The UN has condemned the deaths of three Indonesian peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, who were killed in two separate incidents, including a vehicle explosion. They are the latest UN casualties since Israel expanded its ground invasion.
Published On 30 Mar 202630 Mar 2026
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In the densely populated neighbourhoods of southern Tehran, the 11th Criminal Investigation Base once stood as a mundane symbol of local law enforcement. Its detectives investigated economic crimes, fraud and petty thefts.
The building housed no ballistic missiles, no uranium centrifuges and no military command centres. Today, it is a crater. In the opening wave of the United States-Israel war on Iran, warplanes wiped the local police station off the map.
It was not an isolated incident. An investigation by Al Jazeera’s Digital Investigations unit has verified that at least 75 internal security sites were destroyed or damaged in bombardments by Israel and the US from February 28 to March 10. The targeted facilities included local police stations, criminal investigation headquarters, public security offices and checkpoints operated by the Basij paramilitary force.
Al Jazeera mapped the strikes using open-source data, cross-referencing field reports with satellite imagery to confirm the destruction. However, conducting independent verification has grown increasingly difficult. On March 6, commercial satellite providers Planet Labs and Vantor restricted imagery over the Middle East, later expanding the blackout to impose a 14-day delay on all images of Iran.
While the companies said the blackout prevents hostile actors from endangering civilians, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein recently revealed a leaked US Space Force directive dictating how commercial satellite firms describe damage. The leak exposed a deliberate US effort to control the flow of information and obscure the reality of the battlefield.
The spatial distribution of the 75 verified strikes revealed a clear and deliberate strategy. Warplanes bypassed isolated military installations to hit the infrastructure Tehran uses to police its citizens.
The capital alone absorbed 31 strikes, more than 40 percent of the total targets. Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan province, suffered eight strikes. The remaining targets were clustered tightly in major western and central cities, including Isfahan, Kermanshah and Hamedan. Meanwhile, Iran’s sprawling eastern and southeastern provinces remained largely untouched by this campaign.
By overlaying the strike coordinates with demographic maps, the investigation shows a near-perfect alignment with urban density. More than 70 percent of Iran’s population lives in these targeted western urban areas.
The strikes systematically targeted the Law Enforcement Command, known as FARAJA, and the Basij network. FARAJA, elevated in 2021 by late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to operate alongside the military, is currently led by Ahmad-Reza Radan. It manages daily urban law enforcement and riot control. The Basij, an immense volunteer paramilitary force deeply embedded in Iranian neighbourhoods, acts as the state’s ultimate tool for social control.
The pattern of the US-Israeli air strikes points to an objective far removed from dismantling nuclear facilities or degrading military infrastructure. It reveals a calculated attempt to engineer the collapse of the Iranian state.
On February 28, US President Donald Trump launched the war and in a video address urged Iranians to take over their government once the bombs stopped falling. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed this sentiment in Farsi, calling on millions of Iranians to take to the streets and describing the military strategy as breaking the Iranian government’s bones.
The military planning, however, preceded events on the ground that Trump and Netanyahu pointed to for justification for their war. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz revealed in early March that Israel had been planning to strike Iran in mid-2026, long before January’s deadly government crackdown across Iran against economic protests.
This approach aligns with a broader Israeli doctrine. Daniel Levy, a former Israeli government adviser, previously told Al Jazeera that Israel has no interest in a smooth political transition in Tehran. What Israel wants is the collapse of the government and the state, Levy said, adding that if the repercussions spread to Iraq, the Gulf and the entire region, that is better from Israel’s point of view.
Still, a month into the war, the US-Israeli strategy to spark an internal revolution through the systematic destruction of Iran’s internal security apparatus appears to be failing.
Iranians are living under daily bombardments. As missiles destroy civilian infrastructure and oil refineries burn, daily survival has eclipsed any coordinated political uprising. The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Iran has warned that civilians are facing a simultaneous military and human rights crisis.
Rather than collapsing, Iran’s internal security apparatus has adapted. During Ramadan, FARAJA deployed 24-hour patrols across Tehran, and riot police shut down public gatherings before the Persian New Year holiday. After the March 17 assassination of Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani, Israeli forces released footage of strikes on mobile Basij checkpoints, indicating that Iranian security forces are still controlling the streets.
The US attempt to dismantle state security from the air mirrors its disastrous 2003 de-Baathification policy in neighbouring Iraq, which barred members of the former ruling Baath Party from holding government jobs, dismantled local policing and birthed a devastating sectarian war. Unlike in Iraq, Washington today has no troops on the ground in Iran to fill a security void it is trying to create.
Beneath the rubble of the 11th Criminal Investigation Base and dozens of stations like it, the US and Israel are aiming to bury the Iranian state and spark a popular revolt. Instead, they have trapped millions of civilians in a burning country.
Abas Aslani, senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, says a premature ceasefire in the US-Israeli war on Iran could spark another round of fighting, pointing to a lack of trust in talks as the US ramps up troop deployments despite calls for de-escalation.
Published On 29 Mar 202629 Mar 2026
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Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip – Every morning, Abdel Karim Salman begins his routine by heading out carrying his own phone and his wife’s phone, both completely drained of charge. He walks to a nearby charging point to plug them in and recharge them again.
Throughout the night, Abdel Karim relies entirely on the torches from the phones to light the inside of the tent he lives in with his family in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.
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Abdel Karim, 28, a former civil engineer at the Beit Lahiya municipality in northern Gaza, was displaced to Deir el-Balah a year and a half ago with his wife and two children, along with about 30 members of his extended family.
His family home was completely destroyed on October 9, 2023, in the first few days of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Abdel Karim and his family have been on a difficult journey of displacement since then, with little in the way of normality, and in particular, a regular source of electricity for a bulb in his tent.
So he looks for alternatives to light up the structure, namely the phones, despite the rapid battery drain caused by keeping the torch function on.
“I charge my phone and my wife’s phone, and we use them for lighting at night, especially since my children are under five years old and they get scared if they wake up in the dark,” he says.
Abdel Karim says that the suffering caused by electricity shortages in Gaza is one of the largest “silent” forms of suffering that receives little attention.
For Abdel Karim, the charging process itself has turned into a daily, exhausting burden.
He walks between 150 and 200 metres every day to reach a charging point, paying between two and four shekels ($0.65 to $1.30) per charging session, twice a day.
“That means about eight to 10 shekels ($2.55 to $3.20) per day just for charging phones,” Abdel Karim explains, equivalent to approximately 270 to 300 shekels ($86 to $95) per month, a large amount given the lack of income among displaced families in Gaza amid the territory’s war-driven economic crisis.
“Many days and nights we sleep in darkness inside our tent. When we can’t charge the phones, they turn off, and we are unable to recharge them.”
![Abdel Karim Salman heads daily to the charging station to charge his phone and his wife’s phone, which they use as a source of light in their tent throughout the night [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/ Al Jazeera]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/873A6907-copy-1774666645.jpeg?w=640&ssl=1)
With municipality-supplied electricity absent for two years in Gaza, several temporary alternatives have emerged, such as solar-powered lamps, but they remain unaffordable for most residents, having increased tenfold to about 300 shekels ($95) during the war.
As for solar energy systems, they are even more expensive, reaching $420 per panel, and with the additional cost of a battery – about $1,200 – and an inverter. All these items are also scarce due to severe Israeli restrictions on their entry into the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war.
For Abdel Karim, who lost his job soon after the war began, those sums are out of his reach.
Among the alternative solutions introduced during the war are private generator-based electricity systems operating on diesel fuel.
However, those are also unaffordable for many, and their services have fluctuated due to irregular fuel supplies through the crossings.
And so, with most options simply too expensive, that leaves many in Gaza in the same boat as Abdel Karim.
The impact of the power cuts is not limited to lighting or charging, but extends to every detail of daily life, especially for families with children.
“There is no refrigerator, no washing machine … even baby milk cannot be stored for more than two or three hours,” Abdel Karim explains, as he remembers his previous life, when his home was filled with electrical appliances and reliable power.
“The phone charging socket used to be right beside my bed. I could plug it in whenever I wanted. Today, that has become a dream inside this tent,” Abdel Karim adds.
He also says his children have been psychologically affected, especially his eldest son, due to the lack of any means of electronic entertainment or distraction from his grim surroundings.
“There is no TV or screen. He keeps asking for the phone all the time just to calm down, but that also needs charging. Everything is dependent on electricity.”
According to Abdel Karim, his suffering is not an exception. He believes almost all of the people in Gaza are living the same reality, noting that even families in nearby camps who tried to pool resources to buy energy systems have been unable to afford them.
“We hope God brings relief … because we are truly left without any solutions, as if we were abandoned in the desert.”
On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel, and Israel then began its war on Gaza.
More than two years on, Gaza has been decimated by Israeli attacks – on top of the more than 75,000 Palestinians killed.
But even before the war, Gaza faced daily rolling blackouts due to limited power imports from Israel and fuel shortages.
Israel, despite withdrawing its illegal settlements from Gaza in 2005, continued to control access into and out of the Palestinian enclave, and repeatedly attacked it.
And so, even in normal conditions, most households only received a few hours of electricity per day, relying on a fragile mix of imported supply and Gaza’s one power plant.
The situation escalated sharply after October 7, when Israel declared a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting electricity supply and blocking fuel imports.
Within days, Gaza’s power plant shut down due to fuel depletion, and by October 11, 2023, the territory entered a full electricity blackout, according to United Nations agencies.
With no fuel entering and transmission lines cut, homes, hospitals, water systems and communication networks lost reliable access to power, shifting to limited and increasingly unsustainable generator use.
Since then, Gaza’s electricity infrastructure has continued to deteriorate due to both fuel shortages and widespread physical destruction of the grid. Generators remain the primary alternative but are severely constrained by fuel scarcity, affecting essential services such as healthcare, water production and telecommunications.
During the time between 2025 and 2026, Gaza’s power system is widely described as effectively non-functional, with electricity access fragmented, inconsistent and largely dependent on emergency solutions rather than a stable grid.
The severe electricity crisis has created an indirect source of income for Jamal Musbah, 50, who runs a mobile phone charging station powered by solar energy and a generator line.
Before the war, Jamal worked as a farmer and owned two agricultural plots on the eastern borders of Deir el-Balah. Today, they have been bulldozed and fall under Israeli control.
His charging station has instead become his main source of income, supporting his eight children.
“I had an energy system consisting of six panels, batteries, and a device, which I used for pumping water and irrigating the remaining land around my house before the war,” Jamal says to Al Jazeera.
As an alternative income source after the war and the electricity blackout in Gaza, Jamal repurposed his solar system to provide basic phone charging services to residents, though this came with major challenges.
“The demand for charging was extremely high, and my batteries were exhausted within the first months, as electricity became very scarce at home,” he adds.
However, things worsened when a neighbouring house was targeted, destroying four of his six solar panels, significantly reducing his capacity and income.
At the beginning of the service, Jamal also offered food refrigeration services alongside phone and battery charging, but after the damage and battery depletion, he had to stop those services.
“We used to charge about 100 to 200 phones daily. Now we only manage 50 to 60 at most due to reduced efficiency of the solar panels,” Jamal says, attributing this also to weather conditions, clouds and the winter season, when solar efficiency drops significantly.
“In winter, you look for alternatives to solar panels and turn to generators that barely work … the electricity crisis makes you feel like you are running in a never-ending cycle of suffering.”
His charging station now operates with a small system of two panels and one battery.
People from nearby areas, including university students and displaced families, rely on it due to a lack of alternatives and the inability to afford generator-based electricity subscriptions.
“My sons are university graduates and earn their living from this station. We charge 1 to 2 shekels per phone.”
Even though Jamal is able to make some money out of the crisis, he ultimately faces the same hardships as others in Gaza do.
“Economic hardship has affected all of us … even basic services like phone charging have become a heavy burden. There are no local solutions to this crisis.”
“The only real and lasting solution is the official restoration of electricity to the Gaza Strip.”
Thick, black smoke rose from Kuwait International Airport Saturday after suspected Iranian drone strikes damaged radar systems and fuel storage facilities, state media said. No fatalities were reported. The airport has been repeatedly targeted since the US-Israeli war on Iran erupted.
Published On 28 Mar 202628 Mar 2026
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Arrests come days after force announced U-turn, saying that despite High Court ruling, ‘terror’ ban remains in place.
Published On 28 Mar 202628 Mar 2026
London’s Metropolitan Police have arrested 18 supporters of Palestine Action, days after the force promised to resume arrests in a reversal of policy.
The protesters had sat on the steps of New Scotland Yard, the Met’s headquarters, on Saturday, holding signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
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Officers made the arrests under “terrorism” legislation.
Following the High Court’s ruling in February that banning Palestine Action as a “terrorist group” was unlawful, the force had said it would adopt a “proportionate approach” and stop arresting the group’s supporters and focus instead on gathering evidence.
But on Wednesday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Harman said that since any “impact of that judgement will not take effect until the government’s appeal has been considered, which could take many months”, it would resume arrests. “We must enforce the law as it is at the time, not as it might be at a future date,” he said.
As she was led away by two officers on Saturday, one woman, in footage posted to social media, can be heard saying: “I’m being arrested for holding a cardboard sign, whereas our government feels the need to sell weapons and use our airbases to commit genocide in Palestine.”
Critics say the Met’s U-turn defies the court ruling.
Palestine Action is a direct action campaign group which has targeted weapons manufacturers linked to Israel and an RAF base.
The government proscribed it as a “terrorist organisation” in July 2025, placing it alongside groups including al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. The High Court called the move “disproportionate” and in breach of freedom of expression.
The government was granted a stay pending an appeal, meaning the ban technically remains in force.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who said she would fight the High Court ruling in the Court of Appeal, said in February that supporting Palestine Action was not the same as supporting the Palestinian cause.
Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring has since ordered that hundreds of related prosecutions be paused until after that appeal is heard.
Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested for holding signs in support of the group, contributing to a 660 percent rise in UK “terrorism” arrests in the year to September 2025, Defend Our Juries said.
On the day of the High Court ruling, about 150 people held the same placards outside the court and not a single person was arrested.
The scale of the crackdown has drawn sharp international criticism, including from the UN.
When the ban was first imposed, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said it appeared “disproportionate and unnecessary”, warning it risked criminalising the legitimate exercise of free expression.
In January, US Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers told the news platform Semafor that “censoring that speech does more harm than good”.
Amnesty International, which intervened in the court case, said thousands had been “arrested for something that should never have been a crime.”
Eight activists linked to the group staged a lengthy hunger strike in prison, with four held on remand for 15 months before being bailed in February. Four others remain imprisoned.
Earlier this week, Al Jazeera reported that released detainees are now pursuing legal action against the prisons over alleged mistreatment.
Defend Our Juries has called a mass sign-holding event, titled Everyone Day, at Trafalgar Square on April 11, as the government’s appeal heads to court.
Saturday’s arrests took place as the rest of the city was filled with demonstrators who came out to march against the far right.
Tensions continue to rise with Iran warning a ‘heavy price’ will be paid after Israeli attacks on nuclear and industrial sites.
Published On 28 Mar 202628 Mar 2026
President Donald Trump said he is “very disappointed” with NATO’s response to the United States-Israeli war on Iran, accusing the alliance of failing to support Washington despite years of US military spending on its allies.
Meanwhile, Iran warned a “heavy price” will be paid after Israeli attacks on nuclear and industrial sites, with Tehran accusing the US and Israel of “playing with fire” by targeting energy infrastructure. Iran also said there was no radioactive leak following attacks on two nuclear facilities.
The warnings come as fighting and tensions continue to escalate across the Middle East, with growing fears of a wider conflict.
Here is what we know:
Black smoke is rising over Tehran and Isfahan after early morning US-Israeli airstrikes on the cities.
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Iranian rescue workers have been pulling survivors and bodies out of a residential building in south Tehran after a US-Israeli missile strike. Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi was at the scene.
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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“We affirm that our fingers are on the trigger.” The Houthis have warned that they are ready for direct military intervention in the US-Israeli war on Iran, laying out the conditions that could prompt their involvement.
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has offered wide-ranging remarks upon his departure from the latest Group of Seven (G7) ministers’ meeting in France, denouncing Iran’s continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz as well as settler violence in the occupied West Bank.
Standing on an airport tarmac on Friday, Rubio fielded questions from journalists about reports that Iran plans to implement a tolling system in the strait, a vital waterway for the world’s oil supply.
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Rubio used the topic to double down on pressure for countries to participate in securing the Strait of Hormuz, a demand US President Donald Trump has repeatedly made.
“One of the immediate challenges we’re going to face is in Iran, when they decide that they want to set up a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz,” Rubio said.
“Not only is this illegal, it’s unacceptable. It’s dangerous for the world, and it’s important that the world have a plan to confront it. The United States is prepared to be a part of that plan. We don’t have to lead that plan, but we are happy to be a part of it.”
He called on the G7 members — among them, Japan, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and the European Union — as well as countries in Asia to “contribute greatly to that effort”.
The Strait of Hormuz is a key artery for the global transport of oil and natural gas, and prior to the start of the US and Israel’s war against Iran on February 28, an average of 20 million barrels of oil per day passed through the waterway.
That amounted to roughly 20 percent of the world’s liquid petroleum supply.
But since the outbreak of war, Iran has pledged to close the Strait of Hormuz, which borders its shores. The threat of attacks has ground most of the local tanker traffic to a standstill, though a few vessels, some linked to Iran or China, have been allowed to pass through.
Media reports suggest that Iran is setting up a “tollbooth system” that would require passing ships to put in a request through Iran’s armed forces, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). There would also be a fee to secure passage.
“ They want to make it permanent. That’s unacceptable. The whole world should be outraged by it,” Rubio said on Friday.
He added that he conveyed a warning about the polling scheme to his colleagues at the G7.
“All we’ve said is, ‘You guys need to do something about it. We’ll help you, but you guys are going to need to be ready to do something about it,’” Rubio said.
“Because when this conflict and when this operation ends, if the Iranians decide, ‘Well, now we control the Strait of Hormuz and you can only go through here if you pay us and if we allow you to, that’s not only is it illegal under international law and maritime law. It’s unacceptable, and that can’t be allowed to exist.”
The Trump administration, however, has struggled to rally allies and world powers to join the US in its offensive against Iran.
Legal experts have criticised the initial strikes against Iran as an unprovoked act of aggression, though the Trump administration has cited a range of rationales for launching the attack, including the prospect that Iran may develop a nuclear weapon.
Many of the US allies in Europe have maintained that they would limit their involvement to defensive actions. Trump, meanwhile, has accused members of the NATO alliance of being “cowards”, adding in a social media post, “We will REMEMBER.”
In a statement following the G7 meeting, member countries reiterated their stance that there should be an “immediate cessation of attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure”.
They also underscored the “absolute necessity to permanently restore safe and toll-free freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz”. But the statement fell short of pledging any resources or aid to the US and Israeli war effort.
It is unclear when the war might end. On Saturday, it reaches its one-month anniversary, having stretched for four weeks.
Rubio on Friday echoed Trump’s assessment that the war was going as planned and that the US was achieving its objectives, including to destroy Iran’s navy, missile stockpiles and uranium enrichment programme.
“ We are ahead of schedule on most of them, and we can achieve them without any ground troops, without any,” he said, addressing an oft-raised concern about the prospect of US troops being deployed to Iran.
Rubio also briefly addressed the increasing levels of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Footage has shown settlers this month torching Palestinian homes and vehicles, as well as assaulting residents.
On March 19, the United Nations estimated that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Israel began its genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023. The international body underscored that a quarter of the victims were youths.
“ Well, we’re concerned about that, and we’ve expressed it. And I think there’s concern in the Israeli government about it, as well,” Rubio responded, adding that it was a “topic we follow very closely”.
He suggested that the Israeli government may take action to stop the violence, though critics argue that Israel has largely turned a blind eye to settler violence.
“Maybe they’re settlers, maybe they’re just street thugs, but they’ve attacked security forces, Israelis, as well. So, I think you’ll see the government going to do something about it,” Rubio said.
Upon taking office for a second term in January 2025, President Trump also moved to cancel sanctions against Israeli settlers accused of grave abuses in the West Bank.
Iranian football players laid backpacks on a football pitch in Turkey to pay tribute to the children killed in a US-Israeli strike on Minab elementary school last month. The tribute came ahead of a friendly match against Nigeria.
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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Israel’s Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir issued a stark warning to the country’s cabinet this week: unless urgent measures are taken, the Israeli army is on the brink of collapse.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 13 on Thursday, Zamir told ministers that he was “raising 10 red flags”, urging the government to move quickly on long-delayed legislation to alleviate the strain on its “exhausted” military.
The army has been overseeing what rights groups and the United Nations have determined is a genocide in Gaza, the de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank and numerous incursions into Lebanon and Syria.
Addressing ministers, Zamir stressed the need for a “conscription law, a reserve duty law, and a law to extend mandatory service”, adding that without these measures, “before long, the [Israeli military] will not be ready for its routine missions and the reserve system will not last”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since said that plans will be made to extend mandatory military service. However, this is not the first time the alarm has been raised that the military is straining under the pressure of repeated operations, which have seen it involved in the killings of tens of thousands of civilians across the Middle East.
The first came as early as June 2024, just eight months into the genocidal war on Gaza, when France24 reported on shortfalls in troop numbers, exhaustion and a lack of supplies.
That situation has only worsened since.
So, how large was the army before October 2023, how active has it been and how has the current era of unprecedented regional aggression sapped the military’s reserves? Here is what we know.
Not very.
Launched in 1948, the idea of an Israeli military made up of a relatively small standing army backed by a large reserve corps of mobilised citizenry was the plan from the outset in order to instil a narrative of social cohesion, national identity and shared responsibility within the new country’s populace. Reservists would move between civilian life and military service to achieve this.
Before the war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, Israel’s standing army numbered just 100,000. This was immediately bolstered by calling up 300,000 reservists, pulling Israel’s “citizen soldiers” from their jobs and families to take part in the bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel.
Ultimately, this means that the majority of troops serving are reservists rather than career soldiers.
On March 1, the day after US-Israeli strikes on Iran began, Israel announced the mobilisation of another 100,000 reserve soldiers.
That was in addition to 50,000 reservists currently on duty as a result of the Gaza war.
At the time, military sources said the additional troops would bolster existing positions along the border with Lebanon, its frontier and occupied positions within Syria, as well as in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
Additionally, Israel’s Home Front Command called up 20,000 reservists, primarily for search and rescue operations, with reinforcements also deployed to the Israeli Air Force, Navy and Intelligence Directorate.
Israel has since deployed “thousands” of those troops to take part in its invasion of southern Lebanon, which it resumed in response to rocket fire from Iranian ally Hezbollah on March 3.
Addressing the same security cabinet meeting as Zamir, Central Command chief Major General Avi Bluth told ministers that government policies in the occupied West Bank were also placing increasing pressure on the military’s already stretched manpower.
According to the report, Bluth told ministers that over the past year, the government has approved the construction of multiple illegal settlements in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere in the West Bank as part of a wider operation characterised by rights groups and more than 20 countries as Israel’s “effective annexation” of the occupied Palestinian territory.
Bluth added: “This is your policy, but it requires security and a full protection package, because the reality on the ground has completely changed – and that requires manpower.”
According to many of the army’s own members, particularly reservists, they are.
Speaking to the Ynet News outlet, which is typically supportive of Netanyahu and his ruling Likud party, one reservist told the newspaper in December of his decision not to report for duty.
“We have battles to fight at home,” he said, explaining his decision. “There are guys on the team who were fired from their jobs, others whose families are barely staying afloat, or who have been dragging out their studies for a very long time. This is a problem, a complexity that is hard to describe.”
Resentment of the apparent exemption offered to members of Israel’s ultra-religious Haredim community, whose refusal to enlist for service is often overlooked by politicians, is also growing, Israeli media reports.
Responding to Zamir’s comments to the security cabinet, Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, took to Twitter to address the government directly.
“The government must stop the cowardice, immediately halt all budgets to the Haredi draft dodgers,” he said of the extensive social benefits many in Israel’s ultra religious community rely upon. “Send the military police after the deserters, draft the Haredim without hesitation,” he said.
“The warning has been given. It’s on your heads. It’s in your hands. You cannot continue to abandon Israel’s security, in wartime, for petty politics.”
“A bit” is what United States President Donald Trump thinks about the scale of Russia’s military aid to Iran.
Moscow “might be helping them a bit”, he told Fox News on March 13.
A day later, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated laconically that Moscow’s military cooperation with Tehran was “good”.
His words seemed to confirm earlier media reports that Russia is providing Iran with satellite and intelligence data on the locations of US warships and aircraft.
It may not sound like much, given the superiority of Western military satellites and Russia’s battlefield losses and communication problems after Elon Musk’s SpaceX company switched off smuggled Starlink satellite Internet terminals.
But data on US military assets Iran is receiving most likely comes from Liana, Moscow’s only fully functional system of spy satellites, according to an expert on Russia’s space programme and military.
“The [Liana] system has been created to spy on US carrier strike groups and other navy forces and for identifying them as targets,” Pavel Luzin, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a US think tank, told Al Jazeera.
Russia also played a key role in the development of Iran’s space programme and its key satellite, the Khayyam.
Launched in 2022 from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome, the 650kg (1,430 pound) satellite orbits the Earth at 500 kilometres (310 miles) and has a resolution of one metre (3.3 feet).
Moscow “can, in theory, receive and process data from Iran’s optical imaging satellite and share data from its own several satellites”, Luzin said.
On Wednesday, Tehran claimed to have struck the Abraham Lincoln carrier with multiple cruise and ballistic missiles, but the Pentagon called the claim “pure fiction”.
On Sunday, Iranian media claimed that a “massive blaze” was caused by a strike on a US destroyer refuelling in the Indian Ocean.
Washington did not comment on that strike.
Russia has, for decades, supplied weaponry to Iran, including advanced air defence systems, trainer and fighter jets, helicopters, armoured vehicles and sniper rifles, worth billions of dollars.
Since Washington and Tel Aviv began their strikes on February 28, Russia has continued aiding Iran with “intelligence, data, experts and components” for weaponry, Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera.
While Moscow and Tehran loudly proclaim their strategic partnership, they do not have a mutual defence clause, and Moscow has not intervened in the conflict directly.
But the arms supplies have been mutual. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Tehran has provided Moscow with ammunition and artillery shells, firearms and short-range ballistic missiles, helmets and flak jackets.
And then there are the Shahed kamikaze drones – slow, noisy, yet cheap to manufacture – which have been launched on Ukrainian cities in swarms of dozens and then hundreds. Ukraine became so adept at bringing these down – now mass-producing cheap interceptor systems specifically to target Shaheds – that it is now providing its own know-how to Gulf states where US military assets have come under fire from Iran in recent weeks.
In the course of its war with Ukraine, Moscow has manufactured and modernised Shaheds, making them faster and deadlier, and equipping them with cameras, navigators and, occasionally, artificial intelligence modules.
And now, some of the upgrades have made their way back to Iran.
A Shahed drone with a pivotal Russian component launched by Iran-backed Hezbollah from southern Lebanon was able to hit a British airbase on Cyprus on March 1, the UK’s Times newspaper reported on March 7.
It reportedly contained Kometa-B (Comet B), a Russian-made satellite navigation module that also acts as an anti-jamming shield, making drones more resistant to interference.
Russia has also perfected the tactic of sending waves of real and decoy drones to exhaust and overwhelm Western-supplied air defence systems in Ukraine.
These days, the scheme helps Iran hit targets in the Gulf, Western officials say.
“I think no one will be surprised to believe that Putin’s hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics and potentially some of their capabilities as well,” British Defence Secretary John Healey said on March 12 after Iranian drones struck a base used by Western forces in Erbil, northern Iraq.
However, if Iran is suffering a shortage of drones – as some analysts believe it is – that would render the use of Russian tactics, as well as Russia-supplied satellite data useless, experts say.
“Russia does supply data, it’s obvious, the data helps Iran, but not much,” Nikita Smagin, a Russian expert who has written extensively on ties between Moscow and Tehran, told Al Jazeera.
After four days of intensive strikes using up to 250 drones a day in early March, Iran has been launching only up to 50 drones a day, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University.
“Iran ran out of steam really fast,” he told Al Jazeera.
Moreover, Moscow is not necessarily particularly interested in an Iranian military victory, as the war is benefitting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own conflict in Ukraine.
Skyrocketing oil prices make “Putin financially capable of further hostilities,” Lieutenant General Romanenko said.
As Iran strangles shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the price of Brent crude – the international benchmark – has soared past $100 a barrel in the past three weeks. US President Donald Trump was forced to temporarily suspend sanctions on shipped Russian oil to ease the economic backlash. The result has been tankers laden with Russian oil bound for China making U-turns in the open ocean to divert to India, as countries scramble to grab Russian oil cargoes out at sea. The price of Urals crude has bounced.
Putin “hasn’t achieved his goals in Ukraine and will therefore use anything, including the war [in Iran] and lies to achieve his vision, press with his ultimatums,” Romanenko said.
The Kremlin “doesn’t pursue a breakthrough in this war, doesn’t help Iran break the United States and Israel,” Ruslan Suleymanov, an associate fellow at the New Eurasian Strategies Center, a US-British think tank, told Al Jazeera.
The current intelligence and military aid is “more of a goodwill gesture, an attempt to create an illusion of help, to show Tehran that despite the lack of formal commitments, Russia doesn’t leave its friend in need”, he said.
And Tehran fully understands how insufficient Moscow’s aid is – and therefore relies on its own stratagem of expanding hostilities to the entire region through strikes on neighbouring states and of crippling the global economy with soaring oil prices.
“Iranians understand that the forces are not equal and it’s impossible to defeat the United States and Israel on the battlefield, and no Russian aid is going to help,” he said.
It seems that Trump’s assessment that Moscow “might be helping them a bit” may not be too far wide of the mark.
Video captured flames and black smoke where a projectile from Lebanon killed at least one person and injured 13 others in Nahariya, Israel. Burnt vehicles and extensive shrapnel damage could be seen at the site.
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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Watch this discussion between Ross Harrison and Hassan Ahmadian on US strategy regarding Iran. They conclude the US is still negotiating with old talking points, while Iran has moved on.
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko gifted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a gun after the two countries signed a friendship treaty during the Belarusian’s first official state visit.
Published On 26 Mar 202626 Mar 2026
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President Trump on Thursday continued projecting confidence in the U.S. war effort in Iran, suggesting online and during a high-level Cabinet meeting that Iran has been “obliterated,” that its leaders were “begging” for a deal, and that the U.S. is “roaming free” over Iran and “NEEDS NOTHING” from its European allies.
His description of the war as all but finished — he actually said “we’ve won” — stood in contrast to the facts on the ground, where Iran continued to launch attacks and threaten oil tanker traffic in the vital Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. continued sending troops and warships to what is already the largest U.S. military buildup in the Middle East in decades.
Trump’s framing of the conflict also contrasted with that of Iranian officials, who have remained publicly defiant, downplayed negotiations and outwardly rejected several of Trump’s conditions for ending the war — as Trump himself acknowledged, accusing them of saying one thing in private and another in public.
“They better get serious soon, before it is too late,” the president wrote on social media, “because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty.”
“They are begging to make a deal, not me,” Trump reiterated later Thursday, while hosting his first Cabinet meeting since the war began. “Anybody that sees what is happening understands why they are begging to make a deal.”
Trump asserted that Iran’s military capabilities have been destroyed, and that the American mission is “ahead of schedule.” He said American forces were operating without opposition over Iran, and “there’s not a damn thing they can do about it” because they’ve been “beat to s—.”
Trump’s outward confidence, a defining feature of the war campaign that has been consistently echoed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other administration loyalists, continued despite growing concerns this week in Congress — and not only from Democrats.
Several Republicans emerged from a classified war briefing Wednesday clearly frustrated with the administration for not providing a clearer picture of the path out of the now monthlong war, or clear answers on whether it planned to deploy ground troops.
“We want to know more about what’s going on,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “We’re just not getting enough answers.”
“I can see why he might have said that,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Democrats have hammered the president — contrasting the war and its massive budget with rising fuel costs for average Americans and lamenting the deaths of U.S. service members.
“Thirteen American lives lost and tens of billions of taxpayer dollars spent in just three weeks since Donald Trump plunged us into war without congressional authorization. There is still no plan, no clear justification, and no end in sight,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said. “Americans called for lower prices, not endless wars.”
For weeks, Trump, Hegseth and other war leaders such as Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have focused on U.S. wins in the conflict — tallying up Iran’s sunken ships and grounded planes, assassinated leaders and undermined missile capabilities.
In recent days, Trump has suggested that, because of those wins, Iran is buckling and its leaders reaching out for a deal. He has said the U.S. is pushing a 15-point plan that will forever block Iran from developing a nuclear weapon or threatening the U.S. or its allies. And he and others in his administration have accused the media of ignoring tremendous battlefield wins to harp on losses instead.
Israel, America’s major partner in the conflict, has projected similar confidence while showing no signs of slowing its attacks on Iran. On Thursday it announced it had killed several senior Iranian naval commanders, including Commodore Alireza Tangsiri, the head of Revolutionary Guard’s navy.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said the deaths should send a “clear message” that Israel will continue to hunt down top Iranian military officials. Iran did not immediately acknowledge Tangsiri’s death.
The head of U.S. Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, praised Tangsiri’s killing, said U.S. strikes would continue, and called on Iranian fighters to “immediately abandon their post and return home to avoid further risk of unnecessary injury or death.”
Meanwhile, death, destruction and environmental and economic damage from the war spread far beyond Iran, where officials recently increased their estimated death toll to nearly 2,000.
Israel was fighting off a barrage of incoming missiles Thursday, with booms heard in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and an impact reported in the central town of Kafr Qassem. Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Tahsin al Khafaj on Thursday said 23 people had been wounded in a Wednesday strike on a military clinic in western Iraq’s Anbar province.
Israeli soldiers grieve during the funeral of Staff Sgt. Ori Greenberg, 21, at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem on Thursday.
(Odd Andersen / AFP via Getty Images)
Thousands of additional U.S. troops are on their way to the region, while many of the tens of thousands already stationed there have been displaced into hotels and other temporary housing — diminishing their war-fighting capabilities — by Iranian attacks that have left the 13 regional military bases they normally live on “all but uninhabitable,” the New York Times reported.
Iran announced Thursday that it had launched drone and missile attacks on a U.S. military base in Kuwait and a separate air base used by American forces in Saudi Arabia.
Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, accused Iran of charging fees for ships to safely transit the Strait of Hormuz, continuing the economic toll on global oil supplies. Environmental experts warned of massive pollution from burning oil and gas fields.
Russia, emboldened by the Iran war, which has drawn resources away from Ukraine and led the U.S. to ease sanctions on Russian oil, has launched a renewed spring offensive against Ukraine.
The distance between U.S. and Iranian messaging about the war and their negotiations to end it — which foreign officials have said are occurring through intermediaries — has contributed to the tensions and the reluctance of allies to get involved, with some citing similar frustrations as Republicans in Congress this week.
Many allies have largely stayed out of the conflict despite Trump vacillating between demanding their help and insisting it isn’t necessary.
In one of his posts to social media Thursday morning, Trump blasted allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, for having “DONE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO HELP” in the conflict, and said the U.S. would “never forget.”
During his Cabinet meeting, Trump said that when the “right deal” is made with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz will reopen — while insisting that Iran no longer has any “mine droppers” that would threaten merchant vessels passing through the key oil route.
Steve Witkoff, one of Trump’s top advisors leading the negotiations in the Middle East, said the Iranians were looking for an “offramp,” that Pakistan is serving as a mediator between Washington and Tehran, and that the U.S. has presented a 15-point plan that “forms the framework for a peace deal.”
“These are sensitive, diplomatic discussions and you have directed us to maintain confidentiality on the specific terms and not negotiate through the news media, as others do,” Witkoff said. “We will see where things lead and if we can convince Iran that this is the inflection point, with no good alternatives for them other than more death and destruction.”
Trump has also declined to say whom Washington is negotiating with in Iran, but described them as “very smart,” “not fools,” and “very lousy fighters, but great negotiators.”
He also said he knows they are “the right people” for the U.S. to be dealing with because they had given him a “present” — and proved they are in control — by allowing “eight big boats of oil” travel through the strait this week.
Asked if he intended to send U.S. troops into Iran to take its enriched uranium, he called it a “ridiculous question” that he wouldn’t answer.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he is confident that more merchant vessels will soon be able to safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz. He also told the president that he believed the oil market is currently “well supplied” and that once the war ends, energy prices will drop.
Hegseth repeatedly slammed the media for falsely framing the war effort as floundering or unfocused, saying Iran’s “air defenses are gone,” its leaders hiding in “underground bunkers,” and its fighters losing morale.
He said Iranian officials in private are admitting “very heavy losses,” and that the U.S. and the world are benefiting from having Trump, whom he called the “ultimate deal maker,” working toward a peace deal.
In the meantime, he said, the U.S. military will “continue negotiating with bombs.”
Details of a plan submitted by Board of Peace Director General Nickolay Mladenov for the disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza have been seen by Al Jazeera.
The plan would see disarmament – one of the components of the October ceasefire to end Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza – implemented gradually over an eight-month, multiphase process.
list of 3 itemsend of list
The process would see disarmament in exchange for Israel fulfilling its own obligations, including allowing reconstruction materials into Gaza to begin the work of rebuilding the enclave after Israel’s devastation of the territory since October 2023. Israel would also allow an increase in humanitarian aid entering Gaza, and the plan envisions the transfer of the administration of the Palestinian territory to a national committee.
Mladenov referred to the plan in general terms in a speech to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday. There he said the plan had been “presented to relevant armed groups” that were urged to accept the framework “without delay”.
“Decommissioning [arms] proceeds in parallel with staged withdrawal,” Mladenov said.
The disarmament of groups in Gaza has been a controversial topic, particularly as Israel has continued to attack the enclave during the ceasefire, killing hundreds of Palestinians. Israel has also not stopped restricting aid into Gaza, driving up prices, even as many in the territory remain displaced and unable to afford basic items.
Hamas has repeatedly refused to give up its arms as long as Israel’s occupation of Gaza continues. Israeli forces maintain a presence in Gaza in areas beyond a “yellow line”, giving it a de facto buffer zone that Palestinians cannot approach without risking being shot. Hamas has also said disarmament is an internal Palestinian matter that should be discussed between factions rather than imposed from the outside.
Hamas and Israel have so far not officially reacted to the details of the Mladenov plan. But Palestinian experts have previously told Al Jazeera that the plan in effect means the “political surrender” of Hamas.
The Board of Peace, created by United States President Donald Trump in the wake of the ceasefire his government brokered, has assumed oversight of Gaza’s administration.
The Mladenov plan operates on a step-by-step formula, with transitions between phases only taking place once both sides have fulfilled their obligations.
The first phase, spanning the first two weeks of the deal, would see a complete cessation of military operations by Israel and Hamas as well as the implementation of humanitarian protocols that Israel committed to under the ceasefire. Representatives of the Palestinian national committee – a technocratic body established after the ceasefire with the aim of administering Gaza – would also be allowed into Gaza during this phase to assume all security and administrative responsibilities.
The second phase of the proposal, which would take place between day 16 and day 60, represents the central element of the plan with the beginning of the disarmament process. Hamas and other Palestinian factions would cooperate to remove heavy weapons initially from areas controlled by Israel and then, before 90 days, from areas still controlled by Hamas.
Hamas would also destroy its tunnel network before day 90 of the plan.
For its part, Israel would be required to allow temporary prefabricated residential units to be constructed in locations approved by the Palestinian national committee.
Once all sides have met their obligations in the first three months of the plan, they would move on to the next phase, in which Israeli forces would gradually withdraw to the perimeters of Gaza after a monitoring committee determines that Palestinian factions in Gaza have been disarmed.
Security forces answerable to the Palestinian national committee would be tasked with gathering weapons. That task should be completed by day 251, and if it is, then Israel would withdraw from Gaza with the exception of an undefined security perimeter “until Gaza is secured … from the potential for a return of any terrorist threat”.
Full reconstruction would also be permitted at this stage as well as the lifting of restrictions on the entry of “dual-use materials”, such as concrete, steel, fertilisers and fuel, which Israel has severely restricted, arguing that they can be used for military purposes even as humanitarian groups emphasise their importance to civilian life.
The plan, if implemented, would mark a final end to the war and to Hamas’s almost two-decade-long rule of Gaza.
But stumbling blocks remain, including whether Israel is truly prepared to withdraw from Gaza, fulfil its commitments and not attempt to spoil any deal, as it has in the past.
Hamas and other Palestinian factions are deeply sceptical of Israel’s adherence to any deal and to the idea of giving up their weapons, seeing them as a vital part of Palestinian national resistance.
Hamas would also give up all control of Gaza as part of what the plan envisions as “one authority, one law, and one weapon” in the territory under the Palestinian national committee.
Mladenov referenced that principle at the UN, adding that “the people of Gaza want reconstruction, and reconstruction requires the decommissioning of weapons.”
Yields on government debt across European countries and the United States have been rising since the start of the Iran war.
Investors are demanding higher yields as confidence in the global economy has cratered due to the severe negative impact of the conflict on energy markets, supply chains and Middle Eastern infrastructure.
The 2-year notes, sensitive to near-term rate expectations, have risen faster than their 10-year counterparts in a classic bear-flattening move, while longer-dated yields reflect worries over the economic drag caused by more expensive energy.
Speaking to Euronews, BCA Research’s Chief Fixed Income Strategist, Robert Timper, explained that “the aggressive bear flattening of yield curves reflects a hawkish monetary policy repricing in response to inflation fears stemming from the Iran war”.
“The front-end [2-year yields] is more sensitive to changes in monetary policy and has therefore risen more than the long-end [10-year yields] in response to investors’ anticipation of more hawkish central bank policy,” Timper added.
Historically, this specific curve behaviour often precedes an inverted yield curve, which is a well-recognised indicator of a potential economic recession.
The repricing has been most pronounced in Europe, with the UK bond market feeling the biggest pressure.
Since the start of the conflict, the 10-year UK gilt yield has risen from 4.2% to a high of over 5% while the 2-year note yield jumped from 3.5% to a peak of 4.6%.
Timper explained to Euronews that past inflation experience has proved decisive, stating that “rate hikes in the UK are more likely than elsewhere because inflation has been more elevated than elsewhere, and the risk of inflation expectations unanchoring is therefore higher.”
On Wednesday, AJ Bell’s investment director Russ Mould highlighted the UK-specific implications in a detailed press release, noting that the 10-year gilt yield is hovering near 5% for only the third time since 2008 while the 2-year gilt yield comfortably exceeds the Bank of England base rate.
Mould also explained that the gap between the 10-year gilt yield and the FTSE 100 dividend yield has widened to more than one-and-a-half percentage points, making UK equities relatively less attractive.
Elsewhere in Europe, bond yields experienced similar surges.
Germany’s 10-year bund yield increased from 2.65% to around 3%, nearing 15-year highs, while the 2-year note yield climbed from roughly 2% to 2.65%.
In France, the 10-year OAT yield jumped from 3.2% to above 3.7%, approaching 17-year peaks, while the 2-year note yield has risen from 2.1% to over 2.8%.
As for Italy, the 10-year BTP yield was at around 3.3% before the Iran war and has now surpassed 3.9%, approaching two-year highs, while the 2-year note yield has increased from roughly 2.15% to 3%.
In every single one of these bond markets, the yield on the 2-year notes has risen faster than their 10-year counterparts.
The 30 and 20-year bond yields are also all trading higher which denotes deteriorating confidence in the long-term growth prospect of the respective European economies.
Across the Atlantic, US Treasuries have followed a similar trajectory, though the sell-off has been less severe than in the UK for example.
The 10-year note yield has risen from around 3.9% to a peak of 4.4%, reached on Monday, and is currently trading at 4.37%.
Meanwhile, the 2-year note yield increased from 3.35% to a high of over 4%, and it is hovering 3.9% at the time of writing.
The yields on both notes have hit an 8-month high.
Timper’s analysis places US bond performance close to that of the euro area, reflecting broadly comparable inflation histories and policy outlooks. There is scant evidence of investors fleeing European bonds for US Treasuries as a safe-haven trade.
Speaking to Euronews, Timper explained that such shifting flows would be more visible in currency markets as the US dollar benefits from being the predominant denominator for energy exports.
For now the message from bond markets on either side of the Atlantic is consistent, the Middle East conflict has rewritten the near-term outlook for inflation, monetary policy and borrowing costs.
EXPLAINER
The US and Israel’s war on Iran is intensifying, as Trump again claims Iranian leaders want to ‘make a deal’.
Published On 26 Mar 202626 Mar 2026
The United States and Israel’s war on Iran continues, with an Al Jazeera correspondent in Tehran reporting strikes are “increasing in number and in intensity” amid conflicting claims about whether negotiations are taking place.
US President Donald Trump says talks are happening, but Iran rejects the talks, saying it will continue to “resist” US aggression.
On Thursday, Iran carried out retaliatory strikes against Israel and several Gulf countries, as the Middle East conflict sees no signs of ending, and global energy and food prices continue to rise.
A week into the United States-Israeli war on Iran, and Iran’s attacks on its Gulf neighbours, Jaya Khuntia spoke – as he often did – to his Doha-based son Kuna on the phone.
It was March 6, about 10pm, and Khuntia and the family were worried. “He told me, ‘I am safe here, don’t worry,’” the father recalled from the conversation with Kuna.
It was the last time they spoke.
The next day, the family in Naikanipalli village of India’s eastern Odisha state received a phone call from Kuna’s roommate telling them that the son had suffered a heart attack after hearing the sound of missiles and debris from interceptions falling near their residence. He collapsed and was later declared dead. Kuna’s body reached home days later.
Al Jazeera cannot independently confirm the cause of Kuna’s death, but the family of the 25-year-old, who worked as a pipe fitter in Qatar’s capital, is among millions across South Asia directly affected by the war in the Middle East.
Of the eight people killed in the United Arab Emirates in Iranian attacks, two were Emirati military personnel, a third a Palestinian civilian, and the remaining five were from South Asia: Three from Pakistan, and one each from Bangladesh and Nepal. All three people killed in Oman were from India. An Indian national and a Bangladeshi national are the only deaths in Saudi Arabia.
Migrant workers from South Asia total nearly 21 million people in the Gulf nations, a third of the total population of the region. At stake, for their families back home, is the safety of their loved ones and the future of their dreams.
The Khuntia family had taken on a 300,000-rupee ($3200) debt in 2025 for the marriages of their two daughters. Kuna’s income in Doha – where he had moved only in late 2025 – of 35,000 rupees ($372) was helping them collect what they needed to pay back the loan. Kuna had been sending back about 15,000 rupees ($164) every month.
“We thought our suffering was finally ending,” Jaya said, his voice trembling. “My only son would say, ‘Baba, don’t worry, I am here.’ He was our only hope… our everything.”
That hope is now extinguished. “That one call finished us,” Jaya cried. “He promised to return after clearing our debts … but he came back in a coffin. We have nothing left now. Losing our only son is the biggest debt we have to live with.”
![Kuna Khuntia, a 25-year-old pipe fitter from India's Odisha, who died of a heart attack in Doha Qatar [Photo courtesy the Khuntia family]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Kuna-Khuntia-1774503793.jpeg?w=640&ssl=1)
In all, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – the six Arab countries in the Gulf – host 35 million foreign nationals, who form a majority of their total population, 62 million.
They include 9 million people from India, 5 million each from Pakistan and Bangladesh, 1.2 million from Nepal, and 650,000 from Sri Lanka. Most of them are engaged in blue-collar work, building or supporting the industries and services that are at the heart of the Gulf’s success and prosperity.
But since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran, these migrant workers have often been among the most vulnerable. That vulnerability extends beyond deaths and injuries to the very nature of their work: Oil refineries, construction areas, airports and docks, where many work, have been targeted in Iranian attacks.
The suspension of work at many of these facilities, coupled with fears of a major economic downturn in the region, has also left many workers and their families worried about the future of their jobs.
Hamza*, a Pakistani migrant labourer working at an oil storage facility in the UAE, recalled a recent attack that he witnessed. “A drone struck a storage unit right in front of us. We were completely shaken. Most of us there are from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
“We couldn’t sleep for nights after that. The drone was so close that it could have killed us, too,” Hamza added. “For a moment, I thought we would be next.”
Despite these dangers, he said, leaving is not an option.
“We want to go back, but we can’t,” Hamza said. “Our families depend on us. It’s dangerous here, but if we stop working, they will have nothing to eat. We have no choice.”
Experts say Hamza’s sentiment is common across South Asian blue-collar workers in the Gulf, because of poverty and limited employment opportunities back home.
Imran Khan, a faculty member at the New Delhi Institute of Management working on migration economics, said migrant labourers from South Asia are often driven by desperation to take up jobs in the Middle East. He said Western countries have, in recent years, dramatically raised entry barriers for less-educated blue-collar foreign workers.
“These workers are the worst affected during crises – whether war or natural disasters,” he says. “I have been speaking to several migrant labourers, particularly Indians in the Middle East, and many are living in distress since the conflict began.”
But, like Hamza, most cannot afford to leave, Khan said.
“They cannot simply quit. Their income would stop immediately, and there are very limited opportunities back home,” he explained. “They have families to support, and without these jobs, survival becomes difficult.”
Middle Eastern countries remain a key source of remittances for South Asian nations such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The remittances these five countries receive from the region, $103bn, are comparable to Oman’s total gross domestic product (GDP).
Just the remittances that India receives from the Gulf, $50bn, are more than Bahrain’s entire GDP. Pakistan receives $38.3bn in remittances, Bangladesh $13.5bn, Sri Lanka $8bn, and Nepal $5bn.
With the recent escalation of conflict in the Middle East, experts warn these flows could be significantly affected, especially if Gulf economies contract and layoffs follow.
Faisal Abbas, an expert in international economics and director at the Centre of Excellence on Population and Wellbeing Studies, a Pakistan-based research institute, said remittances from the Middle East form a crucial economic backbone for South Asian nations, not just families.
“Remittances are a critical pillar for Pakistan and other South Asian economies, and a large share comes from Middle Eastern countries,” he explained. “If the situation worsens, it will not be a positive development for the region.”
Pakistan’s remittances from the Gulf constitute nearly 10 percent of its GDP, about $400bn.
Abbas added that the effect may extend beyond remittance flows. “Migration patterns could also be disrupted. Many workers may return home, while those planning to migrate might reconsider,” he said. “This could further increase unemployment in a region already facing job shortages.”
Unlike Hamza, a number of South Asian workers are planning to return home.
Noor*, a migrant worker from Bangladesh employed at an oil facility in Saudi Arabia, said he no longer feels safe and plans to return home once his contract ends.
“I will never come back here again,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. We can’t even sleep at night. The fear never leaves us.”
Noor said drone attacks had occurred close to his workplace. “We saw it happen in front of us,” he said. “That fear stays with you… It doesn’t go away.”
His family, too, is deeply affected. “My children cry every time they call me. They are scared for my life,” he added.
He said he knows that returning to Bangladesh would mean more economic hardship for his family. But Noor said he had made up his mind.
“I would rather go back and struggle to survive with my family than live here in constant fear,” he said. “At least there, I will be with them.”
*Some names have been changed at the request of workers who fear retribution from contractors for speaking to the media.