India’s demographic boom and rising education attainment. In 1983, just 4% of Indians aged 20 to 29 held graduate degrees, and 13% of those graduates were out of work. By 2023, that share of young graduates jumped to 28% — and 67% of those graduates remained unemployed.

    The disconnect between growing graduate numbers and available skilled jobs lies at the heart of the crisis. While India has produced millions of new graduates annually, the expansion of the educated workforce has not been matched by a corresponding increase in graduate-level employment. Between 2004-05 and 2023, India added roughly five million new graduates to the workforce each year, but only around 2.8 million of those graduates secured any form of employment, and an even smaller share landed stable salaried roles. This mismatch has driven up unemployment and suppressed wage growth for young workers. Worse, the *State of Working India* report finds that hard work and educational ambition rarely translate to stable success today: barely 3.7% of graduates and post-graduates secure white-collar roles, and fewer than 7% land permanent salaried positions.

    Experts emphasize that this crisis cannot be fixed with short-term policy patches. Mehrotra argues that reviving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which have never fully recovered from the 2016 demonetization policy that removed 86% of India’s circulating currency in four hours, and the uneven rollout of the national goods and services tax, could deliver some near-term job gains. But India needs a sweeping new industrial policy focused on revitalizing the country’s manufacturing sector to create enough jobs for its growing youth workforce, he adds. Manufacturing’s share of India’s GDP has fallen from 17% in 2015 to 14% today. Manufacturing employment declined for five years after 2015, and has only rebounded slightly to pre-decline levels in recent years. Compounding this, total agricultural employment has risen by 80 million since 2020, a trend that Mehrotra calls a clear indicator of widespread disguised unemployment. In most fast-growing industrializing economies, workers typically move out of low-productivity agricultural work into manufacturing or services; the reverse trend in India signals a deep failure of job creation.

    In recent years, the rise of artificial intelligence has added an entirely new layer of pressure to India’s job market, upending the business model of the software services industry that has been the backbone of India’s middle-class growth for three decades. A 2024 report from Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs estimates that between 8% and 12% of non-farm jobs in India are at risk of displacement by AI, and the impacts of this shift are already visible. Neeti Sharma, CEO of Team Lease Digital, one of India’s leading staffing agencies, told the BBC that IT hiring growth has slowed to single digits in recent months, while unstable contract work has become the norm and wages have remained stagnant for years. The stable knowledge-based jobs that Indian STEM graduates once took for granted are no longer available in large numbers.

    The growing frustration in the once-thriving tech sector boiled over into public view recently, when a corporate event hosted by HCL Technologies, one of India’s largest software firms, in Chennai was disrupted by hundreds of employees chanting in unison for wage increases. The protest underscored how the tech industry, once seen as a golden ticket to upward mobility, has ceased to deliver on that promise for many young workers. Sharma argues that both young workers and educational institutions need to adapt to this new reality: graduates must abandon the expectation of traditional white-collar office jobs, and post-secondary institutions must shift their focus from academic degree programs to vocational skills training, as employers increasingly prioritize demonstrated skills over formal degrees. This means that even degree-holding young Indians may need to pursue careers in skilled trades such as plumbing, electrical work, and automotive repair, rather than expecting comfortable, air-conditioned office roles.

    As leading market investor Devina Mehra observed on social platform X, this shift means that India’s current young generation can no longer take for granted that they will achieve a higher standard of living than their parents. For India, still in an early stage of economic development, stagnating earnings for a large share of the workforce could be a “disaster” — one that the Modi government will need to prioritize aggressively to avoid long-term social and political unrest.

  • China steps up ‘propaganda blitz’ in Turkey amid investment fallout

    China steps up ‘propaganda blitz’ in Turkey amid investment fallout

    When Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD paused plans to construct a manufacturing plant in Turkey back in June, shifting its production priorities to existing European facilities, the decision sent ripples through bilateral relations between Ankara and Beijing. What made the reversal particularly awkward for Turkey’s ruling government was the suite of generous tax breaks Ankara had already granted to BYD for domestic vehicle sales, long before any ground was broken on the promised facility.

    The early incentives have already paid major dividends for BYD: the automaker’s Turkish sales skyrocketed to more than 45,000 units in 2025, and industry experts estimate the tax advantages have netted the firm between $500 million and $1 billion in extra profits from the Turkish market to date. The collapse of the plant deal left Beijing’s reputation in Turkey on shaky ground, prompting a sweeping public relations push to reverse the growing negative sentiment, according to a Turkish government consultant who spoke to Middle East Eye.

    Ankara, the consultant added, has grown increasingly frustrated with what it views as a pattern of Chinese negotiating behavior: creating the perception that a final binding agreement has been reached, only to return to the table later with an expanded list of new demands. For observers who track China’s activities in Turkey closely, the accelerated PR campaign has been impossible to miss.

    China’s embassy in Ankara has begun placing unsigned, pro-Beijing opinion pieces in pro-government Turkish media, emphasizing the strategic importance of high-level ties between the Chinese Communist Party and Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The embassy has also pushed widespread coverage of the launch of *Volume Five of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China* across government-aligned Turkish media outlets.

    Nurettin Akcay, a Turkish academic who specializes in Chinese affairs, confirms that the BYD collapse has undeniably amplified anti-China sentiment among the Turkish public. He notes, however, that the expansion of China’s public diplomacy work in Turkey is not an entirely new development—Beijing has long cultivated ties with Turkish journalists and opinion leaders, regularly organizing all-expenses-paid visits to China long before the BYD deal fell through.

    Turkey and China have navigated a fraught bilateral relationship for more than a decade, with the status of the Uyghur people serving as the most persistent and divisive sticking point. Until 2020, Ankara worked to limit critical Turkish media coverage of human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, holding out hope that the gesture would clear the way for large-scale Chinese investment. In a high-profile step to improve ties at Beijing’s request, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited the Uyghur-majority Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in June 2024, a trip billed as resolving one of the core barriers to closer economic cooperation. Yet despite months of negotiations in the wake of Fidan’s visit, the promised electric vehicle plant investments from both BYD and fellow Chinese automaker Chery have yet to move forward.

    Akcay, who earned his PhD from Shanghai University, has faced personal repercussions for his public tracking of Chinese lobbying efforts in Turkey. He recently revealed via social media platform X that Shanghai University sent him an official email notifying him that the institution had received dozens of complaints over his critical reporting on China. As a result, the university asked him to stop publicly referencing his PhD degree earned at the school, and Akcay says he now expects he will be permanently barred from re-entering China.

    Akcay explains that Beijing’s current outreach strategy in Turkey centers on what he terms “elite engagement”: a curated form of showcase diplomacy that invites prominent Turkish figures to visit carefully selected sites across China to project a sanitized, positive image of the country to the Turkish public. Last month, for example, the China-Turkey Friendship Foundation—a Chinese state-funded organization—organized an eight-day press tour to Xinjiang for journalists from leading Turkish opposition and independent outlets, including T24, Halk TV, Cumhuriyet and Haberturk TV.

    None of the participating journalists published coverage echoing international allegations of systemic mistreatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang; instead, their reports focused on what they described as terrorist threats from radical groups in the region and China’s economic integration policies. Multiple outlets used nearly identical phrasing in their coverage, highlighting Xinjiang’s central role to China’s industrial growth and the Belt and Road Initiative, while framing tourism as a core driver of the region’s development.

    This curated narrative directly contradicts findings from global human rights organizations. Human Rights Watch’s 2026 World Report documented that Chinese authorities have tightened ideological controls across Xinjiang and Tibet over the past year, while continuing a harsh campaign of forced assimilation against Uyghur and Tibetan communities. The organization notes that there has never been accountability for crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs remain arbitrarily detained. Since 2017, the Chinese government has detained hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in extrajudicial “re-education camps,” demolished thousands of mosques and Islamic cemeteries, and banned religious education for Uyghur communities across Xinjiang.

    “Everything is planned, and China gets precisely what it wants because visitors are shown only what they are intended to see,” Akcay said. “Consequently, journalists who visit China encounter a positive picture without fully understanding the broader context of human rights abuses in the region.”

    Beyond outreach to journalists and ruling party allies, China’s recent influence campaign in Turkey has expanded to include direct engagement with Turkey’s opposition parties, including the conservative Islamist New Welfare Party and the nationalist Victory Party. A New Welfare Party delegation traveled to China in June, and Chinese Ambassador to Turkey Jiang Xuebin met the party’s chairman Fatih Erbakan just last month. Akcay says Beijing has worked to build positive ties with nearly all of Turkey’s opposition factions, regardless of size, with the Uyghur issue once again serving as the core motivating factor.

    Right-wing opposition parties in Turkey can speak relatively openly about the Uyghur issue because it resonates strongly with their conservative, nationalist voter bases, Akcay explains. By cultivating ties across the entire political spectrum, Beijing aims to blunt rising domestic criticism of China within Turkey, and prevent that criticism from escalating into large-scale grassroots campaigns against Chinese investment or policy. While Akcay does not believe the campaign has completely reshaped Turkish public opinion of China, he assesses that the strategy has been partially successful in preventing the emergence of a coordinated, radical counter-movement.

    “China is seeking to minimise domestic criticism within Turkey by pursuing a broad engagement strategy,” he noted, adding: “It may not completely transform public perceptions, but it is pursuing an effective strategy to prevent the emergence of a radical counter-campaign.”

  • ICC states decision on Karim Khan ‘inherently political’, says leading criminal law expert

    ICC states decision on Karim Khan ‘inherently political’, says leading criminal law expert

    The unexpected dismissal of International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan by the court’s governing body, the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), has ignited fierce debate across the global legal community, with leading international law experts warning that the move poses a profound threat to the long-held principle of prosecutorial independence at the world’s highest permanent criminal tribunal. On July 24, ASP delegates voted to remove Khan from office after upholding a finding that he had engaged in “serious misconduct and a serious breach of duty” through inappropriate behavior toward a subordinate staff member. Khan has repeatedly and vehemently denied all allegations of wrongdoing against him.

    This outcome directly contradicted the earlier findings of an independent judicial panel convened specifically to evaluate evidence gathered through a United Nations-led fact-finding probe. In March, three impartial judges appointed by the ASP’s executive bureau unanimously ruled that the evidence presented failed to prove any violation of the ICC’s governing legal framework. A month before the full ASP vote, however, the 21-member ASP bureau disregarded the judicial panel’s conclusion and issued its own recommendation that Khan be removed, citing an alleged sexual relationship with a subordinate as the core violation. Adding further controversy to the process, the bureau also modified voting procedures to lower the threshold for removal, replacing the original requirement of two separate votes—one on whether misconduct occurred, and a second on whether removal was warranted—with a single up-or-down vote on dismissal.

    William Schabas, a preeminent international law professor at Middlesex University and one of the world’s leading authorities on the ICC, has emerged as a prominent critic of the process, warning that the dismissal has inflicted lasting damage on the court’s integrity and the independence of the prosecutorial office. Schabas argues that the ASP, as a fundamentally political body whose delegates vote according to directives from their national governments, is not suited to deliver impartial, judicial findings of misconduct. He points out multiple critical flaws in the ASP’s final decision: it does not qualify as a formal judicial judgment, it fails to outline which evidence the body accepted or rejected, and it never explicitly identifies the specific actions that are deemed to constitute “serious misconduct”.

    Schabas notes that while some delegates likely voted for dismissal based on a genuine belief that Khan had violated rules, particularly after a high-profile CNN interview with the complainant, many other votes were almost certainly driven by political motivations. He specifically highlights that widespread anger among certain ICC member states over Khan’s decision to pursue war crime prosecutions against Israeli leaders was a major contributing factor to the dismissal. He added that other states may have voted to remove Khan in exchange for concessions from either Israel or the United States, which has openly opposed the ICC’s probe into Israeli actions in Gaza.

    Khan made history during his tenure as the first ICC prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for sitting leaders of non-African states. The targets of his warrants included Russian President Vladimir Putin for actions in Ukraine, Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing, senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, and most controversially, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Khan’s May 2024 request for warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant over alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip marked the first time the ICC has pursued criminal charges against leaders of a Western-aligned state. The move immediately triggered harsh retaliation from the United States, which imposed sanctions on Khan, his two deputy prosecutors, and eight ICC judges. In the weeks leading up to the dismissal vote, senior U.S. officials openly vowed to “dismantle the ICC, brick by brick” over the prosecution, with former President Donald Trump explicitly stating that the U.S. campaign against the court is intended to protect Netanyahu. The ICC is currently hearing Israeli appeals to invalidate the arrest warrants.

    Looking ahead to the future of the court, Schabas warns that Khan’s dismissal has already created a chilling effect that will shape the work of the next ICC prosecutor. He explained that the next person to hold the role will constantly operate under the threat that independent investigations or arrest warrants targeting powerful leaders or high-priority state interests could provoke retaliation through disciplinary proceedings. Beyond the immediate threat to the next prosecutor, Schabas argues that the entire disciplinary process in this case was improvised and violated the formal procedures outlined in the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty, and the court’s existing rules of evidence and procedure. He emphasized that current ICC rules do not provide adequate protection for prosecutorial independence, noting that due process is critical not only to protect the personal rights of the sitting prosecutor but also to safeguard the institutional independence of the office itself.

    To address these fundamental flaws, Schabas is calling for a full revision of the ICC’s governing rules to require that any future effort to remove an elected prosecutor be decided through a formal judicial process, rather than a political vote by the ASP. He argues that for prosecutorial independence to be meaningful, a prosecutor must be secure in the knowledge that they can only be removed from office after a properly constituted tribunal of independent, impartial judges has made a formal finding of misconduct, and that if such a tribunal clears the prosecutor, the ASP should have no authority to overrule that decision and order removal. Schabas’ concerns echo broader criticism from human rights groups and other legal experts, who have widely scrutinized the bureau’s handling of the investigation and raised repeated alarms that the entire process was politicized and failed to meet basic standards of due process.

  • Israeli court blocks Ben Gvir crocodile moat plan for prisons holding Palestinians

    Israeli court blocks Ben Gvir crocodile moat plan for prisons holding Palestinians

    A controversial plan by Israeli far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir to place Nile crocodiles in moats surrounding facilities holding Palestinian prisoners has been temporarily blocked by a Jerusalem District Court ruling, Israeli media has confirmed.

    The scheme, which had secured backing from Ben Gvir’s own ministry and the Israel Prison Service (IPS), had already seen preliminary construction work underway: crews had begun digging trenches around a portion of Ketziot Prison, located in Israel’s Negev desert. Under the proposal, predatory Nile crocodiles would be stationed in these newly dug moats as an added security perimeter around the prison complex.

    The court’s temporary injunction was issued just hours after Israeli animal welfare group Let the Animals Live filed a legal petition against the plan, naming Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, Ben Gvir, and the IPS as respondents. Notably, the legal challenge centered exclusively on risks to the crocodiles and potential harm to prison personnel, rather than addressing the longstanding documented abuses faced by Palestinian detainees held in Israeli custody.

    The pathway for Ben Gvir’s proposal was cleared earlier in July 2025, when Minister Silman issued a regulatory order reclassifying Nile crocodiles from a protected native species to a “tended animal,” removing legal barriers to their transfer and deployment at the prison site. The petition disputes this regulatory change, arguing Silman sidelined formal input from legal experts and the Nature and Parks Authority, and calling for the crocodile’s protected status to be reinstated.

    In his Sunday ruling, Judge Avraham Rubin found that the claims of potential harm to the crocodiles were serious enough to warrant immediate intervention. “The claims regarding the expected harm to the crocodiles merit investigation and justify issuing an order prohibiting the transfer, or any action related to locating or preparing crocodiles for transfer,” Rubin wrote in his decision. The temporary injunction will remain in effect until a full ruling on the case, with Silman, Ben Gvir, and the IPS given until Wednesday to submit formal responses to the court.

    Israeli environmental and conservation bodies have voiced opposition to the plan from its earliest stages. Both the Environmental Protection Ministry and the Nature and Parks Authority have publicly stated that Silman’s reclassification of the Nile crocodile lacks any scientific foundation, and have echoed concerns that relocating the large predators to a high-traffic prison site puts correctional staff at unnecessary risk.

    The crocodile moat scheme is only the latest in a string of harsh measures pushed by Ben Gvir aimed at worsening already poor detention conditions for Palestinians held in Israeli custody. Previous proposals and implemented policies have included restrictions on family visitations, reduced food access, deliberate denial of medical care, extended solitary confinement, and reports of routine torture.

    The court ruling came on the same day that video footage of Ben Gvir circulated widely on social media, showing the far-right politician mocking a female Palestinian detainee who had raised complaints about inhumane conditions inside her facility.

    According to data collected by Palestinian prisoner advocacy organizations, more than 9,600 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli detention facilities as of 2025. That population includes 84 women and 350 minor children, with widespread documentation of ongoing abuses including medical neglect, physical assault, sexual violence, and rape that human rights groups characterize as systematic torture against the detainee population.

  • German court rules comparing Israel to Nazi Germany constitutes ‘protected speech’

    German court rules comparing Israel to Nazi Germany constitutes ‘protected speech’

    In a landmark ruling that clarifies the boundaries of political expression amid heated global debate over the Israel-Gaza conflict, Germany’s Zweibrucken Higher Regional Court has overturned a lower court’s conviction and acquitted a woman who faced a €2,400 ($2,700) fine for sharing two critical Instagram posts comparing Israel’s military operations in Gaza to the atrocities of Nazi Germany.

    The posts were published at the peak of Israeli military campaign in Gaza, a period that has drawn widespread international condemnation and mass grassroots protests calling for an end to the violence. The first post featured a side-by-side table outlining parallels between Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the historical actions of the Nazi regime, paired with a split image combining the Israeli flag and the Nazi flag, with a portion of a swastika visible. The second post showed Israeli soldiers opening fire into an enclosed space, with blood depicted pooling below the structure, and overlaid a swastika inside the Star of David. Both posts were tagged with the pro-Palestinian hashtags #FREEPALESTINE and #GAZAUNDERATTACK.

    In its ruling, the court emphasized that the imagery and text included in the posts were unambiguously rooted in condemnation of Israeli military actions in Gaza, not endorsement of Nazi ideology. The judgment clarified that even when it involves the use of symbols legally banned in Germany, such speech falls under the protection of freedom of expression when the broader context clearly frames the content as criticism, political commentary, or rejection of extremist ideology. Judges noted that the #FREEPALESTINE hashtag made the woman’s political position unequivocal, and far-right sympathizers would not misinterpret the posts as promotion of neo-Nazi beliefs.

    The court explicitly rejected the common argument that any comparison between Israeli state policy and Nazi Germany automatically constitutes trivialization of the Holocaust or incitement to religious or ethnic hatred. The ruling held that sharp, critical commentary targeting the actions of a sovereign state does not automatically cross the legal threshold for criminal prosecution on these grounds. The same logic was applied to the contested combined swastika-Star of David image: the court found that the depiction of soldiers attacking unarmed civilians, paired with the #GAZAUNDERATTACK tag, made the image’s condemnatory purpose entirely clear, rooted in criticism of Israel’s military offensive rather than hateful extremism.

    While the ruling does not grant blanket immunity for all such comparisons, it establishes a critical legal precedent: Germany cannot automatically criminalize comparisons between Israeli actions and Nazi conduct when the speech in question is clearly part of an unmistakable condemnation of ongoing Israeli violence in Gaza. Following the appellate judgment, the woman was cleared of all charges against her.

  • How Lamine Yamal became a symbol of Spain’s identity debate

    How Lamine Yamal became a symbol of Spain’s identity debate

    In the immediate aftermath of Spain’s 2026 World Cup final win over Argentina, one image cut through the chaos of post-match celebrations and on-pitch scuffles to capture global attention: 19-year-old Lamine Yamal, the youngest starter to win a World Cup final since Pele and Kylian Mbappé, dropped to his knees in prayer, the iconic red of Spain’s national team draped over his shoulders. What began as a quiet, personal moment of gratitude for a historic sporting achievement quickly exploded into the center of a decades-long conversation in Spain over what it means to be Spanish, and who gets to claim that identity.

    Yamal’s background places him directly at the intersection of Spain’s complex multicultural present. Born in the working-class neighborhood of Rocaforda in Mataró to a Moroccan father and an Equatorial Guinean mother, the young Barcelona star has never hidden his Muslim faith. He has spoken openly about reciting a traditional dua taught by his grandmother before every match and fasting during Ramadan while training at Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium. Earlier in the World Cup, after scoring against Saudi Arabia in the group stage, he performed sujud – a common prostration of gratitude practiced by Muslim athletes around the world. That gesture alone sparked immediate backlash: while many fans celebrated Yamal’s open embrace of his identity, others argued his public prayer had no place on the pitch when he was representing Spain.

    He is not the first Muslim player to wear the Spanish national team jersey – Munir Al Haddadi earned that distinction back in 2014 – but Yamal’s unprecedented profile has made him the face of this national debate. As the heir to Barcelona’s legendary number 10 shirt, once held by Lionel Messi, every choice he makes is scrutinized, and his loyalty to the country of his birth has been called into question repeatedly in public discourse.

    The debate has pulled in high-profile Spanish politicians, laying bare deep divisions over multiculturalism and immigration. Former minister and leading Podemos party figure Ione Belarra has positioned Yamal as a symbol of a more inclusive modern Spain, saying she “liked the Spain of Lamine Yamal much more than the Spain being promoted by the conservative People’s Party and far-right party Vox.” Like many of Yamal’s supporters, she celebrated the image of his younger brother running through the stadium cheering on Spain in a national team shirt as proof of his family’s deep connection to the country.

    But conservative and far-right voices have framed Yamal’s faith and identity as a threat to Spanish national culture. Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party, defended anti-Yamal rhetoric on social platform X, arguing that critics overreacted to what he framed as a legitimate display of native Spanish identity. “They expect Spaniards to silently put up with the Islamist invasion and the mafia government,” he wrote. Long before Yamal rose to global fame, Vox already described his working-class hometown neighborhood of Rocaforda as a “multicultural shithole.”

    Data from the Spanish Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia underscores the intensity of the backlash: the organization recorded more than 40,000 pieces of online hate content targeting Yamal, with sport accounting for 16% of all monitored hateful posts, and Yamal named as the primary target in many of them. Hostility only grew after his sujud gesture, with commentators leaving comments claiming “our roots have been humiliated” and “he is not worthy of being Spanish.”

    Yet in Rocaforda, residents reject that divisive framing. Juan Carlos Serrano Muñoz, owner of a local café decorated with murals of the neighborhood’s most famous residents, including iconic bullfighter El Cordobés, dismissed far-right rhetoric as a political tactic to stoke division. “They want to focus on migration, on delinquency, but what Lamine did was give a kick to these people and tell a different story about this neighbourhood; a better story about the integration of the many cultures that live here,” he told Middle East Eye.

    Institutional leaders in Spanish football have also moved to build more inclusive spaces for athletes of all faiths and backgrounds. While Spain’s broader cultural landscape still carries deep traces of its Catholic heritage, the country is formally a secular state, and athletes of any religion are eligible to represent the national side. The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) established an Equality Department in 2023, a year before Yamal made his international debut at Euro 2024, formalizing protections against discrimination in sport for players regardless of background or faith. Individual clubs across the country have also implemented their own measures to ensure equal opportunity and welcoming environments.

    Many native-born white Spaniards have also publicly backed Yamal, embracing a vision of Spanish identity that can accommodate multiple heritages. In a public survey conducted by The New Arab, one respondent put it simply: “He is Spanish, and regardless of his origins, he has defended his country, as the Spaniard that he is.” This view does not erase Yamal’s cultural and religious background, but holds that his identity as a Spaniard and his Muslim faith can coexist.

    Today, that viral image of Yamal on his knees in prayer, surrounded by post-match chaos, carries two wildly different meanings for the Spanish public. For supporters, it is nothing more than a young athlete’s quiet moment of gratitude, no different than a Christian player crossing himself before a match or pointing to the sky to honor a loved one. For critics, shaped by years of anxiety over immigration and multiculturalism stoked by far-right parties, the gesture has become a political flashpoint in a debate that extends far beyond the football pitch.

    Spain already has one of the highest densities of public sports facilities in Europe, and football remains the country’s greatest unifying cultural force. As more young Muslim players rise through the grassroots ranks, their presence on national and club sides will only continue to grow. The RFEF’s formal anti-discrimination measures and the growing public support for athletes like Yamal point toward a future where open displays of faith by multicultural players are a normal, accepted part of Spanish football. But the ongoing political backlash surrounding Yamal also reveals another possible future: one where every gesture he makes is pulled into an old, unresolved debate about national identity that stretches far beyond the sport.

    Unlike Achraf Hakimi, another Spanish-born player who chose to represent his parents’ homeland of Morocco rather than Spain, Yamal never defused the identity debate by choosing another flag. He stayed, he scored, he prayed, and he won the biggest prize in global football – making it impossible for either side of Spain’s identity divide to make their argument without invoking his name.

  • ‘They want to make us leave’: Israel destroys West Bank wells serving Palestinian herders

    ‘They want to make us leave’: Israel destroys West Bank wells serving Palestinian herders

    Dawn breaks slowly over the spread-out tent homes and livestock enclosures of Ras al-Ahmar, a small Palestinian community tucked into the arid northern Jordan Valley. The only sound cutting through the still morning air is the desperate bleating of thirsty cattle and sheep, waiting for water that will not flow from the community’s destroyed wells.

    Just days after Israeli military forces demolished three of the village’s primary water wells, hundreds of residents are locked in a desperate race to secure enough water to sustain their households, their subsistence crops, and their grazing livestock — all in one of the occupied West Bank’s most parched, water-scarce regions.

    For 60-year-old Ali Bani Odeh, the demolition of the wells was far more than the loss of basic infrastructure. A father of four and grandfather to 14 children, Odeh has spent his entire adult life working this land, tending crops and raising animals to support his extended family. Today, he and dozens of other local families face an uncertain future: with no consistent water source, it is unclear how much longer they can remain on their ancestral land.

    “Water is everything for us,” Odeh told reporters from Middle East Eye. “Without water, we cannot live. We need it for our families, our sheep and our crops. Since the wells were destroyed, we have been forced to bring water from town at a much higher cost, and even then, we’re not always allowed to pass.”

    Families are now forced to haul water from distant urban centers at prices three times the standard rate, while Israeli military checkpoints and strict movement restrictions often block or delay water tankers from reaching the isolated village entirely.

    Abdullah Bisharat, head of the Ras al-Ahmar village council, described the destroyed wells as the beating heart of the community. “The wells were the lifeline of this community,” Bisharat said. According to his accounting, the three wells supplied more than 47 local families, totaling more than 600 residents, and irrigated roughly 7,500 dunams (more than 1,850 acres) of working farmland. They also provided water for thousands of sheep and goats, the primary source of household income for nearly all families in the community.

    “Their destruction has affected every aspect of daily life, from drinking water and agriculture to livestock, leaving dozens of families struggling to meet their most basic needs,” Bisharat added.

    Residents note that the demolition of the wells marks the most severe escalation in a months-long water crisis driven by repeated attacks from Israeli settlers. For months, settlers have repeatedly cut the above-ground pipelines that brought water to the community, forcing families to already rely on overpriced water tankers. This attack, however, eliminated the community’s last independent water source by destroying the wells themselves.

    Obeida Bani Odeh, Ali’s son, says the loss of the wells threatens not just his family’s livelihood, but their ability to remain in Ras al-Ahmar at all. “We cannot survive here without water,” he said. “For months, the pipelines supplying our community were repeatedly cut, and we had to bring water from nearby towns, often at three times the usual cost. Now the wells have been destroyed, and there is no reliable source of water left for our families or our livestock.”

    He explained that the crisis extends far beyond water scarcity. Frequent settler violence and strict movement controls have made it nearly impossible to bring in not just water, but animal feed and other essential supplies. “The settlers attack everyone, from the young to the old,” Obeida said. “They want to make people afraid and force them to leave. But we have been living on this land for generations.”

    Today, roughly 700,000 Israeli settlers reside in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, spread across more than 300 formal settlements and unauthorized outposts. The International Court of Justice has repeatedly ruled that all Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory violate international law, a finding that Israel has repeatedly rejected.

    Settler violence and targeted attacks against Palestinian herding and farming communities in the West Bank have spiked dramatically in recent years. United Nations data shows that between January 2023 and April 2026, at least 5,910 Palestinians have been internally displaced from their homes in the West Bank as a direct result of settler violence.

    Aref Daraghmeh, a prominent Palestinian human rights activist working in the Jordan Valley, says the demolition of water infrastructure in Ras al-Ahmar is part of a broader, systematic campaign to take control of the region’s limited natural resources. “Water has become a silent war against Palestinians in the Jordan Valley,” Daraghmeh told Middle East Eye. “The occupation has taken control of many Palestinian water sources, while the water available to Palestinian communities is insufficient for agriculture and sustaining life on the land.”

    Daraghmeh explains that restricted water access has gutted Palestinian agricultural activity across the Jordan Valley, making it increasingly impossible for small-scale farmers and herders to maintain their livelihoods. As water becomes harder to access, communities face mounting pressure to abandon their land, even as Israeli settlement agriculture expands across the region. Strict movement controls have compounded these challenges, he added. “The Jordan Valley is effectively under closure,” Daraghmeh said. “Military checkpoints control movement, roads are restricted, and residents often have to wait for hours before they can enter or leave their communities.”

    These restrictions also block farmers from accessing grazing lands and transporting livestock, crops, and supplies to market, piling additional pressure on communities already crippled by water scarcity.

    For Ali Bani Odeh, however, leaving Ras al-Ahmar is not a choice he is willing to make. Displaced from his original family home as a child, he says he will not be forced to move again. “I have left before, but I will not leave this place,” Ali said. “If we leave, they will take over the land. We are staying because this is where our lives and our history are.”