broken

For most of Israel’s history, disagreements between political leaders and the military remained largely private. Arguments over strategy, timing or risk were real, but they were managed away from the public eye. Citizens saw a country that, whatever its internal tensions, could present a coherent face in wartime.

That quiet arrangement has frayed. Nearly three years after the October 7 attacks, open clashes between ministers and senior officers have become almost routine. The latest began when Defence Minister Israel Katz criticised Major-General Avi Bluth, the commander of Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, for seeking to extend the detention of an extremist settler. Katz then announced on live television that Bluth would be replaced, only for Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir to push back publicly, insisting that the general would remain in his post and that the proper procedures must be followed. What was once contained now plays out in full view.

This exchange, like many before it, is not the real story. The real story is what these repeated public ruptures reveal about a country still at war. The campaign that began with a demand for national unity has gradually redefined the relationship between those who set the direction and those who must turn it into reality. The disagreement is no longer mainly about tactics. It is about something more fundamental: Who has the right to define victory, to set the aims of the war, and to decide what is possible.

This change is bigger than a simple loss of discipline or a personal clash. Israel was never a state in which the army merely carried out orders. From the state’s earliest years, the military was a partner in shaping security policy, not a pure executive arm. David Ben-Gurion built the Israeli military as a central national institution. Later leaders – Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Benny Gantz, Yoav Gallant – rose from its ranks. The boundary between political authority and military judgement was always porous. The army did not simply implement policy; it helped define the realistic limits of what politics could demand.

For decades, that partnership rested on an unspoken understanding. The military, with its professional assessment of force, terrain, and risk, often set the ceiling of political ambition. Generals could, and frequently did, tell elected leaders: This is possible, this is not, this will cost more than you are prepared to pay. Politicians retained formal authority, but they operated within a framework of military realism that constrained excess. The army, in its own way, protected the political system from overreach by insisting on the boundaries of the achievable.

That relationship has inverted under the weight of a long war.

Four realities help explain why.

The first is time. Short wars allow disagreements to remain professional. A war that stretches across years turns almost every choice into a political one. How many reservists to call up, when to push deeper, how to weigh the lives of captives against broader military aims, how long a society can sustain the burden of repeated mobilisations – these are no longer purely operational questions. They touch families, communities, and the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of people. As the fighting has continued into its third year, the space for quiet professional judgement has narrowed.

The second is the absence of a shared definition of success. Official statements still speak of dismantling Hamas’s military capacity, bringing the captives home, and restoring security to the border communities. In practice, these aims pull against one another and are valued differently by different actors. Some emphasise lasting control or the elimination of residual threats. Others place the captives first or warn against an open-ended occupation. When the meaning of victory itself remains unsettled, each side begins to measure progress by its own lights. Soldiers and their commanders look for results that can be sustained. Political leaders look for outcomes that can be explained to a weary public and to their own political bases.

The third is the divergence of human incentives. Senior officers live with the state of the force and with the consequences of decisions that send people into harm’s way. Ministers live with coalition pressures, public anger, and the next election. When these pressures collide, public disagreement becomes more likely. The longer the war continues without a clear and jointly accepted end, the more often those collisions occur in the open.

The fourth, and most revealing, is the reversal of who defines the possible. Previously, the army told the political leadership what could realistically be achieved. Today, political leaders increasingly tell the army what must be achieved – and attack it when the answer is no. The military is no longer the institution that sets the ceiling of ambition. It is expected to make the politically desired outcome possible, and it is blamed when the limits of force become visible. This is not a minor adjustment in tone. It is a structural inversion of the old partnership.

The result is a deeper uncertainty about authority. In a short campaign, the question of who ultimately directs the war can remain unspoken. In a long war, it becomes unavoidable. Does final responsibility rest with the prime minister, the security cabinet, the defence minister, or the chief of staff? Different answers produce different strategies, different tolerances for risk, and different timelines for ending the fighting. When these answers are disputed in public, the coherence of decision-making suffers, and so does the clarity of what is being asked of the people who must execute the decisions.

The practical effects are already felt. Shared objectives become harder to set. An end that both political and military leaders can accept becomes more difficult to reach. A single durable strategy grows less likely. These are not problems of personality. They are problems of a system under prolonged strain. A country that once relied on the military’s professional standing to define the realistic boundaries of political ambition now finds politicians demanding outcomes that the army is expected simply to deliver, while soldiers, reservists, and families continue to bear the human consequences.

The public dispute between a defence minister and a chief of staff may look, on the surface, like another round of personal or partisan conflict. It is better understood as the latest expression of a larger question that has accompanied Israel since October 7: When a war stretches across years rather than weeks, who finally decides what is possible – the politician whose survival depends on the appearance of control, or the general who believes he understands the limits of military power? The answer will shape not only the relationship between government and army, but the manner and the moment in which this war eventually ends, and the human price still to be paid until then.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

With great power comes great box office.

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” swung to a record $360-million domestic debut, surpassing “Avengers: Endgame” to become the film with the biggest opening weekend in box office history.

The fourth installment of Tom Holland’s blockbuster series also set records for its Thursday preview gross. Paired with another film starring newlyweds Holland and Zendaya, the earnings of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” have helped give new meaning to the phrase “power couple.”

Here are the records “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” has broken so far:

Top domestic opening weekend

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” surpassed “Avengers: Endgame” as the biggest opening weekend at the domestic box office. “Brand New Day” earned $360 million, exceeding the previous record set by Disney’s final movie in the Infinity Saga, which made $357 million.

Biggest debut in the ’Spider-Man’ franchise

The previous record belonged to the third film in the Holland era, “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which earned $260 million domestically. “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” reigns supreme over nine live-action movies and two animated features.

Highest-earning Thursday previews

Since midnight showings of movies were moved up due to safety concerns after the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, “Avengers: Endgame” earned the biggest preview opening with $60 million, a record broken by “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” after it collected $72 million Thursday.

Biggest opening day (Friday)

The success continued into Friday. “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” earned $169 million — 47% of its total gross — beating out the previous record set by “Avengers: Endgame,” according to Box Office Mojo.

Fastest to $250 million

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” became the fastest to reach $250 million domestically, hitting the milestone in two days, according to Box Office Mojo. The previous record was held by, you guessed it, “Avengers: Endgame.”

Top opening weekend of July

The buddy comedy “Deadpool & Wolverine” had its claws into July after it earned $211 million domestically in its opening weekend in 2024. It was overtaken by “Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s” $360 million.

Top opening weekend of summer

“Deadpool & Wolverine” also held the record for the best debut weekend of any summer film. That total was no match for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.”

The biggest collective weekend in box office history

Holland and Zendaya are taking their box office prowess to new heights after their two movies and other films currently in theaters earned roughly $430 million — the biggest collective weekend in box office history.

“The Odyssey,” which also stars Holland and Zendaya, made $51 million in its third weekend. Zendaya’s banner year will continue this winter when “Dune: Part Three” hits theaters Dec. 18 — the same day as “Avengers: Doomsday.”

It is unknown if Holland will appear in the upcoming “Avengers” film, but “Brand New Day” concludes with the message “Spider-Man will return.”

The recent uprising of the youth in India might seem to have subsided after forcing Dharmendra Pradhan, the education minister of India, to resign. Still, he was never the true target of this historic youth revolt. The slogans, the placards, the irreverent digital art and the collective anger of the young were directed at one man alone: Narendra Modi.

There exists a pervasive prejudice among the intelligentsia that young Indians today are politically indifferent, consumerist and unconcerned with politics or the erosion of democratic norms. The events at Jantar Mantar have laid bare the shallowness of this assumption. The young harboured no illusions about the nature of this regime. They understood with absolute clarity that in the present constitutional setup, no minister possesses independent agency.

The Indian state today has been reduced to a single face, a single voice and an unyielding hub of authority: Narendra Modi. To demand the resignation of a minister, therefore, was not an administrative plea; it was a deliberate act to compel the supreme leader himself to yield.

Walking through Jantar Mantar, the protest site in central Delhi, occupied by thousands of young people for weeks, one could not escape this truth. What these young people achieved was nothing short of the iconoclasm of our times: the systematic demolition of the carefully curated, mythic public persona that this regime has spent a decade building as the sole visage of the nation.

What was most remarkable about this uprising was its radical decentralisation.

There were no high-budget, professionally printed banners. There was no vanguard organisation dictating the visual language of the protest or distributing uniform slogans for the benefit of television cameras. Scraps of cardboard, discarded paper and cheap marker pens sufficed. Each placard bore the unmistakable, authentic imprint of individual moral agency.

Yet, beneath this extraordinary heterogeneity, there remained an unwavering thematic unity.

Everything revolved around Modi.

The prime minister was mocked, caricatured and systematically stripped of the sacral aura that had been constructed around him for more than 10 years. In a matter of weeks, this generation transformed an imposing figure of state authority into a subject of collective laughter.

The young were outraged, above all, by the sheer, unbridled arrogance of power.

This uprising did not spring from material grievances alone; it arose from a profound sense of humiliation. The immediate symbolic spark was the deeply insensitive remark made by the chief justice of India, who publicly compared unemployed young people to “cockroaches”.

Coming after years in which the higher judiciary has increasingly appeared less like an independent guardian of the Constitution and more like an extension of executive power, the remark was understood as an articulation of the regime’s own contempt for its youth.

The formation of the “Cockroach Janta Party” (CJP) was an act of counter-humour born of deep injury. The already unfolding scandal over irregularities in the NEET examinations provided the movement with a concrete institutional focal point. The scandal became the occasion to demand accountability not just for a single test, but for an entire culture of governance.

The regime, meanwhile, suffered from its own hubris. It had persuaded itself that Indian society was thoroughly managed. Preoccupied with engineering electoral outcomes through the manipulation of rolls, managing parliamentary majorities through party defections, and consolidating its hold over state institutions, it failed to notice the quiet, gathering storm beneath the surface.

Those who possessed platforms, prestige and the power to shape public discourse were engrossed in celebrating the grand narrative of national glory. Television studios debated the nation’s civilisational destiny and its global standing. The mainstream press sang panegyrics to a “New India”. Scarcely anyone looked towards the young who found every avenue of mobility blocked. Their anxieties were rendered invisible because the state and its allied media did not consider them worthy of serious democratic attention.

Deprived of traditional spaces, they constructed their own. Their smartphones became their public square; social media platforms became their political assemblies; and satire became their primary democratic vocabulary.

The ruling ideology had convinced itself that the project of cultural hegemonisation was complete: once the majority was mobilised around a politics of religious identity and grievance against minorities, material realities would cease to matter. The aspirations, anxieties and dignity of an entire generation simply did not figure in this political imagination.

It was against this backdrop of institutional indifference that Sonam Wangchuk began his fast at Jantar Mantar. The government’s initial response was its standard weapon: calculated silence. As Wangchuk’s health deteriorated, the refusal to even acknowledge his presence generated profound moral outrage. Then came the fateful decision to forcibly remove him.

It proved to be a fatal miscalculation. The young perceived the treatment of Wangchuk as an insult to their own citizenship. What was done to him could be done to anyone who dared to stand up. His humiliation became their collective provocation. The response was immediate: Jantar Mantar was flooded by thousands of young bodies.

When the young marched towards parliament on July 20, the state relied on its familiar playbook: barricades, prohibitory orders and violent suppression. It had deployed these very methods against the anti-CAA protesters and the farmers’ movement. But this time, the internal mechanics of fear failed to operate. The blows they received did not shatter their spirit; they deepened their moral clarity.

Their struggle was not merely about securing a policy change or extracting a routine administrative concession. They set out to breach that institutional arrogance. When the Delhi police rained blows on the protesters on July 20, beating young citizens with a ferocity typically reserved for enemy combatants, the protesters did not view those batons as the instruments of an indifferent police force. They recognised them as the direct expression of Narendra Modi’s political will.

Yet, fear failed to perform its intended historic function. Many returned to Jantar Mantar carrying their wounds like badges of honour. Some returned barefoot. Their injuries became symbols of moral persistence rather than reasons for retreat. Their resolve was remarkably simple: they would force Modi to sacrifice one of his own.

Crucially, the protesters refused to yield to the temptation of violence. Their weapons remained language, images and satire. Armed with their phones, they launched an unrelenting assault on the prime minister’s public image, the very asset he has guarded most fiercely throughout his political life. For the first time, Modi was drawn onto a battleground where he could not dictate the rules.

When the prime minister attempted to intervene directly on social media, addressing the youth as “friends”, the rebuttal was instant and devastating:

“We are not your friends.”

It was more than a clever slogan; it marked the psychological collapse of a carefully cultivated paternalistic relationship. For years, Modi had sought to speak directly to the populace, bypassing mediating institutions and independent media. The young rejected that calculated intimacy in a single sentence. The authority of the patriarch dissolved into the irreverence that a free people reserve for their elected officials. The spell of fear was broken.

The assault on Modi’s public image appears to have shaken the regime far more deeply than any routine electoral setback ever could. For more than a decade, his authority has rested not merely on the coercive power of the state, but on the illusion of invulnerability: an image of a leader who never retreats, never admits error and never compromises.

The movement had to be contained before the satire hardened into permanent collective memory and the laughter of the young became the common language of the republic.

Pradhan’s resignation must be read precisely in this light. It is not the sacrifice of a minister; it is a desperate attempt to construct a firewall around the prime minister himself. The government will undoubtedly frame this as evidence of its responsiveness and democratic sensitivity. But the young understand it differently. For them, the resignation is a political concession extracted from an authority that had run out of options.

Before arriving at this point, the state had exhausted its standard repertoire of delegitimisation. It ignored the movement, questioned its motives, accused the youth of being proxies for opposition parties and deployed its media networks to allege foreign plots. When these slurs failed to stick, it resorted to force. Having endured all of this, the young do not view the minister’s exit as an act of state benevolence; they see it as the reluctant admission of a defeat that could no longer be disguised.

Ordinarily, the vocabulary of victory and defeat should not dominate a constitutional democracy. A government is expected to listen to its citizens, not view them as adversaries to be crushed. Dissent is not treason. But when a state consistently treats criticism as hostility and peaceful protesters as enemies of the state, it transforms democratic dialogue into a confrontation. When that happens, it cannot complain if citizens celebrate its retreat as a democratic victory.

The ultimate significance of this movement lies in its moral and creative form. The young answered state coercion with speech, wit, art and an extraordinary mastery of contemporary cultural forms. Their elders have often lamented that a generation raised on short-form content lacks political depth and endurance. Jantar Mantar has demolished that patronising assumption.

The meme was elevated to a potent instrument of political resistance. Laughter accomplished what solemn political rhetoric often fails to do: it punctured fear, dismantled false authority and deprived power of the uncritical reverence upon which authoritarian politics depends.

Authoritarianism requires not just obedience, but awe. It survives as long as people believe the ruler is beyond challenge, beyond satire and beyond defeat. The young at Jantar Mantar refused to grant Narendra Modi that sacral status. They restored him to the position he must occupy in a constitutional republic: an ordinary, accountable political leader, subject to the scrutiny, criticism and satire of the citizenry.

The protest site at Jantar Mantar may now be empty. The barricades have been moved aside and the crowds have returned to their hostels, campuses and homes. But movements of this nature do not end when the physical space is vacated. The critique inaugurated on the streets will continue in countless quiet spaces: university libraries, rented rooms, bus rides and millions of illuminated screens. The language that has been discovered cannot easily be unlearned.

If this youth uprising leaves behind an enduring lesson for the republic, it is a simple, fundamental truth: democracy begins the moment a people recover confidence in their own voice.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Islamabad, Pakistan – A wooden panelled bookshelf behind him, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the United States and Iran, aimed at extending their ceasefire by creating a pathway towards long-term peace.

Sharif then held up the document for the cameras. That was June 17, the high point of a frenzied diplomatic effort led by Pakistan spanning weeks, which had culminated in the MoU that Sharif signed as a mediator.

Yet less than four weeks later, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has, in just the past few days, issued two statements expressing “deep concern” over renewed US-Iran hostilities, with the MoU Islamabad had helped pull together seemingly in shreds.

On Monday morning, the US launched the latest in a series of attacks on Iran, which responded by firing missiles and drones at multiple Gulf and Arab nations that it blamed for hosting US military bases.

Hours later, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters that mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Oman, remained engaged and were continuing their efforts, even as he warned that Iran would continue responding to what it viewed as US non-compliance with the MoU.

So far, those efforts have failed to slow down the fighting, even as Pakistan has pressed on with diplomatic outreach.

On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar spoke by phone with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, telling him that dialogue and diplomacy remained “the only viable path” to resolving the crisis.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also spoke to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday, warning that “hard-earned” peace gains were at risk, while Dar held a separate call on Saturday with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.

To many analysts, one question, above all, now stares at Pakistan and other mediators like Qatar: With the deep distrust between the US and Iran only further expanding following the new bout of fighting, can Islamabad or any other capital once again bring Washington and Tehran back to the negotiating table?

Repeated breakdowns

The renewed fighting marks at least the third occasion since the US-Iran ceasefire signed on April 8 appeared to have collapsed.

Days after that truce was agreed on, the breakdown of the first round of Islamabad talks led to the US imposing a naval blockade on Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The US and Iran both attacked ships in the days that followed.

Then, after the MoU was signed on June 17, Iran attacked several ships that it claimed were passing through the Strait of Hormuz without its permission, prompting another escalation with Washington.

But the Iranian tanker strikes last week appear to have raised tensions to new heights.

US attacks on Iran since then have hit at least 10 provinces, killing a soldier, several fishermen in the southern province of Hormozgan, and a firefighter in Sistan and Baluchestan, according to Iranian authorities.

A railway bridge on a trade corridor linking Iran with Central Asia and China was also struck, along with a bridge near Mashhad used by mourners travelling to former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral.

The renewed hostilities have also pulled Qatar, a fellow mediator alongside Pakistan, more directly into the conflict. On Sunday, Iranian missiles and drones hit the Gulf state, with debris from interceptions injuring three people, including a child, according to Qatar’s Ministry of Interior.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused Washington of violating “nearly all parts” of the June agreement within 25 days of its signing, citing attacks on transport infrastructure and fishing vessels.

Baghaei said on Monday that Iran had “acted in good faith” throughout, but that “each time the other party has failed to meet its obligations, we did not uphold ours, and we will continue to act in this manner.”

Since the war began on February 28, Islamabad has played the role of mediator.

It hosted talks in April, the first time in four decades that US and Iranian officials sat in a room together.

Its army chief and interior minister have travelled to Tehran several times. In late March, Pakistan also helped secure a Chinese-backed peace framework alongside its own diplomatic efforts.

In June, it helped produce the MoU signed by Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump, along with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, which was then discussed at the Burgenstock summit in Switzerland.

Yet analysts say Pakistan lacks the means to enforce the agreements it helps broker.

Javad Heiran-Nia, director of the Persian Gulf Studies Group at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran, said the MoU was never intended to resolve the underlying dispute.

“The MoU deferred key and substantive issues to future negotiations and functioned primarily as a tactical instrument to halt hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping,” he told Al Jazeera.

Iran, he said, sees control of the waterway as “a strategic asset; not merely a coercive lever, but a deterrent tool”, and appears “prepared to accept the risk of war to preserve this strategic advantage”.

Mediators, he added, lack the instruments to resolve the dispute “unless a shift in the balance of power between Iran and the United States emerges as a result of limited military engagements”, pointing to a potential US naval blockade as one of the few developments that could alter the strategic calculus.

Dania Thafer, executive director of the Gulf International Forum in Doha, said Pakistan’s room for manoeuvre had narrowed as both sides hardened their positions over the strait.

“Pakistan is in a situation where it is highly dependent on both parties, as it always has been, but right now, Iran is bent on establishing its control over the Strait of Hormuz,” she told Al Jazeera.

According to Thafer, there is little Pakistan can do to de-escalate while both Washington and Tehran remain in “an escalatory phase”.

“Once they feel they have reached a point where the balance tips in favour of one side or the other, then perhaps they will return to the negotiating table,” she added.

But Qamar Cheema, head of the Islamabad-based Sanober Institute, pushed back on the idea that Pakistan is operating without real tools.

He pointed to US Vice President JD Vance’s recent remarks, where he credited Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir’s role in the process, as evidence that Islamabad’s military-diplomatic channel carries real weight in Washington.

Access itself, he argued, is the instrument.

“Pakistan enjoys trust, and that’s why both sides pick up the phone and call Pakistani leadership any time to remove a stumbling block,” Cheema told Al Jazeera.

Crowded diplomacy, narrowing options

But Pakistan has not been the only diplomatic channel, and according to Heiran-Nia, the dispute over the strait was never really Islamabad’s to mediate.

“Iran had previously removed the Strait of Hormuz issue from Pakistan’s mediation agenda, as the matter was essentially bilateral between Tehran and Muscat,” he said.

Tehran, he explained, did not want the issue to be “defined within a broader negotiation package under Pakistani auspices, which would have afforded Washington room for political manoeuvre”.

Direct Iran-Oman talks followed, but “US military pressure and economic sanctions threats against Oman have placed Muscat under considerable strain, preventing meaningful progress,” according to the Tehran-based analyst.

Meanwhile, he cautioned that Sunday’s attacks on Qatar “could have adverse effects on Qatar’s mediatory role”, although Doha “does not currently appear inclined to withdraw”, adding that “Iran should not assume that Doha’s patience is limitless.”

Mustafa Hyder Sayed, executive director of the Pakistan-China Institute in Islamabad, described the GCC states as caught in an uncomfortable position.

“The GCC countries are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. They want a functional relationship with Iran while not openly declining the use of their bases and territory by the United States, because they understand they cannot choose their neighbours,” he told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, Israel, which is not a party to the MoU, has continued military operations in Lebanon, which Tehran cites as an ongoing violation of the agreement.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that southern Lebanon “would become Gaza”, raising the prospect of further regional escalation.

Who blinks first?

Despite a week of escalating attacks, the core dispute remains unchanged.

Washington and Tehran remain divided over the same issue that stalled negotiations even before the latest round of fighting: Who controls passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and under what conditions?

Iran insists the MoU gave it authority over transit through the waterway. The US disputes that.

On Monday, Trump announced that the US was reinstating a naval blockade of Iranian ships and would charge a 20 percent tariff on all other ships trying to pass through the strait.

Yet, earlier, a possible compromise had briefly emerged.

Heiran-Nia said the parties explored a formula under which commercial vessels would coordinate passage with both Iran and a designated Arab Gulf state, allowing “both parties [to] claim a degree of victory”.

The talks stalled before reaching a conclusion, however, interrupted by the funeral of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war in joint US-Israeli air strikes.

The conflict has since moved in the opposite direction, with military action aimed at shifting the balance of power rather than reviving negotiations.

“The prevailing trajectory now is the continuation of military strikes in an effort to shift the balance of power. Yet, there remains a risk that strategic calculations on either side could spiral beyond control,” Heiran-Nia said.

Thafer believes that, despite the violence, neither side has formally abandoned the MoU.

“Iran is framing this current round of escalation as a violation of the MoU rather than a reason to exit it, which means there could still be light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.

In her assessment, both sides bear responsibility for violating the agreement, from Iran’s attacks on shipping to Washington’s revocation of Iran’s oil sale licence and the military attacks. Yet the agreement remains, at least formally, in place.

Its future, she said, depends on which side ultimately gives ground over the strait. Iran retains what Thafer described as a “snapback capability” to disrupt shipping whenever it chooses.

“It is, militarily, very difficult to fully neutralise that Iranian capability. We will have to wait and see where the leverage finally sits,” she said.

Cheema, for his part, argued that Iran’s own conduct, more than any mediator’s diplomacy, is what will decide how this settles.

“Iranian authorities seem ambitious and aggressive, and are looking to take risks to project power, which makes it less likely that any agreement will reach a final conclusion. That means interventions from mediators will keep coming.”

Jordan Henderson has not been ruled out of playing for England again during the World Cup despite undergoing surgery on a broken arm.

The Brentford midfielder suffered the freak injury as he fell awkwardly after attempting to jump over the advertising hoardings at the side of the pitch.

Henderson, who did not play during the match, was carried on a stretcher away from the pitch while receiving oxygen.

The 36-year-old posted on social media, external on Wednesday about having surgery in Kansas City, where England’s base is for the duration of the tournament.

And it is understood that, even though it could be considered a long shot, Henderson could still be included in matchday squads for the remaining games and the possibility of playing in a cast will be explored.

“That just shows what he is like as a person and as a guy,” said Aston Villa forward Morgan Rogers when asked about Henderson’s impact around the squad.

“I think hopefully he can still be involved with us for the rest of the tournament.

“He’s not going to rule himself out and neither are we. I think the belief he has got in his own body, his ability and his confidence and the way he is and what he kind of represents as a person is massive to our group.

“He is kind of the heartbeat of the group. To see him this morning smiling and to see him as happy as he is no matter what has happened in the last 48 hours is nice to see, and hopefully we can get him out on the pitch as soon as possible.”

Henderson will remain with the squad for the duration of the tournament.

Farage served as Reform’s honorary president between March 2021 and June 2024. On 3 June 2024, he confirmed he was returning as party leader and standing in the general election. He became Clacton MP in July 2024.

Under parliamentary rules, new MPs must declare financial interests and “registrable benefits” received in the 12 months before their election.

The guidelines say purely personal gifts or benefits do not need to be registered.

When he became an MP, Farage registered a £9,253 trip to Belgium in April 2024 donated by Cottrell, and later added a £15,276 donation from Cottrell for a US domestic flight he provided in December 2024.

No other support from Cottrell is listed in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests., external

A spokesman for Farage said: “It comes as no surprise that the Sunday Times has chosen to publish this baseless and contrived story, covering a period of time when Nigel Farage was not even an active politician let alone an elected one, given that the newspaper backed the Labour Party at the last general election.

“Contrary to the story’s tone, no parliamentary rules have been broken.”

A source said Reform paid for Farage’s security and staff after his return to politics.

The source also denied Farage received accommodation from Cottrell – saying the MP did not stay at the London property.

The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Daniel Greenberg, is currently investigating whether Farage broke the rules over the £5m gift from British cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne in early 2024.

Farage has said Harborne gave him the money to pay for his personal security, adding the gift was “purely private” and “wasn’t political in any sense at all”.

Lib Dem MP Josh Babarinde has asked Greenberg to “get to the bottom” of the latest allegations linked to Farage’s support from Cottrell.

Babarinde has also asked Greenberg to confirm whether he will investigate the claims as part of the existing inquiry or as a separate matter.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Nigel Farage and Reform are engulfed in a huge and growing scandal.

“These new allegations of secret payments from a wealthy convicted criminal are on top of the ongoing scandal of his secret £5m gift from a crypto billionaire.

“How much money has he been given, what did his donors get in return, and why has he tried to cover them up and avoid legitimate questions?”

Responding to Jenrick’s interview, Labour said Reform “can’t shrug this scandal off and hope it goes away”.

SCARLETT Moffatt has heartbreakingly revealed that her fiancé Scott Dobinson’s mum has passed away.

In an emotional tribute to his mum Janice, the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! star – who is expecting her second child – said she was “so upset” that Janice wouldn’t be around to meet their second son.

Scarlett and Scott have been together since 2018 and are already parents to son Jude, revealing in April they are expecting another little one.

Announcing the sad news that Janice has passed, the star wrote to Instagram: “My heart is broken for Scott and all of his family at the loss of his mam Janice 💔

“You were the best Nanna to Jude, the kindest mother-in-law and one of the loveliest people I’ve ever known.

“I’m so upset that you won’t get to meet your second grandson but I know you will be watching over us all, I’ll forever be grateful for all the love, kindness and warmth you showed me from the very beginning, and especially for the love you gave Jude.”

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Scarlett continued: “You raised true gentlemen in both your boys, and that says everything about the incredible woman you were.

“We will miss you more than words can say. Sleep peacefully Janice, our Nan Jan”.

Scarlett and other half Scott met through mutual friends over 15 years ago, but didn’t officially start dating until 2018.

They welcomed son Jude in the summer 2023 and got engaged in November that same year.

Since revealing they are set to welcome another child back in April, Scarlett has admitted the pregnancy hasn’t been smooth sailing.

Shortly after the announcement, she told fans how she had been struggling with sickness, hot flushes and migraines.

And alongside the health woes, the star has also had a wave of pregnancy cravings.

She told The Sun in May: “I’m having different cravings to last time,” she says. “With Jude, it was honeydew melon. Sometimes I’d have a whole melon a day.

“Now it’s cheese — specifically grated cheese. I think it’s a texture thing. I want grated cheese sandwiches all the time. I can’t have the pre-grated, it’s too hard, so I’ve got Scott grating me cheese at 11pm.”

PERRIE Edwards has spoken out on ex-bandmate Jesy Nelson and shared her heartbreak over her twins’ diagnosis. 

Jesy, 34, previously shared the devastating news that her baby girls Story and Ocean had been diagnosed with SMA1. 

Now Perrie, 32, has shared her support for her former friend, after Jesy quit Little Mix in 2020 and sparked a bitter fall-out among the girls. 

Appearing on Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast, she said: “I mean, when I think everything we’ve been through as a group, and even though it ended in ways that I wouldn’t have wanted it to, and we’re not that close anymore and we’re not in each other’s lives, I still feel everything that the girls feel and I think they’re the same. 

“We’ll always have that weird connection. And seeing Jesy go through that, it broke me.

“Because you wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It’s literally wild. And as much as we’ve got our issues and, you know, I think I don’t want to see her go through that.

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“I don’t want to see her hurt and I don’t want to see any of that. It’s heartbreaking.”

In her recent documentary Life After Little Mix, Jesy made some bold claims about Perrie, Jade Thirlwall and Leigh-Anne Pinnock. 

Recalling how she attempted to take her own life before quitting the group, she said: “I sat ­everyone down to explain how I was feeling and I remember one of the responses being, ‘Are you done now? Is that it?’

“She [one of the girls] was like, ‘Can I go now?’”

Fighting back tears, Jesy added: “That made me feel really alone. I felt like there was no point. That no one cared.”

And in her chat with Jamie, Perrie had her say. When he asked if she envisioned repairing her friendship with Jesy, she said: “If I’m being completely transparent, part of me wanted to until the documentary. And then part of me withdrew again. 

“I’m not a horrible person. I haven’t got a bad one in my body, but I can cut you off.

“There’s personal things, there’s public things, there’s everything. I don’t have the capacity for somebody like that in my life anymore. And that might make me sound like a bitch, but I just don’t have the energy for it.

“And as much as I will always love her, I don’t think I can hack that energy in my space.”