US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says ceasefire with Iran remains in place despite growing tensions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Published On 6 May 20266 May 2026
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Video from Gaza City shows flames rising after an Israeli strike targeted a group of civilians near Al-Jalaa Roundabout in the Al-Oyoun area in northern Gaza City.
Published On 5 May 20265 May 2026
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The United States has transferred 22 crew members from the Iranian container ship, the Touska, to Pakistan, in what Islamabad describes as a “confidence-building measure” during tension in the Strait of Hormuz.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman, Captain Tim Hawkins, said the crew had been handed over for repatriation. Pakistan’s foreign ministry confirmed the transfer, saying the sailors would be returned to Iranian authorities.
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The Touska was seized by US forces in the Gulf of Oman in the early hours of April 20, in what Tehran described as an act of “piracy”, after the US declared a naval blockade of Iranian ports. Iran had effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz following the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
On Monday, tensions continued to escalate in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
First, US President Donald Trump announced that US naval ships would help guide stranded vessels through the strait in an operation he dubbed “Project Freedom”.
Iran issued a new map of the strait with new boundaries further to the east, and warned shipping not to attempt to pass without coordinating with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Then, state media reported that two Iranian missiles struck a US naval vessel near Jask Island in the strait after ignoring warnings from the IRGC to turn back. Washington denied any attack.
Amid continued interceptions and seizures of vessels by both sides, questions remain over whether the two countries can de-escalate and reach a broader peace agreement. Pakistan has been central to these efforts, seeking to keep diplomatic channels open, but talks hosted in Islamabad last month ended without a breakthrough.
Iran’s foreign ministry says it is reviewing Washington’s response to its 14-point proposal aimed at ending the conflict sent via Pakistan on Friday. As Pakistan continues to mediate, Trump previously described Tehran’s offer as “unacceptable”.
The Iran-flagged Touska was seized by US forces in the Gulf of Oman, close to the Strait of Hormuz, on April 20 after Washington accused the crew of failing to comply with the US naval blockade on Iranian ports. Shortly after midnight local time in Iran, CENTCOM said the USS Spruance fired its 5-inch (127mm) deck gun at the vessel’s engine room, disabling it.
According to the US military, the ship was attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz en route to Iran’s main commercial port, Bandar Abbas.
The Touska, a small container ship operated by the sanctioned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), was boarded near Iran’s Chabahar port. US Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit captured the vessel after what CENTCOM said were repeated warnings over six hours.
Video released by the US military showed Marines descending from helicopters launched from the USS Tripoli and securing the Tusk.
Iran condemned the capture as a violation of international law and an act of “piracy“, before demanding the immediate release of the vessel and its crew.
Pakistan has positioned itself as a mediator between Washington and Tehran, and is now framing the transfer of the Touska crew as a step towards de-escalation of tensions. In a statement, the Pakistani foreign ministry said the move reflected a “confidence-building measure” and reaffirmed its commitment to facilitating dialogue.
US and Iranian delegations met in Islamabad last month for their first talks since 1979. Although negotiations ended without a deal, they marked a rare moment of direct engagement.
Pakistan has since coordinated with regional powers, including Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Qatar and Egypt, while maintaining close communications with China, in an effort to build broader support for de-escalation.
In a call with Iran’s Foreign Minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, on Monday, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Ishaq Dar, reiterated that diplomacy remains the only viable path to stability. Tehran, in turn, acknowledged Islamabad’s mediation efforts.
There are not many signs that it will.
Indeed, tensions in the Strait of Hormuz have continued to increase despite the release of the crew members.
Most notably, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard published a new map on Monday outlining what it claims is an expanded zone of control in the waterway, stretching from Iranian and Omani territory to include the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates as well.
Analysts say this new claim exceeds internationally recognised boundaries. The UAE has accused Iran of launching drones at an oil tanker linked to Abu Dhabi’s national energy company, while Washington has dismissed Iranian reports of an attack on a US warship as false.
Military analyst Alexandru Hudisteanu, a maritime security expert who served 13 years in the Romanian navy, told Al Jazeera on Monday that the conflicting claims reflect a broader test of resolve. “Any attempt to open the strait will likely be met with resistance from Iran,” he said, adding that Tehran views control of Hormuz as its primary leverage in negotiations.
Hudisteanu warned that the situation carries a high risk of miscalculation, with both sides continuing to operate in close proximity. For Iran, the Strait of Hormuz is the “only leverage” it has for peace negotiations, Hudisteanu said.
Iranian analyst Foad Izadi argued that the ceasefire effectively collapsed when the US imposed its blockade, which he described as “an act of war”. He added that the targeting and seizure of ships along the Strait of Hormuz further undermined any notion of a truce.
“Attacking an Iranian ship’s engine is an act of war as well,” he added, despite the release of the Touska’s crew signalling some short-term goodwill between the US and Iran.
“I have all the cards,” posted the White House on its X account on Sunday, alongside an image of President Donald Trump holding playing cards from the Uno game, in a message appearing to signal Washington’s confidence in its ongoing war on Iran.
Uno is a card game in which the winner is the first to get rid of all their cards.
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The post came after Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that the US military would begin guiding ships stranded around the Strait of Hormuz by the war on Monday, in a sign that the conflict could further escalate, despite the near-month-long fragile ceasefire. Tehran has been effectively blocking nearly all shipping from the Gulf for more than two months, after the US and Israel attacked Iran two months ago, disrupting global energy supplies.
“We have told these countries that we will guide their ships safely out of these restricted waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business,” Trump said, dubbing the campaign “Project Freedom”. “They are merely neutral and innocent bystanders!”
The president added that US negotiators were engaged in “very positive discussions” with Tehran, which could lead to “something very positive” without further elaboration.
Iran, however, reacted by insisting that the security of the waterway was in the hands of its armed forces, and warned that “any safe passage and navigation in any situation” should be “carried out in coordination with the armed forces”.
On Monday, the Iranian Fars news agency reported that a US warship had been hit by two Iranian drones, the claim was denied by US Central Command.
So what leverage do the US and Iran hold over each other, and what happens next?
In response to Trump’s “I have all the cards” social media post, Iran’s Consulate General in Hyderabad, India, posted its own image on X.
“Yes, we have less cards,” Iran’s consulate in the Indian city of Hyderabad wrote on X, together with a photo of an Iranian military spokesperson holding four Uno cards compared to Trump’s five, pointing out that usually holding all the cards means you are losing, not winning, in the game of Uno.
In response to Trump’s “Project Freedom” declaration, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned that ships deemed to be in breach of its rules in the Strait of Hormuz “will be stopped by force”, while insisting there has been no change in how it manages traffic through the strategic waterway.
On Monday, it issued a new map of the Strait of Hormuz with boundaries extending further to the east than its previous one, and said any ship travelling between the two sides must coordinate with the IRGC first.
“There has been no change in the management process of the Strait of Hormuz,” spokesperson Sardar Mohebbi said, adding that vessels that comply with the “transit protocols issued by the IRGC Navy” will be “safe and secure”.
“Other maritime movements that are contrary to the declared principles of the IRGC Navy will face serious risks. Violating vessels will be stopped by force,” he said.
The United States’ most enduring source of leverage over Iran remains its sanctions regime, which was launched in 1979 when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic Republic.
Successive US administrations over the past 47 years have hit Tehran with a series of financial restrictions targeting Iran’s banking, oil exports and access to international markets – the US says the sanctions are a response to Iran’s nuclear programme.
Sanctions have significantly constrained Iran’s economy, limiting government revenue and contributing to inflation and currency depreciation. Measures enforced through the US Treasury also deter other countries and companies from engaging with Iran, further strangling its economy.
The economic pressure has been central to US strategy towards Iran, particularly during its attempts to force Tehran back to negotiations over its nuclear programme, under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Beyond economics, the US maintains overwhelming military superiority, especially air power. Aircraft carriers, long-range bombers and precision strike capabilities give Washington the ability to target Iranian infrastructure with relatively low risk to its own forces.
US bases across the Gulf, as well as military partnerships with regional allies – most notably Israel – reinforce this advantage.
American forces, together with the Israeli army, have killed more than 3,000 people, and struck thousands of sites across Iran in the current war, including Iran’s energy and nuclear sites.
Since mid-April, the United States has enforced a widespread naval blockade of Iranian ports and ships. The operation began on April 13 after talks between Washington and Tehran collapsed, with US forces ordered to stop or divert vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports.
US forces have since intercepted or turned back dozens of ships, and seized a container ship, the Touska. On Monday, the US announced that its crew had been repatriated to Iran from Pakistan, where they were taken after their ship was captured in the Gulf of Oman last month.
According to Trump, the blockade is designed to choke Iran’s oil exports, its main revenue source.
US officials say the measures have severely disrupted Iran’s trade, which relies heavily on sea routes.
The vital waterway is Iran’s most significant strategic asset, the narrow passage ships one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies in peacetime.
Tehran has effectively closed the strait since the war began on February 28, sending global oil and gas prices soaring and energy markets into turmoil. Iran has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to target shipping, seize vessels, or conduct military exercises, demonstrating its ability to close or restrict the strait.
The result is soaring energy prices globally, forcing many countries to implement severe austerity measures to soften the blow.
Last week in the US, the average price of a gallon (3.8 litres) of gasoline (petrol) rose to $4.30, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), up from less than $3 before the war.
Surging energy costs have driven up inflation and deepened economic uncertainty in the US, compounding Trump’s political troubles amid overwhelming disapproval for the war amongst Americans.
Even if the US does begin escorting ships through safely – the threat from mines or Iranian strikes may be enough to prevent tankers from attempting to sail, experts say. Insurance companies are also unlikely to underwrite voyages.
Iran’s network of allied groups across the Middle East is another asset that Tehran relies on heavily. These include armed groups in Iraq and Syria, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen
Through these groups, Iran has exerted pressure indirectly, targeting US interests and allies without engaging in direct confrontation.
One critical threat Iran has previously made is for the Houthis to disrupt shipping in the Bab al-Mandeb, another vital maritime chokepoint linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
The Houthis, an Iran-aligned group in Yemen, have previously targeted shipping in this area, most notably during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, further raising concerns about the security of global trade routes.
Roughly 4.2 billion barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum liquids flowed through the strait in 2014, accounting for about five percent of global supply.
While nowhere near the military capabilities of the US, Iran’s investment in missile and drone programmes has proven to be an effective means of deterrence. That is particularly through its ability to threaten regional US bases and impose significant costs on regional countries hosting American assets involved in military operations against Tehran.
While the US undoubtedly has a more sophisticated and powerful arsenal at its disposal, the interceptors it uses to combat Iranian drones cost around $4 million each, while Iran’s Shahed drones can be mass-produced at $20-50,000 each.
Furthermore, Iran’s ballistic missiles have proved capable of breaching Israel’s much-lauded “Iron Dome” defence system on several occasions. Iran has also dropped cluster bombs, which divide before they can be intercepted, making them much harder to stop.
Michael Clarke, visiting professor at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, said Trump’s overwhelming conventional military strength has failed to translate into strategic leverage on the ground.
“President Trump thinks he is a great poker player,” Clarke told Al Jazeera. “He thought America’s sheer destructive potential put all the ‘cards’ in his hand” when starting the war on Iran.
But Iranian forces have consistently disrupted US expectations through asymmetric tactics, he said.
“At every turn, the Iranians have come up with asymmetric tactics – vicious, reckless tactics – that have negated everything the Americans have tried to do,” Clarke noted, describing a pattern in which traditional US military superiority has been blunted by unconventional responses.
Despite significant American forces and assets in the region – including “no fewer than three US Carrier Strike Groups, two Marine Expeditionary Units, hundreds of combat aircraft and thousands of troops”, Clarke argued that Washington has struggled to find an effective use for its multi-billion-dollar resources at its disposal.
Moreover, he said, domestic pressure on Trump is growing. Trump “can’t find a way to use them [US forces] that will make any real difference to the current stalemate in the limited time he has before his own MAGA base concludes he has lost the game”.
Clarke also highlighted the willingness of Iran’s IRGC to escalate tensions. “Whatever this war might do to Iranian society, the IRGC is prepared to gamble with its own existence in the fight,” he added.
In one of the world’s most deprived and volatile regions, HumAngle’s reporting and experience reveal that journalists in Nigeria are not just observing suffering but are pulled into it as they try to report it. Consequently, they say, they find themselves paying out of pocket to feed the people whose stories they are trying to tell.
In theory, the profession is expected to observe some emotional distance from its sources and the stories they tell. However, that model is inoperable in conflict-affected regions of northern Nigeria and the Sahel.
Journalism here is embedded in environments shaped by violence, poverty, and dense social networks. Since these variables affect people at random, the reporter is not an outsider; sometimes, the conflict directly affects them as well. Ethical decisions are then made under pressure, repeatedly, and often without the comfort of certainty.
HumAngle operates in this space. Its work across Lake Chad, Central Africa, Nigeria’s Middle Belt, the North West, the South East, and other conflict zones forces a confrontation with a difficult question: What does ethical journalism look like when the people you report on are not just sources, but individuals whose survival may intersect directly with your presence?
Global journalism standards discourage payment for information, and while exceptions exist, they do so under strict editorial oversight, a clear public-interest justification, and transparency. Journalism teachers say that, though these frameworks are expected to provide clarity, they don’t in conflict-affected Nigeria, where the assumed context doesn’t apply. The ideal context has clear distinctions between sources and service providers and functioning identity systems. This is hardly obtainable in conflict-affected environments.
Dr Kabiru Danladi, a Mass Communication scholar with the Ahmadu Bello University in northwestern Nigeria, says, “Our curriculum borrows heavily from Euro-American ethical frameworks – objectivity, detachment, neutrality – principles rooted in relatively stable societies. The failure becomes evident when our graduates are deployed to cover issues that weren’t directly taught in class, or they are sent to cover conflicts in places like Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Borno, Yobe or Benue, where journalism is not just a profession but a survival exercise.”
Dr Obiora Chukwumba, a researcher and media expert in Abuja, identifies the same problem in the moral obligation created by field contact. “There is no ethical barrier to a journalist intervening on grounds of goodwill to assist a source who is in a vulnerable position,” he said.
A fixer in Zamfara, where terror groups continue to kill, abduct, and loot, is not simply an access broker but may also translate, assess risk, and act as a negotiator in certain environments. A driver in Borno, North East Nigeria, may carry more situational intelligence than any formal briefing. An intermediary in the southeast may navigate relationships across vigilante groups and separatist networks.
These individuals are essential. Without them, our reporters’ access vanishes. But they are also embedded in the same systems the journalist is trying to understand, which creates layered risks, including legal risks that emerge when payments made for legitimate services are later interpreted as material support.
Barrister Joseph Danboyi, a senior lawyer in Jos, North Central Nigeria, says, “Payment to a fixer creates liability if the journalist knew his connection with criminals. Ordinary payment for information is insufficient. The journalist will be aiding and abetting when payment is purposefully linked to criminal conduct.”
He goes further to add, “The practical bottom line is that a journalist who unknowingly pays a criminal for information is generally not liable… liability requires knowledge… and intent to help or further it.”
This distinction between knowledge and intent anchors the legal reality that sits beneath field decisions.
Dr Obiora also treats fixers and access arrangements as part of newsroom operations, not automatically as ethical breaches. “Parts of the routine (investigative) costs tied to the operations of a newsroom include such services as engaging fixers, obtaining access to a reasonably considered newsmaker, and appreciation handouts,” he said. “They are all legitimate operational costs.”
There is no procedural checklist that eliminates these risks. What exists instead is a need for structured awareness and disciplined judgment in newsrooms.
HumAngle’s engagement with the Knifar movement brings these tensions into focus. The Knifar women are part of a grassroots movement shaped by prolonged suffering. Their husbands, sons, and brothers were detained during military operations, often for years, without trial. In many cases, these men were the primary providers, and so their absence triggered cascading consequences for these women, including food insecurity, poverty, and social fragmentation. The women organised into a pressure group to demand accountability for the detention of their male relatives.
HumAngle’s reporting amplified their efforts, influencing outcomes that ultimately led to the release of over a thousand men that the women were advocating for.
Our work required prolonged engagement with the women, whose daily reality was defined by deprivation. In some instances, our journalists provided stipends. In other cases, some of these women became part of the reporting process as fixers and contributors with fixed incomes in our newsroom. We have even given some of them ‘additional reporting’ credit for their work. Since they are both sources and resource persons for our newsroom, we are often clear about what we are paying them for – their work, not their information. We have spoken publicly about the dynamics of our relationship with these women, including in a Pulitzer Centre-supported documentary.
Kunle Adebajo, a renowned award-winning investigative journalist, reflects on his own experience in being moved to provide money to vulnerable sources: “I’ve often had to pay vulnerable sources. This is because the majority of them live from hand to mouth and rely on wages from daily labour to get their sustenance, and so such interviews could be very disruptive and uncomfortable for them. Oftentimes, they also have to transport themselves to meet at the interview location. The sums given were trifling, and there was never an understanding that the interview itself was transactional.
Dr Obiora agrees that the understanding must always be clear. “If the source or interviewee presents the personal need to overshadow the reason for the meeting with the journalist, then that could be a red flag,” he said, “pointing to potential compromised narrative or ‘adjusted facts’ from the source or interviewee.”
Journalists are trained not to pay sources because it could risk distortion and affect credibility, but what happens when the people you are interviewing live in destitute conditions?
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“I met residents, elderly men and women who could not feed themselves, who could not afford basic healthcare. I met a father who lost his wife to a particular ailment, and whose two kids are still suffering from the same ailment. Yet, he could not help.”
The award-winning journalist said he felt compelled to help. “I offered to buy meals for some of them through my fixer. Yes, I offered them some cash to buy what they needed. When I got back to my hotel room that evening, I actually cried. I felt the depth of these people’s suffering.”
He is not unaware of the ethical grey spots in giving money to sources. “Ethically, I did not really care at that point whether offering them some cash would be seen as an inducement. I told myself that I had to act as a human being at the moment and drop the toga of ‘a journalist’ at that point.”
Dr Danladi understands this and says that “Students must be taught that they are a journalist, yes – but they are also human beings. Refusing to help in the name of ‘objectivity’ can itself be an ethical failure.” He says that liability only becomes possible “where the journalist knows or is willfully blind to criminal activity… or where the payment itself is tied to illegal conduct.”
Another journalist from southwestern Nigeria, who declined to be named, described facing similar situations in which his sources were suffering.
“They had had to eat rotten food sourced from the nearby markets, and sometimes they went days without eating anything because their husbands, who provided for them, had been killed. I saw that most of their children were malnourished and looked so skinny. It was such a touching situation, and I couldn’t help but give them some money that I had with me so that they could buy food and cook.”
Payment for content implies a transaction because it links money to information, but support that exists independently of reporting is different. It protects the integrity of the story while still acknowledging the reality of the environment.
Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu, an award-winning journalist and newsroom manager, said that though in her early days as a journalist, she could not resist the urge to help vulnerable sources, she has now learned to favour long-term external support. “Now, I connect them [the vulnerable subjects of her story] with NGOs… or make it possible for society to donate directly to them or through an independent third party like a fixer.”
In cases where reporters have to provide any form of support, journalism scholars like Obiora say documentation matters. Record decisions and rationale for such actions while in the field. According to Obiora, “one of the most important structures for documenting and reviewing ethical footprints in the newsroom is within the internal editorial space.” He proposed an Editorial Board of Line Editors, chaired by the title editor, and another layer through an Editorial Advisory Board, where “it would be necessary to bring the platform’s legal advisor as a member.”
“These steps will not protect you from state action if authorities choose to act,” a senior security official said. What they only do is to protect the integrity of your journalism, he implied. They help you draw a line between necessary support and inducement, between humanitarian assistance and conduct that could be interpreted as enabling someone directly or indirectly tied to the crime you are investigating.
Speaking more to the legal position of a source, unknown to the journalist, being tied to criminal activity, Danboyi reiterates that a journalist who unknowingly pays a criminal is generally not liable, as exposure begins when there is knowledge, or when you consciously ignore signals that should raise concern.
Consider the fixer a journalist has worked with closely. Not a transactional contact, but someone embedded in the reporting process, with days, sometimes weeks, spent together. The journalist has covered his meals, made stops at his home during fieldwork, supported him beyond the assignment, helped with school fees, and contributed when his child was ill. Then, months or years later, the fixer is named in a crime. The record of the journalist’s relation with him exists: Transfers, messages, shared locations. A traceable history of proximity that can be turned into proof of complicity.
The Knifar women’s story forces a reconsideration of responsibility and demands a different approach to how journalism ethics is taught and judged. “We graduate students who know the code, but cannot survive in the field,” says Dr Danladi.
Dr Obiora returns the question to dignity. “A journalist whose interaction with a source contributes to lifting the source’s dignity has discharged his or her obligation professionally.”
In environments where silence sustains suffering, the act of telling a story, and the way that story is told, carries consequences beyond journalism.
Two activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla arrived in the Netherlands after being released from Israeli custody. The flotilla was intercepted in international waters while carrying aid to the Gaza Strip. Two of their fellow activists remain in Israel for questioning.
Published On 4 May 20264 May 2026
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The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway once carrying roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas, remains effectively closed after the United States and Iran imposed competing blockades.
Naval blockades are one of the oldest weapons in warfare, requiring no ground troops or invasion, just the ability to cut off what an enemy needs to survive. These blockades have reshaped economies, societies and alliances across generations, sometimes with instant shockwaves, sometimes with effects only seen later.
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From Israel’s ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip to blockades during World War I, here are some notable naval blockades in modern history:
Israel’s complete land, sea and air blockade of the Gaza Strip is one of the longest sieges in modern history.
Launched in 2007, Israel has limited the entry of goods and essential supplies, causing a prolonged humanitarian and economic crisis for the Strip’s 2.3 million people, who cannot travel freely.
Before Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, fishermen were restricted to 6-15 nautical miles (11-28km) from shore, well below the 20-nautical-mile (37km) zone guaranteed by the Oslo Accords.
After 2023, with Israel’s policy of starving the population, fishermen have taken extreme measures to feed their families, leading to many being killed by Israeli fire.
Since 2008, several Freedom Flotilla vessels have attempted to break the Israeli blockade. Since 2010, all flotillas attempting to break the Gaza blockade have been intercepted or attacked by Israel in international waters.
On April 30, Israel raided 22 out of the 58 vessels in the most recent Global Sumud Flotilla campaign in international waters more than 1,000km (620 miles) from Gaza.
During the Nigerian Civil War, which began in July 1967, the Nigerian federal government imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the secessionist Republic of Biafra shortly after it declared independence.
The blockade led to widespread starvation, widely seen as a deliberate wartime strategy, transforming a territorial conflict into a global humanitarian crisis. Death tolls vary, but it is estimated that one to two million people died, the vast majority from hunger and disease rather than direct conflict.
The nearly three-year-long blockade ended with the Biafran surrender in January 1970.
![HMS Cleopatra's Wasp helicopter, No.463, encountered an engine failure at high altitude during the blockade on the Port du Beira in 1971. A crash landing occurred at sea and the aircraft was recovered. [File image.]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Wasp_463_a-1777774554.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
The Beira Patrol was a nine-year-long blockade by the British navy to prevent oil from reaching Rhodesia, present-day Zimbabwe, through the Mozambican port of Beira, enforced under United Nations sanctions following Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence.
The blockade largely failed its strategic goal. Rhodesia continued receiving oil via South Africa and other Mozambican ports, which the UN resolution did not authorise the British navy to intercept.
Additionally, the cost to the United Kingdom was substantial. The operation tied up 76 naval ships over nine years, with two frigates required on station at all times.
The blockade ended in July 1975, when Mozambique’s newly gained independence from Portugal allowed it to credibly commit to blocking oil transit to Rhodesia, rendering the naval patrol redundant.
In October 1962, the US ordered a naval “quarantine” of Cuba after US U-2 spy planes discovered Soviet nuclear missile sites under construction on the island.
The US deliberately called it a “quarantine” rather than a blockade, which would have been legally an act of war, aiming to prevent the Soviets from bringing in more military supplies and to pressure them to remove the missiles already there.
The quarantine drew a line 500 nautical miles (920km) from Cuba’s coast, with US warships authorised to stop, search, and turn back any vessel carrying offensive weapons if necessary.
The crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The then-Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev called the blockade “outright piracy” and an act of aggression, and initially ordered ships to proceed. For several days, Soviet vessels steamed towards the quarantine line as the world watched.
The most dangerous phase of the standoff lasted 13 days. An agreement was reached in which the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba in exchange for a US public declaration not to invade Cuba, and a secret agreement to remove US Jupiter missiles from Turkiye.
The naval quarantine was formally ended on November 20, 1962, after all offensive missiles and bombers had been withdrawn.
During the Korean War, UN naval forces led by the US imposed a blockade of the North Korean port of Wonsan in February 1951, lasting nearly two and a half years.
It aimed to deny the North Korean navy access to the city, which was strategically significant for its large harbour, airfield and petroleum refinery.
The blockade was preceded by a dangerous mine-clearance operation in October 1950. North Korean forces had been well supplied by the Soviet Union and China with sea mines, and during the clearance, the sweepers USS Pledge and USS Pirate were sunk, killing 12 men and wounding dozens.
The operation successfully constrained North Korean and Chinese forces on the east coast, forcing them to divert thousands of troops and artillery pieces away from the front line. UN forces also captured several harbour islands, which strengthened the blockade’s grip on the port.
The blockade ended after 861 days with the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement in July 1953. By that point, allied naval fire had almost levelled Wonsan.
The US imposed a submarine blockade against Japan during the Pacific War.
The blockade began taking shape in 1942, combining US naval submarine attacks on merchant shipping with minelaying operations to cripple Japan’s war capabilities, disrupt shipping and cut off vital supplies such as food and fuel.
As an island nation, Japan was especially vulnerable, almost entirely dependent on imports of oil, rubber and raw materials. Its economy and military could not function without open sea lanes.
Over the course of the war, US submarines sank some 1,300 Japanese merchant ships and roughly 200 warships. By 1945, oil imports had effectively ceased.
Food imports collapsed, causing significant shortages and malnutrition across Japan by 1945, though the extent of civilian starvation is disputed.
After the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, Japan announced its surrender on August 15, bringing the blockade and the Pacific War to an end.
In August 1915, during World War I, the Allied forces imposed a blockade of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean to cut off military supplies and weaken the Ottoman Empire’s war effort.
The declared area ran from the intersection of the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Egyptian frontier in the south. The blockade was initiated by Britain and France, later assisted by Italy and other Allied powers.
The consequences were devastating. Military supplies, munitions, oil, food and medicine were all targeted. The food crisis was compounded by a locust plague in 1915 and a severe drought, contributing to severe famine across Lebanon and Greater Syria.
Reports suggest the famine led to 500,000 deaths by 1918, mostly civilians, with Mount Lebanon losing an estimated one-third of its population. Mass migration followed.
The blockade remained in place throughout the war and lifted only when Allied forces occupied Beirut and Mount Lebanon in October 1918.
The British navy began blockading Germany almost immediately after the outbreak of the war in August 1914.
The naval blockade extended from the English Channel to Norway, cutting off Germany from the oceans.
Britain mined international waters to prevent ships from entering the ocean, creating danger even for neutral vessels.
Germany responded by declaring the seas around the British Isles a “military area”, prompting Britain and France to ban all goods to and from Germany.
The blockade’s most devastating consequence was famine. The winter of 1916-17, known as the Turnip Winter, marked one of the harshest years in wartime Germany.
The blockade had cut off food and fertiliser imports, a failed potato harvest left little to fall back on, and a breakdown in food distribution compounded the crisis. It is estimated that between 424,000 and 763,000 civilians died from diseases related to hunger and malnutrition.
The blockade was not yet fully lifted until July 1919, after the Treaty of Versailles had been signed.
US president says he is considering the 14-point peace plan, but warns strikes could resume if Tehran ‘misbehaves’.
Published On 3 May 20263 May 2026
United States President Donald Trump has said he is reviewing Iran’s 14-point proposal to end his war on the country, while warning that Washington could restart air strikes if Tehran “misbehaves”.
Speaking to reporters in Florida before boarding Air Force One on Saturday, Trump confirmed that he had been briefed on the “concept of the deal”.
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Despite the diplomatic opening, the US president struck a characteristically blunt tone regarding the possibility of renewed hostilities, which have been paused since the announcement of a ceasefire between the sides on April 7.
“If they do something bad, there is a possibility it could happen,” Trump said when asked if strikes would resume.
Trump added that the US was “doing very well” and claimed that Iran was desperate for a settlement because the country had been “decimated” by months of conflict and a naval blockade.
In a post on Truth Social later, Trump said it was difficult to imagine that the Iranian proposal would be acceptable as Tehran had “not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years.”
Tehran’s 14-point plan reportedly calls for the lifting of the US naval blockade, war reparations, and the release of all frozen assets.
It also seeks a 30-day window to finalise the terms of their peace, a timeline at odds with Washington’s preference for a longer transition.
The diplomatic push comes amid a fragile three-week truce that has put a pause on the US-Israel war on Iran, which began in late February.
Despite the ceasefire, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday that it remains on “full standby” for a return to hostilities, citing the US’s lack of commitment to previous treaties.
Tensions have been further stoked by Trump’s recent characterisation of the US naval blockade as a “very profitable business”.
Tehran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs seized on the remarks, labelling them a “damning admission of piracy”.
The impasse is further complicated by technical obstacles to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, including the presence of Iranian sea mines, and a growing rift with NATO allies following Trump’s decision to withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany.
Social media is full of posts showing off photos and videos of fancy-looking cafes and restaurants in Gaza. Pro-Israeli accounts often use these images to claim that life is back to normal in Gaza, that people are not suffering and that no genocide ever took place.
These cafes and restaurants do exist. I have seen them myself.
In late March, I went on my first visit to Gaza City since the war started. I was shocked to see the destruction wrought on the city. There were piles of rubble at every corner. Unable to recognise the streets, I felt as if I were strolling through a maze. I soon arrived at an area nearby that shocked me even more. It was full of new cafes that did not exist before the war.
These were not makeshift or temporary places as one might expect; they were built with expensive materials, carefully painted, furnished with tables, sofas, and elegant chairs, with glass facades and shining lights. A luxury feel emanated from them. They looked so out of place amid the rubble and the half-collapsed buildings that it felt almost surreal to see them.
These new establishments do not prove that normality is coming back to Gaza. They are a testament to its continuing genocidal abnormality.
The war made some people in Gaza rich, especially those who engaged in illicit activities like smuggling, looting, and hoarding during acute shortages. This wealth is now coming out in various forms, including luxury cafes and restaurants.
In parallel, the vast majority of Gaza’s population has been thrown into abject poverty. While before the war, the average person was able to afford to sit at a cafe and have a drink and a bite to eat, today this is no longer the case.
Most people cannot even look at these new places, let alone enter them and order something. The vast majority of Gaza’s population lives in tents, has no electricity or potable water, and suffers from the loss of livelihoods. They are surviving on what little aid Israel is allowing through.
I am one of them. My family and I live in a tent pitched near the rubble of our home in the Nuseirat camp. We have lost our family livelihood. The comfortable life we used to have is now just a distant memory.
The expensive new establishments reflect the deeply unjust social order that has emerged in Gaza – one where war profiteering has elevated a new privileged class and collapsed the vast majority into misery with no access to proper education, healthcare and even food. The genocide did not just kill and maim people and destroy homes and schools; it eliminated the prospect of a normal life for most people in Gaza.
I could not afford the fancy cafes, so I continued down the street till I reached a more modest restaurant, which used to go to with friends before the war. Entering it felt like stepping back in time to the days before the war; the place was the same, with the same chairs and tables, and the familiar smells that filled the space.
I sat and observed, dwelling on fond memories of spending time there after university lectures. I ordered what I used to order: a chicken wrap, a soda and a small salad plate. The bill was 60 shekels ($20) – more than three times what I would pay before the war, when my family actually had a normal income.
The restaurant bill, together with the fare I paid for a shared ride to get to Gaza City (15 shekels or $5 one way), cost me a fortune. I felt guilty spending all this money to enjoy a glimpse of normalcy.
The few who are fortunate enough to be able to afford going to cafes and restaurants in Gaza may enjoy short moments of relief, a temporary escape from the horrors of reality. Yet these moments are limited, often accompanied by anxiety about returning to the destroyed streets, the bombed-out landscape and the trauma.
As I sat at Al-Taboon, I thought of the friends with whom I used to spend time: Rama, who was martyred and Ranan, who escaped to Belgium. I sat there alone, holding on to these memories amid the greyness of Gaza’s rubble and the lights of the generator-powered cafés.
The genocide has devasted everyone – even those who have profiteered from it. No amount of time spent in shiny cafes and restaurants will ever erase this reality.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
The UNIFIL has faced a growing number of casualties as Israel continues air raids despite a ceasefire and Hezbollah has responded with rockets and drones.
Published On 2 May 20262 May 2026
China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, has said there is a need to re-examine the UN Security Council’s decision to terminate the mandate of the longstanding peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, which is due to end later this year.
Speaking to reporters on Friday at the UN headquarters in New York, Ambassador Fu expressed China’s deep concern about the situation in Lebanon as Beijing assumed the council’s rotating presidency for May.
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He observed that a genuine ceasefire did not exist in Lebanon, describing the current state of conflict as merely a “lesser fire”.
“We do believe that we should revisit the decision, actually, to withdraw the UNIFIL,” Fu said, using the acronym for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.
“I think at least the view of the overwhelming majority of the Security Council is that this is not the time to really, to withdraw the UNIFIL out of that part of the country,” Fu said.
China is waiting for a report from the UN secretariat, expected in June, “before we take our position”, he added.
Fu also said, “It is incumbent on Israel to stop this bombardment of Lebanon.”
Created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops after the 1978 invasion, UNIFIL saw its mandate expanded after the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah and was responsible for a demilitarised buffer between the opposing sides.
However, the UNSC unanimously resolved last year to begin withdrawing the UNIFIL mission’s 10,800 international peacekeepers by December 2026.
According to Lebanese authorities, Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2 have killed 2,618 people and forced more than one million to flee their homes.
The UNIFIL mission has also faced a growing number of casualties. According to UN officials, at least six peacekeepers have been killed and many others injured since Israel began its attack on March 2.
The deaths include soldiers from various contributing nations, including Indonesia and France, who have been caught in shelling incidents and roadside attacks.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned these incidents, noting that the UN’s “blue helmets” have come under fire while performing essential duties, such as clearing explosive ordnance and escorting logistics convoys.
PM Keir Starmer says the phrase ‘globalise the Intifada’ should be ‘completely off limits’.
Published On 2 May 20262 May 2026
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says some pro-Palestine marches could be banned and people who use the phrase “globalise the Intifada” could be prosecuted.
In an interview broadcast by the BBC on Saturday, Starmer advocated for tighter language restrictions at pro-Palestine marches, adding that in some cases, rallies could be prohibited altogether.
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“I’m a big defender of freedom of expression, peaceful protests,” he told the BBC. “But when there are chants like ‘globalise the Intifada’, that’s completely off limits.”
“Clearly, there should be tougher action in relation to that,” he added.
Discussions had been taking place with the police for some time about what further action could be taken, he added. Asked whether he sought to completely bar some rallies, Starmer said he thought that would be appropriate in some cases.
Starmer’s comments come after he earlier this week called the chant “globalise the Intifada” a case of “extreme racism” and said those who use it “should be prosecuted”.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley also told the BBC that people who use the phrase are “likely to be arrested”.
Supporters of the slogan say it reflects a call to expand the pro-Palestine movement into a global campaign.
Starmer has come under pressure after a spate of anti-Semitic incidents, including this week, when two men were stabbed in the north London suburb of Golders Green, which is home to a large Jewish community.
A 45-year-old British national who was born in Somalia was remanded in custody when he made his first appearance in court on Friday, accused of attempted murder.
Starmer visited the scene of the attacks and a Jewish volunteer ambulance service on Thursday and was booed by some locals, who accused him of not doing enough to protect them. They also denounced pro-Palestinian activists holding marches in British cities.
On Thursday, the UK increased its security alert level to “severe” – the second highest – in part because of the attack in Golders Green.
British authorities have repeatedly faced criticism for cracking down on pro-Palestine activism during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Last month, British police arrested more than 500 people during a mass vigil in central London to oppose the ban on campaign group Palestine Action.
“I think Britain has now descended into a non-democratic situation and I think that is very dangerous [for] free speech,” one demonstrator taking part in the vigil told Al Jazeera.
US President Donald Trump says the latest Iranian peace proposal includes demands he ‘can’t agree to’.
Published On 2 May 20262 May 2026
United States President Donald Trump has voiced frustration with Iran’s latest peace proposal, saying “they’re asking for things I can’t agree to”, and cautioning against ending the conflict too early, only for tensions to resurface “in three more years”.
At the same time, Washington has warned that ships paying tolls or fees to Iran to transit the Strait of Hormuz could face US sanctions, signalling a tougher stance on maritime activity linked to Tehran.
Meanwhile, a new Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll shows 61 percent of Americans believe Trump’s use of military force against Iran was a mistake.
Here is what we know:
White House officially tells Congress that hostilities with Iran have ‘terminated’ despite continued presence of US troops in Middle East.
Published On 2 May 20262 May 2026
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Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and Tuareg separatists continue their attacks against Mali’s military government.
By Al Jazeera Staff and News Agencies
Published On 1 May 20261 May 2026
Al-Qaeda-linked rebel fighters have reportedly set up checkpoints around Mali’s capital, Bamako, and seized the town of Tessalit in the north.
Reuters reported on Friday that Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has called on Malians to rise up to “bring down the junta”, and adopt Islamic law.
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The latest developments come days after a series of attacks by JNIM and Tuareg separatists from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) resulted in the killing of the country’s defence minister, Sadio Camara.
Videos shared on social media by local accounts on Friday show armed fighters inside the Amachach base in Tessalit, with several military vehicles seen driving around.
Video verified by Reuters shows fighters driving through the town and raising the FLA flag.
Media outlets close to the Azawad armed movement, which seeks the independence of northern Mali, said the scenes show fighters in control of the base following the withdrawal of elements of the army and Russia’s African Corps, according to their description.
Russia is the principal foreign backer of Mali’s military-run government.
JNIM said on Thursday that it had captured the base of Hombori in central Mali and taken over two checkpoints near Bamako, after earlier threatening to completely besiege the city.
Russia’s African Corps said in a statement that the JNIM statement about the abandonment of the Hombori base was “not true”.
It said that its helicopters delivered ammunition and other items to Malian military personnel at a base in Hombori on Thursday, “after which soldiers of the Malian Armed Forces injured in battles with terrorists were evacuated”.
It noted that JNIM and AFL “continue to regroup, conduct reconnaissance of the bases of the units of the African Corps of the Russian Armed Forces and the Malian Army, and propaganda work is actively underway aimed at reducing the morale of the Malian Army”.
Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, reporting from Dakar in Senegal, reports that the absence of a response from the Malian military to the rebel advances is surprising, and that four major military camps in the north of the country are now in the hands of armed groups.
“That’s a big development,” Haque said. “It seems that Malian forces are not even putting up a fight up north.”
Mali’s military leaders seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, with a brief period of civilian rule in between. Official authorities are yet to issue a statement on the latest reports at the time of writing.
Published On 1 May 20261 May 2026
Cuban electrical and petroleum workers have marched in Havana to celebrate International Workers’ Day, or May Day, as the government pledges to stand firm against growing US pressure which is further straining the economy.
Ninety-four-year-old former leader Raul Castro and President Miguel Diaz-Canel took part in the celebrations in the capital on Friday, while the administration of US President Donald Trump announced further sanctions.
A White House statement said the sanctions would target those involved in the security services, along with “material supporters of the Cuban government”. The statement added, without evidence, that the Caribbean island serves as a “safe haven for transnational terrorist groups” such as the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
A US energy blockade has already battered the country’s struggling economy and contributed to widespread energy blackouts.
“We are living through difficult times,” said Yunier Merino Reyes, an accountant with the Electric Union who joined Friday’s march to celebrate his colleagues. “We are carrying out a very tough, arduous and relentless effort — day and night — to provide electricity to the people who need it,” he told the Associated Press.
The Trump administration has frequently threatened Cuba with military attacks in addition to greater economic pressure.
“Today Cuba demonstrated once again that this people does not give up, and that we will defend our homeland tooth and nail, even though we want peace,” Milagros Morales, a 34-year-old Havana resident who took part in the march, told Reuters.
Iran says it will respond with “long and painful strikes” on US positions across the Gulf region if Washington renews attacks, and has restated its claim to the Strait of Hormuz, complicating the plans of the United States for a coalition to reopen the waterway.
Two months into the US-Israel war on Iran, the strait remains closed, choking off 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies. That has sent global energy prices surging and heightened concerns about the risks of an economic downturn.
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Pakistan-led efforts to resolve the conflict have hit an impasse. Despite a ceasefire in place since April 8, Iran continues to block the strait in response to a US naval blockade of its ports, preventing oil exports – Tehran’s economic lifeline.
Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei defended the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. “This is because of the war and the defence of our right – that is, according to international law, it is legitimate, legal, and accepted,” he said on Thursday night, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported.
He accused the US of “exploiting a waterway” of which Iran is the coastal state. “In such circumstances, you cannot allow this waterway to be misused,” he said.
Baghaei also justified attacks on US assets in Gulf countries.
“Unfortunately, the regional countries also truly acted unjustly; during the holy month of Ramadan, they cooperated with a foreign party in attacking an Islamic country, and this is something that will remain a permanent demand.”
On Thursday, the United Arab Emirates said it had banned its citizens from travelling to Iran, Lebanon and Iraq, and urged those currently in those countries to leave immediately and return home.
Then, on Friday, in response to Iran’s threat to hit targets in the Gulf, the adviser to the UAE’s president, Anwar Gargash, said: “No unilateral Iranian arrangements can be trusted or relied upon, following its treacherous aggression against all its neighbours.”
Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa also condemned what he described as Iranian aggression against Manama and accused Tehran of threatening its security and stability and exposing internal collaborators.
In a statement, the king expressed anger at individuals and some legislators accused of siding with the attackers, warning that traitors could face imprisonment, loss of citizenship and expulsion. He stressed that loyalty to the nation is “paramount”, urging unity and accountability, and said parliament must be “cleansed” of those who support enemies.
It is unclear whether the US is planning to renew its attacks on Iran.
Friday is the deadline for Congress to approve the war. Without that – or a 30-day extension, which the Trump administration must also justify by the day – the US will have to scale back its offensive significantly under the 1973 War Powers Resolution.
A senior administration official said late on Thursday that, for the resolution, hostilities had ceased with the start of the April ceasefire between Tehran and Washington, effectively resetting the clock.
President Donald Trump received a briefing from officials on Thursday on plans for a series of further military strikes to pressure Iran to negotiate an end to the conflict, US publication Axios reported, quoting sources.
US Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told CNN on Thursday that he had the “impression from some of the briefings”, as well as from other sources, that “an imminent military strike is very much on the table”.
He added that this prospect was “deeply disturbing” because it could “well involve American sons and daughters in harm’s way” and lead to “potential massive casualties”.
Meanwhile, Iran has been bracing itself for likely attacks. Air defence activity was heard in some areas of the capital, Tehran, late on Thursday, Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported, and the Tasnim news agency said air defences were engaging small drones and unmanned surveillance aerial vehicles.
A senior official of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said any new US attack on Iran, even if limited, would usher in “long and painful strikes” on its regional positions. Iranian media reports, quoting the aerospace force commander, Majid Mousavi, said: “We’ve seen what happened to your regional bases, we will see the same thing happen to your warships.”
Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written message to Iranians that “the enemies’ abuses of the waterway” would be eliminated under the new management of the strait, indicating that Tehran intended to maintain its hold over it.
“Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometres away … have no place there except at the bottom of its waters,” he said.
Reporting from the White House, in Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said: “There’s no doubt that there have been various scenarios laid out for him [Trump] by his military advisers and by his intelligence advisers as to what to do should the ceasefire no longer be extended.”
“Obviously, that would involve some form of armed action, some form of intensified economic action.”
“There’s absolutely no doubt that President Trump has all sorts of scenarios that have been laid out in front of him, but very clearly as well, it’s going to be him and him alone who will choose what to do next,” Hanna added.
Russia has continued heavy attacks on Ukraine for the past 24 hours, with several coming overnight on Thursday and in the early hours of Friday. At least one person has been killed and several have been injured.
A Russian drone attack overnight damaged port infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region and wounded two people in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, regional Governor Oleh Kiper said on Friday morning.
Two high-rise residential buildings were damaged in the attack, which destroyed apartments and caused fires, Kiper wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“This night, Russia again massively attacked the civilian infrastructure of the Odesa region: two people were injured,” he said.
Kiper noted that two multistorey residential buildings in Odesa were damaged by drone strikes. Apartments were destroyed and fires broke out at the sites of the hits, and all necessary assistance was being provided to the victims.
The Russian army also attacked the Black Sea shipbuilding town of Mykolaiv with drones, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych reported on Facebook.
“As a result of the impact, there is damage in the private sector, and a fire also broke out,” he wrote. He warned residents that the threat is ongoing and urged people to remain sheltered.
On Thursday night, Ukraine launched its fourth drone attack in the past week on Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse, as it continues to target Russian energy infrastructure in a bid to halt oil revenues.
“In Tuapse, as a result of a drone attack by the Kyiv regime, a fire broke out on the territory of the seaport terminal,” the General Headquarters in the Krasnodar Region reported on Telegram. It added that emergency crews were working at the site.
The Russian army attacked three districts of the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine “almost 20 times” with drones and artillery, the head of the Regional Military Administration (OVA), Oleksandr Ganzha, wrote on Telegram.
Ganzha reported that infrastructure was damaged in Kryvyi Rih, where one person was injured.
Ukraine’s news outlet Interfax reported that there were strikes on the Synelnyky district, the Dubovykivska and Petropavlivska communities, where a garage and a car were burned, and residences were damaged.
In the Nikopol district, communities in Nikopol, Marhanetska and Chervonohryhorivska have been affected. A private house was occupied and infrastructure, a petrol station, an administrative building and buses were damaged, Interfax reported.
In Kherson, attacks by drones have continued for the past 24 hours in Kherson, Zymivnyk, Komyshany and Zelenivka.
The head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, Yaroslav Shanko, wrote on Telegram: “Over the past day, 4 settlements in the Kherson community have been subjected to enemy attacks. As a result of Russian attacks in the Kherson community, 1 person was killed and 8 were injured.”
Private houses and multistorey buildings, an administrative building, warehouses, buses and civilian cars have been damaged.
The move comes as part of a larger prisoner pardon tied to a Buddhist religious holiday.
By Reuters and The Associated Press
Published On 30 Apr 202630 Apr 2026
Myanmar’s former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved to house arrest, state media report, more than five years after the military toppled the civilian government that the Nobel laureate had led and jailed her.
President Min Aung Hlaing, who ordered the coup in 2021, said in a statement on Thursday that he “commuted the remaining sentence to be served at the designated residence”.
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State media broadcast a photograph of Suu Kyi seated on a wooden bench and flanked by two uniformed personnel – the first public image of the democracy campaigner in years.
Translation: Change the location where Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is serving her sentence (change her remaining sentences to continue serving at her designated residence).
Earlier on Thursday, authorities had announced her prison sentence was being reduced as part of a larger prisoner pardon tied to a Buddhist religious holiday. State media said in addition to the amnesty granted to 1,519 prisoners, including 11 foreigners, the sentences of remaining convicted prisoners were cut by a sixth.
Suu Kyi was originally sentenced to 33 years in prison in late 2022 for several offences that her supporters and rights groups described as attempts to discredit her and legitimise the army takeover that removed her from office and to prevent her return to politics.
Thursday’s amnesty, the second applied to her in recent weeks, would bring her sentence down to 18 years with more than 13 years left to serve, according to the calculation.
The decision to move the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner to house arrest was welcomed as a “meaningful step” towards a “credible political process”, a spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
“We appreciate the commutation of Aung San Suu Kyi to a so-called house arrest in a designated residence. It is a meaningful step towards conditions conducive to a credible political process,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
He reiterated the UN’s call for the “swift release” of all political prisoners in Myanmar.
“It is good to hear that the house arrest has been confirmed, but we haven’t received any direct notification,” a member of Suu Kyi’s legal team told the Reuters news agency.
“We only found out about it from the news announcement.”
The amnesty is the second in two weeks after one on April 17 when more than 4,500 prisoners were granted amnesty.
The amnesties come after Min Aung Hlaing was sworn into office as president on April 10 after an election that critics said was neither free nor fair and was orchestrated to maintain the military’s tight grip on power.
In his inauguration speech, he said his government would grant amnesties aimed at promoting social reconciliation, justice and peace.
Suu Kyi, who is now 80 years old, has been serving her prison term at an undisclosed location in the capital, Naypyitaw.
Information about her condition has remained tightly controlled. Reports in 2024 and 2025 indicated declining health, including low blood pressure, dizziness and heart problems, but these claims could not be independently verified. Her legal team has not been allowed to meet her in person since December 2022.
The 2021 army takeover triggered enormous public resistance that was brutally suppressed, triggering a bloody civil war that has killed thousands of people.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organisation, 22,047 people have been in detention in Myanmar since the army takeover.
Suu Kyi spent almost 15 years as a political prisoner under house arrest between 1989 and 2010. Her tough stand against military rule in Myanmar turned her into a symbol of nonviolent struggle for democracy.
World leaders condemn the interception of the boats bound for Gaza as violating international law.
Published On 30 Apr 202630 Apr 2026
Israel has intercepted 22 out of the 58 aid ships travelling through international waters and bound for the besieged Gaza Strip.
The ships make up part of a second Global Sumud Flotilla to try in recent months to break an Israeli blockade by carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. They sailed from the Spanish port of Barcelona on April 12.
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The vessels were seized by Israel late on Wednesday in international waters off Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula, hundreds of miles from Gaza, the flotilla’s organisers said on Thursday.
Israel “kidnapped” 211 of the 400 activists taking part in the flotilla, including a Paris city councillor, according to the flotilla’s organisers. Israel’s Foreign Ministry had earlier put the number of those detained at 175.
Here’s how world leaders have reacted to the news:
Italy called for the immediate release of Italian nationals on board the flotilla.
Italy “condemns the seizure of the Global Sumud Flotilla vessels… and calls on Israel to immediately release all the unlawfully detained Italians”, the government said in a statement.
Italy’s ANSA news agency cited sources among the organisers saying 24 Italians had been detained.
In its statement, the government also called for the “full respect of international law and guarantees on the physical safety of the people on board”.
It said it was “committed to continue supplying humanitarian aid to Gaza in the framework of our cooperation and in respect of international law”.
In a joint statement with Italy, Germany said it was following developments regarding the flotilla with “great concern” and called for international law to be respected and for “restraint from irresponsible actions.”
Spain’s Foreign Ministry said it “energetically condemns” Israel’s seizure of the flotilla, which is carrying Spanish nationals.
Madrid has summoned Israel’s charge d’affaires to convey its protest over the detention of the vessels, the ministry added in a statement.
Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry condemned Israel’s seizure of the boats in the flotilla as “an act of piracy.”
“By targeting the Global Sumud Flotilla, whose mission is to draw attention to the humanitarian catastrophe faced by the innocent people of Gaza, Israel has also violated humanitarian principles and international law,” the ministry said in a statement.
In a post on Telegram, the Palestinian group Hamas condemned the interception, accusing Israel of committing a crime without accountability and calling for the release of those detained.
The flotilla’s organisers condemned Israel’s seizure of its vessels.
“This is piracy,” they said in a statement. “This is the unlawful seizure of human beings on the open sea near Crete, an assertion that Israel can operate with total impunity, far beyond its own borders, with no consequences.”
“No state has the right to claim, police, or occupy international waters, but Israel has done that, extending its control outward to occupy the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Europe,” the statement said.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the flotilla organisers “professional provocateurs” and said that its forces acted lawfully.
“Due to the large numbers of vessels participating in the flotilla and the risk of escalation, and the need to prevent the breach of a lawful blockade, an early action was required in accordance with international law,” the ministry said in a statement.
WASHINGTON — Making his first appearance before Congress since the Trump administration went to war in Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced withering questioning from skeptical Democrats Wednesday over a costly conflict being waged without congressional approval.
The war has cost $25 billion so far, according to Pentagon numbers presented to the House Armed Services Committee during the contentious hearing, ostensibly focused on the administration’s 2027 military budget proposal, which would boost defense spending to a historic $1.5 trillion.
While Republicans focused on the details of military budgeting and voiced support for the operation, Democrats pivoted to the ballooning costs of the war, the huge drawdown of critical U.S. munitions and the bombing of a school that killed children. Some lawmakers also questioned President Trump’s dealings with allies and his shifting justification for the conflict.
Hegseth dismissed the criticism as political and rebuked lawmakers who pushed him for answers.
“The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” Hegseth said.
Wednesday’s hearing stretched nearly six hours as Democrats and some Republicans questioned Hegseth over the war and his ouster of several top military leaders.
In one tense exchange, Hegseth told Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) that Iran’s nuclear facilities were obliterated in a 2025 attack by the U.S., prompting Smith to question the Trump administration’s reasoning for starting the Iran war less than a year later.
“We had to start this war, you just said 60 days ago, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat,” said Smith, the ranking Democrat on the committee. “Now you’re saying that it was completely obliterated?”
Hegseth responded by saying that Iran “had not given up their nuclear ambitions” and still had thousands of missiles.
Smith said the war “left us at exactly the same place we were before.”
Democrats accused Hegseth of misleading Americans about the reasons for the conflict and said rising gas prices are now threatening the pocketbooks of millions of people in the U.S.
“Secretary Hegseth, you have been lying to the American public about this war from day one and so has the president,” said Rep. John Garamendi of Walnut Grove, who called the war “a geopolitical calamity,” a “strategic blunder” and a ”self-inflicted wound to America.”
Hegseth blasted Garamendi’s remarks.
“Who are you cheering for here?” he asked the lawmaker. ”Your hatred for President Trump blinds you” to the success of the war.
The Defense secretary faced intense questions from Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) about his decision to oust the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George, one of several top military officers to be dismissed since Trump’s reelection.
Houlahan said George was deeply respected by both members of the military and Congress and asked why Hegseth fired him. Hegseth’s response that “new leadership” was needed failed to satisfy Houlahan.
“You have no way of explaining why you fired one of the most decorated and remarkable men —” Houlahan began before Hegseth interrupted her. “We needed new leadership,” he repeated.
The Pentagon announced this month that Navy Secretary John Phelan was stepping down. Hegseth previously removed Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top uniformed officer, and Gen. Jim Slife, the Air Force’s No. 2 leader, while Trump fired Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said that while Hegseth is empowered to make personnel changes, he shares what he called “bipartisan concern” about the firings.
“We had a huge bipartisan majority here that had confidence in the Army chief of staff and the secretary of the navy,” Bacon said. “And I would just point out it may be constitutionally right … but it doesn’t make it right or wise.”
Hegseth has said the changes are part of building a “warrior culture” at the Pentagon.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina defended Hegseth’s personnel moves, saying he is “trying to innovate and trying to change the way we do business.”
“I’m glad that you’re firing people,” Mace said. “There are people there that are getting in your way. They need to go.”
During the extended hearing, Hegseth detailed plans to increase pay for service members and upgrade munitions while also announcing that, as of Tuesday, the Pentagon had authorized $400 million in military aid for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
But the debate and the questions were dominated by the war in Iran.
While a fragile ceasefire is now in place, the U.S. and Israel launched the war Feb. 28 without congressional oversight. House and Senate Democrats have failed to pass multiple war power resolutions that would have required Trump to halt the conflict until Congress authorizes further action.
Republicans say they back Trump’s wartime leadership, for now, citing Iran’s nuclear program, the potential for talks to resume and the high stakes of withdrawal. Still, GOP lawmakers are eager for the conflict to end, and some are eyeing future votes that could become an important test for the president if the war drags on.
Democrats questioned Hegseth over the war’s economic impact and rising gasoline costs, noting Trump’s promise to lower consumer costs. Hegseth responded by citing the threat posed by Iran.
“What is the cost of Iran having a nuclear weapon that they wield?” he said.
Republicans expressed support for Trump’s decision to strike Iran, including Mace, who in late March had expressed concerns about the justification for the war. “The longer this war continues, the faster it will lose the support of Congress and the American people,” she wrote in a social media post.
On Wednesday, Mace noted her past concerns but said she is “impressed with where we are today.” She told Hegseth: “Everything I have seen, you have surpassed all of my expectations.”
Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping corridor for the world’s oil, has sent fuel prices skyrocketing and posed problems for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections. The U.S. has imposed a naval blockade of Iranian shipping and three American aircraft carriers are in the Middle East for the first time in more than 20 years.
The countries appear locked in a stalemate. Trump told Axios on Wednesday that he is rejecting Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for lifting the U.S. blockade.
Finley, Groves, Klepper and Toropin write for the Associated Press.
The US naval blockade of Iranian ports and the Strait of Hormuz, in place since April 13, has raised concerns that Iran could run out of crude oil storage capacity and be forced to curb production.
Bloomberg reported analysis on Tuesday from the data and analytics company Kpler suggesting Iran could run out of crude storage in 12 to 22 days if the blockade persists.
Last week, United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed that storage capacity at Kharg Island, where most of Iran’s oil is exported, would be full “in a matter of days”.
So how quickly could Iran run out of oil storage, and why does it matter?
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow channel that connects the Gulf to the open ocean. It spans the territorial waters of Iran on its northern side and Oman on its southern side. It is not in international waters.
During peacetime, 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies are shipped through the corridor.
Two days after the US and Israel launched their first air strikes in their war on Iran on February 28, Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced that the strait was “closed”. If any vessels tried to pass through, he said, the IRGC and the navy would “set those ships ablaze”.
As the war has dragged on and negotiations have failed to achieve a settlement, Iran has at times in the past two months allowed some “friendly” ships and those that pay tolls to pass. It is currently refusing to allow any foreign-flagged ships, including those previously deemed friendly, to pass until the US lifts its own naval blockade.
Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said on April 19 that the “security of the Strait of Hormuz is not free”.
“One cannot restrict Iran’s oil exports while expecting free security for others,” he wrote in a post on X.
“The choice is clear: either a free oil market for all, or the risk of significant costs for everyone,” he added. “Stability in global fuel prices depends on a guaranteed and lasting end to the economic and military pressure against Iran and its allies.”
Since the US naval blockade on the strait began, the US has opened fire on and taken control of an Iranian-flagged tanker near the Strait of Hormuz while also redirecting vessels on the high seas transporting cargo to or from Iran. Iran’s armed forces have denounced these actions as “an illegal act” that “amounts to piracy”.
The US naval blockade of the strait means that Iran might have to store the oil it produces.
Iran is the third largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after Saudi Arabia and Iraq and exports 90 percent of its crude oil via Kharg Island in the Gulf for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The US is eager to curb Iran’s oil revenues, which have risen since Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz to other shipping. This is the primary motive behind Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran exported 1.84 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in March and shipped 1.71 million bpd in April, compared with an average of 1.68 million bpd in 2025, according to Kpler.
However, the US naval blockade since mid-April now means that most of its exports are having to be stored instead.
Bessent wrote in an X post on April 22: “In a matter of days, Kharg Island storage will be full and the fragile Iranian oil wells will be shut in.”
“Constraining Iran’s maritime trade directly targets the regime’s primary revenue lifelines.”
Iran’s domestic refineries have a production capacity of 2.6 million bpd, according to the energy consultancy Facts Global Energy.
Satellite data show the amount of oil Iran has in storage has risen sharply since the US blockade began, and in the days after the US tightened it, stocks were rising so fast that it appeared Iran had been barely able to export any oil at all.
From April 13 to April 21, data showed that stocks rose by more than 6 million barrels, according to the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP). From April 17 to April 21, the stock increased very rapidly, growing by 1.7 bpd.
As of April 20, the storage tanks at Kharg were about 74 percent full after the island alone had taken on about 3 million extra barrels of oil, the CGEP reported.
Generally, oil companies avoid filling their storage beyond 80 percent capacity to balance safety, emissions control and flexibility.
However, Iran and other oil producing countries have exceeded this limit before, for instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2020, Kharg island’s stocks reached close to 90 percent capacity, an all-time high.
Iran also has some crude oil storage capacity in the form of “floating tanks”, or parked ships. About 127 million barrels can be stored in this way, Frederic Schneider, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told Al Jazeera in an interview on April 14.
Muyu Xu, a senior crude oil analyst at Kpler, told Al Jazeera that the blockade could eventually force Iran to cut production.
“However, given there is still available storage capacity onshore (roughly covering 20 days of Iran’s current production), we expect any production reduction to be gradual over the coming week with a higher likelihood of acceleration into May,” she said.
Analysis by CGEP nonresident fellow Antoine Halff echoed this. Halff wrote in an article published by CGEP on Tuesday that it may be some time before the US blockade causes Iran to shut off its production “in a big way”.
However, Halff added, Iran may still choose to halt production “fairly aggressively” but this “would be more by choice than by necessity”.
He explained: “Doing so would have the advantage of providing Iran with relatively ample spare storage capacity after the shutdown and would allow for a smoother restart of operations once conditions permit, and the constraint is relaxed, thus minimising adverse impacts from the blockade on longer-term supply.”
Halting oil production risks damaging underground reservoirs by reducing reservoir pressure, allowing water or gas to encroach into producing layers and changing patterns of oil flow. This can make some oil harder or more expensive to recover later, experts said.
Restarting the process of oil production can also be slow and costly, involving repairs of corroded equipment or unclogging pipelines.
Halting production would also cause Iran’s export revenues to drop. However, analysts said that for a few months, Iran can continue to earn revenue from oil that is already in transit at sea.
Kenneth Katzman, former Iran analyst at the Congressional Research Service in Washington, DC, said Iran is not exporting new oil during the US blockade of Iranian ports but Tehran has 160 million to 170 million barrels of oil on ships around the world currently.
Indian-administered Kashmir – Rashid Ahmad Mughal was barely six when armed rebels barged into their home in Chunt Waliwar village, in Ganderbal district of Indian-administered Kashmir, on a freezing January night in 2000.
At about midnight, nearly a dozen armed men broke the window by force and entered the Mughals’ home, where six people were asleep – 23-year-old Ishfaq, his 20-year-old sister Naseema, and younger brothers Ajaz, 8, and Rashid, 6, besides their two cousins.
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The rebels had come looking for Ishfaq, who, the family admitted, worked for the Indian army, which controls the region.
“He tried to flee,” Naseema recalls, “but they shot him.”
As the family raised an alarm, the rebels took Ishfaq’s body and fled into the dead of the night.
Since then, the Mughal siblings have been hoping for the return of his remains so that they can perform his last rites in accordance with Islamic traditions.
As the siblings waited for more than 26 years for closure on losing Ishfaq, another tragedy hit them last month.
On March 31, Rashid, now 32, was shot dead by the Indian army for being a suspected rebel.
The army said it launched an operation along with the police in the Arahama area of Ganderbal after receiving “specific intelligence input” on the presence of “terrorists”, as Indian authorities and the media describe the rebels.
The army said Rashid was killed during an exchange of fire with the rebels in a forest. But the residents reject the claim, calling it another instance of a “fake encounter” – staged extrajudicial killing of suspects by the Indian forces.
In a further blow to the Mughal family, Rashid’s body was buried 80km (50 miles) away in a graveyard marked for alleged rebels in the frontier town of Kupwara – a practice followed by the army in recent years to prevent the eruption of street protests.
Only Ajaz was allowed by the authorities to attend the funeral.
The killing of the two brothers over 26 years – one killed by suspected rebels and the other by the army – in many ways encapsulates the tragedy unfolding in Kashmir for decades.
Kashmir is a disputed Himalayan territory divided between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, but claimed by both in full, with neighbouring China also controlling a sliver of its land. An armed rebellion erupted on the Indian side in the late 1980s. To crush it, New Delhi sent nearly a million soldiers, with the conflict since then killing tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians.
Anti-India sentiments in the Muslim-majority region intensified in 2019 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing government revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which granted partial autonomy to Kashmir, and brought the region under New Delhi’s direct control by dividing it into two federally-administered territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Modi’s government defended the revocation by claiming it would end the armed rebellion and bring lasting peace to the region. However, nearly seven years later, Kashmir continues to remain on the edge, with incidents of suspected rebel attacks, as well as alleged extrajudicial killings, torture and preventive detention of residents continuing to dominate headlines.
The Mughal family belongs to Kashmir’s Gujjar community, a nomadic Muslim tribal group that historically sided with the Indian state. When the armed rebellion broke out in 1989, the forest-dwelling Gujjars were seen as the “eyes and ears” of the Indian forces for sharing intelligence and, at times, assisting troops in operations against the rebels.
Over time, however, this relationship has frayed. Once trusted as a front-line community, the Gujjars and Bakarwals – the two main tribes in the region – now increasingly find themselves under pressure from the very system they once supported.
Since the 2019 abrogation of Kashmir’s special status, at least 11 Gujjars have been killed in suspected extrajudicial encounters, while more than 10 have suffered serious injuries, allegedly due to torture in custody, marking a stark shift in the fortunes of a community once central to India’s security apparatus in the region.
Government policy changes have added to their concerns. Alterations in quotas affected the marginalised community’s access to jobs and education, triggering protests and resentment. They have also faced eviction drives and displacement, with authorities accusing them of illegally occupying forest land and demolishing their seasonal shelters.
Today, the Gujjars find themselves increasingly vulnerable amid evolving security challenges. Rashid’s killing is seen by the community as part of that pattern.
As soon as the news of the killing spread in Kashmir, hundreds of people hit the streets, rejecting the army’s claims that he was a rebel and demanding an investigation into the March 31 “encounter”.
“I was busy with my work when I received a call from a local police official, saying that my brother had met with an accident and that I should reach the police station immediately,” Rashid’s elder brother, Ajaz Ahmad Mughal, a daily wage worker, told Al Jazeera.
When Ajaz reached the Ganderbal police station, he was taken to another station in Srinagar, some 30km (20 miles) away, where he saw a body lying inside an ambulance.
“The police said your brother was a militant and that he was killed by the army in an encounter,” said Ajaz. “His face was mutilated, apparently to hide his identity. I identified him with his feet.”
Rashid was a commerce graduate – the only one in the impoverished village – and therefore helped the mainly illiterate people in his community in accessing essential government documents.
On the day he was killed, Rashid had left his home with the documents of some people he was helping – like he did every day before returning home by the evening.
“However, this time, he didn’t return and his phone was switched off,” Ajaz recalled.
The next morning, news about the army operation in nearby forests spread in the area. That is when, said Ajaz, people came to know about Rashid’s killing.
“We were absolutely devastated. How did my brother, who was a civilian until the day before, suddenly turn into a militant?” he asked.
Ajaz said the clothes Rashid was found wearing when he saw his body did not belong to his brother, alleging the security forces put the clothes on him after the killing. The family asked why Rashid was never questioned or arrested by the police if he was an armed rebel.
As protests and questions over the killing grew, the New Delhi-appointed governor of the disputed region ordered a magisterial inquiry into the killing. The authorities said a probe will be completed within seven days. It has been nearly a month now, and no inquiry report has yet been published.
Al Jazeera reached out to the army and the regional police for their statements on the family’s allegations, but received no response.
However, a police official, on condition of anonymity since he was not authorised to speak to the media, told Al Jazeera the decision to return Rashid’s body to the family would be taken based on the “nature of the inquiry report” submitted by the magistrate.
The police official also said Rashid had no adverse police records and that he had never been summoned for questioning for any rebellion-related case.
Even as the government investigates the killing, the Mughal family doubts it will lead anywhere, noting that numerous such probes ordered in Kashmir in the past yielded little or no outcome.
Experts say such probes by magistrates, who are members of the same bureaucracy that governs the region, lead to little or no remedial action.
“The very least that can be done is a time-bound probe by a judicial magistrate answerable to the chief justice of a high court,” Ravi Nair, executive director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, told Al Jazeera.
According to data compiled by the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), there were at least 108 cases of rights violations by the Indian forces between 2008 and 2018, where probes were ordered, but no one has been prosecuted to date. JKCCS is now a defunct rights organisation after its founder, Khurram Parvez, was arrested under a stringent anti-terror law in 2023.
In 2018, the Indian government informed the parliament that it received 50 requests from the then-regional government for the prosecution of security forces accused of rights violations. It denied sanction in 47 cases, while the matter is still pending in the remaining three.
Since the onset of the armed rebellion in 1989, between 8,000 and 10,000 people have disappeared in Kashmir, according to the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), which represents the families of the missing.
As of December 2025, government data shows that the region recorded the highest number of arrests under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for five consecutive years. In 2021, the federal government informed the parliament that as many as 33 custodial deaths took place in Kashmir between 2016 and 2021. The next year, an analysis of data provided by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) revealed 38 cases of alleged extrajudicial killings in Kashmir – the highest in India that year.
Human rights experts say the 1990 Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act (AFSPA), a controversial law that provides impunity to the army in Kashmir, acts as a legal shield for the accused members of the security forces.
Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera that despite several cases of extrajudicial killings in Kashmir and families clearly identifying the alleged perpetrators, not much action has been taken by the authorities.
“Unfortunately, there is a culture of impunity that has perpetuated such abuses. The Defence Ministry restricts sanction to prosecute soldiers, while the Home Ministry has shielded paramilitary forces,” she said, demanding a repeal of the AFSPA “and all other laws that provide security forces immunity from prosecution”.
“Justice and accountability are key to lasting peace,” she said.
Praveen Donthi, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, an international think tank, says India’s 2019 move to revoke Article 370 was aimed at “fully integrating Kashmir into the union and end[ing] separatism and militancy”.
“However, seven years down the line, the situation remains precarious. The conflict is far from resolved, and militancy still has the capacity to ramp up at will,” he said.
“The pressure on security forces to maintain peace and stability may be leading to procedural errors and excesses.”
However, retired Indian army commander, DS Hooda, argues that the army “does not tolerate such incidents and has taken action if they found any wrongdoing by their soldiers”.
“It was an army investigation that revealed that one of the officials was involved, and the accused was punished by the army court,” Hooda said, referring to a staged killing of three civilians dubbed as rebels by the army in Kashmir’s Shopian area in 2020.
The army later acknowledged its soldiers exceeded powers under the AFSPA law and sentenced an accused soldier to life imprisonment. He was later suspended by an armed forces tribunal.
“The army carries out its own investigation. There is no impunity and if they find anything wrong, they take action. This is not an organisation thing.”
But the Mughal siblings say they had never thought a tragedy that struck them 26 years ago would return in such a devastating way, reopening old wounds and leaving them once again searching for answers and closure.
They say their suffering has not ended, with the years only deepening their grief as they wait for the return of the remains of their siblings.
“We have prepared a grave for Rashid. We will bury him in our own graveyard,” says his sister Naseema. “It will feel as though he is close to us.”