Conflict

Entity called Al-Majd Europe taking families on buses out of Gaza to Israel’s Ramon Airport – and then to unknown destinations.

A Palestinian man who says he left Gaza through a shadowy organisation that has landed 153 people in South Africa without documentation describes the process set up to encourage more Palestinians to leave the devastated enclave.

The man, whose identity remains anonymous due to security concerns, told Al Jazeera there was “strong coordination” between the Al-Majd Europe group and the Israeli army on such displacements.

He said the process seemed “routine” and included a thorough search of personal belongings before he was put on a bus that moved through southern Gaza’s Israeli-controlled Karem Abu Salem crossing (which Israelis call Kerem Shalom) into southern Israel and the Ramon Airport.

At Ramon, “since there is no recognition by [Israel] of a Palestinian state, they did not stamp our passports,” the Palestinian man said.

A Romanian aircraft took the group to Kenya, a transit country. He said there appeared to be some coordination between Al-Majd Europe and the Kenyan authorities.

None of the passengers knew which country they would end up in, he said, adding that there were at least three people coordinating from inside Gaza while several Palestinian citizens of Israel carried out the rest of the network communication from outside the enclave.

Initially, there was an online registration, followed by a screening process. The man said he paid $6,000 to get himself and two family members out of Gaza.

“The payments are made through bank applications to the accounts of individual persons, not to an institution,” he said.

The first group he knew about left Gaza for Indonesia in June while the transfer of a second group to an unknown location was delayed before it received a call to leave in August.

The Palestinians on board Friday’s flight to South Africa were made to pay $1,500 to $5,000 per person to leave Gaza. They were allowed to bring only a phone, some money and a backpack.

Mysterious operation

Al-Majd Europe has been moving people using unofficial channels facilitated by the Israeli military. It has been demanding payments from Palestinians to leave Gaza. But it is unclear who is behind its operations.

The group claims it was founded in 2010 in Germany, but its website was registered only this year. The website shows images generated by artificial intelligence of its executives with no credible contact details. The website provides no office location, which is in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

Al Jazeera spoke to another Palestinian man who identified himself only as Omar in WhatsApp text messages. He said an Al-Majd Europe representative told him a passport and a birth certificate would be required to be accepted for a flight and there would be an initial charge of $2,500 per person as a down payment.

Omar, however, said his request for a transfer out of Gaza was rejected by the representative because the group did not accept solo travellers.

Speaking from az-Zawayda in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said Palestinians in Gaza have been hearing more about the operation and some are driven to consider it due to the “unbearable living situation” after two years of Israeli bombardments and ground operations.

“The education system in Gaza has also collapsed, so some Palestinians feel there is no future for them and their children,” she said.

The Israeli military acknowledged “facilitating” transfers of Palestinians out of Gaza, which is part of the “voluntary departure” policy for Palestinians that is backed by Israel and the United States.

The Israeli army established a unit in March to further encourage and facilitate this policy after obtaining approval from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet.

Montreal, Canada – A former United Nations special rapporteur who investigated Israeli abuses against Palestinians says he was interrogated by Canadian authorities on “national security” grounds as he travelled to Canada this week to attend a Gaza-related event.

Richard Falk, an international law expert from the United States, told Al Jazeera that he was questioned at Toronto Pearson international airport on Thursday alongside his wife, fellow legal scholar Hilal Elver.

“A security person came and said, ‘We’ve detained you both because we’re concerned that you pose a national security threat to Canada,’” Falk, 95, said on Saturday in an interview from Ottawa, the Canadian capital. “It was my first experience of this sort – ever – in my life.”

Falk and Elver – both US citizens – were travelling to Ottawa to take part in the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility when they were held for questioning.

The tribunal brought together international human rights and legal experts on Friday and Saturday to examine the Canadian government’s role in Israel’s two-year bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which a UN inquiry and numerous rights groups have described as a genocide.

Falk said he and his wife were held for questioning for more than four hours and asked about their work on Israel and Gaza, and on issues of genocide in general. “[There was] nothing particularly aggressive about his questioning,” he said. “It felt sort of random and disorganised.”

But Falk said he believes the interrogation is part of a global push to “punish those who endeavour to tell the truth about what is happening” in the world, including in Gaza.

“It suggests a climate of governmental insecurity, I think, to try to clamp down on dissident voices,” he added.

Canadian senator ‘appalled’

Asked about Falk’s experience, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), which manages the country’s border crossings, told Al Jazeera that it cannot comment on specific cases due to privacy regulations.

The CBSA’s role “is to assess the security risk and admissibility of persons coming to Canada”, spokesperson Rebecca Purdy said in an email. “This process may include primary interviews and secondary examinations,” she said.

“This means that all travellers, foreign nationals and those who enter Canada by right, may be referred for secondary inspection – this is a normal part of the cross-border process and should not be viewed as any indication of wrongdoing.”

Global Affairs Canada, the Canadian foreign ministry, did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Falk’s allegation that his interrogation is part of a broader, global crackdown on opposition to Israel’s Gaza war.

Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo, a supporter of the Palestine Tribunal, said he was “appalled” that two international law and human rights experts were questioned in Canada “on the grounds that they might pose a national security threat”.

“We know they were here to attend the Palestine Tribunal. We know they have been outspoken in documenting and publicising the horrors inflicted on Gaza by Israel, and advocating for justice,” Woo told Al Jazeera in an interview on Saturday afternoon.

“If those are the factums for their detention, then it suggests that the Canadian government considers these acts of seeking justice for Palestine to be national security threats – and I’d like to know why.”

Enabling Israel’s war

Like other Western countries, Canada has been under growing pressure to cut off its longstanding support for Israel as the Israeli military assault on Gaza killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and plunged the coastal territory into a humanitarian crisis.

Ottawa announced in 2024 that it was suspending weapons permits to its ally as pressure mounted over the war.

But researchers and human rights advocates say loopholes in Canada’s arms export system have allowed Canadian-made weapons to continue to reach Israel, often via the United States.

Rights groups have also called on the Canadian government to do more to support efforts to ensure that Israel is held accountable for abuses against Palestinians in Gaza, including war crimes.

“This violence is not in the past tense; the bombs have not stopped falling,” Rachel Small, the Canada organiser for the antiwar group World Beyond War, said during the Palestine Tribunal’s closing day on Saturday.

“And none of that violence, none of Israel’s genocide … [would be] possible without the flow of weapons from the United States, from Europe, and yes, from Canada,” Small said.

At least 260 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect last month, according to health authorities in the besieged coastal enclave.

Palestinians also continue to reel from a lack of adequate food, water, medicine and shelter supplies as Israel maintains strict curbs on humanitarian aid deliveries.

Against that backdrop, Falk told Al Jazeera on Saturday that “it’s more important than ever … to expose the reality of what’s happening” on the ground in Gaza.

“There’s this whole false sense that the genocide is over,” he said. “[But Israel] is carrying out the genocidal project in a less aggressive way, or a less intense way. It’s what some have called the incremental genocide.”

When we talk about conflict in a country, we usually think of war, crisis, violence, and so on. Of course, these conflicts are crucial phenomena and need to be discussed. The civil war in Sudan is no exception. Sudan has been a country experiencing a humanitarian crisis since the military clashes in 2023. There are strong allegations of foreign interference through illicit funding, which has exacerbated this crisis. This issue is important to address because it shows that transnational societies are not always glorified as positive entities and that globalization can be an instrument contributing to the suffering of the Sudanese people.

The crisis in Sudan was sparked by a power struggle between the government military, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. Initially, the two military groups were allied to overthrow the regime of President Omar Al-Bashir, but disagreements arose over how to integrate their respective forces. Suspicion arose on both sides, leading to fierce fighting on April 15, 2023. The capital, Khartoum, suffered extensive damage, and the fighting spread, displacing more than 3 million people across the country and abroad. (Prayuda, Syafrana, Sundari, Shiddiqy, & Riau, 2024) 

Given the complexity of the Sudanese conflict, the author views the Sudanese conflict as a concrete illustration of how transnational society and globalization can give rise to new contradictions: promising interconnectedness and collaboration across borders, while simultaneously giving rise to networks that exacerbate humanitarian crises. The author analyzes the Sudanese conflict based on the concepts of transnational networks and shadow globalization. This paper focuses not only on domestic phenomena but also involves various non-state actors. Thus, the author is guided by three arguments, namely: first, how the transnational network strengthens the conflict so that the conflict has been organized to the global level; second, how globalization becomes a tool for illegal flows, thus triggering ongoing violence; and third, how the presence of transnational networks and shadow globalization makes the Sudanese conflict not only related to domestic affairs but also a global responsibility due to complex interdependence.

The Sudanese conflict has involved transnational actors who play a role as suppliers of weapons and illegal funding for the warring factions. A report from Amnesty (2024) asserts that “the conflict in Sudan is being fueled by a constant flow of weapons into the country,” originating from China, the UAE, and Turkey. Anti-material rifles, jammer drones, and mortars made in China; armored personnel carriers (APTs) from the UAE; hundreds of thousands of blank firearms from Turkey; and variants of civilian light weapons from Russia have provided external support for both parties in the conflict. All this data clearly shows that national borders are no barrier to the export of violence. Brokers, military contractors, and sponsoring states continue to supply weapons, ultimately providing them with ammunition for war. In other words, the Sudanese conflict could transform into a global war, with transnational communities acting as intermediaries in supplying weapons and interests across borders.

The role of transnational networks is the reason why the Sudanese conflict is difficult to stop. When supply A is blocked, another supply emerges. In the concept of transnational networks, “Transnational networks are webs of interactions that connect actors across national borders for the exchange of resources, information, or influence” (Keck & Sikkink, 1999), so these cross-border non-state actors are independent and not controlled by national governments. Reporting from France 24, according to Sudanese officials themselves, there are sources of mining industry and Swissaid research; almost all of Sudan’s gold flows to the UAE through official trade routes, smuggling, and direct Emirati ownership. This certainly provides funding for the warring armies to purchase new weapons.

Amidst the rapid flow of globalization, we cannot ignore shadow globalization. This concept describes how aspects of the illicit economy are transforming from the domestic sphere into transnational networks operating under official auspices, thus giving rise to mutually beneficial relationships between markets and criminal groups. According to Peter Lock (2005), when countries reduce regulations and begin to open their economies as part of neoliberal globalization, this actually allows criminal agents and groups to move freely in the global sphere, for example, through money laundering or illicit trade. There is a strong suspicion of the misuse of legal economic activities, ultimately leading to illegal objectives that violate international law. Thus, shadow globalization is the dark side of globalization because it operates in accordance with legitimate global flows.

Sudan possesses abundant natural resources, including oil, gas, and gold reserves, but these resources are diverted through illegal cross-border channels. A report from Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) indicates that the country lost approximately US$5.7 billion between 2012 and 2018 due to illicit activities, particularly in the gold and oil resources sectors. (Integrity, 2024).  There are strong indications that funds intended for the benefit of the Sudanese people are instead being diverted to fund armed groups. More broadly, a 2020 UNCTAD report also stated that Africa loses approximately US$50 billion annually to illicit financial flows. This aligns with other reports that define illicit financial flows as funds whose origin, transfer, or use are illegal (In, 2020). Comprehensively, globalization can be an instrument of the shadow economy to support the ongoing violence in Sudan.

The situation in Sudan demonstrates that global structures are interdependent. Connectedness through technology, economics, politics, and security forces has erased national borders. Consequently, the decisions of actors, both formal and informal, influence other countries. Transnational networks and shadow globalization have transcended national borders through financial flows, arms trade, and gold, which have entered global markets and indirectly implicated external actors. Consequently, dependencies created by globalization impact economic stability, security, and humanitarianism.

Global responsibility is questionable, as the assumption that the conflict in Sudan is solely domestic is a misleading narrative. Every actor involved behind the scenes must recognize their moral responsibility for the profits derived from this conflict, for example, through the trade in gold, oil, and arms. According to a report by Chatham House (2023), the Sudanese conflict has a strong transnational dimension due to the involvement of Gulf states and global markets in the war economy. Furthermore, UNCTAD (2020) has confirmed that illicit financial flows in Africa have resulted in the loss of billions of dollars that could have been used for development and stability. Therefore, if globalization is understood as a global realm connecting all actors, the authors strongly argue that stability must be seen as a shared responsibility.

The three arguments above demonstrate that the Sudanese conflict can no longer be viewed as a domestic issue. The role of transnational networks and shadow globalization clearly illustrates how globalization fosters openness to cross-border cooperation but also opens up illicit flows of funds, weapons, and resources that exacerbate conflict. Furthermore, the concept of complex interdependence explains how the actions of one actor impact others. Therefore, the Sudanese conflict is a moral and political responsibility of the international community. Globalization has bound countries in interdependent relationships, so achieving stability must be seen as a shared project of the entire global community. With this awareness, the world is expected to view conflicts like Sudan as a real test of global solidarity and humanity.

Therefore, any findings regarding foreign funding and the involvement of global actors in the Sudanese conflict require further reporting. This article is not intended to marginalize any particular party but rather to open up space for reflection on the fact that amidst globalization, the boundaries between local and global interests are increasingly blurred. This relevance reminds us that the Sudanese conflict is not merely a spectacle but rather a mirror for shared humanitarian responsibility.

Here are the key events from day 1,361 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, November 16:

Fighting

• The Ukrainian military said it struck Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery, located about 200km (125 miles) southeast of Moscow, as “part of efforts to reduce the enemy’s ability to launch missile and bomb strikes”.
• The Ukrainian military said the strike caused multiple explosions and a large fire at the site.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces have taken control of the village of Yablukove in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region.
• The Ukrainian military confirmed withdrawing from the village of Novovasylivske in Zaporizhia, saying the retreat was necessary in order to relocate to “more favourable defensive positions”.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the widow of the first victim of the 1986 disaster at the Chornobyl power plant was among several people killed in a barrage of Russian strikes on the capital of Kyiv in recent days. He said Nataliia Khodemchuk’s death was the result of “a new tragedy caused once again by the Kremlin”.
• Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported that conditions are stable at the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine after an external power line was switched off as a precautionary measure on Friday.
• The Russian state-run TASS news agency reported that Ukrainian forces have launched a drone attack on residential buildings in the Russian city of Volgograd, damaging “the facades and glazing of apartment buildings and the surrounding area”.
• The Russian Defence Ministry said it shot down eight Ukrainian drones in the course of four hours over the regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, as well as Russian-occupied Crimea, according to TASS.

Politics and diplomacy

• Russia and Ukraine have agreed to move forward with a prisoner exchange that will see the release of about 1,200 Ukrainians, according to a Ukrainian official. The announcement came after several days of talks overseen by Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates, rejuvenating an exchange process laid out during previous negotiations in Istanbul.
• President Zelenskyy promised a “reboot” of state-owned energy companies, including reforms to root out corruption, as his government continues to grapple with a major scandal in which investigators said $100m was embezzled from power firms.
• Polish President Karol Nawrocki signed a bill providing social assistance for Ukrainian refugees, but stated it was the “last time” he would do so until new solutions to the issue were found. The Polish leader has argued that the provision of assistance to Ukrainian refugees, about one million of whom are living in Poland, is “unfair to Poles”. The legal status of Ukrainian refugees in Poland is set to expire in March.
• Serbian officials said that the United States will not ease sanctions on the Serbian oil firm NIS unless it changes the company’s majority-Russian ownership share, despite pleas for leniency from Belgrade. Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said that the US “clearly and unequivocally” demanded changes to Russian ownership, giving Serbia until February 13 to find a solution.

Military aid

• Zelenskyy called for additional air defence resources, following a wave of Russian strikes on Kyiv that killed at least seven people and injured dozens more. The Ukrainian leader said that the attacks underscore the need for more assistance and “greater resolve” from allies following the strikes, which struck apartment buildings across the capital city on Friday.

Palestinian families call for help as Israel’s two-year military assault has left hundreds of thousands vulnerable.

Cold temperatures and heavy rainfall have worsened already dire conditions for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian families across the Gaza Strip, as Israel continues to block deliveries of tents and other critical shelter supplies to the besieged territory.

Humanitarian groups have been warning for weeks that Palestinians living in tent camps and other makeshift shelters do not have what they need to withstand blistering winter conditions in the coastal enclave.

Many have been forcibly displaced multiple times as a result of Israel’s two-year bombardment of Gaza, which damaged and destroyed more than 198,000 structures across the Strip, according to United Nations figures.

“I have been crying since morning,” a displaced Palestinian mother of two told Al Jazeera from Gaza City on Saturday, pointing to her family’s tent, which had been flooded as a result of heavy rainfall overnight.

The woman, who did not provide her name, said she was struggling to provide for her children after several members of her family, including her husband, were killed in Israel’s genocidal war, which began in October 2023.

“I am asking for help to get a proper tent, a mattress and a blanket. I want my children to have suitable clothes,” she said. “I don’t have anyone to turn to … There is no one to help me.”

The UN and other humanitarian groups have urged Israel to lift all restrictions on aid to the Strip, where more than 69,000 people have been killed in more than two years of Israel’s war.

But the Israeli government has maintained its severe restrictions on the flow of humanitarian aid despite a ceasefire deal with the Palestinian group Hamas that came into effect on October 10.

Aid groups said earlier this month that about 260,000 Palestinian families in Gaza, totalling almost 1.5 million people, were vulnerable as the cold winter months approached.

‘Misery on top of misery’

At the same time, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said it has enough shelter supplies to help as many as 1.3 million Palestinians – but cannot bring them into Gaza due to the Israeli restrictions.

On Saturday, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said deliveries were more critical than ever as this winter coincides with Gaza’s displacement crisis.

“It’s cold and wet in Gaza. Displaced people are now facing a harsh winter without the basics to protect them from the rain and cold,” he said in a social media post.

Describing the humanitarian toll as “misery on top of misery”, Lazzarini noted that Gaza’s fragile shelters “quickly flood, soaking people’s belongings”.

“More shelter supplies are urgently needed for the people,” he added.

Reporting from az-Zuwayda in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary also said many Palestinians have no other option but to remain in flooded and flimsy tents since their neighbourhoods were destroyed by Israel and shelters are full.

“Parents are unable to [buy] their children winter clothes, shoes and slippers,” she said. “Families are left helpless, without knowing what to do.”

Late on Saturday, the Israeli military fired flares in areas southeast of Khan Younis city, sources in southern Gaza told Al Jazeera. Armies generally launch flares to highlight enemy positions and indicate incoming attacks.

Earlier, Israel launched air strikes inside Gaza ceasefire’s “yellow line” demarcation near Khan Younis as well as Gaza City in the north.

The agreement is not expected to immediately change things on the ground, but to move forward a larger peace process.

Representatives from the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group have signed a peace deal in Qatar with the ultimate goal of putting an end to years of fighting.

Qatar and the United States announced the “comprehensive” deal in Doha on Saturday, setting it up as a roadmap to stop the deadly fighting and improve the dire humanitarian situation in the Central African nation.

The two sides have been holding mediated talks for months, and signed a truce deal in July that must still be subjected to more negotiations over exactly how it will be implemented.

Addressing a press conference in Doha on Saturday, Qatar’s Minister of State Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi said the latest agreement enhances the process in order to “find peaceful solutions through dialogue and understanding” to re-establish calm in the DRC.

He said the different sides achieved progress on several substantial topics in order to build on previous agreements discussed and signed over the past several months.

The agreement includes eight implementation protocols, two of which have already been signed, including one on ceasefire monitoring and another on prisoner exchange.

The rest of the protocols are expected to be discussed and finalised over the coming weeks. They will include a timeline as well as details on how different processes will work, how humanitarian aid will be allowed to reach the ailing population, and how to enable the return of refugees and internally displaced people.

Restoring state authority, implementing economic reforms, reintegration of armed groups into the government and the elimination of foreign groups are among other protocols that will need to be finalised.

Both sides have agreed to establish an independent committee to implement the peace process, and also to provide recommendations for recompensation within the framework of national reconciliation, which will be in line with the constitution of the republic, Qatar’s Al-Khulaifi said.

Massad Boulos, a senior advisor and envoy for US President Donald Trump who represented Washington in the talks, thanked the state of Qatar and other stakeholders who assisted the process, including the African Union and the state of Togo.

He told the conference in Doha that the agreement comes amid joint efforts with Qatar that have also yielded results in other areas, including the ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hamas.

“Today is a historic occasion in many ways,” he said, referring to the framework deal on DRC as a “launching pad” for an eventual peace deal that will be built based on previous and ongoing negotiations.

“People were expecting some immediate results on the ground, but this is a process, this is not a light switch that you can turn on and off, and there are many angles to it,” Boulos said.

Reporting from Goma, Al Jazeera’s Alain Uakyani said the peace agreement has inspired hope among the population in the DRC, but not for any immediate and tangible changes on the ground.

He pointed out that the M23 said its forces were bombarded by the government on Saturday morning, but managed to take more ground from DRC soldiers.

Explosives reportedly detonate during forensic investigation as part of probe into earlier blast in India’s capital New Delhi.

At least seven people have been killed and 27 more injured after a cache of confiscated explosives detonated in a police station in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir’s main city.

The stockpile exploded late on Friday night at a police station in the Nowgam area in the south of Srinagar.

Most of those killed were policemen and forensic team officials who were examining the explosives at the time of the detonation, unnamed sources told Indian broadcaster NDTV. Two officials from the Srinagar administration also died in the blast.

With five people still in critical condition, the death toll could continue to climb, according to the media outlet.

“Not a terror attack. Police say it’s a very unfortunate incident,” NDTV’s senior executive editor Aditya Raj Kaul said in a post on social media.

“The blast happened when a forensics team and the police were checking the explosive material stored at the police station,” he said.

#BREAKING: J&K Police Top Officials tell me that the massive blast at Nowgam Police Station around 11:20pm tonight happened when FSL team along with Police and Tehsildar were inspecting the large Ammonium Nitrate explosive which was confiscated earlier. Casualties in the blast.… pic.twitter.com/67U143jOFg

— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) November 14, 2025

The huge blast comes days after Monday’s deadly car explosion in New Delhi, which killed at least 12 people near the city’s historic Red Fort and which officials have called a “terror” incident.

The explosion in the Indian capital occurred just hours after police arrested several people and seized explosive materials as well as assault rifles.

Police said the suspects were linked to Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), a Pakistan-based group that is seeking to end Indian rule in Kashmir, and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, a Kashmir offshoot linked to JeM.

Police in Indian-administered Kashmir also detained more than 650 people as part of their investigation following the New Delhi car blast.

According to reports, the Nowgam police station, where the blast took place on Friday, had led an investigation into posters that were displayed around the area by JeM, warning it would carry out attacks on security forces and “outsiders”.

Police said their investigation into the posters exposed a “white-collar terror ecosystem, involving radicalised professionals and students in contact with foreign handlers, operating from Pakistan and other countries”.

Police also recovered nearly 3,000kg (3 tonnes) of ammonium nitrate, a commonly used material in bomb making, saying the armed group was stockpiling enough explosives to carry out a major attack in India.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and both claim the Himalayan territory.

The two countries have fought three wars over Kashmir since the nations were partitioned in 1947, and tensions remain high between New Delhi and Islamabad over the status of the territory.

Palestinians call for better tents and other supplies as Israel maintains restrictions on aid to war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

Displaced Palestinians are reeling after heavy rains flooded their tents in makeshift displacement camps in Gaza City, as the United Nations warns that Israeli restrictions on aid have left hundreds of thousands of families without adequate shelter.

Abdulrahman Asaliyah, a displaced Palestinian man, told Al Jazeera on Friday that residents’ mattresses, clothes and other belongings were soaked in the flooding.

“We are calling for help, for new tents that can at least protect people from the winter cold,” he said, explaining that nearly two dozen people had been working for hours to get the water to drain from the area.

“This winter rain is a blessing from God, but there are families who no longer wish for it to fall, fearing for the lives of their children and their own survival,” Asaliyah said.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Friday’s flooding primarily affected Palestinians in the north of the Strip, where hundreds of thousands of people have returned following last month’s ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Flooding was also reported in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, said the rescue agency, which urged the international community to do more to “address the suffering” of Palestinians whose homes were destroyed in Israel’s two-year war on the enclave.

“We urge the swift delivery of homes, caravans, and tents to these displaced families to help alleviate their suffering, especially as we are at the beginning of winter,” it said in a statement.

While the October 10 ceasefire has allowed more aid to get into the Gaza Strip, the UN and other humanitarian groups say Palestinians still lack adequate food, medicine and other critical supplies, including shelter.

Aid groups working to provide shelter assistance in the occupied Palestinian territory said in early November that about 260,000 Palestinian families, totalling almost 1.5 million people, were vulnerable as the cold winter months approached.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said this week that it has enough shelter supplies to help as many as 1.3 million Palestinians.

But UNRWA said Israel continues to block its efforts to bring aid into Gaza despite the ceasefire deal, which stipulated that humanitarian assistance must be delivered to Palestinians in need.

“We have a very short chance to protect families from the winter rains and cold,” Angelita Caredda, Middle East and North Africa director at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said in a statement on November 5.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah on Friday, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said Palestinians across Gaza have been voicing fears that this winter would be particularly difficult due to the lack of safe shelter.

“It only rained for a couple of minutes – 30 minutes or so … [and] they were completely flooded,” she said. “Their tents are very fragile and worn-out; they have been using them for the past two years.”

She added that most Palestinians do not have any other options but to remain in tent camps or overcrowded shelters, despite the difficulties.

“We’re already seeing Palestinian children walking barefoot. They do not have winter clothes. They do not have blankets. And at the same time, the aid that is coming in … is being restricted,” Khoudary said.

Back in Gaza City, another displaced Palestinian man affected by the heavy rains, Abu Ghassan, said he and his family “no longer have a normal life”.

“I’m lifting the mattresses so the children don’t get soaked,” he told Al Jazeera. “But the little ones were already drenched here. We don’t even have proper tents.”

A resident of the Gaza Strip, who is one of 153 Palestinians that landed in South Africa without the correct paperwork this week, says the group did not know where they would end up when they left Israel.

Loay Abu Saif, who fled Gaza with his wife and children, told Al Jazeera on Friday that the journey out of the battered and besieged enclave was a “trip of suffering”.

“We were not too convinced that any group … would be able to make this kind of evacuation,” Abu Saif said from Johannesburg, a day after the chartered plane his group was on landed at the city’s OR Tambo International Airport.

“I can say I feel safe … which means a lot for Palestinians, especially for those in Gaza,” he added.

Details are slowly emerging of a controversial transit scheme run by a non-profit, through which activists say Israel is encouraging the displacement of Palestinians out of Gaza by helping them settle in other countries.

Based on Abu Saif’s testimony to Al Jazeera, the Israeli military appears to have facilitated his group’s transfer through an Israeli airport.

The flight carrying Abu Saif left Israel’s Ramon Airport and transited through Nairobi, Kenya, before landing in Johannesburg on Thursday morning, where authorities did not initially allow the passengers to disembark as the Palestinians did not have departure stamps from Israel on their documents.

All in all, the journey lasted more than 24 hours and involved a change of planes.

Abu Saif said his family left Gaza without knowing their final destination. They only learned they were bound for Johannesburg when boarding their connecting flight in Nairobi.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, Jordan, on Friday, said Israel was yet to comment on the issue, but it was unlikely the Palestinians who left did so without “Israeli coordination”.

“Nobody can approach that imaginary yellow line [in Gaza] without being shot at. These people had to be bused through the yellow line, through the 53 percent of Gaza that the Israeli army still controls and is operating in out of Gaza, through Israel to the Ramon airport,” she reported.

Uncertainty loomed

According to Abu Saif, his wife registered the family with a nonprofit called Al-Majd Europe, with headquarters in Germany with an office in Jerusalem, according to their website.

The group advertised the registration form on social media, he revealed. On how he was selected, Abu Saif said the process appeared to focus on families with children and required a valid Palestinian travel document, along with security clearance from Israel.

“This is all what I know about the criteria,” he said.

When asked whether he knew in advance when they would leave Gaza, he said no timelines were given.

“They told us … we will inform you one day before – that’s what happened,” he said, adding that the organisation told them not to carry any personal bags or luggage except relevant documents.

In terms of cost, people were charged about $1,400-$2,000 per person for the trip, Abu Saif said. Parents also paid the same fee per child or baby they carried with them.

After they were selected to leave, Abu Saif and his family were taken by bus from the southern Gaza city of Rafah to the Karem Abu Salem crossing (called Kerem Shalom in Israel), along the border with Israel, where they underwent checks before being transferred onward towards Israel’s Ramon Airport.

He said their travel documents were not stamped by Israeli authorities, but he thought it was just a routine procedure since there were no Palestinian border officials in Gaza.

“We realised the problem … when we reached South Africa and they were asking us … ‘Where are you coming from?’” Abu Saif said.

Future plans

The group that organised the trip, Al-Majd Europe, said they would be able to help his family for a week or two, after which they would be on their own, Abu Saif said.

However, he added that the evacuees had made their own plans going forward.

“They have their papers for Australia, Indonesia, or Malaysia. We can say that 30 percent of the total number of passengers left South Africa on the same day or within the first two days,” he said, while others may choose to stay for several reasons, including receiving treatment.

South African authorities reported that of the 153 Palestinians who landed on Thursday, 130 entered the country, while 23 transferred to other destinations.

“People have calculated that the cost of life in any country … will be cheaper compared to the cost of living in Gaza,” said Abu Saif.

Questions have been raised over how hundreds of Palestinians were able to leave Gaza, board a plane in Israel, and arrive in South Africa without departure stamps in their passports or indication of their intended destination.

The US-imposed ceasefire of October 10 has not stopped Israel’s regular attacks on the Gaza Strip. Nor has it threatened to hold a parliament and society that largely cheered on the war, which has been deemed genocidal by multiple international bodies, accountable for their actions.

Instead, fuelled by what analysts from within Israel have described as an absolute sense of impunity, anti-Palestinian violence has intensified across the country and the occupied West Bank while much of the world continues to look away, convinced that the work of the ceasefire is done.

In the parliament, or Knesset, a senior lawmaker and member of the governing party openly defended convicted ultranationalist Meir Kahane, long considered beyond the pale even by members of Israel’s right wing and whose Kach movement has been banned as a “terrorist organisation”. At the same time, the parliament is debating reintroducing the death penalty, as well as expanding the terms of the offences for which it might apply – both unambiguously targeting Palestinians.

Under the legislation, proposed by ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir – who himself has past “terrorism”-related convictions for his outspoken support of Kahane –  anyone found guilty of killing Israelis because of “racist” motives and “with the aim of harming the State of Israel and the revival of the Jewish people in its land” would face execution.

That bill passed its first reading this week.

“The absence of any attempt to assert accountability from the outside, from Israel’s allies, echoes into Israel’s own Knesset,” analyst and former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy said. “There’s no sense that Israel has done anything wrong or that anyone should be held to account.”

Even Israel’s media, traditionally cheerleaders of the country’s war on Gaza, has not proven exempt from the hardening of attitudes. Legislation is already under way to close Army Radio because it had been broadcasting what Defence Minister Israel Katz described as political content that could undermine the army, as well as extend what lawmakers have referred to as the so-called “Al Jazeera law”, allowing them to shutter any foreign media perceived as a threat to Israel’s national security.

“Israel has built up this energy through two years of genocide,” Orly Noy, editor of the Hebrew-language Local Call, told Al Jazeera. “That hasn’t gone anywhere.

“Just because there’s a ceasefire and the hostages are back, the racism, the supremacy and the unmasked violence didn’t just disappear. We’re seeing daily pogroms by soldiers and settlers in the West Bank. There are daily attacks on Palestinian bus drivers. It’s become dangerous to speak Arabic, not just within the ‘48, but anywhere,” she said, referring to Israel’s initial borders of 1948.

‘May your village burn’

In the West Bank, Israeli violence against Palestinians has reached unprecedented proportions. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there were 264 attacks against Palestinians in the month the ceasefire was announced: the equivalent of eight attacks per day, the highest number since the agency first started tracking attacks in 2006.

Israel’s interior appears no less secure from the mob. On Tuesday, a meeting at a private house in Pardes Hanna near Haifa, hosted by Ayman Odeh, a Palestinian member of the Knesset, was surrounded and attacked by a mob of right-wing protesters. As police reportedly stood nearby, Israeli protesters surrounded the house, chanting “Terrorist! Terrorist!” and singing “May your village burn” in an attempt to interrupt the meeting, which was billed as a chance to build “partnership and peace” after “two years characterised mainly by pain and hostility”.

And in the Israeli Supreme Court on Monday, two of the soldiers accused of the brutal gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman prison last year were met, not by condemnation, but applause and chants of “We are all Unit 100”, referring to the military unit accused of raping the Palestinian man.

“They’re not cheering rapists, they’re cheering this idea that nothing matters any more,” Ori Goldberg, a political scientist based near Tel Aviv, said. “Genocide devalues everything. Once you’ve carried out a genocide, nothing matters any more. Not the lives of those you’ve killed and, by extension, not your own. Nothing carries any consequence. Not your actions, nothing. We’ve become hollow.”

Seeming to prove Goldberg’s point in the Knesset on Wednesday was Nissim Vaturi, the body’s deputy speaker and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing Likud party. Vaturi crossed one of Israel’s few political rubicons and directly referenced Kahane, whose name has become a rallying cry for settlers and ultranationalist groups across Israel.

Asked if he was in favour of “Jewish terror”, Vaturi replied “I support it. Believe me, Kahane was right in many ways where we were wrong, where the people of Israel were wrong,” he said, referencing the former lawmakers convicted of “terrorism” offences in both Israel and the US and whose party, Kach, remains a proscribed “terrorist group” across much of the world.

“Once you’ve manufactured consent for genocide, you need to be proactive in dialling the cruelty levels down, which is something we’re not seeing,” analyst and former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy said. “If anything, we’re just seeing it continue. They have dialled the cruelty levels up to 11 …  and they’re leaving them there.”

New Delhi, India – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet late Wednesday described the car explosion which jolted New Delhi earlier in the week as a “heinous terror incident, perpetrated by antinational forces”.

The Indian government’s words, two days after a slow-moving car blew up near the Red Fort, an iconic 17th-century monument in New Delhi, killing at least 13 people and wounding several, have since led to questions about how it might respond, raising concerns over the prospect of a new spike in regional tensions.

Earlier this year, in May, the Indian government had declared a new security doctrine: “Any act of terror will be treated as an act of war.”

That posture had come in the aftermath of an intense four-day air war between India and Pakistan, after India blamed Islamabad for an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 civilians.

Now, six months later, as India grapples with another attack – this time, in the heart of the national capital of the world’s most populous country – the Modi government has so far avoided blaming Pakistan.

Instead, say political analysts, New Delhi’s language suggests that it might be veering towards intensifying a crackdown on Kashmir, at a time when Islamophobia and anti-Kashmiri sentiments have skyrocketed across India in the aftermath of the car explosion.

A crackdown in Kashmir

Even before the blast in New Delhi, police teams from Indian-administered Kashmir had been carrying out raids across the national capital region, following a lead from Srinagar, which led to the seizure of a significant amount of explosives and arrests of nearly a dozen individuals.

Among the suspects are several Kashmiri doctors – including Umar Nabi, a junior doctor who is suspected of being the driver of the car that exploded – who were serving in hospitals in satellite towns outside New Delhi.

Since the explosion near the Red Fort, police in Indian-administered Kashmir have detained more than 650 people from across the Valley as they dig deeper into what sections of the Indian media are describing as a “white-collar terror module” that had gathered enough explosives for the biggest attack on India in decades, if members hadn’t been arrested.

Police teams have raided several locations, including the residences of members of banned sociopolitical outfits.

Indian forces on Thursday also demolished the home of Nabi, the alleged car driver. In recent years, Indian authorities have often demolished homes of individuals accused of crimes without any judicial order empowering them to do so, even though the Supreme Court has ordered an end to the practice. Rights groups have described the act of demolishing the homes of suspects as a form of collective punishment.

Students of medicine and practising doctors in Kashmir are also increasingly facing scrutiny – more than 50 have been questioned for hours, and some have had their devices seized for investigation.

“There is a sense of complete disbelief among all of us,” said a junior doctor at a government-run hospital in Srinagar, the capital of the federal territory of Indian-administered Kashmir.

The doctor requested anonymity to speak, fearing repercussions from the police.

The 34-year-old has seen conflict in Kashmir up close, treating injured protesters firsthand for weeks on end, during previous clashes with security forces. “But I never thought that we would be viewed with suspicion like this,” he said, adding that the explosion that killed 13 in New Delhi was “unfortunate and should be condemned”.

“It is unreal to us that a doctor can think of such an attack,” the doctor said. “But how does that malign our entire fraternity? If a professional defects and joins militants, does it mean that all professionals are terrorists?”

‘Away from Pakistan, towards an enemy within’

India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir since the nations were partitioned in 1947 as the British left the subcontinent. Today, India, Pakistan and China all control parts of Kashmir. India claims all of it, and Pakistan seeks control of all of Kashmir except the parts held by China, its ally.

After the April attack in the resort town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, India had launched missiles deep inside Pakistan. Modi claimed that the attacks killed more than 100 “terrorists”. Pakistan insisted that civilians and soldiers, not armed fighters, were killed. Pakistan, which had rejected Indian accusations of a role in the April killings in Pahalgam, hit back.

Over four days, the nuclear-armed neighbours fired missiles and drones across their contested border, striking each other’s military bases.

When the Modi government agreed to a ceasefire on May 10, it faced domestic criticism from the opposition – and some sections of its own supporters – for not continuing with attacks on Pakistan. The government then said Operation Sindoor is “only on pause, not over”.

Six months later, though, New Delhi has been significantly more cautious about who to blame for the Delhi blast.

“There is a lot of due outrage this time, but there is no mention of Pakistan,” said Anuradha Bhasin, a veteran editor in Kashmir and author of a book, A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370, about how the region changed under the Hindu majoritarian Modi government. The Kashmir administration has banned her book in the region.

“This time, it is not about a crackdown on Pakistan,” she told Al Jazeera. “The public anger is being directed away from Pakistan, towards ‘an enemy within’.”

She said the Modi government appeared to be aware that finger-pointing at Pakistan “would create pressure from the public to take [military] action” against the neighbour.

Instead, she said, “public anger can be assuaged by creating any enemy.”

‘Pandering to domestic gallery’

Analysts point to the Modi government’s use of the term “antinational forces” to describe the alleged perpetrators of the Delhi attack.

That’s a phrase the Modi government has previously used to describe academics, journalists and students who have criticised it, as well as other protesters and dissidents. Since Modi took office in 2014, India has continuously slid in multiple democracy indices for alleged persecution of minorities in the country and its crackdown on press freedom.

To Sumantra Bose, a political scientist whose work focuses on the intersection of nationalism and conflict in South Asia, the Indian cabinet resolution was significant in the way that it shied “away from naming and blaming Pakistan, which was a rather reflexive reaction for decades”.

After the fighting in May, the Indian government learned, the hard way, Bose said, that “there is no appetite and indeed no tolerance anywhere in the world for a military escalation in South Asia.”

Bose was referring to the lukewarm global support that India received after it bombed Pakistan without providing any public evidence of Islamabad’s links with the attackers in Pahalgam.

Instead, India was left disputing the repeated assertions of United States President Donald Trump that he had brokered the ceasefire between New Delhi and Islamabad, even as he hosted Pakistan’s army chief, praised him, and strengthened ties with India’s western neighbour. India has long held the position that all disputes with Pakistan must be resolved bilaterally, without intervention from any other country.

The contrast in New Delhi’s response to this week’s blast, so far, appears to have struck US State Secretary Marco Rubio, too.

Reacting to the Delhi blast, Rubio said “it clearly was a terrorist attack,” and “the Indians need to be commended. They’ve been very measured, cautious, and very professional on how they’re carrying out this investigation.”

India’s new security doctrine – that an act of terror is an act of war – “was a dangerous, slippery slope”, said Bose, who has also authored books on the conflict in Kashmir. His last work, Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict, published in 2021, is also banned in Kashmir.

The doctrine, he said, was aimed at pandering to Modi’s “domestic gallery” – a way of showing muscular strength, even at the risk of “serious military escalation” between India and Pakistan.

Now, by using terms like “white-collar terrorism”, analysts said Indian officials risked blurring the line between Kashmiri Muslims and armed rebels fighting Indian rule.

“The term doesn’t make sense to me, but it does put the needle of suspicion on young, educated Muslim professionals,” said Bose.

“The fact has been for decades that militants come from all sorts of social backgrounds in Kashmir – from rural farming families, working-class backgrounds, to educated professionals,” Bose argued. “If anything, it reflects the discontent that has been in the society across the groups.”

Bhasin, the editor from Kashmir, said the Indian government’s posture would lead to “adverse economic impact for Kashmiri Muslims and further ghettoisation, where they find it harder to get jobs or a place to rent”.

‘Everyone is so scared’

Kashmiris across India are already facing the brunt of hate and anger following the Delhi blast.

Since the bomb exploded on Monday in New Delhi, Indian social media platforms have been rife with rampant hate speech against Muslims.

Nasir Khuehami, the national convener of a Kashmiri student association, has spent four days fielding calls from Kashmiri Muslims.

“Across northern Indian states, Kashmiris are being asked to vacate their homes, there is active profiling going on, and everyone is so scared,” Khuehami told Al Jazeera, speaking from his home in Kashmir.

This is only the latest instance of this pattern playing out: An attack in Kashmir, or by a Kashmiri armed rebel, has often led to harassment and beating of Kashmiri Muslims – students, professionals, traders, or even labourers – living in India.

Khuehami said “to end this endless cycle of crises for Kashmiris” – where they are detained at home and abused outside – “the government needs to take confidence-building measures.”

Otherwise, Khuehami said, the Modi government was marginalising Kashmiris in India. By doing that, he said, India would be playing into the hands of the very country it accuses of wanting to grab Kashmir: Pakistan.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan has codified the most ambitious restructure of its military and judiciary in decades after President Asif Ali Zardari signed his assent to ratify the country’s 27th Constitutional Amendment on Thursday.

The amendment, which passed in both houses of parliament earlier in the week amid opposition protests and criticism from a range of civil society activists and sitting judges, makes major changes to Pakistan’s higher judiciary.

But many analysts believe that its most consequential feature is a sweeping overhaul of Article 243, the constitutional clause defining the relationship between Pakistan’s civilian government and the military.

The changes grant lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution to the country’s top military leaders, significantly reshape the military’s command structure, and further tilt the balance of the tri-services – the army, navy and air force – heavily in the army’s favour.

Analysts warn that this contentious reform risks colliding with entrenched institutional cultures and could rock the country’s fragile civilian–military equilibrium.

Al Jazeera has sought comment from the military’s media wing on the changes and the debate over them, but has received no response.

A new command structure

The revised Article 243 establishes a new post, the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), to be held concurrently by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS). This effectively gives the army chief command authority over the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and Pakistan Navy (PN).

The incumbent COAS is Field Marshal Asim Munir, who assumed command in November 2022 and was elevated to a five-star rank on May 20 this year, just 10 days after Pakistan ended its four-day conflict with India.

Munir became only the second Pakistani military officer – after Field Marshal Ayub Khan in the 1960s – to receive the five-star designation. The air force and navy have never had a five-star official so far.

The amendment also abolishes the office of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) at the end of this month. The role is currently held by four-star General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, who retires on November 27. Another major change is the creation of the Commander of the National Strategic Command (CNSC), a post overseeing Pakistan’s nuclear command. The position will be limited to only an army officer, appointed in consultation with the CDF, with a three-year term extendable by another three years.

The amendment effectively transforms five-star titles from what were honorary recognitions into constitutionally recognised offices with expansive privileges.

Under the new arrangement, five-star officers will enjoy lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution and will “retain rank, privileges and remain in uniform for life.”

Removing a five-star officer will require a two-thirds parliamentary majority, whereas an elected government can be dismissed by a simple majority.

“While government spokespersons refer to these titles as ‘honorary’, given to ‘national heroes’ to celebrate their services,” Reema Omer, a constitutional law expert, said, the amendment “implies actual power, not just honorary significance”.

Omer told Al Jazeera that lifelong immunity from criminal proceedings was “concerning from a rule of law perspective”.

A former three-star general, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the changes appeared to be “meant to consolidate” the army chief’s power.

Hours after the president’s ratification on Thursday evening, Pakistan’s government brought amendments to the laws governing the three services.

Under the revised Army Act, the clock on the tenure of the army chief will now restart from the date of his notification as CDF.

Last year, parliament had increased the tenure of the service chiefs from three to five years, which meant Munir’s term would run until 2027. Following the new changes, it will now extend even further. Once the revised rules take effect at the end of this month, Munir will hold both posts – COAS and CDF – at least until November 2030.

Military dominance – and the role of the India conflict

Since independence in 1947, Pakistan’s military, especially the army, has been the most powerful institution in national life.

Four coups and decades of direct rule have been accompanied by significant influence, even when civilian governments have been in power. The army chief has long been widely viewed as the country’s most powerful figure.

No prime minister has ever completed a full five-year term, while three of four military rulers have governed for more than nine years each.

General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Munir’s predecessor, acknowledged this history in his farewell address in November 2022, conceding that the military had interfered in politics for decades, and promising to break with that legacy.

But three years later, rights groups and opposition parties allege that little has changed, and some claim that the military has further strengthened its grip over state institutions.

The military restructure under the 27th Amendment also comes six months after Pakistan’s brief conflict with India in May, raising questions over whether the reforms were linked to that fight.

Aqil Shah, professor of international affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, argued that the confrontation with India created the opening for this “unprecedented role expansion” for the army chief.

The changes “formalise the army’s de facto hegemony over the other two wings of armed forces in the guise of the ‘unity of command’ as a necessity for war fighting,” Shah told Al Jazeera.

But supporters of the amendment disagree. Aqeel Malik, state minister for law and justice, said that the amendment aims to “plug holes” in Pakistan’s national security architecture.

“The amendment granted constitutional cover to defence integration and improved coordination. We have also provided a constitutional cover to the honour bestowed upon our national heroes and have addressed a long overdue cohesive and better coordination within the forces for a swift response,” Malik said.

Ahmed Saeed, a former vice admiral, similarly described the reform as a “forward-looking institutional change”.

He said the conflict with India exposed that Pakistan’s command model was rooted in a 1970s framework, unsuitable for “multi-domain, hybrid warfare of the 21st century”.

“The amendment is not about ‘fixing what is broken’ but about modernising what is functioning to ensure sustained effectiveness in future contingencies,” Saeed told Al Jazeera.

Fears of imbalance

Other critics, including former senior officials and security analysts, believe the amendment is less about modernisation and more about institutional consolidation.

They argue that creating the CDF post cements the army’s dominance over the other branches.

Many question why the command structure should be overhauled when, by the government’s own narrative, the existing system delivered what Pakistan claims was an “outright victory” against India.

A retired three-star general who served in senior roles before retiring in 2019 said the abolished CJCSC role, despite being largely symbolic, provided a mechanism for balancing perspectives across the army, navy and air force.

“The PAF and PN may lose autonomy in strategic planning and most probably senior promotions, which has the potential to breed resentment,” he said.

“These risks institutional imbalance, undermining the very cohesion the amendment claims to enhance,” the former general added.

The CJCSC – a four-star post and the principal military adviser to the prime minister – can theoretically be filled by any service, but the last non-army officer to hold the position was Air Chief Marshal Feroz Khan in 1997.

Security analyst Majid Nizami said that while the amendment aims to codify five-star ranks, it may create challenges for “cohesion and synergy” among the services.

If the goal was to modernise warfare strategy, he argued, there should have been a dedicated officer focused solely on integration, not the army chief assuming dual authority.

“There is a lack of clarity on rules and terms of reference for the CDF,” Nizami said.

Shah, the Georgetown academic and author of The Army and Democracy, said the amendment “formalises the de facto power” of the COAS over the other branches.

Saeed, the former navy official who retired in 2022, however, disagreed with critics, arguing that the amendment simply clarifies the CDF’s strategic coordination role.

“The amendment retains the PAF and PN’s distinct command structures within their domains of responsibility, and the CDF’s function is limited to integration at the strategic level, not administrative control or operational interference,” he said.

He added that claims of “army dominance” stem from “legacy perceptions, not from constitutional reality.”

Control of nuclear command

The amendment also codifies the army’s control of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, including research, development and deployment, responsibilities that fall under the strategic command structure.

The former three-star general who spoke to Al Jazeera said the new system’s operational details remain unclear. Under the current model, the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) manages Pakistan’s ballistic and cruise missile programmes and nuclear assets.

Nizami said that although the CJCSC nominally oversaw the SPD, operational authority has long rested with the army. The amendment now formalises this reality.

Saeed, however, countered by arguing that in effect, even with the changes, “the entire nuclear enterprise operates under civilian-led oversight with constitutional clarity”.

Political fallout

Critics have described the amendment as a “constitutional surrender” by political parties to the military, and an attempt to institutionalise the “supremacy of the uniform over the ballot”.

It also comes at a time when Field Marshal Munir’s public profile has risen significantly. He has undertaken multiple foreign trips, including several to the United States, and has been described by President Donald Trump as his “favourite field marshal”.

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, jailed for the past two years, accuses Munir of orchestrating the crackdown on him and his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), since their ouster in 2022 through a no-confidence vote – a charge that the military has rejected outright.

In Pakistan’s February 2024 election, the PTI was barred from contesting as a party. But its candidates, contesting independently, secured the most seats even though they failed to secure a majority. Instead, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formed the government with allies. The government and military rejected widespread accusations of election rigging.

Shah argued that the political class supported the amendment out of necessity.

“Lacking democratic legitimacy and faced with the political challenge posed by the PTI and Khan, the ruling PML-N government sees Munir as the key guarantor of their power and political interests,” he said.

Nizami, the Lahore-based analyst, meanwhile, said that separate appointments to the posts of the CDF and the army chief would have made more sense if the intent was to strengthen the military structure and balance. The amendment, he warned, could lead to “institutional imbalance instead of institutional synergy”.

An Israeli settler arson attack on a mosque in the occupied West Bank has drawn international condemnation, as a wave of intensified violence against Palestinians continues unabated across the area.

Israeli settlers set fire to the Hajja Hamida Mosque in the Palestinian village of Deir Istiya, near Salfit in the north of the West Bank, around dawn on Thursday, local residents told Al Jazeera.

Photographs taken at the scene showed racist, anti-Palestinian slogans sprayed on the walls of the mosque, which was damaged in the blaze. Copies of the Quran – the Islamic holy book – were also burned.

The Palestinian Ministry of Religious Endowments and Affairs condemned what it said was a “heinous crime” that highlights “the barbarity” with which Israel treats Muslim and Christian holy sites in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Separately, two Palestinian children were killed on Thursday when Israeli forces opened fire during a raid in the town of Beit Ummar, near Hebron in the southern West Bank, the Wafa news agency reported.

The violence comes amid a record-setting number of Israeli settler and military attacks on Palestinians across the West Bank so far this year, with many of the assaults taking place in the context of the 2025 olive harvest.

At least 167 settler attacks related to the olive harvest were reported since October 1, the United Nations’ humanitarian agency (OCHA) said in its latest update this week. More than 150 Palestinians have been injured in those assaults, while more than 5,700 trees have also been damaged.

Experts say Israeli attacks in the West Bank have increased in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 69,000 Palestinians in the coastal enclave since October 2023.

They also come as members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government are pushing to formally annex the area. Rights groups say Israel already maintains a system of de facto annexation and apartheid in the West Bank.

The UN human rights office warned in July that the settler violence was being carried out “with the acquiescence, support, and in some cases participation, of Israeli security forces”.

Settler and military attacks, it said, “are part of a broader and coordinated strategy of the State of Israel to expand and consolidate annexation of the occupied West Bank, while reinforcing its system of discrimination, oppression and control over Palestinians there”.

‘Completely unacceptable’

Thursday’s attack on the mosque in Deir Istiya prompted an outpouring of international condemnation.

A spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres said the international body was “deeply disturbed” by the assault. “Such attacks on places of worship are completely unacceptable,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters during a briefing at the UN headquarters in New York.

“We have and will continue to condemn attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank,” Dujarric said.

“Israel, as the occupying power, has a responsibility to protect the civilian population and ensure that those responsible for these attacks, including this attack on a mosque and the spray-painting of horrendous language on the mosque, be brought to account.”

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also “strongly condemned” the rise in Israeli settler attacks, according to a statement shared by the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

A Jordan Foreign Ministry spokesman described the violence as “an extension of the Israeli government’s extremist policies and inflammatory rhetoric that fuel violence and extremism against the Palestinian people”.

Germany, which has faced criticism for defending Israel amid the Gaza war, also called for a halt to settler violence, saying the “incidents must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible held accountable”.

The Swiss Foreign Ministry likewise said recent Israeli arson attacks in the West Bank “are unacceptable”. “This violence and the continued expansion of illegal settlements must stop,” it said in a statement.

Palestinians have urged world leaders to go beyond words, however, and take concrete action against Israel amid the wave of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including by ending weapons transfers to the Israeli military.

In a separate incident last week, Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian home in the village of Khirbet Abu Falah, near Ramallah, while a family was inside, the UN’s humanitarian office reported.

“As the flames spread, the family immediately evacuated while neighbours and civil defence teams rushed to the scene and managed to extinguish the fire. The mother sustained a leg fracture while running away from the settlers,” OCHA said.

Israeli settler violence targeting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank is at its highest level on record, according to the UN. Settlers are destroying mosques, dairy facilities, and attacking olive farmers in hundreds of attacks that are terrifying families and disrupting everyday life.

Israel has repeatedly been accused of using Palestinians as human shields in violation of international law.

The United States had evidence last year that Israeli officials discussed how their soldiers sent Palestinians into tunnels in Gaza that the Israelis believed were potentially lined with explosives, two former US officials have told the Reuters news agency.

The information was shared with the White House and analysed by the intelligence community in the final weeks of former President Joe Biden’s administration, the officials said.

International law prohibits the use of civilians as shields during military activity.

Israel’s use of Palestinians as human shields in Gaza and the occupied West Bank has been documented on multiple occasions, but Wednesday’s Reuters report is a rare acknowledgement that Washington collected its own evidence on the subject.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security information, did not provide details on whether the Palestinians referenced in the intelligence were prisoners or civilians.

Reuters could not determine whether the Biden administration discussed the intelligence with the Israeli government.

Responding to the report, the Israeli military said in a statement that it “prohibits the use of civilians as human shields or coercing them in any way to participate in military operations”.

It added that the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division is investigating “suspicions involving Palestinians in military missions”.

In May this year, seven Palestinians who had been used as human shields in Gaza, as well as the occupied West Bank, shared testimonies in a report published by The Associated Press.

In June 2024, video footage verified by Al Jazeera showed Israeli soldiers tied a wounded Palestinian man, Mujahed Azmi, to the front of a military jeep and drove him past two ambulances during a raid on the city of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military claimed at the time that the soldiers involved violated protocol, while a US State Department spokesperson described reports and video of the incident as “disturbing” and “a clear violation” of Israel’s “orders and procedures”.

Israel quizzed at UN over torture allegations

Israel was questioned at the United Nations on Tuesday and Wednesday over multiple reports alleging the torture of Palestinian detainees, in particular since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.

“The committee has been deeply appalled by the description we have received, in a large number of alternative reports, of what appears to be systematic and widespread torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians, including children,” the body’s rapporteur, Peter Vedel Kessing, said.

Twenty-eight Israeli officials appeared in front of a panel of 10 UN experts on torture in Geneva.

The experts asked the Israeli team: “Does Israel have a law against torture?”

The answer from the Israeli delegation was no.

“Does Israel apply the agreements it has signed against torture in Gaza and the West Bank?” the question continued, to which the answer was also no.

The committee confronted Israel with multiple reports and a long list of violations against Palestinians. The Israeli delegation denied most of them. In some instances, the delegation said, soldiers had acted in “self-defence”.

Israel has repeatedly been accused of using torture during its two-year war on Gaza.

In one instance, a video leaked from its infamous Sde Teiman military prison appeared to show Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee.

In addition, dozens of dead bodies of Palestinian detainees that have been returned to Gaza since the start of a ceasefire have exhibited signs of torture.

The UN Committee Against Torture will issue a non-binding summary of its findings on the allegations against Israel at the end of November.

IOM chief calls for ceasefire to allow aid groups to reach Sudanese civilians trapped in war-torn Darfur region.

The head of the United Nations’ migration agency has called for a ceasefire and a humanitarian corridor to help tens of thousands of civilians trapped in el-Fasher, the city in Sudan’s Darfur region that fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last month.

Amy Pope, director-general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that “the primary concern is getting access” to residents who have been largely cut off from humanitarian aid and services in el-Fasher.

“When humanitarian actors are themselves at risk – when they’re killed, when they’re shot, when they’re detained – we can’t get the people what they need to survive,” Pope said.

“The primary issue is ensuring that there is a ceasefire, a humanitarian corridor, so that aid groups can bring in that aid to the civilians who are very much caught in the middle.”

Human rights groups have accused the RSF, which has been battling the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for control of Sudan since April 2023, of committing widescale massacres in its capture of el-Fasher on October 26.

While thousands of residents remain stuck in el-Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, nearly 90,000 others have fled since the RSF’s takeover, according to the latest IOM figures.

On Wednesday, Pope said displaced families have described dangerous journeys out of el-Fasher.

“They spoke about seeing dead bodies as they walked. They spoke about having to create makeshift trenches to avoid being shot at, or being harmed by the drones. They spoke of unspeakable, unbearable, sexual trauma [and] sexual abuse,” she said.

“The stories are really harrowing, and they’re happening now even as we speak.”

Her comments come a day after the IOM warned that humanitarian aid efforts in Sudan were “on the brink of collapse” due to continued insecurity and a lack of funding.

“Warehouses are nearly empty, aid convoys face significant insecurity, and access restrictions continue to prevent the delivery of sufficient aid,” the agency said in a statement, noting that violence is also spreading to other parts of the country.

Nearly 39,000 people have fled intense fighting in North Kordofan state, east of el-Fasher, between October 26 and November 9, the IOM said.

Meanwhile, Anna Mutavati, the regional director for East and Southern Africa at UN Women, told reporters this week that women and girls who fled el-Fasher now face serious threats of sexual violence in displacement camps around the city.

“What the women tell us is that … every step that they’ve taken – to fetch water, to collect firewood, or to stand in a food line – is carrying a high risk of sexual violence,” Mutavati said during a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday.

“There is mounting evidence that rape is being deliberately and systematically used as a weapon of war,” she added.

“Women’s bodies … have just become a crime scene in Sudan.”

Arrival of US aircraft carrier off Latin America fuels speculation that US could try to overthrow Venezuelan government.

The Venezuelan government has said it is preparing its armed forces in the event of an invasion or military attack by the United States.

A statement shared by Minister of People’s Power for Defence Vladimir Padrino on Tuesday said that the preparations include the “massive deployment of ground, aerial, naval, riverine and missile forces”, as well as the participation of police, militias and citizens’ units.

The announcement comes as the arrival of a US aircraft carrier in the region fuels speculation of possible military action aimed at collapsing the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a longtime US rival.

Tensions between the two countries have escalated since the return of US President Donald Trump for a second term in January.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon confirmed that the Gerald R Ford Carrier Strike Group — which includes the world’s largest aircraft carrier — had arrived in the Caribbean Sea, bearing at least 4,000 sailors as well as “tactical aircraft”.

In recent weeks, the US government has also surged troops to areas near the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago, for training exercises and other operations.

The Trump administration has framed such deployments as necessary “to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland”. Trump officials have also accused Maduro of masterminding the activities of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang with a relatively modest presence in the US.

But Maduro and his allies have accused the US of “imperialistic” aims.

Questions remain, however, about whether Venezuela is equipped to fend off any US military advances.

Experts say the Maduro government has sought to project an image of military preparedness in the face of a large buildup of US forces in the Caribbean, but it could face difficulties from a lack of personnel and up-to-date equipment.

While the government has used possible US intervention to rally support, Maduro is also struggling with widespread discontent at home and growing diplomatic isolation following a contested election in 2024, marred by allegations of widespread fraud and a crackdown on protesters.

The military buildup in the Caribbean region began after the start of a series of US military strikes on September 2.

The US has carried out at least 19 air strikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing approximately 75 people.

Trump has suggested that land strikes “are going to be next”. But when asked in late October whether he was considering attacks within Venezuela, Trump replied, “No”.

Legal experts say that a military attack on Venezuela would likely violate international law, and recent polling from the research firm YouGov suggests that about 47 percent of people in the US would oppose land attacks on Venezuelan territory. About 19 percent, meanwhile, say they would support such attacks.

While Venezuela’s armed forces have expressed support for Maduro and said they would resist a US attack, the Reuters news agency has reported that the government has struggled to provide members of the armed forces with adequate food and supplies.

The use of additional paramilitary and police forces could represent an effort to plug the holes in Venezuela’s lacklustre military capacity. Reuters reported that a government memo includes plans for small units at about 280 locations, where they could use sabotage and guerrilla tactics for “prolonged resistance” against any potential US incursion.

Undated video circulating on social media shows Russian troops moving through dense fog in Pokrovsk as Moscow steps up efforts to reinforce positions. Ukraine says around 300 Russian soldiers are in the town and are trying to push north to encircle the area.

Gaza’s Civil Defence says 35 unidentifiable bodies uncovered in Gaza City as Hamas searches for dead Israeli captives.