标签： Asia

A new wave of Israeli air strikes across the Gaza Strip has left at least 10 Palestinians dead and dozens injured, pushing the already fragile, months-long ceasefire to the brink of collapse as international mediators work to de-escalate the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The deadliest attack took place on Wednesday morning at the Gaza Governorate Municipalities Police Headquarters in Gaza City, where Israeli fighter jets dropped multiple explosive bombs on the multi-story facility. Gaza-based paramedic teams confirmed that at least nine people were killed in the strike, and another 15 suffered varying degrees of injury, with several remaining in critical condition as of Wednesday afternoon. Local Palestinian media reports indicate that several senior law enforcement officials were among the fatalities, including Colonel Faten al-Sahhar, the widely respected head of the Gaza Police Women’s Department.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior has condemned the targeted attack on the police station, stating that Israel’s deliberate strike on the territory’s law enforcement infrastructure is a clear attempt to sow disorder and panic across Gaza. A statement from the department called the assault a “brutal massacre” of security personnel working to maintain public order under already catastrophic conditions. A separate, smaller Israeli air strike in the central Gaza region on the same day killed an additional Palestinian, bringing the total death toll from Wednesday’s attacks to 10.

This latest round of deadly violence follows a equally destructive strike on a crowded Gaza City cafe Tuesday that killed seven Palestinians, one of whom was a child. That attack marked the deadliest single Israeli strike in Gaza in more than a month, reigniting fears of a full-scale return to open conflict. The Hamas administration in Gaza has labeled the recent series of strikes a deliberate war crime, arguing their timing is no coincidence: Israel, Hamas claims, is actively working to sabotage international mediation efforts designed to solidify the existing fragile ceasefire.

The Israeli military has issued a standard response to the strikes, claiming it targeted “Hamas operatives” who were plotting imminent attacks against Israeli military personnel deployed along the Gaza border. The military provided no concrete evidence to back up this assertion, a pattern that has repeated consistently across dozens of Israeli strikes in Gaza since the October ceasefire was signed.

The current escalation comes just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a high-stakes meeting with U.S. Special Envoy Jared Kushner, who has been leading U.S.-backed mediation efforts between Israel, Hamas, and regional stakeholders. Following the closed-door meeting, Kushner publicly stated that the U.S. would give Israel authorization to “finish the job” against Hamas if the group refused to proceed with planned disarmament under the ceasefire framework.

Kushner, whose personal family has maintained long-standing close political and financial ties to Netanyahu, traveled to Egypt earlier in the week to meet with Hamas leadership as part of the ongoing mediation push. Last month, Hamas announced it had agreed to a U.S.-brokered proposal that would see gradual disarmament and full implementation of the October ceasefire agreement, in exchange for a total end to all Israeli military strikes and a full withdrawal of Israeli occupying forces from all Gaza territory. Israel has flatly rejected the proposal, refusing to commit to either a permanent end to strikes or a full military withdrawal.

Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qasem placed direct blame for the renewed escalation on the U.S.-led mediation body known as the Peace Council, arguing that the group has failed to pressure Israel to abide by the terms of the existing ceasefire agreement. “The Peace Council now faces a real test of its ability and seriousness in managing mediation and negotiations,” Qasem stated in a press briefing Wednesday. He added that senior officials from the U.S.-led body have released contradictory public statements that effectively provide diplomatic cover for Israel to expand its military aggression in Gaza.

In a post-meeting interview with Fox News, Kushner doubled down on the U.S. position, stating that Washington will block all international funding for post-conflict reconstruction in Gaza until Hamas fully surrenders its weapons. He also reaffirmed the U.S. stance that it will not limit Israel’s self-described right to military action in Gaza if it claims any imminent threat exists against its territory or personnel.

The original October 2024 ceasefire was negotiated to end two years of full-scale Israeli military operations in Gaza, which Gaza’s health ministry reports have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians to date, the vast majority of whom are civilians including women and children. The military campaign has also destroyed approximately 90 percent of all residential infrastructure across the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 1.5 million Palestinians displaced. Since the ceasefire was signed, Israel has repeatedly violated the terms, carrying out near-daily air strikes across the territory and maintaining a crippling total siege that blocks access to food, fuel, medical supplies, and other basic humanitarian goods. According to Palestinian health officials, more than 1,200 Palestinians, including at least 300 children, have been killed by Israeli forces in ceasefire violations since the agreement was signed.

The death of 42-year-old Cambridge University sociologist Jason Arday, found dead in south London last Friday, has sparked renewed scrutiny of the relentless media and online campaign that targeted him in his final weeks, after a new independent analysis has confirmed that many of the most widely mocked claims about his life and achievements are verifiably true.

Arday resigned from his professorship at Cambridge and his fellowship at Jesus College earlier this month, shortly after the university launched an independent investigation into his appointment following widespread plagiarism allegations. For weeks, public discourse centered on claims that Arday had fabricated large portions of his personal biography and professional credentials, with two of his assertions drawing particular scorn: that he completed 30 marathons in 35 days for charity in 2010, and that he once played semi-professional football.

An in-depth analysis by Middle East Eye (MEE) has confirmed both claims are accurate, with contemporaneous local news reports, firsthand witness accounts, and club records backing up Arday’s statements. Coverage from multiple London local outlets including the Richmond and Twickenham Times and My London documented Arday’s 2010 charity challenge from its announcement through to its completion. Then a 24-year-old master’s student working as a part-time lecturer, Arday launched the 30-marathon effort to raise funds for two UK charities: Shooting Star Children’s Hospice and homeless advocacy organization Shelter.

Local media tracked his progress step-by-step: the first completed marathon was reported on July 20, 2010, with a published photo of Arday mid-run, and an August 13 update from Your Local Guardian confirmed he was within reach of his 30-marathon goal. Kim Darton, then fundraising director at Shooting Star, even cycled alongside Arday for his 24th marathon, later telling outlets he was stunned by the academic’s determination and called the effort inspiring. Arday ultimately crossed the finish line on August 25, 2010, after training for months on a grueling schedule that included 14 miles of running daily split between early morning and late night shifts around his teaching work. He completed the challenge despite developing a hairline fracture in his leg, a detail misrepresented by later critical coverage that incorrectly labeled the injury a full broken leg to mock Arday’s claim.

Sarah Carney, a long-time friend of Arday, confirmed the challenge’s authenticity in an interview after his death, stating she joined Arday for the second half of his final marathon and has photos documenting the effort.

“These runs were true. He wasn’t an ordinary person. He was extraordinary,” Carney told reporters.

MEE also confirmed Arday’s claim of semi-professional football experience, finding he was listed as a first-team goalkeeper for two semi-pro English clubs: Walton and Hersham FC and Lewisham Borough FC, with a match report from October 2018 referencing his involvement.

Other widely criticized claims from Arday have also been found to be more credible than recent media coverage suggested. His assertion that he had helped raise £5 million for charity over a 20-year period was mocked as an obvious exaggeration, but Arday always clarified the total represented collective fundraising across multiple campaigns he organized, not money he raised alone. Analysis from Byline Times found the total is plausible, as the combined gross income of charities Arday worked with exceeds £1.4 billion. Even the claim that Arday falsely claimed authorship of an unpublished book has been partially validated: the work, *Being Young, Black and Male: Challenging the Dominant Discourse*, is listed as a forthcoming title from major academic publisher Palgrave Macmillan, even if it has not yet been released.

The most divisive unproven claim is Arday’s assertion that he could not speak full sentences until he was 11 years old, a statement that has drawn conflicting accounts from former classmates. While some former schoolmates have disputed the claim, others have backed it up, including Caroline Russell-Clark, the mother of a former teammate, who recalled Arday having severe learning difficulties and not speaking regularly until he was a teenager.

The core of the original scandal surrounding Arday centered on plagiarism allegations, first raised by Dr. Nathan Cofnas, a self-described proponent of “racial realism” who wrote in February 2024 that Black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment” without affirmative action. The initial accusation targeted Arday’s 2015 PhD thesis completed at Liverpool John Moores University, which launched its own investigation into the claims earlier this year. The university concluded in March that any citation issues were the result of “honest and reasonable error”, noting that Arday’s supervisory team was depleted during his doctorate and he only received one formal supervision session over the course of his degree. Textual overlap in his thesis was found to be within acceptable ranges for the academic standards of the time, and MEE’s analysis found Arday explicitly credited the work of other scholars whose work was referenced, including lead scholar Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, in other sections of the document.

New plagiarism allegations emerged in recent months, which Arday denied before his death. He acknowledged that early work had formatting and citation gaps, noting in a recent interview that his later work improved significantly once he could afford a professional proofreader to review his writing.

In the days after Arday’s death, tributes have poured in from across academia and politics, with many figures noting that Arday spent his career opening doors for underrepresented young scholars. A vigil held in London’s Trafalgar Square on Monday drew an estimated 30,000 mourners, where Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy told the crowd Arday’s legacy lay in the access he created for others.

“He held doors open behind him. He kept them open and thousands of us walked through. That is why this place is full tonight,” Ribeiro-Addy said.

Oxford University academic Dr. Rebecca Syed Sheriff, who worked with Arday, remembered him as a warm, supportive colleague dedicated to centering the experiences of marginalized young people in research. “He always had good ideas, always genuinely interested in the experiences of young people who would not usually be seen in research,” she said.

Cambridge Chancellor Lord Chris Smith has publicly characterized the campaign against Arday as a “racist feeding frenzy”, echoing widespread criticism of how media outlets amplified unproven allegations as fact before any investigation was completed. In his resignation statement earlier this month, Arday stressed that his decision to step down should not be misread as an admission of guilt for the claims made against him.

“[This move] should not be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me,” he wrote at the time.

Mental health support resources are available for anyone struggling with distress: in the UK, the Samaritans can be reached at jo@samaritans.org or 116 123, while people in the U.S. can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, with additional global resources listed at befrienders.org.

Tensions across the Persian Gulf have spiked sharply this week, as Iran issued a stark public warning to neighboring Gulf states just hours after the United Arab Emirates announced it was severing all economic ties with Tehran, deepening a conflict that has already roiled the strategic region for months.

Ali Abdollahi, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, delivered the warning Wednesday in comments carried by Iran’s state-run Mehr News Agency. Abdollahi emphasized that any form of support or logistical assistance provided to what he labeled the “aggressor United States military” would be treated as direct participation in Washington’s ongoing military operations against Iran.

He questioned the plausibility of the large contingent of U.S. military aircraft — including critical refueling planes — operating from bases across the Gulf region without the explicit knowledge and approval of host nations, adding that Iranian intelligence maintains full situational awareness of all activity in the area. “Gulf countries should know that we are fully aware of the situation,” Abdollahi said.

The warning comes in the wake of a series of escalating moves between the UAE and Iran that began earlier this week. On Tuesday, Abu Dhabi claimed that Iran had launched two ballistic missiles toward its coastline, with one projectile landing inside UAE territorial waters and the other falling in international waters. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei issued an immediate categorical rejection of the UAE’s accusation, denying any Iranian missile launch toward the country.

Shortly after the missile claim, the UAE announced it would suspend all trade, commercial and financial transactions with Iran until further notice. “In light of regional escalations… all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice,” said UAE foreign ministry official Afra al-Hameli.

This latest break in economic ties marks a significant deepening of the rift between the two nations. Prior to the outbreak of the regional war in late February, the UAE — home to a large, long-established Iranian diaspora community — was one of the largest trading partners for Iran, which has been crippled by sweeping U.S. economic sanctions for years. Since the war began, which followed the launch of heavy joint attacks on Iran by the U.S. and Israel, the UAE has already implemented a series of punitive measures against Tehran, including recalling its ambassador from Tehran and closing Iran-linked educational institutions and a medical facility in the Emirates. In the early months of the conflict, Iran responded with heavy strikes on targets across the UAE.

Beyond the escalating bilateral tensions between Iran and Gulf states, new reporting this week has shed light on a potential major shift in U.S. military posture in the region. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the Trump administration is actively evaluating a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Gulf, in the wake of repeated Iranian drone and missile attacks on large U.S. military bases located in the region. The policy review is being led by the Pentagon’s policy office, which has described the ongoing war as “a once-in-a-generation chance for the Pentagon to reconsider its presence in the region.” The outlet added that U.S. officials have already signaled they may not rebuild damaged Iranian-attacked bases to their pre-war operational capacity. This reporting corroborates an earlier investigation published in June by Middle East Eye, which cited current and former U.S. officials predicting a major overhaul of the long-standing U.S. basing framework in the Gulf. Former senior U.S. officials have publicly floated the prospect of a troop drawdown for months.

The shifting U.S. posture and rising regional tensions were further highlighted by an incendiary social media post from President Trump earlier Tuesday. Trump shared an altered map of the Strait of Hormuz — the strategic global energy chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes — labeled “NEW U.S. Territory” on his Truth Social account.

The post drew immediate mockery and pushback from Iranian officials. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X that the disconnect between Washington’s failure to reopen the strait and its claim to sovereignty over it is wider than the 11,265-kilometer distance between Washington D.C. and the waterway. “Welcome to the post-American order in the Persian Gulf,” Rezaei added.

Iran’s top nuclear and foreign policy negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf reaffirmed Tehran’s position Tuesday, stating that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed to international shipping until the U.S. fulfills its previously agreed commitments outlined in a bilateral memorandum of understanding, including the lifting of Iran’s naval blockade.

The fallout from escalating tensions has also reached East Asia. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun confirmed Wednesday that President Trump’s recent order to scale back joint U.S.-South Korea military drills includes implicit pressure on Seoul to commit greater support to the U.S.-led war on Iran. Cho noted that Trump’s order covers multiple overlapping priorities, including messaging toward North Korea and an effort to break the current stalemate in the Iran war, but added that neither South Korean nor U.S. national security officials had advance warning of the president’s announcement.

For nearly three years, Ahmed al-Siqali, a Palestinian father of seven, dreaded the day he would step back into the Gaza Strip. Just one week before the outbreak of full-scale conflict in October 2023, he had crossed out of the besieged enclave to take a construction job in Israel, a routine move for thousands of Palestinian laborers who relied on Israeli work permits to support their families. When border crossings closed immediately after hostilities began, al-Siqali found himself stranded in the occupied West Bank, cut off from his wife and children for more than two years. That separation turned to unthinkable tragedy in December 2023, when an Israeli airstrike flattened the Gaza City home where his family was sheltering, killing six of his seven children. Only his daughter Rosan survived alongside his wife Hayat. When Israeli forces finally detained him during a West Bank raid last month and deported him back to Gaza weeks later, al-Siqali stepped into a homecoming no parent should ever face.

Before October 7 2023, cross-border work was a common livelihood for Palestinian men from Gaza. Under a permit system run by Israeli authorities, thousands traveled regularly to Israel for jobs in construction, agriculture and services, sending earnings home to build better futures for their families. Al-Siqali had walked that same path: he had even purchased a new home near the Mediterranean coast in northern Gaza, fulfilling a long-held dream of his children to live steps from the beach. He never imagined that his final goodbye before leaving for work would be the last time he saw six of his children alive.

“I never imagined that the journey meant to build their future would separate our fates, leaving me unable to protect them or even say goodbye,” al-Siqali told Middle East Eye in an interview following his return. As communications across Gaza collapsed repeatedly in the first weeks of the war, reaching his family became nearly impossible. On the rare calls that connected, his children begged him to come home, repeating “We don’t want work or money. We just want you here with us.” The last successful contact came on December 8, 2023, when al-Siqali reached his wife through a rare working eSIM. In the few minutes before the line cut out, he could hear the terror in his family’s voices. Fearing the worst, he asked Hayat to write all the children’s names on their hands so they could be identified if disaster struck. Minutes after the call dropped, a relative called with the devastating news: the shelter had been bombed.

“There are no words that can describe what I felt at that moment. It was something no human being should have to endure,” al-Siqali said. Only two-month-old Eileen, whom he had held just once before leaving Gaza, was among the dead, alongside Mohammed, Muhannad, twins Kinan and Rayan, and Basant. “What did my children do to have their dreams taken away and be killed like this?” he asked. For two years, he remained stranded in the West Bank, passing days re-watching old photos and videos of a family trip to al-Nour resort taken just days before he left. The new coastal home he had worked so hard to buy was destroyed in the fighting, leaving nothing of the future he had planned.

His long wait for reunion ended abruptly on July 21, when Israeli forces raided the Qalqilya compound where he was staying with other displaced Gaza laborers. Al-Siqali, who had already warned his wife of the incoming soldiers, was detained along with all the workers in the building. After two weeks in Ofer Prison, he was transferred back to Gaza alongside 23 other Palestinian workers, cuffed and blindfolded for the four-hour journey to the Kerem Shalom crossing. From there, the International Committee of the Red Cross took the group to Nasser Hospital for processing.

“As I walked towards the crossing, my legs could barely carry me. I felt as though I was about to lose consciousness,” al-Siqali recalled. “All I could think about was my incomplete reunion, the reunion I had waited so long for. It had finally come, but my family was no longer whole. Instead of my children being there to welcome me, I was welcomed by their six death certificates.”

Waiting for him at the hospital was Hayat, who had spent two weeks without any word of al-Siqali’s fate after his arrest. The 36-year-old mother, who survived the airstrike with physical wounds and crippling grief, said her mind froze when the bus pulled in. “My heart pounded, and I wanted to fly to him, yet I didn’t know how to face him without our six children,” she said. When al-Siqali walked toward her, their three-year-awaited reunion was held in silence, broken only by shared tears. Hayat whispered the words that had weighed on her through months of displacement: “Forgive me. I couldn’t protect what you entrusted to me.”

Today, the small surviving family lives in a makeshift tent in al-Mawasi, a displacement camp in southern Gaza. UN data shows that more than 90% of all buildings across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the start of the conflict, forcing nearly 1.9 million Palestinians from their homes. More than 800,000 displaced people live in makeshift tent settlements that offer almost no protection from extreme summer heat, disease and harsh weather. Al-Siqali, once a skilled construction worker, now struggles to adjust to the primitive conditions of camp life, with no work to turn to in a completely collapsed local economy.

Most days, he lies on a thin foam mattress in the tent, scrolling through the photos of his six children saved on his phone. Their six death certificates rest beside him. “This is all I have left of them,” he repeats. According to United Nations figures, more than 21,000 children have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank since the start of the war, with thousands more still missing and presumed dead, turning al-Siqali’s story of grief into one of thousands for Palestinian families across the region.

It is peak harvest season in Kandahar, Afghanistan’s southern grape heartland, and 2024 has delivered a plump, abundant crop that should be a reason for celebration across the region’s agricultural communities. Instead, this year’s bounty has become a devastating economic burden, as months of cross-border fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan have sealed off the primary export market for Kandahar’s world-famous grapes.

For months, sporadic armed exchanges along the two nations’ rugged, 2,600-kilometer shared border have killed hundreds of civilians and service members on both sides. The conflict stems from Islamabad’s accusation that Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban government shelters militant groups carrying out cross-border attacks inside Pakistan — a claim the Taliban-led Kabul administration has repeatedly and vehemently denied.

As fighting escalated, Pakistan closed key border crossings, severing a critical trade artery that for decades has carried the bulk of Afghanistan’s fresh fruit exports to international and regional markets. Trapped with thousands of tons of perishable fresh grapes that cannot reach Pakistani buyers, Kandahar’s producers have been forced to flood the small domestic market with excess supply, sending fresh grape prices plummeting overnight.

To avoid letting their entire harvest go to waste, many growers have pivoted to drying bunches of fresh grapes to make long-lasting raisins, a lower-value product that can be stored and sold gradually. Even that adaptation has failed to deliver relief: glutted domestic markets have pushed raisin prices down to a fraction of their usual levels.

Inside a sprawling storage warehouse in Kandahar’s Zhari District, rows of fresh green grapes hang from wooden drying racks, as large ceiling fans circulate hot summer air to speed the curing process. For orchard owner Sakhi Jan, who supports a household of 10 people in Zhari, the price collapse has left him on the brink of financial ruin. Where 7 kilograms of raisins once sold for 1,000 to 1,200 afghanis (equal to $13 to $16), that same volume now fetches just 400 to 450 afghanis, or roughly $5 to $6.

In a nation already grappling with widespread systemic poverty and chronic malnutrition that disproportionately harms children and vulnerable households, even small income losses can push families into hunger. Jan says the daily struggle to make ends meet has become far more severe than anything he experienced in previous years.

“We are grateful for the harvest, but things aren’t like they used to be. The struggle is much harder now,” Jan explained. “In the past, work was steady, we could sell our grapes at a fair price, and people generally got by. Now the hardship is immense.” He stressed that reopening border crossings to restore trade flow is the only solution to the crisis, adding: “We urge both our government and Pakistan to open these routes and reach an agreement. The current situation is causing great hardship for all of us.”

Abdul Baqi Bina, deputy director of the Kandahar Chamber of Commerce and Investment, confirmed that the border shutdown has devastated Afghanistan’s entire fresh fruit export sector, hitting pomegranate producers as hard as grape growers. He shared stark trade data to illustrate the collapse: in 2023, Afghanistan’s five southern grape-growing provinces exported a total of 44,225 tons of grapes worth $13.8 million. Nearly 98% of that volume — 43,000 tons — was shipped through Pakistan to domestic and international buyers, with just the remaining 1,225 tons exported to Bangladesh, Iraq and India. So far in 2024, total grape exports from the region amount to only 256 tons, valued at just $100,000.

For veteran grape exporter Haji Abdul Hai, who has worked in the trade for decades, the current shutdown is unprecedented. “In my 50 years of life, I have never seen these roads closed to the extent they are now,” he said. He noted that past border disputes only resulted in short-term closures of a few days, and alternate crossings usually remained open to allow trade to continue. “But now, we are facing truly major difficulties that we have no way to navigate on our own,” he added.

Even seasonal farm workers, who rely on grape harvest season for the bulk of their annual income, have been hit hard. Qudratullah Popal, a harvest worker at a large local orchard, said the farm employed roughly 1,500 seasonal pickers during last year’s harvest. This year, that number has plummeted to just 15, as the orchard’s owners have no reason to harvest large volumes of grapes they cannot sell.

“There have been good harvests. Grapes turned out well, but the issue is they cannot be exported to other countries. They are being sent to domestic locations … where there is already an abundance of grapes,” Popal said. “When routes are blocked and trade halts, everyone’s livelihood is paralyzed: traders, laborers and orchard owners alike.”