Explainer

On Wednesday, Israel and Lebanon announced yet another ceasefire – after they had seemingly already agreed to a truce on April 16.

Iran and the United States have formally had a ceasefire in place since April 8. And Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian group, have had a ceasefire in Gaza since October 10, 2025.

Yet Israel’s attacks on Lebanon continue unchecked, with strikes on the Naqoura and Nabatieh districts of southern Lebanon on Friday, resulting in at least one death. Iran and the US have continued to trade periodic attacks that have picked up in intensity in recent days. The Iranian military has also fired missiles and drones at Gulf nations such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain, which it accuses of enabling US attacks on Iran during the ceasefire.

And in Gaza, Israel continues to carry out bombings, including one that killed nine people in a residential building this week, despite a supposed truce aimed at ending its genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

So what does it mean for a ceasefire to be in place when fighting continues? What does international law say? And why do violations so rarely lead to consequences?

We speak to legal experts to understand:

What is a ceasefire?

Simply put, it’s a pause in fighting designed to create space for negotiations, explained Mark Kersten, assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of the Fraser Valley.

“A ceasefire is effectively a cessation of hostilities, but typically not understood to be a permanent one,” he told Al Jazeera.

It is also often fundamentally a political agreement rather than a strongly enforceable legal instrument, said Michael Lynk, an emeritus professor at Western University in Canada.

Unlike peace treaties, which often have guarantors responsible for oversight and enforcement, ceasefires can be breached with few immediate legal consequences, Lynk told Al Jazeera.

This is especially true in Gaza and Lebanon, where the United States has acted as the principal broker and overseer. While some countries have criticised Israeli strikes in Lebanon, Lynk says there has been little pressure on Washington for allowing repeated violations.

“A number of Global North countries have criticised the continuing Israeli attacks on Lebanon despite the ceasefire, but they have not called out the US for allowing Israel to repeatedly breach the ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon.”

So are ceasefires legally binding – or not?

Yes, they are, argues Toby Cadman, a British international human rights lawyer and cofounder of Guernica 37 Chambers.

But, like Kersten and Lynk, Cadman said that ceasefires – which he described as the “temporary, military and diplomatic suspension of military operations” – are inherently fragile. Unlike peace treaties, ceasefires do not resolve the underlying conflict or end the legal state of war.

“It suspends the fighting; it does not end the state of armed conflict,” he said.

Where there is a broader peace agreement, such as in Gaza, the ceasefire too stands – at least in theory – on a stronger footing, said Lynk. The Gaza peace plan that accompanied the ceasefire was endorsed by the UN Security Council through Resolution 2803, which calls for the agreement to be implemented “in its entirety, in good faith and without delay”.

In theory, states could ask the Security Council to sanction parties violating the Gaza agreement. In practice, Lynk explained, the US veto on the body means that neither Israel, nor the US itself, can realistically be censured.

“This is why ceasefires and peace treaties are ultimately political documents because it requires political will to enforce them,” Lynk said.

Who decides when a ceasefire has been violated?

Palestinians have repeatedly pointed to the violation of the Gaza ceasefire by Israel. The US and Iran routinely accuse each other of breaching their truce. And Israel and Lebanon do the same when it comes to their ceasefire.

So who decides whether a ceasefire has been violated – and by whom?

The answer, according to Cadman, is that “there is no neutral arbiter empowered to determine, with binding effect, who has breached.”

Monitoring mechanisms do exist, but they are largely political bodies overseen by the same states that brokered and guaranteed the agreements. In the case of Gaza and Lebanon, that is the United States. But Washington occupies the unusual position of mediator, guarantor and Israel’s closest military and diplomatic ally.

That means allegations of violations are often filtered through political calculations rather than assessed by an independent legal authority, say experts.

What about international law?

For Kersten, Gaza and Lebanon expose a fundamental contradiction within the international legal system. On paper, international law has succeeded in establishing a broad consensus about the legality of what is taking place.

“The vast majority of the world recognises that what is happening in both contexts is not just wrong, but illegal – thanks to international law.”

Yet recognition has done little to halt the violence. “Little is being done to save lives and stop the carnage,” he said.

The result is a widening gap between legal findings and political action. Courts can investigate, collect evidence and issue rulings as the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice have both done against Israel, but that does not stop bombs from falling or guarantee compliance on the ground.

For Kersten and Lynk, the problem is not a lack of legal standards; it is the persistent failure of states to enforce them, particularly when powerful actors are involved.

“The lack of effective accountability is the hole in the heart of international law and our modern international political system,” Lynk said.

But Kersten said what was clear was that international humanitarian law, human rights law and international criminal law remain fully applicable during a ceasefire.

“Ceasefire provides no legal cover to commit atrocities against civilians.”

That means allegations of war crimes can still be investigated and prosecuted even while a ceasefire is in effect.

Is ‘self-defence’ a justification for attacks during a ceasefire?

Cadman highlights the legal argument most frequently used to justify continued strikes by Israel on Gaza and Lebanon, and by the US against Iran: self-defence.

These arguments rest on Article 51 of the UN Charter, which carves out the right for states to launch unilateral military action against other nations if they are acting in self-defence.

But Cadman said the interpretation of that clause is heavily contested.

“Article 51 answers an armed attack that has happened or is genuinely imminent; it is not a standing licence for preventive strikes.”

So why do countries feel they can get away with attacks during a ceasefire?

Asked by reporters on Wednesday how he defined a ceasefire, given the continuing – though sporadic – attacks that the US and Iran have exchanged in recent weeks, US President Donald Trump said: “It’s a different part of the world, you know. I’d say in that part of a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

Trump’s comments underscore what legal experts say is at the heart of the persisting violence in Gaza, Lebanon and the Gulf: The lack of any meaningful enforcement mechanism.

The Security Council is constrained by veto powers. The ICJ can issue binding orders but cannot enforce them. The ICC can issue arrest warrants, but depends on states to carry them out.

“The unifying theme is an enforcement deficit,” Cadman said.

Cadman argued that the problem is not that international law lacks rules. Rather, those rules are often applied selectively. “The law is not formally different for Israel or the US; its application is selective.”

EXPLAINER

Israel strikes Lebanon despite ceasefire, while Hezbollah rejects deal as death toll tops 3,500.

Israel has continued to carry out deadly strikes across Lebanon despite the announcement of a new US-brokered ceasefire agreement reached by Lebanese and Israeli officials in Washington, DC.

The violence has pushed the number of casualties higher, with Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health reporting that at least 3,526 people have been killed and 10,733 wounded in Israeli attacks since March 2.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem has dismissed the ceasefire as a “farce”, warning that northern Israel will remain a target as long as Israeli forces continue bombing Lebanon, raising more doubts about the prospects for a lasting truce.

Here is what we know:

In Iran

• Iran adviser flags concerns over draft deal: Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said the draft memorandum of understanding being negotiated to end the war still contains “ambiguities” that need to be clarified. Speaking to Iranian state television, Rezaei also accused US President Donald Trump of trying to pressure Tehran into accepting Washington’s terms while keeping Iran’s own conditions “in a vague state”.

War diplomacy

• Questions over US strategy: Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said the White House is facing growing questions over why a negotiated agreement with Iran is still needed after President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed US military action had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme. Halkett said critics are asking: “If these military objectives have been achieved, then is there still a need for talks?” She added that “with each passing week that this war drags on” and negotiations remaining stalled, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the administration to reconcile its claims of success with the continued push for diplomacy.
• Hezbollah rejects conditional ceasefire: Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem rejected the limited truce agreed to by Lebanese and Israeli representatives in the US, demanding a complete ceasefire and a full Israeli pullout from the country. Qassem also warned of more attacks on northern Israel, highlighting the difficulties in reaching a lasting peace. Both sides have blamed each other for breaking a previous ceasefire announced in April.

The Gulf

• Oman oil terminal disruption: Reuters reported that Oman has suspended crude oil loading operations at its key Mina al-Fahal terminal after an explosion near its single-buoy mooring (SBM) berths. Citing unnamed sources, the agency said the blast occurred between SBM 1 and SBM 2 and was allegedly caused by a drone attack.

In the US

• Trump says US does not need a deal to access Iran’s uranium: The US president said Washington could access Iran’s enriched uranium without reaching an agreement with Tehran, arguing the material is effectively “entombed”. Trump also said he does not plan to meet Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, but he suggested a meeting could be possible if a deal is eventually reached, adding that “if it happened … I’d be respectful”.

In Israel

• Ultra-Orthodox protest blocks major highway: Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Israelis blocked Highway 1 in protest against the government’s enforcement of military conscription for religious students, according to Israel’s Channel 10. The demonstrations began after police stopped two ultra-Orthodox students and transferred one to military authorities. Large numbers of police and border guards were deployed to clear the highway and disperse protesters.

In Lebanon

• Hezbollah rejection raises fears of escalation: Reporting from Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem said Hezbollah remains the key actor on the Lebanese side when it comes to decisions about fighting and any potential halt to hostilities with Israel, “regardless of what the Lebanese government says”. Given Hezbollah’s rejection of the US-brokered ceasefire, Hashem warned that further escalation is likely from both Hezbollah and Israel. He noted that southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa Valley experienced significant Israeli air and ground attacks on Thursday, adding that Hezbollah’s position suggests “it is going to be a very difficult situation” in the days ahead.

Israel and the Lebanese government have agreed to implement a new US-mediated ceasefire, the Trump administration has said, despite Israel’s defence minister insisting the military will continue operations in Lebanon.

Furthermore, while Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Thursday that the ceasefire would come into force within 24 hours of approval by all concerned parties, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem has dismissed the deal, labelling it a “surrender and defeat”.

The Trump administration announcement comes just weeks after a previous agreement to cease hostilities was supposedly reached on April 16. Since then, however, more than 600 people have been killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon while Israel has expanded its military presence in the south of the country, now occupying about one-fifth of the country.

The renewed diplomatic push also comes as Washington pursues parallel shuttle negotiations with Iran. Tehran, a close ally of Hezbollah, has made a ceasefire in Lebanon a condition for any broader agreement to end the war with the US and has repeatedly called for Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon.

Iran’s position was underlined when Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani said the baseline demand in Lebanon is for Israeli forces to withdraw to the positions they held before the start of the US-Israel war on Iran at the end of February – a demand that is not explicitly reflected in the agreement.

Iran and Hezbollah’s responses to the US announcement, coupled with Israel’s insistence that military operations will continue, have cast serious doubt on its viability. Critics of Israel’s war on Lebanon also point to the April truce, which they say has completely failed to halt Israeli attacks or Israel’s occupation of the south of the country.

What has been announced?

According to the Trump administration, Israel and Lebanon have agreed to implement a ceasefire contingent on a “complete cessation” of Hezbollah fire and the evacuation of its fighters from the area south of the Litani River.

The agreement also calls for the creation of “pilot zones” where Lebanese Armed Forces would take exclusive control “to the exclusion of all non-state actors”. The stated aim is to move towards a wider political and security agreement, including the dismantling of non-state armed groups and preventing their re-emergence.

But Hezbollah was not party to the talks and has already rejected the agreement. Lebanon was represented by government diplomats, even though the Lebanese army is not a party to this conflict.

According to the wording of the agreement, the parties are due to reconvene during the week of June 22 to continue diplomatic and security talks, with the US facilitating communications in the meantime. It remains unclear if that stage of the agreement will ever be reached.

What was agreed in April?

The April agreement used different language, saying Israel and Lebanon would implement a “cessation of hostilities” from April 16, and never actually used the word ceasefire.

It also included a clause allowing Israel to “take all necessary measures in self-defence, at any time, against planned, imminent or ongoing attacks”.

That clause does not appear in the new text, which could be interpreted as a small concession. That was until Israel Katz said Israel would continue its military operations in Lebanon regardless.

The latest agreement also repeats Israel’s longstanding demand that Hezbollah withdraw from south of the Litani River.

Meanwhile, there is one major glaring omission. While the text focuses heavily on Hezbollah’s withdrawal from parts of southern Lebanon, it does not mention Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Lebanese journalist and analyst Souhayb Jawhar told Al Jazeera the agreement is defined as much by what it leaves out as by what it includes.

The text, he said, focuses on Hezbollah’s obligations and those of the Lebanese state: removing armed elements from south of the Litani and creating zones where the Lebanese army holds exclusive control.

“This point alone explains much of the scepticism within Hezbollah and its political environment,” Jawhar told Al Jazeera. “From the party’s perspective, any agreement should include a clear ceasefire, an Israeli withdrawal, and a framework for addressing outstanding issues, rather than becoming a document focused primarily on restructuring Lebanon’s internal security landscape.”

What else is different this time?

Other points of contention regarding the new agreement are the “pilot zones”, which appear to go beyond stopping the fighting and instead test a new security model in southern Lebanon – one that could eventually be expanded elsewhere, analysts say.

“This is why many observers see these zones as the beginning of a gradual transition from a security environment in which Hezbollah played the dominant role to one in which the Lebanese state and its armed forces become the sole security authority,” Jawhar said.

He added that the fate of the agreement may depend less on Lebanon-Israel talks than on the US-Iran track. If Washington and Tehran reach a wider understanding, the ceasefire in Lebanon will have a stronger chance of holding because both sides will have an interest in stabilising the Lebanese front.

“If those negotiations stall or collapse, Lebanon could quickly return to being one of the main arenas of pressure and confrontation between the two sides,” Jawhar added.

What is the situation in Lebanon now?

Southern Lebanon remained under heavy military pressure on Thursday, with Israeli strikes on Kafra and al-Mansouri in the southwest of the country. In the Bekaa Valley, one person was killed and four others wounded in an Israeli strike on Sohmor, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA).

A separate strike hit Tell al-Aqareb, while further raids targeted Haddatha, Tibnin, Haris, and Harin. The NNA also reported more Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon as drones flew at low altitude over Beirut. In Maaroub, one person was killed and another wounded when Israeli forces targeted a motorcycle.

Israeli warplanes also struck towns and villages across the south, including Zawtar al-Sharqiya, Zawtar al-Gharbiya, Shoukin, Barachit, Srifa, Zibdin, Haris and Deir Zahrani. Jets and drones have also been flying over the south for much of the morning, including a drone seen at extremely low altitude over Tyre.

Lebanon’s Civil Defence authorities have warned people not to return south, citing the continued danger to civilian life in towns and villages across southern Lebanon.

More than 3,000 people have been killed, and more than one million have been forced from their homes since Israel renewed its assault on Lebanon in early March.

Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman has been elected as the 81st president of the 193-member United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). He will assume office when the UNGA session opens in September.

Rahman, who earlier held several portfolios at the UN, won the presidency after defeating Cyprus’s Ambassador Andreas Kakouris in a closely contested vote, taking the helm of the world’s most representative diplomatic body during a time of global geopolitical turmoil.

Who is Khalilur Rahman?

A career diplomat, Rahman joined Bangladesh’s foreign service in 1979. He also held senior UN positions in New York and Geneva, including as the spokesperson for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and as special adviser to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Between 1986 and 1991, he served as the first secretary at the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the UN.

Rahman became foreign minister in February, when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) won the country’s first election since a student-led uprising ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024.

He previously served as national security adviser and the high representative on the Rohingya issue in the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.

Rahman’s presidency will coincide with one of the most consequential processes on the UN calendar – the selection of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s successor – as his term expires at the end of this year.

“The UN will commence its ninth decade at a time when trust in our organisation is being tested on multiple fronts,” he told diplomats assembled at the UNGA as he accepted the new role. “Taken together, these challenges tend to undermine the public trust and confidence in the ability of our organisation to deliver its promises.”

Guterres congratulated Rahman, saying, “Your remarkable political and diplomatic experience are a guarantee of success not only to the General Assembly but to the United Nations as a whole.”

How is the UNGA president selected?

While the presidency of the UNGA is largely ceremonial, it is also prestigious. It is the UN organ where countries large and small can speak, and it is the scene of the world’s largest annual diplomatic gathering.

The UNGA president is normally chosen by acclamation, meaning member states agree on a candidate by broad consensus. If no consensus can be reached, a secret ballot is held; in that rare case, the candidate who wins a simple majority of votes becomes president.

Before this year, the last contested UNGA presidential election was in 2016, when Fijian diplomat Peter Thomson won the presidency of the 71st session in a secret ballot, defeating Cyprus’s candidate by four votes. In 2012, Serbia’s Vuk Jeremic narrowly beat Lithuania’s candidate in another secret ballot. In 1991, Saudi Arabia’s candidate, Samir Shihabi, won the presidency in a contested vote against candidates from Yemen and Papua New Guinea.

In the secret ballot, Rahman secured 99 votes, eight more than his competitor Kakouris. A total of 190 ballots were cast, with no invalid votes or abstentions.

The presidency rotates among the UN’s five regional groups, and the 81st session falls to the Asia Pacific group. Rahman will serve a one-year term starting on September 8, the UN said.

Outgoing UNGA President Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, highlighted how trust towards multilateralism is under growing strain.

The UN is facing “not only headwinds, but immense pressure”, with consensus increasingly difficult to achieve and defence of the UN Charter becoming “a daily necessity”.

“The role of the president of the General Assembly is no longer simply procedural,” she said.

The US administration under President Donald Trump has tried to undermine the UN system, resorting to unilateral actions to tackle complex global geopolitical issues. Washington has withdrawn from several UN organisations, such as the World Health Organization and the Human Rights Council, and cut funding to the global body.

The US president has called the UN a “talking shop”, questioning its purpose during his speech at the annual UNGA meeting last September. “The UN has such tremendous potential … but it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential,” he said.

What is the UNGA?

The General Assembly is the UN’s most representative body, bringing together all 193 member states, each with one vote. Its annual gathering in September in New York is the only UN forum where world leaders from all countries can speak.

The UNGA controls the UN budget, adopts treaties, addresses global issues from poverty to corruption and passes numerous resolutions that, while not legally binding, almost always reflect global opinion.

The UNGA also makes key decisions for the UN, including appointing the secretary-general on the recommendation of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and electing the nonpermanent members of the council.

The coming UNGA session will open on September 8.

On Wednesday, the UNGA elected Austria, Kyrgyzstan, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe to the 15-member UNSC for two-year terms starting on January 1, 2027.

Germany, which had lobbied hard for a seat, failed to win the UNSC seat in a major setback for Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

The council is the only UN body that can make legally binding decisions, such as imposing sanctions and authorising the use of force. It has five permanent veto-wielding members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

United States President Donald Trump has appointed businessman and federal housing regulator Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence (DNI).

Trump made Tuesday’s surprise announcement on social media that Pulte would replace Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii congresswoman who has served as the director of national intelligence until recently.

Trump said Pulte will keep his other positions in addition to taking over from Gabbard, who resigned last month after revealing her husband’s cancer diagnosis.

Who is Bill Pulte?

Pulte, 38, a graduate of Northwestern University, has been director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) since March 2025.

He is heir to his family’s residential development firm – one of the US’s largest homebuilders, PulteGroup, which was founded by his grandfather in the 1950s. He previously founded a private equity firm, Pulte Capital, and is involved in large-scale philanthropic activity.

Pulte is seen as a loyal Trump supporter and has encouraged prosecutions of the president’s perceived political enemies, accusing New York Attorney General Letitia James and California’s US Senator Adam Schiff, both Democrats, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, of mortgage fraud.

A federal grand jury refused to indict James in a Justice Department prosecution in December 2025 after Pulte wrote a criminal referral to the Justice Department, accusing her of listing a home she owned in Virginia as her primary residence to secure more favourable loan terms. Officials have also not brought charges against Schiff, who denies the allegations against him.

Trump attempted to fire Cook – an unprecedented move by a president against a US central bank official – over Pulte’s unsubstantiated accusations, but courts allowed her to remain in the role. She, too, denied the allegations. The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks in her case.

In response to Pulte’s actions, Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer called the newly appointed director of national intelligence a “partisan thug” on Tuesday.

“A guy who can file such baseless, political and outrageous charges against political office holders he doesn’t like can’t be entrusted to protect our national security,” Schumer said.

Pulte’s views on whether the 2020 election was rigged against Trump – a claim many of his appointees have backed despite a lack of any evidence – are not immediately clear. He is understood to have deleted 25,000 social media posts before Trump nominated him to serve as FHFA head in January 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, said during his vetting process for the position.

Trump said Pulte will continue as FHFA director and chair of federally supported mortgage banks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets, and over 10 Trillion Dollars at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, a substantial increase from where it was just 12 months ago,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Pulte, who has no experience in intelligence operations, will oversee 18 intelligence departments including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), which monitors foreign communications and helps defend the US against cyberattacks.

Could Pulte become the permanent intelligence chief?

Pulte can serve in the job for up to 210 days without being confirmed by the Senate. That timeframe would allow him to stay in the post through the November midterm elections, in which Trump’s fellow Republicans are seeking to retain control of Congress.

This is significant, as Republican Senator John Thune said Pulte might have trouble winning confirmation in the narrowly divided chamber if Trump decides to nominate him to the post beyond the current temporary appointment.

“If he’s somebody we want in that position permanently, he’s got a lengthy road ahead of him,” Thune was quoted by news agency Semafor as saying.

What have the reactions to Pulte’s appointment been?

Pulte’s appointment has drawn scepticism from lawmakers and intelligence officials.

“We don’t need a weaponised DNI. We need professionals there,” Senate Majority Leader Thune told reporters on Tuesday. “I’m trying to get more information about the current state of their thinking about that position. And, again, if he’s somebody they want in that position permanently, he’s got, as you all know, a lengthy road ahead of him.”

“I don’t see any evidence of qualifications for that job,” Republican Senator John Cornyn told reporters. Cornyn, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, lost a primary election last week to a Trump-backed challenger.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in response to questions about Pulte’s national security credentials: “I have no observations on the matter.”

Republican Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Cornyn of Texas, all of whom are leaving the chamber after this year’s elections, joined the chorus against Pulte.

“Doesn’t seem qualified,” Cassidy said.

“When we looked at his background for the current confirmation, I thought most of his experience was in the building industry,” Tillis said. “I didn’t know he had any national security experience.”

Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia and the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday: “The concern is not only that Mr Pulte lacks the ‘extensive national security experience’ required by statute for the job, which was created after intelligence failures led to the deaths of thousands of Americans on 9/11. It is that he appears to have been selected precisely because the White House believes he will provide the narrative it wants, not the intelligence we need.”

Senator Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said in a written statement on Tuesday that Trump is now “rewarding his lackey – who has no national security experience – with a perch atop our nation’s intelligence community. What could go wrong?”

EXPLAINER

While a peace deal between the US and Iran remains elusive, Israel has deepened its offensive into southern Lebanon.

The United States military says it has struck Iranian military sites, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it has targeted a US base in response, the latest in a series of exchanges as negotiations to end the three-month US-Israel war on Iran are conducted.

US President Donald Trump also on Monday described Iran as eager to reach an agreement.

“Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the USA and those that are with us,” he posted on his Truth Social platform.

Here is the latest on the US-Iran negotiations as both sides announced on day 94 of the war on Iran that they traded attacks:

In Iran

• Production restored at South Pars: Iran has restored gas production at three offshore platforms in the South Pars gasfield after Israel attacked them in March.
• US says it attacks Iranian military sites: The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said it conducted “self-defense strikes” on Iranian radar and drone sites in the city of Goruk and on Qeshm Island at the weekend.
• Iran executes two men over January protests: Iran executed two men convicted over their role in antigovernment protests in January, according to the Mizan news agency. The men were found guilty of setting fire to a mosque in Tehran, damaging public property and clashing with security forces, Mizan reported.

War diplomacy

• Iran says messages being sent to US: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran is continuing to exchange messages with the US on a deal to end the war.

• Trump’s stance: Araghchi’s comments came after US media reported that Trump has called for tougher terms in the preliminary agreement.

In the Gulf

• Kuwait intercepts missiles and drones: The General Staff of the Kuwaiti army said its air defences were “confronting hostile missile and drone attacks”. If sounds of explosions are heard, they are the result of air defences intercepting the projectiles, the army added.

In Lebanon

• Israel pushes farther into Lebanon: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israel’s military to push farther into Lebanon after Israeli forces made their deepest incursion into the country in more than 25 years.
• Hezbollah says it downs Israeli drone: The Lebanese armed group said it shot down an Israeli Hermes 450 drone over the western sector of southern Lebanon using a surface-to-air missile on Sunday evening. It said in a statement on Telegram that the strike was in response to Israeli violations of a ceasefire that went into effect on April 8.
• Hezbollah strikes Israeli forces in southern Lebanon: Hezbollah also said its fighters fired a large number of rockets and artillery shells at Israeli forces on the eastern outskirts of the town of Yohmor al-Shaqif in southern Lebanon early on Monday.
• US proposes new plan: The US has put forward a proposal to de-escalate hostilities in Lebanon, a US official told Al Jazeera, adding that Secretary of State Marco Rubio held separate talks with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Netanyahu.

In Israel

• Israel said rocket fired from Lebanon intercepted: The Israeli military said it intercepted a rocket that set off sirens in northern Israel and destroyed the launcher from which Hezbollah fired the projectile. Earlier, Israel’s Ynet News website reported that air raid sirens had been heard in Western Galilee, the town of Kiryat Shmona and surrounding areas.

In the US

• The IRGC says it strikes US airbase: The IRGC said it struck an airbase that was used for an attack on a telecommunications tower on Sirik Island, located in the southern province of Hormozgan, Iran’s Fars news agency reported. The IRGC did not specify the location of the facility.
• Trump says Iran wants to make a deal: In a new Truth Social post, Trump claimed Tehran “really wants to make a deal” and whatever deal is reached will “be a good one” for the US “and those that are with us”.

Lawmakers in the United States are quietly advancing a proposal that could deepen military ties between the US and Israel in unprecedented ways, at a time when public support for Israel among Americans is increasingly fractured.

Among the provisions included in the 2027 National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) released this week is Section 224, the “United States-Israel Defence Technology Cooperation Initiative”.

The NDAA, which Congress passes annually to set military policy and authorise defence spending, will undergo further debate and amendments before becoming law. Some legislators have already signalled opposition, with Representative Thomas Massie saying he would seek to remove the provision if it reaches the House floor.

The measure remains at an early stage, but analysts say if passed, it would limit political oversight over the defence relationship.

Analysts added that it could mark a significant shift in the US-Israel relationship, moving beyond a model centred on American military aid towards deeper institutional integration between the two countries’ defence industries and militaries.

Critics argue that such a move would make support for Israel less a matter of political choice and more a structural feature of US national security policy, embedding the relationship within joint military and industrial programmes that would be difficult to unwind.

What does the proposal include?

Section 224 incorporates elements of the US-Israel Future of Warfare Act legislation introduced by Representative Ronny Jackson, according to Track AIPAC. While the legislation did not advance as a standalone bill, key elements of it were instead folded into the NDAA.

The provision would require the US defence secretary to designate an official responsible for coordinating military cooperation between the two countries. According to the text, that official would be tasked with “synchronising cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel”, including “bilateral defence technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration and industrial cooperation”.

The legislation envisages cooperation across a wide range of military technologies. It specifically identifies as priority areas; “counter-unmanned systems including aerial, maritime and ground platforms”, “anti-tunnelling and subterranean threats”, and “missile and air defence technologies”.

The proposal also seeks to deepen collaboration on emerging technologies, including “artificial intelligence, quantum machine learning and autonomous systems”, as well as “directed energy and advanced sensing”, “cyber defence, electronic warfare and digital resilience”, and “biotechnology, biomanufacturing, and medical defence”.

The inclusion of “network integration” and “data fusion” has drawn particular attention because it suggests significantly closer integration of military information systems between the two countries.

The United States and Israel already cooperate on defence projects, including missile defence systems such as Iron Dome. However, analysts say that Section 224 would expand cooperation into nearly every major area of emerging military technology, and could create a “lock-in” between the two countries military infrastructure.

Mark Hilborne, a senior lecturer, the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera the proposal goes well beyond the traditional foundations of the US-Israel defence relationship.

“While historically, the US-Israel defence relationship has included US military aid and weapons transfers, joint missile defence programmes such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow, and intelligence and operational cooperation, the proposed agreement increases cooperation to include a wider set of emerging technologies,” he said.

“So this all suggests a much tighter integration – less about provision and perhaps sharing technologies and capabilities, and more about jointly developing these.

“It would point to a more institutionalised relationship, and perhaps one that might survive changing administrations in the US, as some of the development cycles could be very long and would become entrenched,” he said.

Why is it controversial?

The proposal comes amid growing debate in the US over military support for Israel, particularly as Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza continues, and concerns mount over the use of US-made weapons.

Human rights organisations and United Nations experts have repeatedly raised concerns about Israeli military actions in Gaza, where despite a so-called ceasefire in place since last October, at least 850 Palestinians have been killed. Israel is also advancing into southern Lebanon, where it has killed more than 3,000 people since the beginning of March.

These wars have led to increasing scepticism among Americans towards unconditional support for Israel, recent opinion polls suggest.

A New York Times poll in May found that only 30 percent of respondents believed Donald Trump made the right decision in ordering military strikes against Iran, while 64 percent said it was the wrong decision.

An Institute for Global Affairs poll released last week found that only 16 percent of Americans support continuing weapons transfers to Israel without additional restrictions. Thirty-eight percent said the US should stop supplying weapons entirely, while 24 percent said military aid should be conditioned on how the weapons are used.

Opposition has also emerged from parts of the Republican Party, which traditionally has always been aligned with Israel.

Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene criticised the proposal on social media, writing: “This is what complete capture to a foreign government looks like, and there hasn’t been a single shot fired.”

Massie, who has opposed military aid to Israel, likewise pledged to introduce an amendment removing the provision from the NDAA. The Republican senator was defeated in the primary elections last month, highlighting the financial and political influence of pro-Israel lobby groups in the US.

Influential conservative commentator, Tucker Carlson, has increasingly criticised US support for Israel, reflecting divisions within the broader MAGA movement. Criticism has also intensified among left-wing Democrats, with many calling for restrictions on military aid to Israel.

What could it mean in practice?

Critics of the measures warn that the proposal could create a form of institutional “lock-in” that makes both countries simultaneously reliant on each other for military development and procurement.

Some analysts say such integration would move key aspects of the US-Israel relationship away from highly visible aid votes or commercial contracting, and into the less transparent world of defence procurement and industrial partnerships at a state-to-state level.

Hilborne from the King’s College said the initiative could also have direct implications for Palestinians. “If joint R&D produces more effective technology, then systems related to surveillance, autonomous vehicles, AI and targeting, and various counter-drone or counter-missile technology would be improved, providing a capability boost to Israeli forces operating in Gaza or the West Bank,” he said.

“This enhanced integration would further embed US technology into Israeli forces. These would all be concerns from a Palestinian perspective.”

Critics also point to the economic implications, where expanded co-production agreements could lead to new manufacturing facilities and defence jobs in the United States, creating a further reliance on Israel.

Hilborne also argued that deeper integration could reduce Washington’s leverage over Israel. “The deeper integration may also mean that the US loses some degree of leverage over Israel, as it would be less able to withhold certain capabilities from Israel,” he said.

“As a consequence, Israel might be emboldened in its policies.”

The proposal could also have implications beyond the US-Israel relationship, according to Imad Salamey, an international relations professor at the Lebanese American University. “The proposed US-Israeli defence integration can be seen as the next phase of the Abraham Accords: moving from normalisation toward a US-backed regional security regime centred on Israel as the dominant military and technological hub,” he told Al Jazeera.

Such a framework would strengthen efforts to contain Iran, limit Turkiye’s independent regional influence and deepen security cooperation with Arab partners, he said.

“For Lebanon and Gaza, it may translate into greater pressure to accommodate Israeli-led security arrangements as part of a broader emerging Middle Eastern order.”

Whether Section 224 survives the legislative process is uncertain.

But its inclusion in the NDAA shows how some politicians, many backed by the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, are attempting to bind the two countries’ militaries closer together, creating long-term industrial links that future administrations may find difficult to reverse.

After two years of relentless bombardment and ground invasions, Israel’s future in Gaza had appeared to be settled with the signing of United States President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan on October 9, 2025.

Under the terms of that agreement, Israeli forces were meant to withdraw behind what planners called the “Yellow Line”, maintaining control of 58 percent of the territory, with their full withdrawal to be set at a date to be determined.

That withdrawal hasn’t happened. In fact, in the months since, as well as killing at least 922 people in near-daily strikes on the enclave during the “ceasefire”, Israel has expanded its territory by about 11 percent.

According to satellite data gathered in March, it has also established at least 32 military outposts, a ground barrier and infrastructure along what was supposed to be a temporary line.

Since October last year, numerous humanitarian agencies, including Oxfam, have accused Israel of compounding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by restricting deliveries of aid and other essential goods.

Then, on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will take over yet more territory in Gaza, telling a conference: “We are currently squeezing Hamas; we now control 60 percent of the territory of the Strip – you know this. We were at 50. My directive is to move to …,” he said, pausing briefly as someone in the crowd yelled, “100!”

“Let’s go step by step,” he responded, “First of all, 70. Let’s start with that. We’re pressing them from all sides, we’ll deal with the remnants.”

Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli prime minister’s office for clarification of this, but received no response by the time of publishing.

Can Israel just grab more land in Gaza?

“If Israel’s ultimate plan is to exercise permanent effective control over the entirety of the Gaza Strip, we are talking about unlawful annexation,” Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College in Dublin, told Al Jazeera.

“As the International Court of Justice reaffirmed in a 2024 advisory opinion, annexation constitutes a violation of the bedrock prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force.”

Nevertheless, to date, since the onset of its war on Gaza in October 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 72,819 men, women and children in Gaza, with many thousands more missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

By 2025, Israel had caused a confirmed famine in the enclave and has now decimated nearly all infrastructure needed to support life. It has done all this without experiencing any meaningful international sanctions and still takes part in numerous international sporting and entertainment competitions – despite protests.

Hopes that the US might enforce its own conditions on Israel also appear ill-founded. Since announcing a ceasefire in the enclave in October last year, the US has failed to react as Israel has expanded and entrenched its presence in Gaza, choking off access to about two-thirds of the enclave for its inhabitants by April 2026.

Al Jazeera also contacted the US State Department for comment about this, but received no response by the time of publishing.

Can Gaza’s population survive in such a reduced territory?

It’s very hard to tell. Several agencies, including the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), have expressed deep concern about how Gaza’s remaining population can continue to subsist in an ever-shrinking space.

Israel’s answer to this is simple. “The plan for voluntary emigration from Gaza will also be implemented, all at the proper time and in the proper manner,” Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote in a statement marking the killing of Hamas leader Mohammed Odeh on Wednesday this week.

“Voluntary emigration” is a term used by a number of Israel’s government ministers, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Observers typically acknowledge that this means the ethnic cleansing of the enclave.

Israel’s Ministry of Defence did not respond to questions about this from Al Jazeera.

Is any of this legal?

No.

“The idea of permanently removing Palestinians from Gaza smacks of forced displacement and would also violate the fundamental right to self-determination of the Palestinian people,” Becker said. The principle of self-determination serves as a “cornerstone” of the UN Charter, he said.

However, Becker said, the spotlight of international attention has now shifted from the crisis in Gaza to the US and Israel’s war on Iran, as well as Israel’s actions in Lebanon, where it has occupied large swaths of the south of the country.

“While the Trump administration may be willing to diverge from Israel’s interests in seeking a resolution to the disastrous and illegal war that the United States started against Iran, the United States seems to have lost interest in Gaza or pushing for restraint on the part of Netanyahu’s government. It is unclear what role the so-called Board of Peace is willing to play in terms of maintaining a future for the Palestinians of Gaza,” he said.

Iranian and US forces have continued to exchange strikes despite an April ceasefire, fuelling tensions across the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, while raising fears the fragile truce could unravel as mediation efforts continue in Doha.

On Monday, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said it carried out new strikes on southern Iran, targeting missile sites and boats allegedly attempting to place naval mines. It said the attacks had been carried out in “self-defence” to protect US troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.

On Tuesday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had downed a US drone and fired at a jet and another drone that entered Iranian airspace, according to state media. Iran also said it retained the “legitimate and definite” right to respond to any violations of the ceasefire.

Since a temporary ceasefire was announced on April 8, Iran has continued to control shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies are shipped in peacetime, while US forces have enforced a corresponding blockade on Iranian ports. Negotiations for a long-term ceasefire are ongoing, but repeated military flare-ups in the meantime underscore the deep mistrust between the two sides, experts say, as Iran and the US jostle for leverage amid a back-and-forth of peace proposals from both sides.

Here is what has happened since the ceasefire:

April 8: Ceasefire announced after 40 days of war

The US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, as negotiations between Washington and Tehran progressed via mediators, amid claims that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. While the US and Israel provided no evidence to support their allegation, Iran continued to deny. It responded with missiles and drones targeting Israel and US military and infrastructure assets in the Gulf region and the wider Middle East.

On April 8, following mediation by Pakistan, the two sides agreed to a two-week pause in fighting to allow for further negotiations. Delegations from both countries met in Islamabad on April 11 and 12, but failed to reach a broader agreement, with draft proposals exchanged through Pakistani mediators in an attempt to end the conflict. The ceasefire was extended to allow for more proposals to be exchanged.

At least 3,468 people – aged between eight months and 88 years – have been killed in US-Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28, according to its Ministry of Health. They included seven infants, 376 children and 496 women.

At least 26 Israelis have been killed and 7,791 wounded in Iranian attacks, while the US military has confirmed 13 combat-related deaths across the region. Dozens of people were also killed in the Gulf countries. Lebanon remains the worst hit in the region, where, despite a ceasefire, Israel continues to carry out attacks amid its ground invasion. More than 3,200 people have been killed, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

April 10: Kuwait accuses Iran of drone attacks

The ceasefire faced near-immediate strain when Kuwait said seven drones entered its airspace on April 10. It accused Iran and allied armed groups of the attacks.

Kuwait’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned what it described as violations of its sovereignty and airspace. Separately, the US Department of State accused Iran-linked armed groups in Iraq of launching attacks from Iraqi territory. However, Iran denied any role in the attacks, saying it had not targeted any Gulf country since the ceasefire began.

April 12: US naval blockade deepens tensions

Four days into the ceasefire – and following the collapse of direct talks in Islamabad – the US announced a naval blockade targeting maritime traffic entering and leaving Iranian ports, after talks mediated by Pakistan collapsed. The US argued that Iran had benefitted from continuing to export oil, while the Strait of Hormuz was closed to nearly all other shipping.

The blockade formally came into effect the following day, although Washington said vessels travelling to non-Iranian ports would be allowed past.

Iran condemned the move as “illegal”, warning that ports in the Gulf region would not be safe if Iranian ports were threatened.

The blockade came after Iran tightened its control over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, restricting some foreign ships while allowing passage to countries it viewed as friendly.

The International Maritime Organization has said no country has the right to block shipping in international transit straits.

April 18-22: Ship seizures, attacks at sea

On April 18, Iranian forces fired on two Indian ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which it said did not have permission to pass.

Maritime tensions escalated further on April 20, when US forces seized an Iranian container ship near the Gulf in a move Iran described as an “act of piracy“. CENTCOM and US President Donald Trump said the vessel, the Iran-flagged Touska, had ignored orders to withdraw from its route through the Strait of Hormuz.

Days later, on April 22, the IRGC fired on three ships in the strait and seized two foreign container vessels, the Panama-flagged MSC Francesca and the Liberian-flagged Epaminondas, saying they lacked authorisation to transit the waterway.

The incident came the day after Trump extended the ceasefire while maintaining the US naval blockade on Iranian ports.

May 4: UAE refinery fire blamed on Iran

On May 4, the United Arab Emirates accused Iran of launching missiles and drones at the country, triggering a fire at an oil refinery in Fujairah and wounding three Indian nationals.

The UAE said its air defences had intercepted 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and four drones launched from Iran. Abu Dhabi condemned what it described as “unprovoked Iranian attacks” on civilian infrastructure.

The UAE said the attacks were the first on its territory since the ceasefire had commenced on April 8. The strikes came as Trump launched a new effort to escort stranded oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, much of which had remained closed since the war began.

Iran’s military warned commercial vessels against accepting US escorts and threatened to attack if they entered the strait. Trump abandoned the effort after one day.

May 14: Commercial vessels targeted again

On May 14, an Indian cargo ship transporting livestock from Africa to the UAE sank off the coast of Oman, while the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported that “unauthorised personnel” boarded another vessel near Fujairah and redirected it towards Iran.

India condemned the attack, saying commercial shipping and civilian sailors continued to be targeted despite the ceasefire.

May 17: Drone strike close to UAE’s Barakah nuclear plant

A drone strike has sparked a fire on the perimeter of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), raising new concerns over a potential new regional escalation amid a fragile ceasefire between Iran and the United States.

Authorities in Abu Dhabi said the blaze broke out at an electrical generator outside the plant’s inner perimeter in the Al Dhafra region on Sunday. No injuries were reported, and officials said radiation levels remained normal. The UAE did not specifically blame Iran, but said the drones ⁠had been launched from the “western border”.

May 17: Drones intercepted in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia also said it intercepted three drones fired from Iraqi airspace. The Saudi ⁠defence ministry said it would take “necessary operational measures” in the event of any attempt to violate its sovereignty and security.

Talks continue despite distrust

Diplomatic efforts to secure a broader peace agreement are continuing. Senior officials from Iran travelled to Qatar this week for negotiations aimed at ending the US-Israel war on Iran, with discussions reportedly focused on the release of frozen Iranian assets.

Iran is also seeking sanctions relief for its oil and petrochemical exports during a proposed 60-day period to hold talks about its nuclear programme. A further proposed 30-day timeframe would see the US lift its blockade of Iranian oil ports while Tehran restores commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Tehran is also seeking guarantees related to a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israel continues to strike and occupy towns and villages in the south of the country. Meanwhile, Trump is reportedly attempting to link the negotiations to efforts for Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan to normalise ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords.

Analysts say any agreement remains politically sensitive, with deep distrust persisting as all sides seek leverage to secure a deal they can present domestically as a victory.

EXPLAINER

Israeli strikes kill 31 in Lebanon as attacks intensify and displacement orders spread.

Israeli attacks across southern Lebanon killed at least 31 people and wounded 40 others on Tuesday, as Israeli forces intensified strikes and issued dozens of displacement orders for towns and villages in the country’s south and east.

Panic spread across southern Lebanon as residents fled the escalating assault, with Israeli ground forces reportedly pushing deeper into Lebanese territory amid fears of a wider offensive.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials condemned what they called “blatant violations” of the ceasefire by the United States after attacks on southern Iran on Monday, saying the strikes had further damaged already fragile diplomatic efforts.

Here is what we know:

In Iran

• Iran accuses US of violating ceasefire: Iran said the US violated the ceasefire by carrying out strikes near the Strait of Hormuz, complicating efforts to end the war. Iranian officials described the attacks in Hormozgan province as a “gross violation”, while the US claimed the strikes were defensive and targeted missile sites and vessels attempting to lay mines.
• Khamenei warns Gulf states over US bases: In an Eid al-Adha message, Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said the US was losing influence in the Middle East and warned regional countries against hosting military bases that could be used to launch attacks on Iran.
• Iran seeks frozen assets release: Iran’s Tasnim news agency said Tehran is pushing for the release of $24bn in frozen assets as part of ongoing negotiations, with half expected to be unlocked after an initial agreement is signed.
• Internet partially restored: Meanwhile, internet access has begun gradually returning after what NetBlocks described as Iran’s longest nationwide crackdown on online access.

War diplomacy

• US says Iran deal still possible despite strikes: Despite new US attacks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said a peace agreement with Iran remained within reach. The strikes threatened the fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, as China called on all sides to honour the truce and resolve disputes through diplomacy.

In Israel

• Netanyahu warns of ‘more to come’ in Lebanon: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces were “deepening” operations inside Lebanon, with troops “seizing and controlling” territory and expanding what he described as a “security zone”. Speaking after Israeli attacks, Netanyahu also said Israel was intensifying efforts against Hezbollah drones and pledged fighting would continue “until ensuring the full security of Israel’s citizens”.
• US warplanes remain stationed in Israel: Israel’s Kan broadcaster reported an “unprecedented” deployment of US fighter jets and refuelling aircraft at Israeli airports, saying the military presence at Ben Gurion and Ramon airports is affecting civilian aviation capacity. The aircraft have remained in Israel despite the ceasefire with Iran.

In the US

• US senator criticises Trump’s Iran strategy: Democratic Senator Cory Booker said President Donald Trump’s approach to Iran had backfired, arguing the conflict had strengthened Tehran’s position and given it greater leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. Booker said the US was now in a “worse” situation than before the war and accused Trump of leading the country into a costly deadlock.

In Lebanon

• Israeli attacks kill 31 in Lebanon: Recent Israeli ground and air operations killed at least 31 people, as Israeli forces intensified strikes and pushed deeper into Lebanese territory. Israel also issued dozens of forced displacement orders across southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley.
• Hezbollah ‘not losing the war’: Security affairs analyst Ali Rizk told Al Jazeera that Israel’s intensifying military campaign suggests mounting concern over Hezbollah’s resilience on the battlefield, while also reflecting growing political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at home.
• ‘Illusion of a ceasefire is entirely gone’: Reporting from Tyre in southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto said the sharp escalation in Israeli attacks shows that diplomatic efforts to contain the conflict have in effect collapsed. Massive strikes hit eastern Lebanon, including areas near the strategic Qaraoun Dam, while displacement orders spread across dozens of towns and villages. Hitto said civilians were once again facing the “devastatingly familiar reality” of widespread destruction, displacement and fear.

European Union agriculture ministers are meeting in Brussels to discuss the availability of fertiliser as the war on Iran disrupts global supply chains.

The talks come as the European Commission pushes a new Fertiliser Action Plan aimed at supporting farmers who face a significant rise in costs for fertilisers. It is hoped the measures could boost agricultural production and reduce Europe’s dependence on food imports.

The plan includes possible fertiliser stockpiles, emergency support for farmers and measures to increase imports from countries other than Russia and Belarus, which are involved in the war with Ukraine.

It comes amid disruption in the Strait of Hormuz caused by the US-Israel war on Iran. The vital shipping route normally carries about one-third of the world’s seaborne fertiliser trade, raising fears that rising fuel and fertiliser costs could place further pressure on farmers already struggling with high expenses.

While the EU is less directly impacted by fertiliser shortages than some other parts of the world, disruptions to supplies have exposed divisions within the bloc about how to protect food supplies and shield farmers from rising costs.

How exposed is Europe?

Europe imports large volumes of fertiliser, bringing in two million tonnes of ammonia, 5.8 million tonnes of urea and 6.7 million tonnes of nitrogen fertilisers and mixtures in 2024, according to EU data.

The EU also produces its own nitrogen fertiliser, but this depends heavily on imported gas. When conflicts in the Gulf region pushes up gas prices, it also makes fertiliser made inside Europe more expensive.

The blockade has raised concerns over global food security, particularly in Africa and South Asia, where countries are more dependent on Gulf supplies.

The Middle East accounts for only about 3 percent of the EU’s ammonia imports and 1 to 2 percent of its nitrogen fertiliser imports, so the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has not significantly affected European supplies.

But the bloc is still being hit through higher global prices and rising energy costs because European nitrogen fertiliser is made using gas, which has increased in price due to the disruption in the strait –  while some countries are more at risk to rising costs due to low stockpiles.

Nitrogen fertiliser prices in Europe are now about 70 percent above their 2024 average, according to reporting on the commission’s plan.

That vulnerability became clear after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when soaring gas prices forced several European fertiliser plants to scale back or temporarily shut down because production was no longer profitable.

The commission says its new plan combines immediate measures to improve affordability and security of supply with longer-term steps to strengthen domestic production and reduce dependence on imports.

What is the EU proposing?

The plan includes emergency financial support for farmers through the EU agricultural budget, liquidity schemes and more flexible advance payments under the Common Agricultural Policy.

The commission is also looking at ways to support farmers who reduce their reliance on synthetic fertilisers, including through bio-based alternatives and more efficient fertiliser use.

In a second measure, the EU has moved to suspend duties on some nitrogen fertilisers, including urea and ammonia, from countries other than Russia and Belarus. Some nitrogen fertiliser imports currently face tariffs of between 5.5 and 6.5 percent. The Reuters news agency reported that the suspension could save importers about 60 million euros ($68m).

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the plan was aimed at building “a stronger European fertiliser industry” while supporting farmers and accelerating “sustainable, home-grown solutions”.

But Irish Agriculture Minister Martin Heydon warned that rising fertiliser prices caused by the Middle East crisis would affect the cost of food production and the competitiveness of European farmers.

“The rise in fertiliser prices as a result of the Middle East crisis will impact on the cost of food production and, consequently, on the economic sustainability and competitiveness of European farmers,” he said.

Which countries are most exposed?

The impact is not evenly spread across Europe, with Ireland particularly vulnerable because it has little domestic fertiliser production and depends heavily on imports. Its livestock-heavy farming system also relies on nitrogen fertiliser for grassland, with many farmers buying supplies between February and September.

Ireland imported 1.7 million tonnes of fertiliser in 2025, leaving farmers exposed to international price swings.

Other countries are better prepared. Finland has long maintained security-of-supply stockpiles that include fertiliser, grain and fuel. Sweden has also announced plans to stockpile fertiliser, seeds and grain as part of its “total defence” strategy after joining NATO.

There are also divisions inside the EU over how far Brussels should go. Italy and France have pushed for relief from the bloc’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which adds costs to carbon-intensive imports.

Some farming unions argue that the carbon levy has become another cost for farmers at a time of crisis. Environmental groups, however, have warned Brussels not to weaken nitrogen pollution rules, saying that doing so could increase pollution and health costs if excess nitrates enter water supplies.

Poland and Germany, meanwhile, home to major nitrogen fertiliser producers, have been more focused on opposing any measures that could weaken protections for domestic industry – and are therefore more opposed to reducing levies on imports.

Will food prices rise?

EU officials are not expecting an immediate food price shock, with many farmers in the bloc still using fertiliser bought long before the Iran war disrupted supply chains.

But officials are concerned that higher fertiliser costs could create problems in supply chains later in the year. Fertiliser affects food prices with a delay, as gas becomes fertiliser, fertiliser then feeds crops, and crops eventually become food – so the effects are often felt up to six months after the initial disruption.

Meanwhile, there are fears that anger in rural areas already hit by higher fuel, energy and input costs could lead to a backlash against green policies in the EU at a time when right-wing and populist parties are gaining ground in Europe.

But Europe still remains less exposed than many regions. The most severe risks are in countries more dependent on Gulf fertiliser and energy supplies, especially in parts of Africa and South Asia.

A new report warns that Britain is undergoing a “deeply troubling transformation” in how it treats political protest as climate activists and pro-Palestine campaigners increasingly face lengthy prison sentences, sweeping legal restrictions and months in jail before trial.

The report, Britain’s Political Prisoners, copublished by researchers at the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London and the campaign group Defend Our Juries, said the UK has “witnessed an increase in anti-protest powers granted to the police and the courts through legislation” that has “created a significantly more repressive legal terrain for activists engaging in civil disobedience and direct action”.

It traces the shift from crackdowns on protests by Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil to more recent prosecutions linked to Palestine solidarity actions, including campaigns targeting British factories operated by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.

The report, released on Tuesday, found that a combination of new laws, broader police powers and increasingly punitive court tactics has reshaped Britain’s protest landscape since 2019.

The United Kingdom has witnessed numerous mass protests and direct actions by activists to pressure the government to stop selling arms to Israel during its genocidal war on Gaza, in which more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 40,000 women, children and elderly.

So what does Britain’s shifting stance on protests mean for civil rights, and what’s behind the legal clampdown on climate and pro-Palestine protests?

How Britain’s legal system has changed since 2019

The report painted a stark picture of how Britain’s legal system has changed in response to climate and pro-Palestine direct action campaigns through a mix of new laws, expanded police powers and what campaigners describe as increasingly punitive court tactics. What this means for protesters is longer jail sentences, stricter bail conditions and harsher treatment in the courts than was once typical for acts of civil disobedience, according to the report.

At the centre of that shift are two major laws introduced after waves of demonstrations by groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, two environmental groups that employ nonviolent civil disobedience tactics to pressure governments to address the climate crisis.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 transformed the old common law offence of “public nuisance” into a formal criminal offence carrying a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. This means actions that seriously disrupt the public – such as blocking roads, stopping traffic or shutting down infrastructure – can now lead to far more severe criminal penalties than before because the offence was never previously codified into legislation. Campaigners said the law has given prosecutors a powerful new tool to pursue long prison sentences against protesters.

The Public Order Act 2023 introduced a series of protest-specific offences in May of that year, largely in response to climate protests by groups including Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion, whose actions included blocking motorways, occupying oil terminals and targeting infrastructure projects in an attempt to pressure the government to halt new oil and gas extraction.

Such offences under the act included “locking on”, in which protesters attach themselves to roads, buildings, vehicles or each other using chains, glue or other devices to make removal difficult. The law also criminalised tunnelling, a tactic used by some activists to delay infrastructure projects, and introduced offences for disrupting major transport networks, oil terminals and other nationally important infrastructure. 

The legislation also significantly widened police powers whereby officers may now place restrictions on even one-person protests if they are deemed disruptive. Police were also granted powers to carry out stop-and-search operations in designated protest zones without needing reasonable suspicion that someone has committed an offence – a significant expansion of police authority criticised by civil liberties groups.

But the report argued the crackdown extends beyond parliament and into the courts.

One of its central findings is the growing use of civil injunctions and contempt of court proceedings against activists.

Oil companies, arms manufacturers, councils and universities have increasingly obtained court orders banning protests near their sites, the report said.

The report identified contempt of court as the most common route to imprisonment among the 249 protest-related cases it analysed. Contempt of court usually refers to someone disobeying a judge’s order or behaving in a way the court says interferes with justice. In protest cases, it has increasingly been used against activists who ignore injunctions or refuse to follow restrictions imposed during trials.

Because contempt proceedings are handled directly by judges rather than juries, campaigners argued they allow courts to imprison protesters more quickly and with fewer legal safeguards.

Researchers also highlighted what campaigners described as the “gagging” of defendants. Judges have increasingly stopped protesters from mentioning climate concerns, Gaza, international law or their political motivations in front of juries.

Courts have often argued that juries should focus only on whether a defendant broke the law, not on the political or moral reasons behind their actions. Critics said those restrictions prevent activists from fully explaining why they protested in the first place.

Campaigners also said the legal shift reflects a broader political change, driven in part by corporate lobbying under successive Conservative governments and continuing under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government. They argued that peaceful protest is increasingly being criminalised to protect corporate interests, regardless of wider ethical concerns about the supply of arms to Israel during its war on Gaza or opposing fossil fuel projects linked to the climate crisis.

Perhaps most controversially, the report pointed to the growing use of lengthy pretrial detention. That means protesters being held in prison before they have been convicted of any crime.

According to the findings, many activists spend months on remand awaiting trial while some Palestine Action defendants have been held for more than a year before their cases are heard in court.

In 60 percent of the cases studied, the final sentence handed down was shorter than the time defendants had already spent in custody awaiting trial.

Are lobbyists influencing the crackdown?

Tim Crosland, director of Defend Our Juries, said the findings challenge Britain’s claims of ensuring democratic protections.

“This report strips away the illusion that Britain remains committed to democratic principles,” Crosland said.

“It reveals that peaceful protesters are being jailed in ever-increasing numbers under pressure from the oil and arms industries, the Israeli government and their lobbyists.”

The report pointed to what it described as growing political and corporate pressure behind Britain’s crackdown on protest movements.

Researchers cited reports that parts of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act may have originated in proposals from the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. According to the investigative news site Open Democracy, Policy Exchange has previously received funding from ExxonMobil. The think tank had earlier published a report titled Extremism Rebellion, which called for new laws targeting Extinction Rebellion activists.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the links between the think tank and the legislation.

The report further alleged that British officials came under pressure from both Elbit Systems and the Israeli government to take a tougher approach towards Palestine Action protests targeting Elbit’s UK factories.

According to correspondence quoted by the researchers, the British government said in 2022 that it had “expressed our support in recognising the attacks and boycott on Elbit UK”. The report said the issue was later raised directly with then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab during a visit to Israel, where he reportedly “declared that the British government is committed to stopping the attacks”.

Zoe Blackler, founding director of the London events space Kairos, said: “In the face of this clampdown on the right to peaceful protest, we need to come together in solidarity and defiance.”

Which are the cases at the centre of Britain’s protest crackdown?

The report traced Britain’s hardening response to the protests through a series of landmark cases involving climate activists and Palestine solidarity campaigners, many of whom received lengthy prison sentences or spent months behind bars before trial.

Among the most high-profile is the case of the Whole Truth Five, a group of Just Stop Oil activists jailed in July 2024 over a Zoom call discussing plans to disrupt the M25 motorway. The five were convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and initially sentenced to between four and five years in prison.

The report described the case as one of the clearest examples of the tougher approach now being taken towards protest movements. Campaigners argued the sentences were extraordinary because the activists were punished largely for planning disruptive action rather than carrying it out. Prosecutors relied on conspiracy laws, which allow people to be charged for agreeing to commit an offence even if the planned action never ultimately happens.

Four Palestine Action activists were also sentenced to between 23 and 27 months for conspiring to damage an Israeli-linked arms factory in Wales. Meanwhile, four Just Stop Oil activists received prison terms of up to 30 months over plans to disrupt Manchester Airport despite never reaching the site. A fifth defendant, Noah Crane, spent almost a year in jail on remand before later being acquitted.

Another major case involved the Filton 24, Palestine Action activists prosecuted after a protest at an Elbit Systems factory in Bristol. Some defendants were held on remand for up to 18 months before trial.

After several activists were acquitted of aggravated burglary charges, most were eventually granted bail.

The report said the case raises “serious concerns” that prosecutors used unusually serious charges to justify holding defendants in prison for long periods before trial.

The report also highlighted the Brize Norton Five, activists accused of spray-painting air force planes in protest against Britain’s military links to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. According to the report, the group has remained on remand since August and is not expected to stand trial until 2027, meaning some could spend close to two years in jail before a verdict is reached.

Other cases revealed the growing use of judicial “gagging orders”.

During the retrial of the Filton 6, a separate trial from the Filton 24, the judge barred defendants from mentioning Gaza, Elbit’s role in supplying weapons to Israel and their political motivations for protesting. Critics argued such restrictions make it harder for juries to hear the broader context behind direct action campaigns.

In another case, three Insulate Britain activists were imprisoned for contempt of court after defying a judge’s order not to mention the “climate crisis” or “fuel poverty” before a jury.

Despite the legal restrictions, several juries continued to acquit activists. The report pointed to acquittals involving Just Stop Oil protesters, Extinction Rebellion activists and a hung jury in the first Filton 6 trial as evidence that some jurors remained unconvinced by the increasingly aggressive prosecution of protest movements.

Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK CEO, told Al Jazeera that “the right to protest is being eroded before our eyes.”

“We’re seeing a worrying shift where the state is using remand, sweeping injunctions and contempt proceedings to lock people up or silence them before they’ve even stood trial.

“The broader legal implications here are concerning. It’s not just about one group of activists; it’s about a systemic attempt to shut down dissent, something we’ve been ringing the alarm on for a long time.

“By replacing the presumption of liberty with preemptive legal intimidation, it creates a chilling effect, undermines the rule of law and flies in the face of basic human rights.”

At least 24 people were killed and more than 50 injured when a suicide car bomb detonated on a train carrying soldiers in Quetta, capital of the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, on Sunday.

The attack came amid Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s four-day visit to China, and the day before his meeting in Beijing with China’s President Xi Jinping, marking 75 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations.

Pakistan is among an exclusive group of countries China regards as an “all-weather strategic partner”, with ties featuring close economic, trade and security cooperation.

Responsibility for the train attack was claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), an armed Baloch separatist group which, apart from calling for an independent state, also strongly objects to large-scale Chinese investment in the region.

While the BLA has long carried out attacks that have killed civilians and members of the security forces in Balochistan and beyond, there has been a recent uptick in such incidents.

We examine what is behind this increase in attacks:

What happened in Sunday’s attack?

Reporting from the scene, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said several houses and buildings adjacent to the railway line were severely damaged in the blast, which caused train carriages to overturn and catch fire.

According to local media reports, a state of emergency was declared at public hospitals in Quetta, with doctors and other medical staff ordered to remain on duty.

Footage shared online showed charred vehicles and train carriages lying on their sides, with thick plumes of black smoke rising into the sky.

Pakistan has experienced several attacks by separatist groups in recent months. The attacks have increased in ferocity and have also targeted Chinese workers amid protests over Beijing-backed infrastructural projects in Balochistan.

As part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project – one of the main arms of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” designed to improve trading routes – China’s Xinjiang region has been connected to Pakistan’s deep-sea Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea in Balochistan.

Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif condemned Sunday’s train attack in Quetta in a post on X.

“Such cowardly acts of terrorism cannot weaken the resolve of the people of Pakistan. We remain steadfast in our determination to eliminate terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” he said.

He added that while initial reports indicated a suicide bombing, this has not been officially confirmed. If it is, Yunas Samad, an emeritus professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Bradford in the UK, told Al Jazeera, “this would reflect tactics that insurgent organisations in the region have increasingly adopted over recent years”.

“There are also persistent claims regarding the circulation of sophisticated weaponry originating from stockpiles left behind after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan,” he said.

Are we seeing a new phase of armed separatist attacks in Balochistan?

According to research gathered by the independent, Islamabad-based think tank Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, Balochistan recorded at least 254 attacks in 2025 – roughly 26 percent more than in 2024.

A December 2025 report published by independent conflict monitor Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) found that separatists had also intensified attacks and pressure on security forces. The report said the number of attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and grenades, mainly targeting convoys and police stations, grew by more than 65 percent in the first 11 months of 2025, compared to the same time period in 2024.

The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) report this year found that there has been more Baloch armed group activity in Pakistan in 2025 as well. The GTI is an annual report published by the Australia-based independent think tank Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).

Its 2026 report states that the BLA was responsible for Pakistan’s largest terror attack of 2025 – when the Jaffar Express, a train travelling from Quetta to Peshawar, was hijacked in March.

The BLA claimed responsibility and reported that six military personnel had been killed. Hundreds of people were taken hostage from the train, which was carrying 400 passengers.

“What can reasonably be said is that, following the earlier coordinated attack on the Jaffar Express, the Pakistani authorities appear to have intensified security measures around transport infrastructure, military personnel and key lines of communication,” Samad, of Bradford University, told Al Jazeera.

“The fact that this latest incident nevertheless occurred may suggest that militant groups retain a significant operational capability despite those efforts,” he noted.

The group stunned Pakistan’s security establishment in 2022 when it ‌stormed army and navy bases. In August 2024, militants carried out coordinated ⁠attacks across Balochistan, including highway assaults in which passengers were pulled from buses and shot after identity checks.

“While statistics in such conflicts are always contested and should be treated cautiously, they do indicate that the intensity of the conflict has not significantly diminished,” Samad said.

“Whether this constitutes an entirely ‘new phase’ is perhaps too strong a conclusion at present. However, it does appear to indicate a degree of resurgence in militant capability and confidence among sections of the Baloch insurgency.”

Who are the BLA and major Baloch armed groups?

The BLA, which has a suicide squad called the Majeed Brigade, says it is fighting for the independence of Balochistan, a province located in Pakistan’s southwest and bordering Afghanistan to the north and ⁠Iran to the west.

It is the largest of several ethnic separatist groups that have been fighting the federal government for decades. Balochistan’s mountainous border region serves as a safe haven and training ground for both Baloch separatist fighters and Islamist armed groups.

The BLA often targets infrastructure and security forces in Balochistan, but has also struck in other areas – most notably the southern port city of Karachi.

The BLA has deployed women suicide bombers, including in an attack on Chinese nationals in Karachi, and was designated a “foreign terrorist organisation” by the United States in August 2025 in a move welcomed by the Pakistani government. Analysts say BLA is particularly known for its ability to recruit young, often well-educated fighters.

The group, separately, was at the centre of tit-for-tat strikes in 2024 between Iran and Pakistan over what each said were armed group bases on each other’s territory, which brought the neighbours to the brink of war.

What is the Baloch cause?

Home to about 15 million of Pakistan’s roughly 240 million people, according to the 2023 census, Balochistan is the country’s poorest region despite its wealth of natural resources, including coal, gold, copper and gas.

These resources generate significant revenue for the federal government – unfairly, according to the BLA, which wants Balochistan’s natural wealth to belong to its people and rejects federal control over resource extraction and security.

The province is Pakistan’s largest by area, but smallest by population. It has a long Arabian Sea coastline, not far from the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz oil shipping lane.

Balochistan is also home to one of Pakistan’s major deep-sea ports at Gwadar, a crucial trade corridor for China’s $65bn investment in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a wing of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative.

The province is home to key mining projects, including Reko Diq, which is operated by Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold and is believed to be one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines.

China also operates a gold and copper mine in Balochistan.

The province – which was annexed by Pakistan in 1948, six months after partition from India in August 1947 – has a long history of marginalisation. It has since experienced at least five separatist uprisings.

Separatist sentiment was particularly high in the 2000s, around the time the BLA emerged. Analysts of Baloch resistance movements say it was led by Balach Marri, the son of veteran Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri.

After the government of military ruler Pervez Musharraf killed prominent Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006, the separatist movement escalated.

Rebel fighters have targeted Pakistan’s army and Chinese interests, in particular the strategic port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, accusing Beijing of helping Islamabad to exploit the province. Fighters have killed Chinese citizens working in the region and attacked Beijing’s consulate and language centre in Karachi.

More recently, the BLA has also attacked civilians and migrant labourers from other provinces, a shift that officials say marks an escalation in tactics.

Pakistan accuses India and Afghanistan of backing Baloch armed fighters, an allegation both countries deny.

“Baloch separatist groups themselves have, at times, sought to internationalise their cause and last year publicly appealed for diplomatic recognition by India,” Samad said.

“However, establishing clear evidence of direct state support is considerably more difficult, and much of the discussion in this area remains politically contested.”

Hundreds of Baloch activists, many of them women, have protested in Islamabad and Balochistan over alleged abuses by security forces – accusations the government denies.

Over time, the BLA has set itself apart as a group explicitly committed to Balochistan’s full independence from Pakistan. Unlike more moderate Baloch nationalist parties, which press politically for greater provincial autonomy, the BLA has consistently rejected compromise.

Why is this significant now?

Regional stability and international investment

The attack comes as Prime Minister Sharif meets with China’s President Xi in Beijing to discuss economic and security cooperation – something the BLA is strongly opposed to.

The movement could pose a challenge to Pakistan’s attempts to retain Chinese and American investment, experts say, if it reveals a deeper instability.

The Baloch separatist movement is one of the major unresolved questions over Pakistan’s statehood. It is a constant reminder of the challenges of the Pakistani state to stay united, they say.

“More broadly, the persistence of insurgency has had implications for Pakistan’s wider political system,” Samad explained. “Security concerns in Balochistan have increasingly shaped governance and political discourse, strengthening the role of the military and security establishment in national affairs and undermining the democratisation process.”

“Internationally, the issue matters because Pakistan remains a nuclear-armed state of enormous strategic importance,” Samad told Al Jazeera.

“While speculation about state fragmentation is highly premature, any significant escalation in internal instability in a country with nuclear capabilities inevitably attracts international concern. For that reason alone, developments in Balochistan are likely to remain closely watched both regionally and globally.”

Rare-earth metals

Another major issue is that geological assessments suggest Balochistan contains 12 of the 17 rare-earth minerals on the periodic table. Rare earths are critical minerals used to manufacture a vast array of modern items, including batteries, clocks, wiring, military hardware, smartphones and semiconductors, among other technological products.

Since the start of his second term, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed plans to diversify Washington’s stockpile of critical minerals in order to reduce reliance on China, which currently dominates the supply and processing of the world’s rare-earth minerals.

When Pakistan’s Prime Minister Sharif met with Trump at the White House in September 2025, he offered the US access to critical minerals and rare earths.

Then, in December 2025, the US announced a $1.25bn investment in critical minerals mining at Reko Diq to drive “economic growth in Balochistan”.

US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will send an additional 5,000 troops to Poland, a surprise move that has deepened uncertainty about Washington’s military posture in Europe.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, Trump linked the decision directly to his relationship with Poland’s right-wing President Karol Nawrocki.

“Based on the successful Election of the now President ⁠of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,” Trump wrote.

But the move comes just days after the Pentagon cancelled the deployment of about 4,000 troops to Poland as part of a wider reduction of US forces in Europe.

The abrupt reversal has fuelled questions about what exactly Trump has ordered – and whether the deployment is driven by military strategy with Europe, or by the US president’s increasingly transactional approach to alliances.

What has Trump ordered and which troops are involved?

While Trump described the move as a new deployment, reports from US media suggest the announcement may actually amount to a reversal of an earlier Pentagon decision.

Last week, the Pentagon abruptly halted the deployment of the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division – a Texas-based unit of more than 4,000 troops that had been preparing to rotate into Poland and Eastern Europe.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump later questioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about why the deployment had been cancelled, telling him the US should not “treat Poland poorly” given its close ties to Washington.

Several reports said some parts of the brigade – known as the “Black Jack Brigade” – had already begun moving equipment and personnel when the deployment was stopped.

The Pentagon has not confirmed whether Trump’s newly announced 5,000 troops are the same soldiers whose deployment was cancelled earlier this month, or whether they will be redeployed from elsewhere in Europe, such as from Germany.

The White House and Pentagon have so far released few other details about this latest deployment.

Poland currently hosts about 10,000 US troops, largely on a rotational basis, according to the Polish government. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the country has become one of Washington’s most important military partners on NATO’s eastern edge and a key hub for Western military aid to Kyiv.

In 2020, Poland and the US signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, expanding military cooperation and helping to formalise a longer-term American military presence in the country.

How has Poland responded?

Nawrocki welcomed Trump’s announcement, calling the Polish-American alliance “a vital pillar of security for every Polish home and for all of Europe”.

“Good alliances are those based on cooperation, mutual respect, and a commitment to our shared security,” he wrote on social media.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski also welcomed the news, saying the deployment would ensure that “the presence of American troops in Poland will be maintained more or less at previous levels”.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also welcomed the move.

“It serves not only for Poland’s security, but for the security of the whole alliance and so also for us,” he told reporters. “So, this is absolutely in our interest.”

Why is Trump doing this?

The announcement appears to mark a sharp reversal from recent signals that the Trump administration was preparing to reduce the US military’s footprint in Europe.

Earlier this month, Washington announced plans to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany after a public row between Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the US-Israeli war on Iran. Trump later suggested the cuts could go even further.

At the same time, Trump has repeatedly accused European NATO allies of failing to spend enough on defence and of not doing enough to support US policy in the Middle East.

Analysts say the decision over Poland also reflects Trump’s increasingly transactional approach to alliances – punishing governments he sees as hostile or unhelpful while rewarding leaders and countries more closely aligned with his brand of right-wing politics.

Germany and Spain have both faced criticism from Trump administration officials in recent weeks over their positions on Iran and defence spending, while Poland’s nationalist government has cultivated close ties with Trump and the wider MAGA movement.

Before meeting NATO counterparts in Sweden, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “Like any alliance, it ⁠has to be good ⁠for everyone who’s involved. There has to be a clear ⁠understanding of what the expectations are.”

“The president’s views, frankly disappointment, at some of our NATO allies and their response to our operations in the Middle East – they’re well documented – that will have to be addressed,” Rubio added. “That won’t be solved or addressed today.”

Poland, by contrast, has emerged as one of NATO’s highest defence spenders, allocating about 4.5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to defence. It has also remained one of Ukraine’s strongest backers and has consistently pushed for a larger US military presence on its territory.

The deployment, therefore, appears both strategic and political – reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank while rewarding one of Trump’s closest allies in Europe at a time when he is openly questioning relationships with other partners on the continent.

But the confusion surrounding the announcement has also highlighted a broader uncertainty hanging over Washington’s Europe policy, with allies still trying to determine whether the administration is reducing its commitment to NATO overall, or simply reshaping it around governments Trump sees as more loyal.

EXPLAINER

US and Iran continue mediated talks, exchanging draft proposals aimed at reaching a formal agreement.

Iran and the United States are continuing mediated talks aimed at ending the conflict, with Iranian media reporting that both sides are exchanging messages and draft proposals to establish a formal framework for an agreement.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent Almigdad Alruhaid reported from Tehran that Pakistani officials were engaged in “intense mediation activity” between the two countries.

The diplomatic push comes as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there were “some good signs” for a possible breakthrough. However, US President Donald Trump also warned Washington could take “very drastic” action if Iran refuses to give up its uranium stockpiles.

Here is what we know:

In Iran

• ‘War crime’ on medical research centre: Iran has accused the US and Israel of committing a “war crime” by bombing the Pasteur Institute of Iran early in the war, after The Lancet journal warned that the attack severely damaged a key pillar of the country’s public health system.

• Thousands rescued from rubble: The Iranian Red Crescent said its aid workers rescued more than 7,200 people trapped beneath rubble during US and Israeli attacks, sharing footage of survivors being pulled from destroyed buildings for the first time.

War diplomacy

• Nuclear ‘red lines’ must shift: Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said the US and Iran will need to move beyond conflicting “red lines” on Tehran’s nuclear programme for negotiations to make progress. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Bandow said both sides must be willing to compromise and continue serious talks if they want to avoid further escalation and move away from war.
• Rubio sees ‘good signs’ in talks: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said negotiations with Iran have shown “some progress”, while cautioning that it remains unclear whether a deal can be reached in the coming days. Rubio said President Donald Trump still prefers a diplomatic agreement, but warned Washington has “other options” if talks fail.
• Pakistani mediation efforts intensify in Tehran: Al Jazeera’s Alruhaid said senior Pakistani officials are engaged in “intense mediation activity” in Tehran as efforts accelerate to prevent further escalation. While one senior Iranian official said negotiators were close to a deal and working on draft texts, another source cautioned it was still too early to say whether a final agreement was within reach.

In the US

• US forces at ‘peak readiness’:  CENTCOM said the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group remains at “peak readiness” in the Arabian Sea, sharing images of warplanes taking off as Washington maintains pressure on Iran amid ongoing mediation efforts.

• US reportedly suffers major Reaper drone losses: Iran has destroyed more than two dozen MQ-9 Reaper drones operated by US forces since the conflict began, according to Bloomberg News. The reported losses are estimated at $1bn, nearly 20 percent of the Pentagon’s pre-war inventory.
• US pauses Taiwan arms sales: Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told a Senate hearing that Washington has paused a $14bn arms sale to Taiwan to ensure the US has enough munitions for its military campaign against Iran, a move Republican Senator Mitch McConnell called “distressing”.

In Lebanon and Palestine

• Israeli strike kills two in southern Lebanon: The Israeli military said it carried out an air raid that killed two people near the Lebanon-Israel border, after detecting what it described as “suspicious movement” in southern Lebanon.
• US sanctions allies of Hezbollah: The US has imposed sanctions on nine people accused of helping Hezbollah undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty and obstruct efforts to disarm the group, including Lebanese politicians, security officials and Iran’s ambassador-designate to Beirut.

• Palestinian envoy condemns aid blockade: Palestine’s UN envoy Riyad Mansour said Israel is continuing to collectively punish more than two million Palestinians through its blockade on aid and ongoing attacks, warning the world must not become “accustomed to seeing Palestinians killed”.

• US urges humane treatment of flotilla detainees: According to Al Jazeera’s Ali Harb, the US State Department said activists detained by Israeli forces after attempting to break the Gaza blockade “must be treated humanely and consistent with international law”, while also reiterating Washington’s opposition to the flotilla movement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in China on Tuesday evening for a two-day visit centred on talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as Moscow and Beijing draw closer amid war, sanctions and an increasingly fractured global order.

Putin’s visit is the second face-to-face meeting he has held with Xi in less than a year and coincides with the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, the agreement that formalised ties between Russia and China following decades of ideological rivalry and mutual suspicion.

The visit comes just days after United States President Donald Trump left Beijing following his own two-day visit to the Chinese capital for meetings with Xi.

Both Moscow and Beijing are navigating tricky relations with Washington, with analysts saying the unpredictability of Trump’s foreign policy has had the effect of pushing Russia and China even closer together.

Their deepening partnership also comes against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, mounting tensions around Iran, and disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz – a crisis that has rattled global energy markets and renewed Beijing’s concerns over the security of its oil and gas supplies.

With one of the world’s most strategically vital waterways under threat, China has increasingly turned towards Russia as a reliable overland energy supplier.

Analysts say Xi’s decision to host Trump and Putin within the space of a week is no coincidence, reflecting Beijing’s attempt to cast itself as a trusted actor in an increasingly fragmented and volatile world order.

How have China-Russia relations changed over the decades?

China and Russia have long occupied a complicated place in each other’s histories. Once bound together through communist ideology and shared opposition to Western capitalism, the Soviet Union and Maoist China later became bitter rivals, with tensions along their 4,300km (2,670-mile) border bringing the two countries close to conflict during the Cold War.

However, that border has since transformed from a frontier of insecurity into one of strategic cooperation and trade.

Neither Xi nor Putin is a frequent international traveller. Putin is the subject of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant over the war in Ukraine, while Xi rarely leaves China other than for carefully choreographed state visits. But both leaders have invested heavily in maintaining personal ties with each other.

The two have repeatedly called each other “friends”, and their relationship has deepened, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which pushed Moscow further into international isolation and forced the Kremlin to look southeastwards for trade amid Western sanctions.

“Russia and China look confidently towards the future,” Putin said in remarks carried by Russian state media ahead of the visit.

He said the two countries were “actively developing cooperation in politics, economics, defence, expanding cultural exchanges, and fostering interpersonal interaction”.

“In essence, jointly doing everything to deepen bilateral cooperation and advance global development for the wellbeing of both nations,” Putin added.

Why Russia needs China

China has become an economic lifeline for Russia as the country’s economy has shifted to a wartime footing, with two-way trade between the countries more than doubling between 2020 and 2024, when it reached $237bn for the year.

But the relationship is also uneven. While China is Russia’s largest trading partner, Russia accounts for only about four percent of China’s total international trade. China’s economy is also vastly larger, and Beijing holds considerably more leverage in negotiations between the two sides.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has become increasingly reliant on Chinese technology and manufacturing. A recent Bloomberg report found Russia was sourcing more than 90 percent of its sanctioned technology imports from China, including components with military and dual-use applications vital to drone production and other defence industries.

China has also emerged as a crucial buyer of Russian oil and other energy products at a time when European markets have largely closed to Moscow in response to the Russia-Ukraine war. With Western sanctions restricting Russia’s options, the Kremlin has few viable alternatives to China’s scale of demand.

Analysts say the imbalance means Beijing is often able to negotiate from a position of strength, securing access to Russian oil and gas at discounted prices while expanding its influence over Moscow’s economic future.

Why China still needs Russia

While the relationship is uneven, it is not one-sided. Russia provides something increasingly valuable in a turbulent world: secure access to vast energy resources beyond vulnerable maritime trade routes.

The war surrounding Iran and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have heightened Beijing’s concerns over energy security, given China’s heavy dependence on imported oil and gas passing through contested shipping lanes.

That has renewed attention on the proposed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, a long-delayed project expected to feature prominently in this week’s discussions.

If completed, the pipeline would transport 50 billion cubic metres of Russian gas annually to China via Mongolia, significantly expanding energy flows between the two countries.

But it is more than just an economic relationship. China also values Russia as a geopolitical partner. Both countries are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and frequently align diplomatically in opposition to US-led policies.

While analysts say China has been careful not to become formally tied to Moscow through a rigid military alliance, the two countries have still gradually reinforced their partnership through increasingly regular joint military exercises, including the “Joint Sea” naval drills that began in 2012.

Last year, China and Russia launched fresh naval drills in the Sea of Japan near the Russian port of Vladivostok, with exercises focused on submarine rescue, anti-submarine warfare, air defence, missile defence and maritime combat operations. Analysts say the drills help signal strategic alignment between Beijing and Moscow without the mutual defence commitments of a formal alliance.

Experts say the strength of the partnership lies in its flexibility. While Western governments have often portrayed the relationship as fragile and driven largely by a shared opposition to the West, analysts say, it may prove more durable because it is rooted in shared economic and strategic interests rather than ideology alone.

Israel and Argentina have launched a direct flight starting in November as the two countries boost their ties under Argentina’s far-right President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The twice-a-week flight comes as Israel is aggressively pushing to cement its geopolitical footprint in Latin America amid its growing international isolation and its entrenched image as an occupying power.

On May 7, Israel’s national carrier, El Al, opened bookings for a direct flight between Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires covering a distance of 12,000 kilometres (7,460 miles) – the longest route in the airline’s history.

However, the 16.5-hour journey is driven by political ambitions rather than mere commercial viability.

During a celebratory event in occupied East Jerusalem last month, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomed Argentina’s Milei to hail the “first direct flight” between the two nations.

The event showcased a striking political alignment, further highlighted by the presence of US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, who jokingly promised to buy the first ticket and described the two leaders as US “President Donald Trump’s biggest friends”.

The route aims to translate the “Isaac Accords” – a Latin American framework inspired by the “Abraham Accords” – into tangible reality. Morocco and Sudan established diplomatic ties with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords signed under President Trump’s first term.

Championed behind the scenes by Rabbi Axel Wahnish, Argentina’s ambassador to Israel, the framework aims to establish strategic cooperation in security, counterterrorism, and artificial intelligence with Latin American nations, including Ecuador, Costa Rica and Paraguay.

Trading tech for legitimacy

Israel is acutely aware that its status as an occupying power, exacerbated by the genocidal war on Gaza, has severely damaged its international standing. To secure recognition and bypass boycotts, particularly from an increasingly critical Europe, Israel is leveraging its advanced military and surveillance technologies.

Ihab Jabarin, an analyst specialising in Israeli affairs, told Al Jazeera that Israel’s strategy has shifted.

“Israel’s moral image has completely eroded,” Jabarin said. “The logic now is: ‘you may not like us, but you need us.’ Israel is offering its expertise in cybersecurity, AI systems like Lavender, border management, and drones – technologies tested on Palestinian bodies and land – to countries grappling with internal conflicts and organised crime,” he told Al Jazeera.

Jabarin noted that Israel uses infrastructure – whether ports, underwater cables, or civilian aviation – as tools for national security and influence. “This flight is not just about transporting passengers; it is a permanent corridor for security and tech businessmen,” he explained.

This strategy of using technology and security to buy diplomatic loyalty mirrors Israel’s approach in Africa. It has forged close ties with Ethiopia, Kenya and Chad. Last December, Israel became the first country in the world to recognise Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia.

It has used smaller island states like Micronesia in the Asia Pacific to secure favourable votes at the United Nations and break its international isolation.

“Israel is trying to create a global network of interests that forces countries to weigh their relationship with Israel against their stance on the Palestinian cause,” Jabarin added. “It wants to make the world unable to live without it.”

The Milei-Netanyahu chemistry

The driving force behind this Latin American link is the ideological bond between Netanyahu and Milei. While left-wing leaders in the region, such as Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have severed ties or strongly condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza, Milei has embraced the Israeli narrative unconditionally.

For Milei, who declared himself the most Zionist president in the world in March, the alliance offers rapid positioning in the Middle East, closer ties to Washington lobbies, and a stance against Latin America’s traditional left. For Netanyahu, Milei offers unconditional emotional and symbolic support that Israel has largely lost in Europe.

“Netanyahu understands the value of a symbolic ally,” Jabarin said. “He needs leaders who can be marketed as proof that Israel can still forge ideological alliances, not just pragmatic ones. Argentina, under Milei, has become Israel’s most important ‘island of influence’.”

A ‘safe haven’ from war crime probes

The direct flight also serves a highly practical security purpose for Israel. With mounting legal challenges and arrest warrants targeting Israeli soldiers and officials in Europe over alleged war crimes in Gaza, the Tel Aviv-Buenos Aires route offers a crucial bypass.

On Tuesday, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister ⁠Bezalel Smotrich said he was informed that the ⁠International Criminal ⁠Court (ICC) ⁠had ⁠requested a warrant for his arrest. Prime Minister Netanyahu is also sought by the ICC for war crimes committed in Gaza.

Currently, travellers between the two countries rely on 21 to 33-hour transit flights through European hubs like Madrid or Paris.

Diego Ruzzarin, a Brazilian writer and analyst, argued that the project aims to secure hassle-free travel for Israelis, particularly military personnel, sparing them from international security interrogations or the risk of arrest in Europe.

Jabarin echoed this assessment, noting that the fear of legal pursuit in Europe is a significant concern within the Israeli establishment.

“The direct flight bypasses any potential legal harassment in Europe,” he said. “Latin America is now appearing in Israeli calculations as a more politically flexible space compared to rights-focused Europe.”

Economic risks and domestic pushback

Despite its strategic value, the flight faces significant logistical and economic hurdles. Because Israeli planes are banned from the airspace of several African nations, including Libya, the flights must take a costly detour over the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

To mitigate the economic risks of the long-haul route, the Israeli government has taken the unusual step of granting El Al a 20-million-shekel ($5.4m) subsidy, spread over three years.

The success of the route will heavily depend on Argentina’s Jewish community – the largest in Latin America, estimated at up to 300,000. According to Sabre data, roughly 55,300 people travelled between the two countries in 2025, a 37 percent increase from 2024, but still below the 71,200 recorded in 2019.

The project has sparked domestic criticism in both countries. In Israel, the transport ministry reportedly warned that pulling Boeing 787 Dreamliners from highly profitable US routes to service Buenos Aires could drive up ticket prices for Israelis travelling to North America.

In Argentina, left-wing congresswoman Myriam Bregman accused Milei’s government of dragging the country into an “imperialist war” without congressional approval, warning of a constitutional overreach.

Furthermore, the influx of Israeli tourists, many of whom are recently discharged soldiers, has caused friction in southern Argentina. Local residents and activists have blamed Israeli tourists for devastating fires in the Patagonia nature reserves due to negligence, the most recent being a massive blaze in January 2026 that destroyed 77,000 hectares (190,000 acres) and led to the arrest of an Israeli tourist.

For Israelis, however, an El Al flight to Buenos Aires carries profound historical symbolism. In May 1960, the Mossad used an official El Al flight to smuggle captured former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann out of Argentina to face trial and execution in Israel.

New Delhi, India — When Argentina’s Gonzalo Montiel converted a penalty to seal his country’s third FIFA World Cup title in December 2022 in Qatar, Lionel Messi fan Vishwas Banerjee celebrated the Albiceleste’s triumph with abandon in Bangalore, a football-crazy city in southeastern India.

Unable to hold back his excitement, Banerjee screamed and tossed his shirt away as he watched the match on a big screen at a street crossing close to midnight.

“It was one of the best nights, watching Messi lift the World Cup,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Everyone went crazy. We danced on the streets,” Banerjee said, reminiscing about the excitement felt more than 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) away in an otherwise cricket-mad country.

While Messi is expected to make his World Cup swan song at the upcoming tournament in North America, football fans in India, the world’s most populous nation, are set to miss out on watching the biggest sporting event.

With just over three weeks to the tournament’s kickoff in Mexico, organisers FIFA have not found any buyers for broadcasting its most coveted product in India.

Here’s what we know about the World Cup broadcast rights crisis in the South Asian nation:

How many people watch the FIFA World Cup in India?

When the World Cup was played in Qatar nearly four years ago, India trailed only China in overall engagement figures, with more than 745 million fans following the action across all media platforms in the country, according to figures released by FIFA.

In television viewing numbers, India was among the top 10 countries – ahead of World Cup participants Germany, France and England – with nearly 84 million viewers.

Digital viewership numbers were also significant in India. For the final alone, an unprecedented 32 million viewers tuned in on Reliance’s JioCinema – a subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming service – as the tournament clocked 40 billion minutes of watch time on the platform.

Reliance’s Jio paid $60m for tournament rights in 2022, while Sony Sports secured broadcasting rights for the 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups, as well as the Euro 2016 championship, for around $90m in 2013.

So when FIFA began selling media rights for the 2026 tournament and the 2027 Women’s Cup, it expected plenty of takers for an estimated price of $100m.

But with 23 days until the tournament and the asking price reportedly slashed significantly, FIFA is still struggling to find buyers in one of its biggest markets.

Why are there no buyers for the World Cup 2026 in India?

Experts say the kickoff times for the majority of the matches are the biggest concern for Indian broadcasters.

With the tournament being staged in the United States, Canada and Mexico, many games will be played at odd hours for the Indian audience, with a 10-12 hour time difference between the host cities and the South Asian nation.

Only 14 out of the total 104 World Cup games will begin before midnight for fans in India.

The final will be held in New Jersey on July 19, beginning at 12:30am in India (19:00 GMT). By comparison, 98.4 percent of matches at the 2018 World Cup started before midnight, and 82.5 percent at the following edition in Qatar.

Karan Taurani, executive vice president at investment firm Elara Capital, sees TV as a “struggling” medium in India.

“When you have these kinds of sporting events, effectively it is mostly digital that is monetising and raising big money,” Taurani told Al Jazeera. “That is a big reason why no one’s showing interest in the FIFA World Cup.”

Taurani explained that cricket leads the sports economy market in India.

“Only a small fraction of people who watch the Indian Premier League [IPL] will watch the FIFA World Cup,” he said, adding that an even smaller fraction tune in past midnight to watch a match.

For broadcasters and advertisers, Taurani explained, these factors shrink the target audience.

He also pointed out that a recent ban by the Indian government on fantasy real-money betting apps had reduced the macro form of money in the sports entertainment industry.

The World Cup begins 10 days after cricket’s IPL 2026 final, one of the most-watched sports events in India and one where major prime-time advertisers focus the majority of their annual sports spending.

The price of football streaming in India has been going down anyway. The English Premier League rights, which were sold for $145m for three seasons between 2013 and 2016, went for $65m for 2025-28. There are no major takers for La Liga matches in India.

FIFA appears increasingly concerned that weak broadcaster interest in India could dent both revenues and its long-term ambition to grow football in one of the world’s largest media markets.

In the capital New Delhi, the high court is hearing a plea on the lack of a tournament broadcast deal and has sought responses from India’s information and broadcasting ministry and Doordarshan, India’s state-owned public television broadcaster.

“Without timely judicial intervention by this court, the petitioner and millions of Indian citizens will be irreparably deprived of their fundamental rights with no adequate alternative remedy,” the petitioner, a lawyer and football fan, has said in the plea.

He claims that missing out on the tournament violates the constitutional protections of freedom of speech.

“It is important to note that by denying access to the information in question or by not taking necessary steps to broadcast the FIFA World Cup, the respondents have directly infringed the petitioner’s fundamental right to acquire and receive information, which is an integral part of freedom of speech and expression under the constitution,” the petitioner argued in the plea.

With China’s state broadcaster signing a late World Cup deal with FIFA last week, there’s still hope and time for football fans in India. However, if no deal is signed, all eyes will turn to Doordarshan, which last beamed the tournament in 1998.

The continuing uncertainty is chipping away at the excitement of the football World Cup. “I’m heartbroken that we will not have any reliable way to watch the World Cup this year,” said Banerjee, the Messi fan from Kolkata.

“But we will tune to pirated streams anyway,” he added. “No one can stop that.”

On Monday morning, a jury in Oakland, California, announced its verdict in one of the most-watched tech feuds between billionaire Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The nine-member jury handed a decisive victory to Altman, saying Musk had waited too long to bring his claims against the artificial intelligence company and its top executives.

Musk, who cofounded OpenAI as a nonprofit, had filed a $150bn lawsuit against the organisation, Altman and its president, Greg Brockman, accusing them of turning it into a for-profit entity for personal enrichment.

The verdict, however, stopped short of resolving the central question at the heart of the case, whether OpenAI betrayed the nonprofit mission on which it was founded in 2015 as it transformed from a research lab focused on benefitting humanity into one of the world’s most powerful AI companies.

Instead, the case became focused on a procedural issue. After deliberating for less than two hours, the jury unanimously found that the statute of limitations had expired before Musk filed the lawsuit in 2024, meaning jurors concluded he had waited too long to bring his claims under the applicable legal deadline. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the finding and dismissed the case.

The ruling removes a major legal threat for OpenAI at a pivotal moment for the company, which is deepening its commercial partnerships, expanding its relationship with Microsoft and moving towards what could become one of the largest public offerings in Silicon Valley history; while for Musk, the ruling leaves room to argue that the case was lost on timing rather than substance.

Shortly after the verdict, Musk repeated his accusations on X. “Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is WHEN they did it!” Musk wrote on X. “Creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America.”

Musk has decided to appeal, ensuring that the increasingly bitter feud between two of Silicon Valley’s most powerful figures is unlikely to end any time soon.

How did Musk and Altman fall out?

Musk and Altman cofounded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Brockman and other researchers at a time when concerns were growing over how AI could reshape society.

The idea, according to testimony and internal discussions presented during the trial, was that the company could focus on building safe AI systems that benefitted humanity rather than prioritising shareholder returns.

Musk and Altman also believed the nonprofit structure would help OpenAI compete with technology giants such as Google by attracting top researchers and positioning the organisation as a mission-driven alternative.

Musk claims he contributed roughly $38m to OpenAI during its early years, but relations between the founders later deteriorated sharply. He resigned from OpenAI’s board in February 2018, officially citing potential conflicts of interest as Tesla became more focused on AI.

But the split deepened after OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary and Microsoft invested heavily in the company. Microsoft has since committed tens of billions of dollars to its partnership with OpenAI, helping transform ChatGPT into one of the defining products of the global AI boom.

Musk became increasingly critical of the company, arguing that OpenAI had moved far beyond the nonprofit vision on which it was founded. In 2023, he launched a rival AI company, xAI, the maker of the Grok chatbot, before filing his lawsuit against OpenAI the following year.

Why did the case collapse?

At the centre of the trial was a relatively technical legal question about when Musk became aware that OpenAI was moving towards a profit-driven structure.

Because the lawsuit was filed in 2024, Musk needed to convince jurors that the alleged wrongdoing occurred within the legal time limit for bringing his claims.

Musk argued that his concerns fully crystallised only in 2023, particularly after Microsoft’s big investments into OpenAI’s for-profit arm.

But OpenAI’s lawyers argued that Musk had known for years that the company planned to pursue a commercial structure and raise huge amounts of outside funding.

Evidence presented during the trial showed that discussions about creating a for-profit arm dated back to at least 2017. Jurors also heard testimony that Altman had sent Musk documents in 2018 outlining plans for OpenAI to raise billions of dollars through a for-profit structure.

Ultimately, the jury sided with OpenAI’s argument that Musk could have filed his lawsuit much earlier – and therefore waited too long.

That meant jurors never had to answer the more explosive question at the centre of the case about whether OpenAI had actually betrayed its founding mission.

What did OpenAI argue?

OpenAI maintained throughout the trial that there was never an agreement to remain a nonprofit indefinitely. Its lawyers argued that Musk understood from the beginning that developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence would require extraordinary levels of funding and computing power.

OpenAI also portrayed Musk’s lawsuit as partly motivated by rivalry. By the time the case reached court, Musk’s xAI had emerged as a direct competitor to OpenAI in the race to develop advanced AI systems.

Meanwhile, OpenAI had become one of the most powerful companies in the technology industry, reportedly valued at more than $800bn and moving towards what could eventually become one of the largest public offerings in history.

Lawyers for OpenAI argued that Musk became hostile only after losing influence within the company and watching Altman turn OpenAI into the dominant force in generative AI.

What questions did the trial leave unanswered?

Although the verdict was a clear legal victory for OpenAI, the trial never became the sweeping test case about the future of artificial intelligence that many had expected.

Because the case was resolved on procedural grounds, the court did not answer some of the biggest questions raised by the AI boom: how these systems should be governed, who should benefit economically from them, and whether companies developing increasingly powerful AI tools can still claim to act in the public interest while pursuing enormous commercial growth.

The trial also touched only briefly on broader concerns surrounding AI development, including transparency, labour and the extraction of data used to train AI systems.

Nicole Turner Lee, director of the Centre for Technology Innovation, told Al Jazeera that one of the central problems surrounding AI is that the technology is deeply “extractive”.

“It does undergo theft where people do not consent as to whether or not their information, their image, their voice, their text are actually being extracted,” she said, raising concerns about compensation and consent in AI training systems.

Those issues remained largely outside the scope of the trial due to it ultimately centring on procedural issues.

The ruling, therefore, also removed the possibility of a far more disruptive outcome that could have threatened OpenAI’s corporate structure, its partnership with Microsoft and the wider wave of investment pouring into the AI industry.

But the broader debate over AI’s future is far from settled. With Musk preparing an appeal, the courtroom battle between the two former allies looks set to continue alongside wider questions about how AI should be governed.

A drone attack that caused a fire close to the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in the United Arab Emirates has raised further concerns about nuclear security and military escalation in the Gulf as discussions of peace between Iran and the United States hang in the balance.

Barakah was the first nuclear power station to be built on the Arabian Peninsula. Here is what we know about it:

What is the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant?

Barakah is a nuclear energy plant located in Al Dhafra, the largest municipal region of the emirate of Abu Dhabi. It is the UAE’s only nuclear power plant.

Construction of the plant began in 2012, and its first reactor became commercially operational in 2021.

The plant is located close to the border with Saudi Arabia, about 225km (140 miles) west of the UAE’s capital city, Abu Dhabi.

The facility features four pressurised water reactors, the most common type of nuclear power reactor. The model used here is the advanced power reactor 1400, a pressurised water reactor design developed in South Korea. Each reactor of this type has the capacity to produce 1,400 megawatts (MW), which is enough to power roughly 1 million homes.

According to the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), the plant’s reactors produce 40 terawatt-hours (TWh) each year, which is equivalent to about 25 percent of the UAE’s electricity needs. The website for the London-based World Nuclear Association also confirmed that Barakah, when fully operational, meets 25 percent of the UAE’s electricity needs.

According to a September report by the Abu Dhabi media office, Barakah had produced 40TWh of clean energy over “the past 12 months”.

Since nuclear power plants produce a lower amount of carbon dioxide emissions than conventional power plants, the ENEC said Barakah saves up to 22.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, equivalent to removing 4.8 million cars from the roads.

What happened in the attack on Sunday, and how has the UAE responded?

Authorities in Abu Dhabi said a single drone strike caused a blaze to break out at an electrical generator outside the Barakah plant’s inner perimeter in the Al Dhafra region on Sunday. No injuries were reported, and officials said radiation levels remained normal.

The UAE’s nuclear regulator said operations at the Barakah facility had not been affected. “All units are operating as normal,” it said in a social media post.

In a statement, the UAE’s Ministry of Defence said two more drones had been “successfully” intercepted and the drones had been launched from the “western border”. It did not give more details.

The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a statement on X on Sunday saying the country condemned “the unprovoked terrorist attack” in “the strongest terms”.

The statement added: “The UAE emphasised that it will not tolerate any threat to its security and sovereignty under any circumstances, and that it reserves its full, sovereign, legitimate, diplomatic, and military rights to respond to any threats, allegations, or hostilities in a manner that ensures the protection of its sovereignty, national security, territorial integrity, and the safety of its citizens, residents, and visitors, in accordance with international law.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and the statements by the ministries did not publicly blame any country.

But Anwar Gargash, an adviser to the UAE’s president, wrote in an X post on Sunday: “The terrorist targeting of the Barakah clean nuclear power plant, whether carried out by the principal perpetrator or through one of its agents, represents a dangerous escalation and a dark scene that violates all international laws and norms, in criminal disregard for the lives of civilians in the UAE and its surroundings.”

Gargash’s post appeared to blame Iran and its proxy network of allied armed groups in the region, which Tehran calls the “axis of resistance”.

The launch point of the drones remained unclear, but on Sunday, Saudi Arabia also reported it had intercepted three drones that had been launched from Iraq, where some Iran-allied groups operate. If Iranian Shahed-136 drones, which have an estimated range of 2,000km to 2,500km (1,240 to 1,550 miles), were fired from Iraqi territory, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE would fall well within their reach.

Other reactions

Neighbouring Gulf states Saudi Arabia and Qatar condemned the attack on the Barakah plant.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kuwait also issued a statement denouncing the attack, which it called “heinous”.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs condemned the attack, calling it “unacceptable”, saying it represented “a dangerous escalation” and urging a return to diplomacy.

Has Iran responded to the incident?

Iran has not claimed responsibility for the drone attacks, and there has been no public statement from Iran about the incident at Barakah.

However, in the aftermath of the drone attacks, United States President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post: “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”

Iranian Ministry of Defence spokesperson Reza Talaei-Nik said on Sunday that the military is “fully prepared” to confront any new aggression from the US and Israel.

Iran has previously warned that countries where US military assets are deployed or Israeli-linked interests are located are viewed as legitimate targets.

Iran has also accused the UAE of strengthening ties with Israel while reports have emerged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a “secret” visit to the Gulf state during the US-Israel war on Iran. The UAE has denied this.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also said last week that Israel had deployed Iron Dome air defence systems and personnel to the UAE to help defend against possible Iranian attacks.

What has the IAEA said?

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global nuclear watchdog, said Sunday’s incident in the UAE had forced one reactor to rely temporarily on emergency diesel generators.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi expressed “grave concern” and warned that military activity threatening nuclear facilities was “unacceptable”.

How serious could a strike on a nuclear facility be?

Attacks on nuclear power plants are especially worrying because they can risk damaging critical safety systems or reactors, which could release radioactive material into the atmosphere, not only over the country targeted but also across neighbouring states. Radiological material, specifically the hazardous isotope Caesium-137, could be released into the atmosphere.

The release of radioactive material could result in environmental contamination and poses major risks to public health. Water, if contaminated, becomes undrinkable while farmland and fisheries could become unsafe for decades, depending on the isotope released.

Short-term, acute exposure to radioactivity can cause burns and acute radiation sickness, which can be life-threatening.

Prolonged exposure, even to smaller doses, can increase the risk of illnesses such as cancer, especially thyroid cancer and leukaemia. Children and pregnant women are especially vulnerable.

Over the course of the US-Israel war on Iran, energy infrastructure has become a target.

Iran’s only functioning nuclear plant, the Bushehr power plant, has come under repeated attacks in the war. There are fears that damage at Bushehr could contaminate water across the entire Gulf region, most of which lacks groundwater and relies heavily on the desalination of seawater. Desalination plants are not specifically built to filter radioactive material, and not all plants currently are fitted with the technologies required to do so.

EXPLAINER

The fear of renewed US strikes in Iran looms while Israeli attacks continue in Lebanon despite extended ‘ceasefire’.

United States President Donald Trump has warned Iran that the “clock is ticking” to clinch a deal to end the war as reports have emerged that Washington and Israel might be planning to carry out air strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure.

“For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”

Iranian Ministry of Defence spokesperson Reza Talaei-Nik said on Sunday that the military is “fully prepared” to confront any new aggression from the US and Israel.

Saudi Arabia on Monday said it intercepted three drones, a day after a drone strike hit the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in the United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, Israel has continued its bombardment of Lebanon despite another “ceasefire” extension.

As the US-Israeli war on Iran continues for its 80th day, here is what we know:

In Iran

• Mohsen Rezaei, a member of Tehran’s Expediency Council and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, issued a warning to the US to lift its blockade of Iranian ports, saying the Iranian military is ready for further confrontation. Rezaei made this warning while speaking to state television.
• Talaei-Nik said the Iranian armed forces are “fully prepared to confront any new potential attack by the US and the Israeli regime against the country”.

War diplomacy

• Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organisations in Vienna, suggested in an X post that Iran appoint a special envoy to Moscow, similar to Tehran’s arrangement with China.
• In an X post, Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leading figure of France’s left-wing La France Insoumise party, condemned “European complicity” in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, which have triggered a wider regional war.

In the Gulf

• The New York Times reported that the Israeli military has operated two “covert” outposts in Iraq’s western desert and killed a shepherd and a soldier in a bid to hide one of the sites near the town of al-Nukhaib.
• After the drone attack on the nuclear facility caused a fire, the UAE Ministry of Defence said two other drones had been “successfully” dealt with after they were launched from the “western border”. It did not elaborate.
• The drone that got through the UAE’s defences hit an electrical generator outside the inner perimeter of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said. Radiological safety levels were unaffected, and there were no injuries, it said. The UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation later confirmed that the plant remained safe with no radioactive material released from the strike.
• Saudi Arabia said the three drones it intercepted entered from Iraqi airspace and warned that it would take the necessary operational measures to respond to any attempt to violate its sovereignty and security.

In the US

• Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former US congresswoman and a once-close ally of Trump, has warned in a post on X that any attempt to send US troops into Iran would trigger what she described as a “political revolution”.
• Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, speaking to the NBC broadcaster, urged Trump to “hurt” Iran, including launching attacks on its energy sites, until it agrees to US terms on its nuclear programme. The US and Israel have hit civilian targets multiple times during the war on Iran. Attacks on civilian facilities are considered war crimes under international law.

In Israel

• Israel’s Channel 13 reported that dozens of US cargo planes carrying ammunition from bases in Germany have landed in Tel Aviv.
• Israeli media reported that the military is preparing for renewed hostilities with Iran. The public broadcaster Kan quoted an unnamed security official as saying that Israel would join any new US strikes and target Iranian energy infrastructure.

In Lebanon

• Israeli strikes have continued in southern Lebanon, where Israel issued evacuation orders for four towns and villages and then struck two of those locations.
• Strikes were also reported in Az-Zrariyah on a moving vehicle while another raid in Tayr Debba resulted in some significant casualty numbers, Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto reported from Tyre, Lebanon.

Global markets

• Stalled peace efforts between Iran and the US caused oil prices to rise again on Monday. This pushed the price of the global benchmark Brent crude up to about $111 per barrel, close to its highest level in weeks.

Nearly 2 million Muslims are preparing to embark on the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, which begins on May 25, following the sighting of the crescent moon in Saudi Arabia.

The Hajj is the largest annual gathering of Muslims from all over the world and a once-in-a-lifetime journey for many. It is also the fifth pillar of Islam.

In this visual explainer, we look at how Muslims perform the Hajj, including the key steps, rituals and preparations.

What is Hajj?

The Hajj is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is the fifth and final pillar of Islam, along with the declaration of faith (shahada), five daily prayers, obligatory charity (zakat), and fasting during the month of Ramadan.

The word comes from the Arabic root “h-j-j”, which means “intending a journey” or “to set out for a definitive purpose”.

It is obligatory once in a lifetime for all adult Muslims who are physically and financially able to undertake the journey.

When is the Hajj performed?

The Hajj is performed between the 8th and 12th (or 13th) of Dhul-Hijjah, the 12th and final month of the Islamic calendar.

The timing falls roughly 70 days after the end of Ramadan, though this can vary slightly depending on the lunar cycle.

In 2026, the Hajj will take place from May 25 to May 27, but many pilgrims arrive in Saudi Arabia weeks before to prepare for the journey.

Because the Islamic calendar follows a lunar cycle, with months lasting 29 or 30 days, the Hajj shifts 10 to 12 days earlier each year in the Gregorian calendar.

Why do Muslims perform the Hajj?

Muslims believe that the Hajj is a direct commandment from God, as outlined in the Quran.

Prophet Muhammad’s “farewell pilgrimage” in 632 AD affirmed the steps in the 10th year of the Islamic calendar, and it is mentioned in the Quran nearly a dozen times.

The Hajj begins before pilgrims even enter Mecca.

The journey is a spiritual one, and it is considered to allow Muslims to seek forgiveness, purify their souls and demonstrate their submission to God.

How is the Hajj performed?

Muslims perform many rites and rituals during the five days of Hajj, which can be explained in the following steps.

Day 1

Ihram: Entering the pilgrimage

Before entering Mecca, pilgrims enter a sacred state known as ihram. After making the intention to perform the Hajj, men change into two white garments and women wear modest attire. The basic clothing symbolises equality, humility, and unity before God, where differences of nationality, wealth, and status disappear.

2. Tawaf: Circling the Kaaba

After entering Mecca, pilgrims circle the Kaaba – a cubic building at the Masjid al-Haram (Grand Mosque) that serves as the qibla, the direction Muslims face during prayer – seven times in a counterclockwise direction. This shared rhythm symbolises unity in the worship of the One God.

3. Sa’i: Walking between Safa and Marwah

Pilgrims can then perform the sa’i, a ritual of walking seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwa.

The ritual retraces the search for water in the desert valley of Mecca by Prophet Abraham’s (Ibrahim) wife, Hagar (Hajar), for their son, Ishmael (Ismail), before the Zamzam well emerged.

In Islamic tradition, this well has supplied pristine water in the arid desert for more than 4,000 years and continues to nourish pilgrims to this day.

4. Mina: The tent city

Pilgrims then proceed to Mina, about 8km (5 miles) east of the Kaaba, where they will spend the night in prayer and reflection.

Mina is famously known as the “city of tents” due to the vast expanse of 100,000 white tents to house the millions of pilgrims.

Day 2

5. Arafat: The central day of Hajj

On the second day of the Hajj, pilgrims arrive early at the plains of Mount Arafat, about 15km (9 miles) from Mina. They spend the afternoon in wuquf (standing) from midday to sunset, praying, and repenting.

Arafah is the most important ritual of the Hajj and symbolises a preview of the Day of Judgement. Muslims worldwide are encouraged to fast on this day and engage in prayer and reflection.

6. Muzdalifah: Sleeping under the open sky

After sunset, pilgrims travel to Muzdalifah, 9km (5.5 miles) away. There, they perform maghrib and isha prayers before collecting pebbles for the next day’s ritual.

Day 3

On this day, Muslims from around the world celebrate the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the celebration of the sacrifice.

From the early hours of the morning, pilgrims perform a series of rituals, starting with walking back to Mina.

7. Stoning of the pillars

Pilgrims enter Mina, where they throw seven pebbles at the largest of three stone pillars. This ritual represents the stoning of the devil, which symbolises the rejection of Satan’s temptations.

8. Sacrifice during Eid al-Adha

Pilgrims, or agents on their behalf, offer an animal sacrifice in remembrance of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son in obedience to God.

9. Cutting or shaving hair

Men shave or trim their heads, and women cut a small portion of their hair. This symbolises spiritual renewal.

10. Main tawaf

Pilgrims return to Mecca to perform tawaf, circling the Kaaba, followed by sa’i, walking seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwa.

Days 4 and 5

Pilgrims return to Mina and perform rami (stoning) of all three stone pillars on each day. Pilgrims who remain for an extra day repeat the stoning ritual at all three pillars once more.

Before leaving Mecca, pilgrims perform a final tawaf around the Kaaba, known as the tawaf al-wada or a “farewell tawaf”, signifying a spiritual farewell to the holy sanctuary.

How do Muslims mark the end of Hajj?

Muslims mark the end of the Hajj with Eid al-Adha, celebrated on the 10th of Dhul-Hijjah and lasting up to three days in many countries.

The day begins with a special prayer shortly after sunrise, as Muslims gather in mosques or open areas, wearing their finest clothes. The rest of the day is spent sharing meals, exchanging gifts, and visiting family and friends. The greeting “Eid Mubarak”, meaning “Blessed Eid,” is commonly exchanged.

Eid al-Adha also involves the ritual of animal sacrifice, known as Qurbani. Muslims who are able to do so sacrifice a sheep, goat, cow or camel, and the meat is divided into three parts: one for the family, one for relatives and friends, and one for those in need.