East

Kuwait has since the beginning of the Iran War in February been targeted by Iranian drones and missiles 1,400 times. Why has this state—smaller than the US state of New Jersey—been targeted more than any of its larger neighbors including Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates?

A military node

This question takes us all the way back to 1991 when the US intervenes when Iraq under Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. In return, Kuwait has since hosted one of the the largest US armies in the Middle East of 13,000 troops, and has the fourth biggest deployment of the US military globally. Furthermore, Kuwait is one of five U.S. Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) sites across the world— a cornerstone of the US’ global military strategy as it allows for rapid deployment and display of influence. And not only does Kuwait not charge the US for its land use, or restrict US troop movements on its territory—unlike most other host countries—but indeed pays the US for its troop presence, and subsidies energy and water costs for the military bases.

A geostrategic asset  

In exchange, Kuwait’s geostrategic location on the Arabian peninsula and along the air corridor between Asia and Europe makes the country an important location for the US to secure its interests and exert influence in the region and beyond. Indeed, the US has designated Kuwait as a Major Non-Nato Ally since 2004, and has located its biggest air logistics facility in the Middle East in conjunction with Kuwait international airport. Thus, Kuwait has proven a key logistical hub for US military operations in the region including against the Islamic State and during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Furthermore, Kuwait holds 7% of the world’s oil reserves, reinforcing its importance for the US and other oil consuming countries, while also making it strategically vulnerable to Iranian attacks on energy plants in late July, as this adds to the ongoing energy insecurity created by the closure of the key oil trade route through the Strait of Hormuz.

The end of diplomatic balancing?

Despite these far-reaching strategic links with the US, Kuwait has long maintained a diplomatic balancing act, refusing to normalise relations with Israel while simultaneously refraining from condemning the Iranian regime. Moreover, Kuwait has often assumed the role of neutral mediator in the Middle East. For example, Kuwait mediated the 2021 rapprochement between Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, and has contributed to peace efforts in Yemen. In addition, Kuwait has been much more cautious in its statements concerning the Iranian regime, unlike its vocally critical, yet less targeted neighbors such as the United Arab Emirates, and has even refused to allow the US to use military bases in Kuwait for launching attacks on Iran.

Geographic liabilities

Even so, Kuwait has fallen prey to its geography. For one, its geographical proximity to Iran makes Kuwait a comparatively cheap and easy target for Iranian missiles, while its lack of naturally occurring fresh water and consequent reliance on desalination provides Teheran an additional pressure point, as illustrated by Iranian attacks on desalination plants in late July. Furthermore, its proximity to Iraq has exposed it to attacks by Iraqi Shia militias, allied with Teheran.

And the risk of further attacks in the future is high. On 1 August, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared that it would react ”decisively” against any US strikes, and warned Gulf states against permitting the US and Israel to use bases on their territories to launch attacks against Iran. Similarly, Iraq announced that its military forces stood ready to ‘thwart any attempts at targeting neighbouring countries within our regional sphere.’ Thus, recent developments suggest that Kuwait might no longer be able to remain an independent diplomatically oriented actor that can stay out of the conflicts in the Middle East.

Ideology

While Iran’s official rationale for the attacks has been to target US military targets and assets, the attacks on energy and desalination plants are neither; these are civilian infrastructures. Hence it is Kuwaiti civilians—not the US military capacity—that bear the brunt of the attacks. This suggests that Iranian attacks have not only immediate military objectives in context of the current war, but also underlying psychological and ideological motives, as these attacks can be seen as a way of scaring countries that go against Iran’s exhortations—reiterated since 1979–to its Gulf neighbors to cut ties with the US. In addition, the attacks expose the limitations of US security guarantee, and undermine the credibility of the US promises of stability and protection to its allies.

A change of strategy

Consequently, Kuwait may pivot toward building up more national military defence capabilities, as the deterrence guarantee that the well-accommodated US presence was supposed to provide has ostensibly failed, while Kuwait’s lack of domestic military resources to retaliate further enticed Iranian attacks.

Hence, it appears that the security order in the Middle East is set to become even more fragile, with the US increasingly proving incapable or unwilling to ensure what has long been considered a stabilising presence, and with regional actors increasingly divided and polarized, making neutral mediation harder.

A new mutual defence pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan has raised questions about the shifting geopolitical landscape of the Middle East, where fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran has prompted some countries to seek new arrangements to safeguard their security.

The pact, termed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, was signed in the Saudi city of Mecca on Friday.

“The agreement is intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression, and stipulates that any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all,” a statement from the meeting reads.

“It further provides for the enhancement of all aspects of defence cooperation among the three states.”

While it is not yet clear what such an agreement might look like in practice, analysts say the pact points to growing questions about the durability of US security guarantees.

“Regional states have harbored growing doubts about the reliability of the US security partnership for more than a decade,” Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Middle East fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, told Al Jazeera over email.

“Both the decision to begin military operations against Iran and the subsequent conduct of the war and the on-off attempts to resolve it have only intensified those concerns and accelerated efforts to diversify security and defence relations.”

But, Ulrichsen added, building new defence pacts is likely not intended “to replace or supplant the US, but to provide additional strategic and policy options”.

Uncertainty over US role

While the administration of US President Donald Trump has yet to weigh in on the pact, analysts say the agreement is an effort by the three countries to reorient themselves after the turmoil of the Iran war.

“This is one of the first major geopolitical signs that the regional order is being reshaped by the US-Israeli war on Iran,” Sina Toossi, an analyst at the Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera.

“The significance is less about a formal military alliance than about what it says regarding how regional states are reassessing security.”

Toossi pointed to the long-running alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia. For decades, the two countries have enjoyed a strong relationship, hinged on shared security interests. But the pact could be a sign that Saudi Arabia is looking to expand its security alliances.

“Rather than relying primarily on Washington, Saudi Arabia appears to be broadening its security partnerships and laying the groundwork for more intra-regional security arrangements,” Toossi explained. “That is arguably the most important takeaway.”

Media reports have also indicated that US partners in the Middle East were frustrated that the Trump administration had launched February’s war against Iran with little apparent thought to the impact on allies in the region.

Iranian forces have launched waves of missile and drone strikes against US military facilities in the Middle East, causing bystander casualties. Iran has also targeted civilian infrastructure, including energy and desalination plants.

Tehran’s decision to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for the region’s energy exports, has also imposed a steep cost on local economies.

Despite heavy strikes by the US and Israel, Iran has largely maintained its ability to restrict traffic through the strait, and Washington has struggled to provide partners with sufficient air defence munitions, many of which went to Israel.

‘Normative deterrence’

Under the circumstances created by the war, the longstanding reliance on Washington for security in the region has become more strained.

“It’s a fluid, tabula rasa era in the Middle East,” Brett McGurk, a key architect of Middle East policy under former US President Joe Biden, wrote in a social media post.

But analysts note that Friday’s security pact is best understood as an effort to supplement regional security cooperation with other countries and deter Iran.

“These countries are all US partners, and they recognise that there is no framework that can replace the United States,” Yasmine Farouk, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.

Farouk added that it would also be a mistake to see the pact as a step towards greater confrontation with Iran.

She noted that all three countries involved have generally called for mediation and de-escalation since the US and Israel first launched their attacks on Iran in late February.

“What these countries have in common is that they are not seeking regional escalation,” she said, underscoring that the importance of the agreement might be something closer to “normative deterrence”.

Iran, she explained, has emerged from the war hardened and more confident in its ability to use force to advance its goals.

“There is a long-term perspective here on strategic cooperation, not just a deterrent effect.”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has suffered a major electoral defeat after Dr Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, crushing pro-Israel congresswoman Haley Stevens despite an unprecedented spending campaign on her behalf.

AIPAC’s super political action committee, the United Democracy Project, spent more than $30 million promoting Stevens and attacking El-Sayed, according to Federal Election Commission filings analysed by the New York Times. NBC News projected El-Sayed as the winner on Wednesday, dealing a major blow to the pro-Israel lobby’s efforts to determine the outcome of one of the most closely watched Democratic contests in the country.

El-Sayed campaigned against US military assistance to Israel and repeatedly highlighted AIPAC’s intervention in the race. Stevens, by contrast, received the backing of AIPAC and the Democratic Party establishment.

The result is seen as providing some of the clearest evidence yet that association with Israel and its powerful lobby groups is becoming a political liability among Democratic voters as opposition grows to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the unconditional support it receives from Washington.

A New York Times investigation published before the primary result was announced revealed the scale of AIPAC’s transformation from a traditional lobbying organisation into one of the largest spenders in US elections.

Spending by AIPAC-affiliated political action committees on campaign advertising and voter outreach has more than doubled in less than five years, rising from $29.3 million to $67.2 million. Much of the money has been directed towards Democratic primaries, where the lobby has sought to defeat candidates who criticise Israel or question US military assistance to the occupation state.

However, the investigation uncovered a striking feature of AIPAC’s campaign strategy: it rarely reveals its connection to Israel.

Between April 2022 and the end of July, AIPAC-funded groups produced 109 television and digital adverts. Only six mentioned Israel. Instead, the adverts focused on issues such as abortion rights, the economy and the cost of living, despite being financed specifically to elect politicians who support Israel.

AIPAC’s reluctance to mention Israel is seen as a reflection of a deeper political problem: open association with the Israeli government has become increasingly toxic following the mass killing, displacement and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.

The lobby is effectively asking voters to support Israel’s preferred candidates without making Israel itself part of the public argument.

AIPAC has also channelled approximately $22 million into five smaller super PACs with innocuous names that make no reference to Israel. These include Elect Chicago Women, Affordable Chicago Now!, Voters for Responsive Government and Blue Wave Action.

Read: Pro-Israel cash goes undercover as US voters turn against Israel

The Michigan contest became the lobby’s largest gamble. United Democracy Project spent more than $10 million promoting Stevens and over $20 million attacking El-Sayed through advertising and voter outreach.

Nevertheless, El-Sayed prevailed.

El-Sayed’s victory is thought to be particularly significant because Michigan is home to one of the largest Arab-American populations in the US and became the centre of the “Uncommitted” movement, which challenged former President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Signs of the political backlash were already visible in April when Stevens and another AIPAC-backed politician were booed during the Michigan Democratic Party Convention. El-Sayed and his former primary rival, Mallory McMorrow, had both pledged to reject AIPAC funding.

AIPAC has previously succeeded in removing several prominent critics of Israel, spending millions of dollars to defeat former Democratic representatives Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. It has also targeted Republicans who questioned US military support for Israel.

However, the lobby has faced a growing number of defeats. Summer Lee survived repeated AIPAC-funded attempts to remove her, while candidates in Illinois and New Jersey successfully used their opponents’ links to the lobby against them.

Polls have also documented a rapid decline in support for Israel. A majority of Americans now oppose providing economic and military assistance to Israel, while Democratic voters have become increasingly critical of both Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the influence of pro-Israel lobbying organisations.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil for October delivery lost 5.16% to $83.39 a barrel, while US crude, or WTI, futures for September delivery declined nearly 6% to $79.66 per barrel.

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Crude declined after US President Donald Trump said fresh talks with Iran would begin later in the day, easing concerns over potential supply disruptions. Additional downward pressure came after Saudi Arabia, Russia and five other key members of OPEC+ agreed in an online meeting on Sunday to boost oil production by 188,000 barrels a day from September, against a backdrop of disruption caused by the Middle East conflict.

“The seven participating countries decided to implement a production adjustment of 188 thousand barrels per day,” they said in a joint statement.

The increase, decided by the key countries in the enlarged Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was widely expected by analysts.

“OPEC+ has finished unwinding its voluntary cuts. The next challenge is managing the surplus that could emerge as export flows normalise,” Jorge Leon, analyst at Rystad Energy, said.

He warned, however, that the decision “changes little in the near term because (the Strait of) Hormuz remains constrained. The real market impact will come when normal export flows resume.”

The Gulf countries have struggled to increase exports due to the near-paralysis of the Strait of Hormuz orchestrated by Iran during the war in the Middle East – despite a brief upswing in shipping traffic after a US-Iran memorandum of understanding was signed in June.

Many OPEC+ members cannot produce as much oil as their official targets allow due to a “decline in production capacity”, so increasing targets has become less meaningful, Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS, said.

Future pause foreseen

The September increase, agreed by OPEC+ countries Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman, completes the unwinding of the second of the three production-cut packages introduced by organisation.

“Having completed the restoration campaign, OPEC+ has little incentive to rush into further supply changes. Our base case is a fourth-quarter pause while the group prepares for the 2027 quota negotiations,” Rystad Energy’s Leon said.

“For now, geopolitics is masking the scale of the supply increase. That will become much clearer once export flows normalise,” he added.

It remains unclear when the group will actually be able to increase its oil volumes. Some member countries, such as Iraq, have expressed a desire to significantly boost production.

Russia, though, is confronted with repeated Ukrainian drone attacks on its oil infrastructure that have crimped production, currently hovering around nine million barrels per day – compared with a target of 9.8 million barrels per day.

OPEC+ “faces potentially difficult talks over new production quotas” starting next year following the September increase, according to analysts at DNB Carnegie.

Between late 2022 and 2023, OPEC+ became concerned that oil prices were falling, and agreed to cut oil production in three separate rounds, reducing total output by nearly six million barrels per day.

But Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Oman and the United Arab Emirates – before the latter’s exit from the group on May 1 – then changed their strategy by gradually upping production starting in 2025.

“I don’t think cohesion is at risk at this very moment,” Leon said, warning, however, that the UAE’s withdrawal from the group in May has highlighted a weakness in this area.

The United States military says it intercepted ballistic missiles fired by Iran across the Middle East.

In a statement on X on Wednesday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched multiple ballistic missiles in an “attempted surprise attack on US forces based in the Middle East”.

All the missiles were intercepted, and “US forces remain vigilant and at a high state of readiness”, the statement added.

Five missile interceptions were reported over Jordan, according to the Jordan News Agency.

The IRGC said its air force targeted a US airbase and Central Command centre in Jordan, “with several ballistic missiles”.

“As long as threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran continue and illegal and vicious actions by American forces against our interests continue, the resistance will continue,” the IRGC said in a statement carried by Iran’s IRIB broadcaster.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said the latest escalation seemed like a “pre-emptive attack, not a reactionary measure”, from the Iranians.

US President Donald Trump had called off a two-week US bombing campaign on Iran on July 24, claiming after that “good talks” were under way with Iran.

“After 13 consecutive days of constant bombing, in the tit-for-tat US-Iran bombings, these latest attacks will most definitely have an impact on the mediation efforts”, Al Jazeera’s Serdar said.

Trump has threatened to ⁠restart strikes if negotiations stagnate, while Iran has denied seeking to resume talks with Washington.

‘Sending a message’

The Iranian attacks targeting US bases came as Trump was meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been pushing for war on Iran, in the White House.

“This is Iran sending a message to Trump that they need to be involved in all discussions,” Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher said from Washington, DC.

“It was reported in Israel that Netanyahu was very keen to raise the question of Pickaxe Mountain. The Israelis said there has been building work going ahead there; they believe the Iranians are putting together another nuclear facility”, he said.

Jason Campbell, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera that Tehran is “trying to retake the initiative and the momentum with these latest attacks”.

“Iran has expressed scepticism that the US engages in these pauses between attacks to prepare for another phase of violence, so Tehran likely thinks the US is doing just that with this latest pause”, he said.

US oil futures jumped more than 4 percent to more than $82 a barrel, while Brent crude futures went to more than $88 a barrel after the US military confirmed the Iranian attack.

Oil prices were dropping earlier on Tuesday as Washington’s suspension of strikes on Iran continued, with traders closely monitoring reports of renewed talks.

Hormuz tensions continue

The Strait of Hormuz and its shipping traffic have been major talking points for Trump, who has decried Iran’s blocking of some vessels.

Iran asserts that it is within its rights to control shipping through the strait.

On Wednesday, the IRGC said it “struck and stopped” three oil tankers in Hormuz, according to Tasnim news agency.

It said the tankers “continued to move along an unsafe and illegal route, ignoring our warnings”,

Oman has presented Iran with a proposal to jointly manage traffic in the strait, but Iran has rejected it.

Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state television that Tehran rejected splitting transit routes equally.

Instead, he said, Tehran proposed managing shipping on its side of the strait, while Muscat would manage part but not all of the opposite lane.

‘Can you hear that?” my guide Andrea Wellmeyer asks as I sink a little deeper into the wet ground, cold mud seeping between my toes. When the wind drops, I detect a faint but distinct crackling, similar to the rustle of a sweet wrapper or the bubbling of sparkling water. “That’s the Wattknistern,” she says, “a natural phenomenon caused by the tens of thousands of mud shrimp that live here.”

We’re standing in the Wadden Sea mudflats on Norderney, an island just off Germany’s North Sea coast. It’s Friday evening at low tide. In the town centre, bars are pumping with music, but here, just 15 minutes along the southern edge of the island, it’s a completely different story.

“A lot of the flora and fauna is found under the surface,” Andrea says, showing me the tree-like tops of sand mason worm casings and the tips of marsh samphire growing upwards like tiny asparagus. Flipping over a cluster of wild oysters, she startles a crab that raises its pincers in the air before wriggling out of sight once more. Orange-beaked oystercatchers scurry back and forth on the exposed seabed and a pair of spoonbills wade gracefully through the shallow water beyond.

Norderney is one of the seven inhabited islands that make up the East Frisian islands (Ostfriesische Inseln) in Germany. The others are Borkum, Juist, Baltrum, Langeoog, Spiekeroog and Wangerooge. Stretching more than 50 miles from west to east, they are a popular holiday destination, known for their unique coastal landscapes and diverse wildlife, from grey seals and migrating birds to the creatures found in the mud.

Each island has its own identity, from upmarket Juist with its horse-drawn transport to the historic red brick houses of sleepy Spiekeroog; but all have vast sandy beaches, grassy dunes and tidal mudflats. The islands belong to the larger Wadden Sea Unesco world heritage site and have been part of the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea national park since its formation in 1986.

Norderney was one of the first German seaside resorts in the North Sea. Today, historic seaside villas and retreats founded on the health benefits of briny sea air sit next to modern hotels and restaurants, such as Inselloft Norderney and Michelin-recommended Oktopussy, where summer scallops come with a caramelised miso-cauliflower purée. My favourite spot quickly becomes Marienhöhe, a dune-top pavilion built more than 100 years ago, where I eat delicately battered fish with warm potato salad.

Despite being one of only two East Frisian islands where cars are permitted, the best way to explore Norderney is by bike. Leaving the town in the west, I zoom along the bike lanes that run through the dunes, stopping at a popular stretch of beach called Weiße Düne, before heading south towards the island’s tallest building, a lighthouse constructed between 1872 and 1874.

Soon after, roughly halfway across the island, I reach a sign that says I can’t go any further on my bike. This is a Ruhezone (quiet/restricted zone), a highly protected area where you can only walk on a couple of marked footpaths. A rusty shipwreck lies on the sand and seals bask in the sun at the far end.

There are strict rules governing access in several sections of the island, part of a quest to let nature be nature. Heading out with an official guide helps you see and learn more. Alongside Wattwanderungen (mudflat hikes), you can also book salt marsh walks, birding excursions and boat trips to see the seals. The newly renovated visitor centre at Norderney harbour also has extensive information about the local ecosystems.

My next stops are Spiekeroog and Langeoog, two calmer, car-free islands to the east. On Langeoog, I join a tour to learn more about the birds I have spotted over the last few days. “Many species need the Wadden Sea as the focal point of their migration, as a place to rest,” national park guide Fiona Wettstein says. “When they first arrive, they have completely burned through their fat reserves and practically drop down here.”

Setting off with bikes and binoculars, we spot red knots, redshanks, avocets and sandpipers, as well as squeaking lapwings with long crests and a short-eared owl swooping through the grasses. Geese with fluffy chicks in tow strut around the island, hissing loudly if you get too close. More than 10 million birds make a pit stop in the Wadden Sea every year, with spring and autumn the best time to see them. The shoulder season is also a good time to visit to avoid the summer holiday crowds.

I stay at Silt & Sand, a bright and airy design hotel just behind the dunes that opened last year. The expansive (almost 9-mile-long) beach on the other side is dotted with Strandkörbe, traditional hooded wicker armchairs found on beaches along the German coast.

Despite the chain layout of the islands and their close proximity to one another, it isn’t possible to “hop” between them. Instead, you have to return to the mainland and make your way along the coast to a different ferry terminal each time, the exception being Juist and Norderney, which have a shared departure point in Norddeich. It is possible to walk from the mainland to some of the islands at low tide, but only with a certified guide.

After my first few hours on Norderney, I give up on the weather forecast and start operating on a cloud by cloud basis instead, dark moody skies moving on as quickly as they appear. More reliable is the wind, churning the sea, bending the trees and blowing a fine mist of sand over the compact layer below. Having biked eastwards with ease, I’m met by a roaring resistance on my return, a fierce gust wrapping around my hat and prising it off.

“This connection to the elements is part of the experience,” says Andrea. “Your entire system is challenged and pushed out of its comfort zone, something that doesn’t happen so often these days,” she adds as we make our way back to the familiarity and ease of the town.

The trip was provided by Tourismus Marketing Niedersachsen and the German National Tourist Office. Doubles at Inselloft Norderney from €160 and at Silt & Sand from €141 room-only. Book ferries through individual websites: Norderney and Juist; Spiekeroog.

On Tuesday, the Chairman of the Knesset’s Education Committee, Zvi Sukkot of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, arrived at a Palestinian school in East Jerusalem for a “surprise visit” – his second in two weeks. He did not come to evaluate pedagogy or classroom conditions or needs. Instead, he smashed the school’s entrance sign because it featured a Palestinian flag and publicly pledged to shut it down.

This storming of the school was more than just a publicity stunt meant to appeal to his political base ahead of Israel’s October 2026 elections. It was the physical embodiment of a sweeping state campaign targeting Palestinian education in unlawfully occupied and annexed East Jerusalem.

Sukkot is using his position to physically police Palestinian schools. This move comes on top of the Knesset’s aggressive legislative campaign to destroy Palestinian education in East Jerusalem that lawmakers have pushed in recent years.

One such law, passed in January 2026, bars graduates of Palestinian universities in the West Bank from working as teachers in Israel and in East Jerusalem. This law is based on racist ideology and extremist claims that graduates of these universities are inherently dangerous and morally unfit to be educators.

The motives of the law’s proponents were made clear during Knesset deliberations: advancing what several MKs called the “Israelisation” of the educational system and of the students, even at the expense of access to education. In a May 2025 Education Committee session, one Likud MK claimed that this law is needed as teachers who graduate from Palestinian universities “do not cultivate Israelisation” among their students.

The law passed despite the devastating consequences it is bound to have on the already fragile and disadvantaged Palestinian education system in East Jerusalem. This system is largely dependent on graduates of West Bank universities – who are overwhelmingly women – and it already has a serious shortage of teaching staff and classrooms.

Another law, passed in November 2024, which is widely referred to as the “Silencing Law”, gives the Israeli Ministry of Education full discretion to suspend or dismiss teachers through a fast-track administrative process. It targets speech the ministry deems to be “incitement to terrorism”, based on the ambiguous and arbitrary clauses of the Israeli Counter-Terrorism Law, which has become a catch-all mechanism to criminalise Palestinian speech.

The 2024 law also gives the ministry the right to revoke funding from schools on these same grounds, potentially leading to their closure.

Here too, the Knesset Committee’s deliberations on this law revealed an explicit targeting of the Palestinian education system in East Jerusalem and lawmakers’ views that this system is a security threat that must be dealt with. As a Likud MK said during an early 2024 Education Committee discussion on this proposed legislation: “It’s very important that they become Zionists… If I was an Arab from East Jerusalem, the first thing I would be is a Zionist. Above all”.

MK Sukkot’s pledge to shut down the school he attacked is not an idle threat. It follows the closure of six schools in East Jerusalem and its outskirts in 2025, which left 800 Palestinian children suddenly without access to formal education. These closures were the immediate result of the 2024 and 2025 anti-UNRWA laws passed by the Knesset.

The legislation and MK Sukkot’s physical vandalism of a Palestinian school demonstrate the state’s efforts to impose “Israelisation” on young Palestinian students living under occupation, and to erase any trace of Palestinian education and identity, even at the cost of trampling on every legitimate pedagogical need along the way.

Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – is currently challenging all of these laws before the Israeli Supreme Court, with pending petitions against the ban on Palestinian university graduates, the “Silencing Law” targeting teachers’ political expression, and the anti-UNRWA laws.

We will continue to do all that we can to legally resist the campaign against Palestinian education. But the state’s assault on Palestinian schools will not stop until there is genuine international pressure on the Israeli government to stop its violations of nearly all the human rights of the occupied Palestinian population in East Jerusalem, including the right to education and the right to dignity.

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

July 16 (UPI) — Thick smoke from Canadian wildfires poured into northeastern quarter of the United States on Thursday after similarly darkening skies across and prompting health warnings across much of the Great Lakes region.

Dangerous levels of smoke were noted across Canada and the northeastern and midwestern United States, sparking memories of the historically severe wildfire smoke outbreak in 2023.

Entire states including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin were under air quality alerts.

By early Thursday, Minneapolis, Duluth, Minn., and Detroit were among the most heavily impacted areas of the country.

Very heavy smoke from large wildfires in northern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario spread over Minnesota from late Wednesday into Thursday morning, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency reported.

Hourly observations of smoke concentrations broke records for the Twin Cities on both days, the agency said.

In Detroit, businesses and attractions closed due to poor air quality.

A planned concert by rocker John Mellencamp at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Mich., was canceled while some workers inside Ford Motor‘s Michigan Assembly plant in Wayne, Mich., were hospitalized amid the smoky haze and intense heat, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Michigan’s statewide air quality alert was extended through Friday before cooler weather was expected to move the smoky pall out of the Great Lakes region.

In Chicago, the city closed all of its public beaches and outdoor pools, while Milwaukee recorded the worst air quality in its history — a record-breaking Air Quality Index measured at over 600, according to the Milwaukee Journal.

Further east, smoke from the Canadian wildfires enveloped New York City, prompting Mayor Zohran Mamdani to urge residents to “take precautions to stay cool and out of harm’s way” while dealing with both the smoke and high temperatures.

“In our city, we pride ourselves on being resilient,” the mayor told reporters early Thursday. “Today is not a day to say, ‘In spite of the air quality, I’m going to do everything I was going to do yesterday.’ This is very serious. We are reaching into a level of air quality that is dangerous for every single New Yorker.”

Seoul shares again plummeted Thursday, led by steep losses in technology heavyweights, as escalating tensions in the Middle East weighed on investor sentiment. The Korean won rose against the U.S. dollar.

After opening 4.45 percent lower, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) extended its losses to close at 6,820.60, down 463.81 points, or 6.37 percent from the previous session, after falling as low as 6,730.87.

The Korea Exchange, the country’s bourse operator, activated a sell-side sidecar on the KOSPI for 20 minutes at around 9:10 a.m. after the benchmark index fell more than 5 percent.

The decline came after the index surged 6.24 percent Wednesday as softer-than-expected U.S. inflation data eased concerns about near-term Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.

Adding to investor jitters, the Bank of Korea (BOK) raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.75 percent earlier in the day, the first increase in 3 1/2 years, to curb inflation amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.

The U.S. launched fresh strikes on Iran, escalating tensions in the Middle East and renewing concerns over potential disruptions to regional energy supplies.

“Profit-taking followed sharp gains in technology stocks a session earlier, while persistent concerns over the semiconductor industry kept the index under pressure,” Kang Jin-hyeok, an analyst at Shinhan Securities Co., said.

Institutional and foreign investors sold a net 2.37 trillion won (US$1.6 billion) and 1.38 trillion won worth of shares, respectively, while retail investors bought a net 3.66 trillion won.

Technology stocks led the decline.

Market bellwether Samsung Electronics plunged 8.77 percent to 255,000 won, while rival chipmaker SK hynix tumbled 11.53 percent to 1,842,000 won.

Top automaker Hyundai Motor fell 2.07 percent to 425,000 won, while steelmaker POSCO Holdings slipped 0.95 percent to 311,500 won.

Among gainers, shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean rose 5.73 percent to 86,700 won, while leading beverage firm Hitejinro gained 2.47 percent to 14,910 won.

The Korean won was quoted at 1,480.4 won against the U.S. dollar at 3:30 p.m., up from 1,484.7 won the previous session.

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticised a proposal by US President Donald Trump to impose charges on goods passing through the Strait of Hormuz, saying such a measure would amount to “piracy.”

Speaking at a public event in São Paulo state on Monday, Lula said “In the past, that would have been considered piracy.”

“The United States is an important country, and I believe it fought piracy for a long time. It cannot act like a pirate today” he added.

Lula’s comments followed Trump’s announcement that the United States would seek to impose a 20 percent tariff on goods transported through the Strait of Hormuz while reimposing a naval blockade on Iran.

According to Trump’s statement, the measure was presented as a response to Iran’s announcement that it intended to close the strategic waterway. He argued that the United States would ensure freedom of navigation through the strait and that commercial shipping benefiting from that protection should contribute to its cost.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “The Strait of Hormuz is open, and will remain open, with or without Iran. We will reimpose the blockade on Iran.”

The proposed tariff has drawn international attention because the Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes, carrying a significant share of global oil and liquefied natural gas exports. Any changes to shipping arrangements or transit costs could have broad implications for international trade and energy markets.

Published on
14/07/2026 – 7:53 GMT+2

The price of Brent crude climbed to just over $84 a barrel after soaring nearly 10% on Monday. US benchmark crude was up 1.4% at $79.20 a barrel.

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Oil prices are still below their wartime peak of nearly $120 a barrel, but uncertainty over the future stability of supplies deepened as the US and Iran each asserted they controlled the Strait of Hormuz.

US share futures were down 0.3% as the U.S. launched more strikes on Iran after President Donald Trump said Washington was “reinstating” a blockade on Iran in the strait.

Fighting in the region has kept oil tankers from using the waterway to deliver crude to customers from the Persian Gulf, driving up fuel prices worldwide.

Asia-Pacific shares slip overnight

In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 lost 1% to 66,574.96 and the Kospi in South Korea declined 3.2% to 6,589.37.

The Shanghai Composite index lost 0.8% to 3,884.32, even though the government reported that China’s exports jumped 27% in June from a year earlier as adoption of artificial intelligence drove strong demand for computer chips and other technology.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged 0.1% higher, to 24,230.46, while in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.5% to 8,767.00.

Monday on Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 0.8%, coming off its fourth winning week in the last five. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.6%.

Chip stocks like Micron Technology helped lead the way lower. Micron fell 4.4%, eating into what had been a stellar rise of 243.1% for the year so far.

Worries are rising that stock prices have shot too high and that the demand may not be sustainable if AI doesn’t deliver as much profit and productivity as expected.

Nvidia fell 3.5%. Because it’s the largest stock on Wall Street by value thanks to the euphoria around AI, it was the single heaviest weight on the S&P 500.

Investors turn to earnings

Much of Wall Street’s attention this week will be on profit reports from companies saying how much they earned during the spring. On Tuesday alone, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo are all releasing their latest quarterly results.

Analysts are forecasting that companies in the S&P 500 index will deliver overall growth of 23.6% from a year earlier, according to FactSet. If they’re right, it would be the second straight quarter of growth better than 20%.

Companies across industries will need to deliver strong growth to justify the big moves their stock prices have made. Indexes are near records despite their sharp recent swings due to worries around AI stocks.

More costly oil would push inflation higher, potentially leading the Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates. Higher rates can keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow the economy and hurt prices for all kinds of investments.

In other dealings early Tuesday, the US dollar slipped to 162.34 Japanese yen from 162.35 yen. The euro rose to $1.1391 from $1.1381.

Additional sources • AP

Seoul shares plunged 9 percent Monday as investors dumped technology stocks for profit-taking amid renewed tensions in the Middle East. The Korean won fell against the U.S. dollar.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 669.01 points, or 8.95 percent, to close at 6,806.93 after falling as low as 6,783.43.

Trade volume was moderate at 469.86 million shares worth 39.8 trillion won (US$26.5 billion), with decliners far outnumbering gainers 713 to 179.

Institutions and foreigners sold a net 2.22 trillion won and 1.7 trillion won worth of shares, respectively, while individuals bought a net 3.9 trillion won.

After opening 0.85 percent lower, the KOSPI extended its losses, triggering a circuit breaker that temporarily halted trading of KOSPI-listed stocks for 20 minutes. It marked the seventh activation of the measure this year.

On Friday, U.S. stocks advanced, buoyed by South Korean chipmaker SK hynix’s multibillion-dollar U.S. share offering. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.29 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also rose 0.29 percent.

SK hynix’s American depositary receipts (ADRs) on the Nasdaq closed at US$168 each, well above the offering price of $149.

Despite the successful U.S. market debut, SK hynix shares tumbled as investors took profits and shifted to the company’s ADRs, analysts said.

Investor sentiment was also dampened by heightened uncertainty in the Middle East after the United States and Iran exchanged fresh strikes over the status of the Strait of Hormuz.

“The country’s newly introduced single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds linked to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix continued to fuel volatility in the stock market,” Samsung Securities said in a research note.

Tech stocks led the decline.

Market bellwether Samsung Electronics plunged 10.7 percent to 254,500 won, while its chipmaking rival SK hynix plummeted 15.37 percent to 1,845,000 won.

Top carmaker Hyundai Motor fell 2.95 percent to 444,000 won, and defense giant Hanwha Aerospace declined 3.21 percent to 936,000 won.

Among gainers, leading battery maker LG Energy Solution rose 0.77 percent, and leading refiner SK Innovation climbed 7.09 percent to 110,200 won.

The Korean won was quoted at 1,503.4 won against the U.S. dollar at 3:30 p.m., down 2 won from the previous session.

Bond prices, which move inversely to yields, closed lower. The yield on three-year Treasurys rose 4.1 basis points to 3.809 percent, and the return on the benchmark five-year government bonds climbed 3.3 basis points at 4.041 percent.

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July 12 (UPI) — A major heat dome expanded from the interior West into the Upper Midwest on Sunday on its way to smothering the East later this week, forecasters said.

The heat in the East is expected to be shorter and less intense than the early July heat wave, but parts of the West are coming within a few degrees of all-time record highs.

Dangerous heat is also gripping even the Desert Southwest, where communities are used to extreme temperatures. The pattern will raise the risk of heat exhaustion, heatstroke and heat-related deaths.

Motorists are urged to carry plenty of water with them in the event of a breakdown.

Temperatures climbed well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit across much of the Great Basin, the Cascades and Sierras east to the western Rockies, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, western Colorado and northern Arizona this weekend.

The building heat dome has already pushed season-high temperatures into the 110s in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Palm Springs, Calif.

The heat expanded north this weekend, bringing highs of 106 in Salt Lake City, 107 in Bismarck, N.D., and 110 in Billings, Mont. Those temperatures are 10-25 degrees above historical averages during what is typically the hottest part of the year.

As the heat shifts east into the north-central United States early this week, some daily record highs will be challenged. As the hot air spreads east of the Rockies into more humid air, AccuWeather RealFeel Temperatures will run as much as 10-15 degrees higher than the actual air temperature.

While the North American monsoon will begin to temper the heat across parts of the West with increasing clouds and thunderstorms, multiple days of 90-degree heat are forecast across the Midwest, including Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland.

Minneapolis and Chicago can expect at least four consecutive days with highs at or above 90.

“Temperatures will peak in the mid- to upper 90s in the Interstate 95 cities of the mid-Atlantic and New England during the heat surge this week,” AccuWeather Vice President of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin said. “While high temperatures will still create dangerous conditions, the heat will be somewhat less intense and shorter-lived than the early July heat wave.”

Humidity levels with the heat in the Midwest and Northeast this week will be significantly lower when compared to the week of Independence Day.

A Palestinian family in the northern Gaza town of Jabalia has been reunited with their son after believing for a year that he had been killed by Israeli army fire, only to discover he had been held in an Israeli prison throughout that time.

Inside the family’s home, which was damaged by Israeli bombardment, relatives broke down in tears of joy as 23-year-old Hamada Al-Banna returned unexpectedly after they had lost hope of ever seeing him again.

His family had believed that Hamada and his brother, Adham, were shot dead by Israeli forces while on their way to collect food aid during the peak of the famine that hit the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2025.

On Monday, Israeli authorities released Hamada along with 16 other Palestinian detainees. The International Committee of the Red Cross transferred them to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza before he returned to his family in the north of the territory.

His mother, Widad, fainted after hearing her son’s voice for the first time in a phone call following his release. Hours later, she collapsed again as she embraced him when he arrived home.

An Anadolu correspondent witnessed the family’s emotional reunion, in a story reflecting the suffering of hundreds of Palestinian families who remain unaware of the fate of their relatives since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza on 8 October 2023.

EVERYONE dreams of heading to the beautiful Maldives with its bright blue waters and incredible resorts.

But did you know, there’s a very similar destination which has all the qualities and luxury of the tropical escape? And it even has an extra perk – it’s much quicker for Brits to get to.

Saudi Arabia is in the process of developing its new luxury destination called The Red Sea Project, which also includes a significant residential component.

It has everything you need from a holiday escape from beautiful islands to coral reefs, beaches, desert and even mountains.

Talking about the destination, Stephen Cheesebrough, Head of Development at Red Sea Global told EuroNews: “It’s true that the islands may remind you of the Maldives, with crystal-clear water and white-sand beaches. But that’s where the similarities end.

“Our landscapes are far more diverse. In addition to the islands, we have mountains, volcanoes, deserts and kilometres of virtually untouched coastline.

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“A visitor can spend the morning scuba diving among coral reefs and that same afternoon head into the desert or dine in the mountains. Very few destinations in the world offer such a variety of experiences in such a compact area.”

For Brits who dream of a holiday to somewhere like the Maldives, but don’t like the idea of a long flight – the Red Sea is much quicker to get to.

From the UK to the Maldives takes a minimum of 10 hours, and when you factor in seaplane or boat transfers to the hotel, can often exceed 12 hours in total.

But to get to The Red Sea Project from the UK takes around eight hours.

A direct flight from the UK to Riyadh will take six hours 30-minutes, followed ay a short domestic flight from Riyadh to RSI Red Sea Airport.

There could eventually be direct flights to RSI Red Sea Airport however, after it launched its first flights from Italy back in November 2025.

The Red Sea is under construction but lots of hotels are open for business with the first opening in 2023.

Currently, The Red Sea Project has 11 resorts with more set to open in the coming months.

At its centre is Shura Island which once completed will have hotels, shops, a marina and an 18-hole golf course.

In total there will be 50 hotels on the Red Sea resort including the Four Seasons, Six Senses, Rosewood Resort and Equinox.

The St Regis Resort even has overwater villas – some with private pools and butler service.

A seven-night stay in a One Bedroom Dune Villa in September is £1,512.

By 2030, the Red Sea aims to welcome around one million visitors each year.

For those keen on exploring the ocean, the Red Sea is home to one of the ‘world’s largest barrier reef systems’ – so it will be a sought-after diving destination.

Stephen Cheesebrough added that the destination is set to be open year-round for guests who want “luxury” as well as “exceptional experiences.”

To get there, guests can fly into Red Sea International Airport (RSI) which is in the Tabuk Province of Saudi Arabia.

It’s purpose- built for those visiting The Red Sea Project.

It connects to cities like Riyadh, Jeddah and Dubai, but is yet to expand to Europe – however, that is in the works.

Stephen Cheesebrough said “there would be no point in creating a destination of this scale without ensuring that travellers can reach it easily.”

If the UK is added to the roster of direct flights, Brits could reach the Red Sea on a direct flight in up to seven hours.

July 7 (UPI) — An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City’s Upper East Side has sickened nearly two dozen people, officials said Tuesday, as they continue to investigate the cluster.

The community cluster has been identified in the neighborhoods of Carnegie Hill and Yorkville. The NYC Health Department said in a statement that there have been 23 cases of the disease, including 17 hospitalizations, since July 6.

The count is also an increase from 14 cases reported on Sunday. The cluster was first made public July 2 after two people were diagnosed with the disease.

City health officials are urging New Yorkers and those who have visited the areas since late June and are experiencing flu-like symptoms to contact a healthcare provider immediately.

“More than 100 NYC Health Department staff members have worked nonstop since the start of this cluster as we take aggressive action to ensure that we are cutting off the source of exposure as quickly as possible,” Dr. Alister Martin, NYC health commissioner, said in a statement.

Legionnaires’ disease is a form of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria, which grow in warm water. Those who inhale water vapor that contains the bacteria can get sick with the disease, which causes flu-like symptoms. Most people exposed to the bacteria do not develop the disease. However, among those who do contract it, complications can be fatal.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 8,000 and 18,000 people are hospitalized with Legionnaires’ disease each year in the United States.

All cooling towers in the affected area are being sampled and tested at the city’s public health lab in order to locate the source, NYC Comptroller Mark Levine said, but warned that “it unfortunately takes several weeks for cultures to grow.”

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said that the issue is not with any building’s plumbing or indoor air conditioning and residents of the two neighborhoods are safe to drink tap water, bathe, shower and cook.

“The collection of water samples, laboratory testing and community outreach has been ongoing through the Fourth of July holiday weekend,” he said in an online statement.

Ten European and Western countries have barred Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich from entering their territories, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

The ministry said the ten countries had imposed entry bans on the two far-right ministers, who have faced widespread criticism over statements seen as advocating the extermination of the Palestinian people.

In a statement, the ministry said it was monitoring the diplomatic development and urged the countries to reconsider what it described as their “unjustified” decisions.

The countries that have imposed the bans are the UK, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Ireland, New Zealand and France.

Ben-Gvir was already banned from entering France and Ireland at the end of May after publishing a video showing detained activists from the Gaza-bound aid flotilla kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs following the interception of their vessel at sea. The activists were later held in southern Israel, prompting international condemnation.

READ: Smotrich announces retaliatory measures against Palestinian Authority after ICC developments

Several countries, including France, Spain and Italy, have called for European sanctions against Ben-Gvir. Judicial authorities in both France and Italy have also opened investigations into allegations that he was responsible for the torture of the activists.

On Tuesday, Ben-Gvir cancelled a planned trip to New York to attend the United Nations Chiefs of Police Summit amid concerns over planned protests by human rights groups, as well as growing calls for his arrest and investigation.

The Hind Rajab Foundation had previously asked the US Department of Justice to launch an urgent criminal investigation into the Israeli National Security Minister and arrest him upon his expected arrival in New York next month.

The legal request was backed by a broad case file prepared by the pro-Palestinian rights organisation, which said it was presenting the case to US judicial authorities as a test of Washington’s commitment to upholding international law.

READ: Ben Gvir attacks Trump-Iran deal: Israel ‘not bound by US agreement’

China has raised its purchases of oil from the Middle East in recent days, with deep discounts offered by its main supplier Saudi Arabia expected to further boost its buying, the Financial Times reported Monday.

China bought at least 26M

U.S. News // 16 hours ago

Nancy Pelosi’s husband likely to face charge after California crash

July 4 (UPI) — Paul Pelosi, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, is expected to face charges after he hit a parked car in Napa County, Calif., on Saturday.

The world is witnessing one of the most horrific onslaughts and siege against Palestinian civilians in Gaza by the Israeli occupation forces, which show no end to their appetite for death and destruction. As we watch helplessly while the people of Gaza search for food and water, amid Israeli air strikes destroying building after building, town after town, including civilian infrastructure, we are reminded of an earlier genocide and siege in the early 1990s. Sarajevo and Srebrenica are bywords for siege and genocide during the Bosnian War of 1992-1996, and carry striking similarities to what is happening in the “complete siege” of Gaza. The siege of Sarajevo lasted for four years, and while the siege in Srebrenica lasted for “only” three years, it proved to be more detrimental due to the genocidal killing of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys. These prolonged sieges, including the one in Gaza (which has actually been blockaded by Israel and its allies since 2006), serves as a sobering reminder of how oppressive powers use such tactics to inflict collective punishment on whole populations.

While it is essential to recognise the specific histories, approaches and geopolitical factors that contribute to each situation, both the war in Bosnia and the war in Palestine remain a struggle for control over land.

In Palestine, the occupation of the land in question took place within living memory.

What is unfathomable is the “genocidal conduct” committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group by military forces involved in these conflicts. The actions of the Bosnian Serb army in Bosnia and the Israel Defence (Occupation) Forces in Gaza have an unsettling resemblance, particularly in imposing a blockade and restricting the movement of civilians. In both cases, civilians faced (and in Palestine continue to face) immense human rights violations, including indiscriminate shelling, sniping, the demolition of religious buildings and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, including homes, schools and medical facilities. As this reign of terror is unleashed, the entire territory is cordoned off and people are unable to seek safety elsewhere. Mass graves tend to be a common factor. When Israeli soldiers left Gaza’s Al-Shifa and Nasser Hospitals after ransacking and destroying both, hundreds of decomposed dead bodies were dug-up in the hospital compounds. In Bosnia, mass graves were found across the country.

READ: Bodies of 73 more Palestinians found in Nasser Hospital mass grave

During the Bosnian War, the Serb army used hunger as a tactic to create unbearable conditions before launching a final offensive. Similarly, in Gaza, Israel has weaponised starvation against civilians. The task was made easier by the occupation state being in a position to cut off water, food and fuel supplies completely, and block humanitarian aid.

Moreover, humanitarian workers are often attacked. Since 7 October, at least 249 aid workers have been killed in Gaza, including 181 UN staff. In Bosnia, thousands of humanitarian workers were killed. Such killings are deliberate, and intended to deter NGOs and their staff from entering conflict zones, exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe affecting the local population in desperate need. EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell blamed Israel for blocking aid and closing land crossings used for transporting essential supplies. Such acts reduce the potential for peace and security.

Another disturbing aspect witnessed in both Bosnia and Palestine is the dehumanisation of the people. For instance, Bosnian Muslims were often called “balijas” (“dogs”) that must be left to die without food and water. After announcing the “complete siege” of Gaza and cutting off the food, fuel and water supplies, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced that, “We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly.” Such abuse exposes deep-seated religious and racial hatred. Moreover, the denial of the very existence of an “undesirable population” of Muslims in Bosnia and Palestine is common among hyper-ethnonationalist forces; the Serbs and Israelis share this characteristic.

The targeting of journalists in Palestine is yet another common feature shared with Bosnia. Local and foreign journalists are often harassed, intimidated and physically attacked while doing their job. Such actions perpetuate a culture of fear and censorship, making it increasingly difficult for the international community to gain on the ground knowledge and a comprehensive understanding of what is going on.

Whether in Bosnia or occupied Palestine, the displacement of millions of people has far-reaching consequences.

They include not only the immediate loss of homes, belongings and security, but also the long-term challenges of rebuilding lives and addressing the physical and psychological effects on displaced individuals. The war in Bosnia displaced at least 2.2 million people, and the ongoing war in Gaza has already displaced 80 per cent of the population: that’s 1.8m people.

READ: Pro-Palestine protests at US universities reach UK shores across Atlantic

In any war, women face a higher risk of sexual and physical violence, which has severe and long-lasting physical and psychological consequences. Although, the violence in Gaza mirrors that in Bosnia with civilians targeted disproportionately, it is the vulnerable sections of society such as children, pregnant women and the elderly and sick people who are most at risk. This, of course, is entirely deliberate on the part of the aggressors.

Thirty years after Bosnia, we are again seeing a world watching as genocide unfolds. Political and diplomatic bias, as well as military support for one side or the other, makes members of the international community complicit in what is happening. In Bosnia, the West was determined to make sure that a Muslim state did not materialise in Europe after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. In occupied Palestine, the settler-colonial state of Israel acts as a “bastion of European civilisation in a sea of barbarism”, to quote its early proponents. The latest crisis is entirely man-made.

Although, the US Congress and the EU have condemned starvation as a weapon of war, both have failed to take strong action to hold Israel accountable for its actions in Palestine. Similarly, the US and Europe condemned the genocide in Srebrenica but failed to take any measures while the mass slaughter was going on. In fact, the US responded very differently to the situation by saying that, “We are not and we cannot be the worlds’ policeman.”

As a Senator, Joe Biden openly blamed the West for its failure to intervene with air power in Bosnia. He also visited the country at the time of the siege and expressed his anger over the atrocities: “Shame on the West,” he railed. As US president, though, he has an altogether different stance towards Bosnia, whereby he favours Bosnian Serb and Croat hardliners while side-lining the Muslims. Palestinians and Bosnians alike have called Biden’s foreign policy ‘hypocritical’ and ‘deeply flawed’. Unquestioned US support for Israel echoes Senator Biden’s 1986 statement that, “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.” He repeated that in October, as America’s commitment to uphold international law and its own federal law flew out of the window in order to protect the Zionist state.

OPINION: Every university should divest from the military-industrial complex

The genocide in Srebrenica was recognised by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice as such, but the ICJ failed to classify the entire conflict as genocidal in nature. The current appalling situation in Gaza also raises the same questions about the international community’s responsibility to prevent genocide occurring, whether in Gaza or elsewhere. It also challenges the credibility of the West in claiming to uphold international laws and conventions in the pursuit of peace and justice around the world, not least in Bosnia and Palestine.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

‘Uh oh, look at these!” I call to my friends, Annie and Mike. “Ominous,” remarks Annie. Mike raises an eyebrow. We’re hiking the Pevensey Levels, marshland first drained in 772, home now to sheep and cattle, but also water spiders, living underwater in air-filled webs. The ground is pocked with endless impressions of horseshoes.

“It’s almost as if an army came this way,” I say.

And we laugh, but only because we missed that army by 959 years. Annie, Mike, Fflos the dog, and I are on our first day of following the 1066 Country Walk across East Sussex, beginning at Pevensey, ending in Rye. At the midpoint is the town of Battle, where we have rented an outbuilding conversion for three nights. Battle is known as the probable site of the Battle of Hastings: the brutal killing field where about 2,000 Normans, 4,000 Anglo-Saxons and 700 horses died one day in October 1066, according to various sources, leading to William the Conqueror defeating King Harold for the crown of England.

History commands an immediacy outdoors that it doesn’t in books. You ask different questions on foot. We were on the Levels at the same time of year, September, as the Normans: did they note the blackthorn heavy with sloes? Spot blackbirds feasting on blood-red hawthorn berries? Hear the wind in the rushes alongside the River Pevensey? Did they remark how faded yet abundant this land was on the cusp of autumn? Doubtful, but the contradictions of war-making in such a gentle place – gentle light, gentle breeze, birdsong and river currents – make an impression on us. We notice how the landscape offers the same russet, sage and ochre hues as the Bayeux tapestry.

The 1066 Walk covers 31 miles, and we’ve given it four days: Pevensey to Herstmonceux, 6 miles; Herstmonceux to Battle, 11; Battle to Icklesham, 9; and Icklesham to Rye, 5. Our second day is the longest and steepest, and yet my favourite, as it establishes a pattern that continues throughout. We pick up the well-signposted route in the green secrecy of Wartling Wood, carpeted in acorns, lined by blackberries, and follow it around sunny fields. We emerge into the neat village of Boreham Street, plunge down a holloway guarded by beeches, and roll out into more fields with windswept, distant horizons. The impression is of a settled, well-inhabited landscape – a feeling augmented by morning tea at the Ash Tree Inn in the hamlet of Brownbread Street – but another deeper, more enduring impression underlies it.

Perhaps because the route is designed to call the distant past to mind, with every shift of scene we experience a slippage of time. One moment we’re walking down a contemporary street being passed by speeding cars, then we slip through a small opening in a hedge and plunge not only into fields or woods, but out of the present into time immemorial. There’s a constant weaving in and out of darkness and light, wildness and cultivation, close-grown tunnels of greenery and wide-open, windy spaces, and with each shift comes a hurtling from present to past and back again. The effect is of a temporal quilt sewn with our own footsteps. We encounter few other walkers to break the spell.

Elasticity of time is most apparent on Tent Hill, where, as Mike puts it, “the reward to effort ratio is quite good”. Sources suggest one army or the other – no one knows which – camped here, hence the name. Instead of troops, we discover an ancient horse chestnut with branches so immense they have touched the ground and put down roots of their own, creating a family of trees around a living, central ancestor. Joining their company is occupying past and present at once.

Because Mike has had the good sense to rent accommodation at Abbey View Cottages – there is indeed a view of Battle Abbey’s towers – we set forth on day three from our own digs. Another plunge off a country lane lands us on a bridle path in Battle’s Great Wood, where Mike announces: “My fungi sense is twitching.” Soon he is giving a mushroom tutorial: fly agarics; edible boletes and parasols; great penny buns (“the Rolls-Royce of mushrooms,” Mike pronounces).

And then the temporal hopscotch continues. One minute we’re crossing a golf course, the next we’re in deep countryside with venerable oasthouses tucked into hill folds. Shortly before arriving at the welcoming Three Oaks pub, we come upon one of artist Keith Pettit’s 10 Bayeux tapestry-inspired sculptures on the route: six hollow, Celtic-carved oak pillars planted inside with hawthorn. Together they form a circle of growing, living wonder on a hillcrest.

Our final hike brings us to medieval Winchelsea, rebuilt by Edward I in the 1280s after the original town was washed away. We have traversed apple orchards and spent the morning in mellowness reminiscent of Dutch landscape paintings. To our joy, the modern stained glass windows of Winchlesea’s St Thomas church, created by Douglas Strachan as memorials following the first world war, bloom on the route like colour-saturated rainbows.

From Winchelsea, we head to Rye across the silted-in, coastal lowland that would have been underwater in Edward’s day. With Rye in eyeshot, we depart from the official 1066 Country Walk to detour past the ruin of Camber Castle, pressed into the flatland by a big, heavy sky. Begun in 1512, finished in 1544 and demolished in the 1640s by parliamentary forces in the English civil war, it’s a reminder of vulnerability – the waves and threats of invasions this coast has seen – and hubris, simultaneously.

With a final shift of perspective – pastureland to townscape – we fetch up in pretty, comfortable Rye, town of Henry James, antique shops and good food. We are more energised than exhausted, and grateful we didn’t have to conquer this place with anything more than our imaginations.

The Bayeux tapestry is on display at the British Museum from 10 September to 11 July 2027’ tickets now on sale. Abbey View Cottages sleeps four, from £200 a night; rooms as the Ship Inn in Rye from £75.

Pamela Petro is the author of The Long Field, published by Little Toller (£14). To support the Guardian buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.