Middle East

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it has lifted its self-imposed 2,000km (1,250-mile) limit on the range of its ballistic missiles, raising questions over whether Tehran now considers hitting targets beyond the Middle East.

“This limitation has been lifted for us,” IRGC spokesman Brigadier-General Hossein Mohebbi announced at a news conference in Tehran on Saturday.

Mohebbi did not say whether Iran already had missiles that exceed the cap, but added that Iran would show its capabilities through action rather than statements, as Tehran has hardened its position and shifted towards an “offensive” military doctrine.

The announcement came days after Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei warned that “any kind and level of threat” from the United States or Israel would be met with a response unlimited by geography. Mojtaba has said Iran needs to end the “no war, no peace” situation amid the volatile status of the Strait of Hormuz and the US naval blockade on the Iranian ports.

It also comes as the diplomatic push to end the US-Israel war on Iran has intensified, with Trump on Monday saying there is “positive momentum” towards ending the military hostilities after talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani in Washington, DC.

So what does lifting the limit actually change, and why is Iran doing it now?

Where could Iran’s missiles reach?

Iran already has operational capabilities to launch missiles beyond 2,000km, but it has kept a cap on them amid focus on regional deterrence. Iranian missiles can reach the entire Arabian Peninsula, the Levant and most of Egypt, as well as parts of Southeastern Europe, including Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia.

For Gulf states, the announcement changes little. They already sit well within Iran’s 2,000km range and have come under repeated Iranian missile fire since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28.

The change can help Iran to position some of its rocket launchers in the country’s east, from where it would require a bigger range to reach Israel. The US and its European allies fear Iran can target US bases in the Indian Ocean and Europe.

In March, the United Kingdom accused Iran of firing missiles towards the joint US-UK base at Diego Garcia, some 4,000km (about 2,500 miles) from Iran. Tehran denied targeting the base located in the Indian Ocean, saying it was “an Israeli false flag” operation.

In 2019, the UK, France and Germany said their modelling put a lighter-warhead version of Iran’s Khorramshahr missile at a range of approximately 3,000km (about 1,900 miles). US officials have also said technology from Iran’s space programme could be repurposed to build intercontinental ballistic missiles, The Associated Press news agency reported. Iran currently does not have intercontinental ballistic missiles in its arsenal.

Muhanad Seloom, assistant professor of international politics and security at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera that the Diego Garcia launch had already made Iran’s point. “Iran denied doing that, but they wanted to signal that they have the capacity. So yes, they do have the capacity,” he said.

Seloom, who is also an honorary research fellow at the University of Exeter, pointed to Iran’s space launches over the past decade, saying the same rockets could in theory reach anywhere in the world. “How effective, that’s a totally different story,” he said, adding that Iran could probably field missiles with a range of about 5,000km (3,100 miles).

Iranian security analyst Mohamed Taheri made a similar case on Iran’s state-run Channel 3, saying range had stopped being a technical obstacle for Iran by the mid-2010s. “Even now we have no technical limitation in reaching ranges above 2,000km,” he said.

“If we were to increase that range to 4,000km, we would certainly have most of Europe within our missile range, and roughly most of North Africa as well,” Taheri said.

How has Europe responded to Iran’s missile threat?

The IRGC announcement about ending its self-imposed limit seems to be a shift from Tehran’s assurances to Europe on missile range. Europe’s relations with Iran have deteriorated over its nuclear programme and regional geopolitical ambitions. The European Union’s designation of the IRGC as a “terrorist” group and its allowing the US to use bases on the continent have attracted Iran’s ire.

Iran warned Bulgaria repeatedly this year over US aircraft on its soil. In April, Tehran sent a diplomatic note cautioning Bulgaria against letting US military aircraft use its airports for operations against Iran.

When Bulgaria’s parliament approved hosting up to eight US KC-135 refuelling tankers at Bezmer airbase in July, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Bulgarian decision-makers “must bear responsibility” for the move. It was Tehran’s third warning to Sofia.

In August, two Iranian insiders told the Financial Times that the US bases in countries such as Bulgaria had been assessed as possible targets, describing the threat to Europe as real but confined to the continent’s south and southeast. Two US tankers left Bezmer on August 21.

Last month, the UK spy chief said Iran is stepping up targeting of military bases in Europe. It came after UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the IRGC was “almost certainly” behind a suspected plot against Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford, an airbase used by US bombers to carry out strikes on Iran. The incident prompted the US to withdraw its military jets from the facility over security concerns earlier this month. Tehran has denied involvement, saying it was a “false flag” operation.

On Monday, the US military evacuated aircraft from a second British base, RAF Mildenhall, “in the wake of a threat from Iran”, according to The Wall Street Journal. The refuelling tankers were moved to Germany and elsewhere, and US officials were still discussing the precise nature of the threat.

The UK Ministry of Defence did not confirm the reason. “Aircraft and other assets move regularly according to operational requirements,” a spokesperson said.

Bases in the UK, Germany and Romania are among other European locations the US has used during the conflict.

“It’s possible that in this war we may set aside the geographic restraint we’ve observed stemming from our diplomatic relations with certain countries and even be able to strike the bases that exist in Europe,” Iran’s Taheri said.

For European governments, the announcement is “worrying … but not alarming”, Doha Institute’s Seloom said. Missiles would have to travel far to reach mainland Europe or the UK, he explained, giving NATO members with assets in the region early warning and time to intercept them.

He said threatening Europe would not serve Iran’s interests, since European governments did not back Trump’s war and have pushed for a diplomatic solution despite paying a heavy price in energy costs. That could change if Iran comes to be framed as a threat to international security, he warned, pointing to Iraq, where successive UN Security Council resolutions preceded European support for the 2003 invasion.

“No one could defend Iranian policies when it comes to threatening Europe or the UK,” Seloom said. Lifting the limit, he added, suggests Tehran “is reading this conflict as existential now”.

That, he argued, is what should concern the whole region. “When you give them the idea that you have only one option, is to die … they can do anything. There would be no red lines,” he said.

Why is Iran doing this now?

Because the cap was self-imposed, Iran could have dropped it at any time. For years, the IRGC said the limit was meant to reassure European countries that they would not be targeted.

Mohebbi, the IRGC spokesman, went further, saying that if Iran decided to change its nuclear doctrine and build a bomb, the necessary preparations would be made.

One reading is deterrence: a warning to Washington, and to European governments hosting US aircraft, that renewed strikes could bring a wider response. Iran’s earlier threats to Bulgaria were seen in similar terms, as an attempt to discourage European governments from supporting US operations.

Tehran is also eyeing diplomatic leverage amid efforts to end the conflict. It can offer the cap as a concession, suggesting that any restraint on range now has a price at the negotiating table.

“It’s both,” Seloom said. He argued that Tehran sees a narrow window before the new US Congress convenes in January, in which Trump will want a deal he can present as a success.

The decision to lift the limit, he said, “is basically to push the Trump administration to go for a deal, not to launch another campaign of military action”. With Trump threatening to hit bridges and the power grid, Iran is “signalling that they can go even crazier”.

What has the West historically said about Iran’s missiles?

Western concern over Iran’s missiles has run alongside the nuclear file for more than a decade.

The 2015 nuclear deal signed under US President Barack Obama put a limit on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), put a curb on Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

Those curbs expired in October 2023, following which Western countries expressed concerns about Tehran’s missile activities. In September 2025, France, Germany and the UK reimposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear enrichment. But Tehran defended the enrichment boost after blaming Trump for withdrawing from the 2015 deal.

Trump put the destruction of Iran’s missile and nuclear programme as the main goals of the war launched in February. “We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” he had said.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said days later the goal was to destroy Iranian offensive missiles and missile production. Experts and US intelligence assessments, however, indicated Iran’s missile programme was years away from threatening the US homeland.

Before the war, Iran held the largest ballistic missile stockpile in the Middle East, estimated at between 2,500 and 6,000 missiles.

United States President Donald Trump has said the US plans to seek compensation from countries it “protected” during its war on Iran.

In an interview with CBS News correspondent Ross Douthat that aired Sunday, Trump said such countries would “pay us any and all costs we had for the war”.

“We’re going to get all that money back,” Trump said. “They’re going to do it, 100 percent. Because without us, they wouldn’t exist.”

For the first time, Trump also explicitly spoke of compensation from Israel, which he said “wouldn’t exist” without US military intervention.

The reimbursement demand comes after Trump and his Republican party took a drubbing in midterm elections, which the president has conceded was partly due to public discontent over the Iran war.

The US president has since declared the war “effectively over” militarily, while defending his decision to start the conflict as “a very good decision”.

Here’s what to know about Trump’s demand for repayment, and what it could mean for the US and its allies:

Which countries does Trump want compensation from?

Trump — for the first time — singled out Israel, which was a direct participant in the war against Iran from the outset.

“We decapitated their [Iran’s] nuclear arsenal,” he said. “If I didn’t do that, there would be no Israel right now. Israel would be gone.”

Previously, Trump has said he would seek repayment from Gulf countries that benefit from the US military presence around the embattled Strait of Hormuz, where US forces have been escorting vessels.

“We’re protecting a very rich portion of the world, we’re spending money, and so what we’ve done is we’re going to be reimbursed for protection,” Trump said during a press briefing in July.

He named Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait as countries that should pay.

But while Israel jointly launched the war on Iran with the US, Gulf countries have said that they were not even informed about Washington’s plans, and have since borne the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory attacks. As members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), they have called for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

How much has the Iran war cost the US?

$47.1bn as of mid-October, according to the US military.

But the full cost is likely to be even higher, as that figure excludes the cost of repairing damage to US military bases across the Middle East.

The Congressional Budget Office in September estimated the conflict would carry an additional cost of $2bn-$3bn for each month it continues.

Will Trump actually seek repayment from allies?

Probably not directly, analysts say.

Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, told Al Jazeera that Trump’s comments are “best understood as political signalling rather than a serious policy proposal.”

Gulf states in particular are likely to take Trump’s comments “with a grain of salt,” added Bader al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University and associate fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme.

“I think what [Trump] stated on an American news channel was for domestic consumption, and I think that’s how most of the Gulf states will take it,” said al-Saif.

Stefan Lukas, an analyst specialising in Middle East and North Africa security and foreign policy, also pointed to Trump’s domestic political considerations, saying the US president has been “looking for someone to blame … and has been doing everything in his power to divert attention from the midterm election results”.

Lukas told Al Jazeera it is unlikely that Washington’s Arab allies in the region will face large compensation payments “or anything similar”.

However, he suggested that Trump could be more serious about seeking economic concessions from Israel, particularly after announcing that the country would no longer receive US aid after the end of this year.

That is partly because, from Trump’s perspective, “Israel pushed him into a disastrous war with Iran”, Lukas said.

What would compensation look like?

Al-Saif said Trump could be “very innovative” in defining what constitutes repayment for the war, potentially pointing to existing trade agreements or investment from the Gulf.

“There’s many agreements for him to go back to and to claim,” said Al-Saif. “There have been a lot of [Gulf] pledges for investment in the US.”

Farid Boussaid, an assistant professor in Middle East politics at the University of Amsterdam, said Washington could push for further Gulf investment and present it as compensation.

“This will most likely be indirect and take the form of commercial investments in the US, buying of US weapons systems – on top of what has already been ordered – and investments into close associates of Trump’s financial dealings,” said Boussaid.

Trump has repeatedly made misleading claims about foreign investment and trade agreements in the past, portraying them as payments or gifts to the US.

After a July 2025 trade deal with the European Union, Trump claimed the bloc had given the US a $600bn “gift” that could be invested in “anything we want”. However, the framework agreement referred only to an expectation that European companies would invest $600bn across strategic sectors in the US through 2028.

The same month, Trump described a $550bn investment pledge from Japan, under a new US-Japan trade agreement, as being “like a signing bonus that a baseball player would get”.

During Trump’s first term, he repeatedly claimed that Mexico would pay for a border wall – which was never completed and which Mexico did not pay for. Trump later qualified his claim to say that Mexico would reimburse the US for the wall or pay for a “piece” of it, which also never happened. Trump at one point claimed that the benefits of a trade pact he negotiated with Mexico would cover the cost of the wall.

How will US allies react to Trump’s demands?

Having already suffered extensive financial losses during the war, the US’s Gulf allies will not take well to being asked to pay more for a war they did not start, say analysts.

Quilliam said Gulf leaders would likely respond to any demand for direct repayment with “quiet resistance”, arguing that they “already contribute significantly to the cost of regional security through defence cooperation, investment and economic partnerships with the US”.

Gulf states also pay for the maintenance of several large bases that the US uses for military operations in the region.

Boussaid said Gulf states will be particularly averse to such a demand as “the US-Israeli war led to considerable damage to their [civilian] and military infrastructure when Iran struck back”.

Al-Saif added that Trump’s “condescending language does not bode well for partners long invested in the relationship with the US”.

As for Israel, it looks unlikely to “reverse its longstanding role as a recipient rather than a provider of support in its relationship with the US”, according to Marzieh Kouhi Esfahani, assistant professor of politics and international relations of the Middle East at Durham University.

“While Israel and the United States continue to share intelligence and coordinate on regional security issues, any request for Israel to shoulder a meaningful share of the financial burden would run against established practice and Israel’s present resource constraints,” she said.

Saudi forces intercept two missiles fired towards Riyadh, hours after reporting damage to key East-West pipeline.

The Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthis has announced it intercepted two missiles fired towards the kingdom’s capital, Riyadh, and another aimed at its southern region.

Major-General Turki al-Maliki, a spokesperson for the coalition, blamed the Iran-backed Houthis for Tuesday’s attacks.

In a series of posts on X, he said a ballistic missile and a cruise missile were intercepted and destroyed over Riyadh, while a second ballistic missile was downed over the southern part of the country.

Multiple explosions were heard in Riyadh, according to the AFP news agency, and residents received text-message alerts instructing them to take shelter due to an “aerial threat”.

A subsequent message from the country’s civil defence agency said the danger had passed.

There was no immediate comment from the Houthis.

The strikes were the latest in a series of attacks on Saudi Arabia as fighting rages in Yemen between the Houthis and the country’s internationally recognised government, backed by Riyadh.

The coalition has supported a Yemeni government offensive to retake territory with air strikes, while the Houthis have repeatedly struck Saudi oil infrastructure, including refineries and storage facilities, with drones and missiles.

On Monday, the East-West oil pipeline in the Medina region was attacked again. A Saudi Energy Ministry official told the state-run SPA news agency the strike caused a “limited fire” that was extinguished. The official said that “pipeline operations were unaffected”.

No injuries or deaths were reported.

The pipeline is a vital route for Saudi oil exports due to Tehran’s restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz following the US-Israel war against Iran. The pipeline has come under attack several times as the war on Iran fuels a global energy crisis.

On Sunday, the Houthis also said they attacked Riyadh’s business district.

Saudi officials said falling debris from an “attempted attack” had caused minor damage to the Aramco Tower.

Images released by the SPA showed the deputy governor of the Riyadh region and other officials inspecting the building, with damage visible on several floors.

US President made the remarks following a meeting with the Qatari PM in Washington, DC.

United States President Donald Trump has signalled that he considers the US-Israeli war against Iran “effectively” at an end, after meeting with mediators from Qatar.

In a surprise briefing on Monday, Trump reiterated his position that the US had destroyed Iran’s military. But his remarks suggested he faced pressure from allies in the Middle East to bring hostilities to a close.

“Iran, militarily, is effectively over. We’re just keeping it the status quo,” he said. “We’re doing that really at the behest of countries that are their neighbours.”

The US president clarified that the “status quo” would involve continuing the US naval blockade against Iranian ports, as well as the newly announced Task Force Iron Gate, which seeks to cut off trade by land and through the Caspian Sea.

“Much was discussed with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump said.

“Most importantly, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and others would prefer the status quo, that we remain as is — in other words, a continuation of the greatest naval blockade in the history of our country. Probably in the history of the world.”

Trump’s comments come shortly after he and Vice President JD Vance hosted Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani at the White House to discuss the Iran war.

The prime minister posted on social media that he was “grateful for the positive discussions on reaching a deal and bringing peace to the region”.

It is unclear whether Trump’s latest statements significantly change US posture in the war. Trump himself declined to commit to any long-term ceasefire.

“I don’t guarantee anything,” he told the White House briefing room. “But if we do have to go back in, we are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Iranian officials, meanwhile, dismissed Trump’s latest remarks as a distraction. Both sides have claimed victory throughout the conflict.

“The war on Iran has already wrecked the US government. But Washington flails like a desperate gambler,” Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei wrote in a post on social media.

“FOLD YOUR HAND. STOP manufacturing FAKE NEWS about imaginary talks.”

Separately, through Iran’s state-aligned Tasnim News Agency, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had called for an end to the situation, which he described as “neither war nor peace”.

Pezeshkian added that Iran was open to further negotiations but would not be coerced. “We will not surrender to force and bullying,” he said.

Since the war on Iran began on February 28, the conflict has spilled into surrounding countries and roiled international trade.

Almost as soon as the US and Israel began their attacks, Iran moved to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for fossil fuels and fertiliser, among other goods.

Iran has also responded to US and Israeli strikes with missile and drone fire in countries like Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE, with many of the attacks targeting US military installations.

Other, related conflicts have since emerged. Saudi Arabia has renewed its fighting with the Iran-backed Houthis, and Israel began its occupation of southern Lebanon, as well as deadly airstrikes.

In the nearly nine months since the war began, the US offensive against Iran has grown sporadic, with intermittent exchanges of fire. In recent days, for instance, the Trump administration announced “minor strikes” against Iran’s Qeshm Island.

It also offered a $20m reward for the “information about Iran’s nuclear program, including its facilities, equipment, and associated personnel”.

After the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, Trump had claimed that Iran’s uranium enrichment programme had been obliterated. But he has since made curtailing Iran’s nuclear programme a central premise for the ongoing war.

Iran has long denied seeking a nuclear weapon, maintaining its uranium enrichment programme is for the purposes of civilian energy generation.

President Erdogan announces an investigation after a crane collapsed into a furnace, triggering the blast near Izmir.

An explosion at a steel plant in western Turkiye has killed at least 16 people and injured 13 others.

The blast happened at 11:46am local time (08:46 GMT) on Monday at the HABAS factory in Aliaga, about 60km (37 miles) north of Izmir, which sits on the Aegean Sea in western Turkiye.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced an investigation and reported that two of the wounded were in serious condition.

Izmir’s governor said the explosion was caused by an overhead crane falling into a large industrial furnace while the boiler was being replaced.

Izmir Mayor Cemil Tugay said that the full number of dead and injured would only become clear once the rubble had been cleared.

Deniz Ulker, an eyewitness, said the explosion felt like an “earthquake”.

“When I looked at the factory across the street, thick black smoke was coming out. A fire broke out where the chimney was,” he said.

Workers’ groups say there is a long record of safety issues at the factory.

The Izmir chapter of Turkiye’s Labour Party, a small Marxist group, said it was “the third fatal incident” at the factory in three weeks.

Writing on X, it warned that seven employees had died in accidents at the plant in the past 10 years and said that maintenance requirements and safety standards were not being met.

The European Union and Azerbaijan were among those to send condolences.

Ali was an award-winning pioneer of animated political caricatures and Pakistan’s first court artist.

Shujaat Ali, cartoonist and founding member of Al Jazeera’s online teams, has died at the age of 54.

A pioneer of digital cartoons, Ali was credited with creating the first animated caricatures online. He also worked at a number of media outlets in his native Pakistan and abroad, receiving several awards for his work.

He died last week after suffering a heart attack as he returned home from work. He was buried in Qasimabad in Rawalpindi, where his parents are also buried.

Ali was Pakistan’s first court artist, documenting the course of a number of well-known cases using his pencil and skills.

He had recently been working with the Pakistan Air Force, his son-in-law, Waqar Saeed, told the Dawn newspaper.

Before returning to his homeland, he had worked at Al Jazeera for many years. He contributed as part of the founding team of Al Jazeera Arabic’s online services, developing cartooning to utilise the potential of the digital platform.

Ahmed El Amraoui, an editor at Aljazeera.com, said, “I had the privilege of working with Shujaat during the early days of Aljazeera.com. He was a very talented artist, but what made him stand out was how far ahead of his time he was.”

Awad Joumaa, manager of Digital Programs at Al Jazeera English, described Ali’s cartoons as “unlike anything we were used to seeing in a news organisation… He drew everyone from Arafat to George Bush to Osama bin Laden.

“I remember the pride in his voice when he told me that presidents, prime ministers and rebel fighters passing through the newsroom would always stop to look at the wall where his cartoons hung,” Joumaa said.

“We forget there is a whole tradition in journalism where a cartoon could make governments and world leaders shake. Naji al-Ali, the Palestinian cartoonist, was killed for his cartoons. That is how powerful they were. And Shujaat was an incredible voice in that genre.”

Netanyahu and Zini’s interference claims lack evidence, according to law enforcement officials quoted by Haaretz.

Israel’s Shin Bet has failed to find evidence of foreign interference in last month’s elections, despite claims from the domestic security agency’s chief, David Zini, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the newspaper Haaretz has reported.

Two senior Israeli law enforcement officials said that the investigation, which is still ongoing, has found no evidence that several hundred thousand shekels had been transferred from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Arab-led parties in Israel, Haaretz reported on Monday.

There were no transfers from Qatar or any other Arab country being investigated. That’s despite allegations from Netanyahu’s party, Likud, that money had been transferred to boost turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel, without the party providing any tangible evidence to support its claims.

The allegations continue a long-running anti-Qatar campaign in Israel that predates the election. Haaretz has previously reported that a secret campaign involving Israeli influence expets and political advisers targeted Qatar in the weeks after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks.

Qatar has denied all the allegations of interference, and called them unsubstantiated.

The latest claims from Zini and Netanyahu intensified in the wake of the strong electoral performance by the parties, led by Palestinian citizens of Israel, in the October 27 elections. Their 19 seats, confirmed by Israel’s election authorities, mean that Jewish parties opposed to Netanyahu have enough seats in parliament to force the prime minister out, if they are willing to work with the Arab-led parties.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has tasked opposition politician Gadi Eisenkot with making the first attempt to form a government, possibly spelling the end of Netanyahu’s time as prime minister.

‘Not a criminal matter’

“[It is] certainly not a security matter, and it is highly doubtful that it is even a criminal one,” one of the officials quoted by Haaretz said.

“All there is is intelligence information without any real substantiation,” another quote attributed to one of the officials said.

Dozens of people have been questioned, but no evidence has so far been found of money being transferred. Haaretz also found that major fuel companies in Israel found no unusual activity involving fuel cards, undermining the allegation that Arab voters had been bribed with fuel cards in exchange for their votes.

Zini, who was selected by Netanyahu to lead Shin Bet last year and is regarded as an ally of the Israeli leader, has sought to investigate several leading politicians who are Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Netanyahu also questioned why Ahmad Tibi, a leading Arab politician in Israel, visited Qatar a few days ahead of the election.

Tibi explained that his trip to Doha was to appear on Al Jazeera.

Qatar has denied the unsubstantiated allegations of interference or funding of any activities aimed at influencing the Israeli election results.

“We reject the accusations made by certain Israeli politicians and their contacts in the media, who have launched yet another disinformation campaign aiming to drag Qatar into Israeli political disputes following this week’s elections,” Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Majed al-Ansari said in a social media post on October 29.

Israel’s attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara said on Sunday that she had seen no evidence from the investigation of anything that would have influenced the election results “or substantiate a claim of influence that could lead to a change in the election results”.

Israeli police and Shin Bet are expected to submit their assessments to Baharav-Miara in the next few days, the report said.

It was another bold statement from United States President Donald Trump: An edict in his usual inflated style, claiming that the US had almost sealed Iran off from the rest of the world.

“Very little gets into, or out of, Iran!” the US president posted on his Truth Social account on Sunday, a day after the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced its latest plan to choke Tehran’s military supply networks.

On Sunday, CENTCOM announced Task Force Iron Gate – a unit targeting land routes and the Caspian Sea, which will aim to prevent Iran from using ground routes to transport advanced weapons and other materials.

Trump’s message on Truth Social claimed that the task force was “in full force and effect” in Iran – and that between this and the US naval blockade of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the US had virtually cut off what enters and exits the country.

But analysts say a small intelligence-focused unit cannot seal Iran’s borders or stop its extensive procurement networks without regional cooperation.

They did warn, however, that attempts to disrupt these networks could draw neighbouring countries into the conflict and undermine ongoing diplomatic efforts in the US-Israel war on Iran.

“I see Task Force Iron Gate as a desperate attempt to extend the American naval blockade into Iran’s continental supply networks without deploying American troops along its borders,” Andreas Krieg, an associate professor of defence studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.

An ‘intelligence fusion cell’

Task Force Iron Gate aims to find out where “weapons systems are coming in, how they could potentially be cut off” and how “Iran is transporting its energy”, Michael Mulroy, a former US deputy assistant defence secretary for the Middle East, has told Al Jazeera.

Based in Tampa, Florida, the unit will coordinate with other US government agencies “on preventing the movement of advanced weapons systems, dual-use technologies, sanctioned materials and illegal revenue streams across Iran’s land borders and the Caspian Sea”, CENTCOM has said.

Analysts said the task force could coordinate sanctions enforcement, pressure foreign suppliers, and work with partner countries to disrupt smuggling.

According to Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, the US mission would rely on a combination of satellite imagery, drones, intercepted communications, financial intelligence and intelligence-sharing.

“Then, frankly, I would expect some use of force – strikes or discreet ground operations – to confiscate components, whether done by US forces or the Israelis,” the analyst told Al Jazeera.

“They would want to pass some intelligence on and bring legal and economic pressure to bear outside the Middle East if they think dual-use components are coming from the West … but if the target is supplies from Russia and China, that will be tougher.”

While CENTCOM’s announcement did not explicitly identify Iran’s weapons trade with Russia, analysts say the unit could be seen as an attempt to disrupt supply networks that include Russian connections.

US media have reported that Russia has sent drone components and explosives to Iran via the Caspian Sea. There are also claims that Russian technology could be helping Iran develop advanced supersonic cruise missiles.

Krieg agreed the task force would combine methods, but stated that it would operate largely as an “intelligence fusion cell”.

“Twenty people cannot police thousands of kilometres of frontiers,” he said.

“The objective is not necessarily to stop every shipment, but to make Iranian military procurement progressively more expensive, slower and riskier,” he added.

The obstacle the US mission will face, however, is political rather than technological, he argued. Iran’s neighbours will be largely unwilling to cooperate.

“Iraq offers Washington some leverage, but Iranian-aligned networks remain deeply embedded in its economy and security institutions,” he explained.

Azerbaijan could cooperate discreetly, while Turkmenistan would be “extremely reluctant” to jeopardise its neutrality or relationships with Russia and China, said the professor.

Pakistan is particularly unlikely to participate openly because it is currently mediating between Washington and Tehran, he added. Turkiye also has little interest in turning its border with Iran into another confrontation, said Krieg.

“Without these countries’ cooperation, Washington can disrupt individual networks but cannot effectively seal Iran’s borders,” he said.

Rami Khouri, a public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut and a non-resident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, has previously told Al Jazeera that Iran’s history as a trading nation for thousands of years makes the US mission near impossible.

“There’s an enormous web of contacts that Iran has had for thousands of years with traders and partners and allies all over the region, especially in Asia – it’s virtually impossible for the US to seal off every one,” he said.

“There are people all over the region who have links with Iran, some very close, some just commercial,” he said.

Mission creep or mission impossible?

Krieg expressed concern about the potential for mission creep — that the task force’s action could widen the war to new arenas.

“Intelligence gathering can quickly become pressure for seizures, border closures or military strikes against suspected logistical infrastructure,” he said.

“This would extend America’s economic war into the sovereign territory of neighbouring states.”

Iran’s response in turn would likely be asymmetrical, “intensifying maritime coercion in Hormuz and potentially using the Houthis to increase pressure around Bab al-Mandeb and Saudi Arabia”, Krieg added.

Joe Kent, a former top US counterterrorism official, has also argued that the new task force is an attempt by CENTCOM to subvert ongoing diplomatic efforts.

“This is CENTCOM inviting Iran to escalate while the vice president is attempting to negotiate with the Iranians,” Kent, who resigned in March in protest against the US’s war on Iran, said on X following the US military’s announcement.

“This is, as CENTCOM calls it, ‘policy by CONOP’, when the military finds a way to subvert the White House without blatantly disobeying the President, by taking actions that will ensure a war escalates or perpetuates.”

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, has reported that CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper is among the many officials, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, pressing Trump to renew attacks on Iran.

Some analysts, however, argue that without US access to the Caspian Sea, troops on the ground, or cooperation from neighbouring states, the task force will have limited practical impact.

Mahjoob Zweiri, a professor of contemporary history and politics at Qatar University, has told Al Jazeera that the new initiative may just be symbolic because of the lack of US military presence on the Caspian Sea.

“America has no access to the sea, unless some of the neighbouring countries like Azerbaijan or Armenia or others collaborate [with them] … And they’re not collaborating on this because they don’t want to upset Russia,” said Zweiri. “It will require … troops on the ground, and this is unlikely to happen.”

Shortly after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s visit to Riyadh last week, reports emerged that Damascus was aiding Saudi Arabia in its war against Yemen’s Houthis, an armed group also known as Ansar Allah (Arabic for Supporters of God) and backed by Iran.

Security and financial aid appeared to be the cornerstone of the meeting between al-Sharaa and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which concluded with Riyadh pledging $403m in loans to help Syria rebuild infrastructure damaged by 13 years of its civil war.

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates noted that cooperation between the two countries’ defence ministries was the “most notable” of the deals, but it did not elaborate.

Days after the visit concluded, media reports suggested Syria was sending fighters to Saudi Arabia to help fight the Houthis. The Reuters news agency reported that Syria was providing Riyadh with military advice and training inside the kingdom after Saudi cities were targeted in hundreds of Houthi missile attacks.

On Sunday, Syrian officials told The Associated Press news agency that Damascus has already sent Syrian military advisers to Saudi Arabia and 600 special forces were due to arrive in the kingdom next week.

Despite denying the initial reports, a Syrian government official told the state’s news agency SANA that Syrian soldiers were sent to Saudi Arabia in a “training, expertise exchange and military consultations” capacity.

“The Syrian role would probably count for more in Riyadh than on Yemen’s front lines because it would show that the new Syria can share a partner’s security burden,” Nanar Hawach, a Syrian analyst, told Al Jazeera, adding that even a training and support role from the Syrian government rather than a direct combat role would satisfy Riyadh.

“The reports and the denials can both be partly right since Syrian officers training Yemeni forces inside the kingdom is different from Syrian troops fighting in Yemen. If Syrian forces are involved, Damascus has good reasons to avoid acknowledging it, from avoiding retaliation to reassuring Syrians that rebuilding at home comes first,” Hawach explained.

Houthi threat

Yemen has been a central concern for Saudi Arabia since Houthi fighters captured the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014. Saudi Arabia has led an Arab military coalition to support Yemen’s internationally recognised government since March 2015. It has provided material and air support to anti-Houthi forces.

Saudi Arabia has been eager to form a regional military alliance that would help counter the threats from the Houthis and their patron Iran.

Tehran’s attacks on its Gulf neighbours since the US-Israel war on Iran began on February 28 and recent Houthi missile strikes on Saudi cities have highlighted the need for a regional security umbrella.

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, agreed by Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan in August, has been viewed as a mechanism for this collective defence by many in Riyadh.

Syria and its thousands of battle-hardened soldiers with some expertise in drone warfare would be considered a useful addition to this alliance. The Syrian official who spoke to SANA said the current military arrangement between Damascus and Riyadh could lead to Syria joining the Mecca Defence Alliance.

“Interest in the Mecca pact could reflect Syria’s wish to anchor its recovery in a regional security framework. Yemen is far enough away for Damascus to present any role as standing by an Arab partner while Lebanon is next door, and intervention would reopen its history there and risk destabilising Syria itself,” Hawach said.

“However, distance does not make it cost-free. Confronting Iran’s allies anywhere invites retaliation, and soldiers killed far from home would be hard to justify to a public that expects peace to bring recovery.”

Syrian expertise

Syria’s post-war government has already come under pressure to act militarily outside its borders. US President Donald Trump has spoken numerous times this year about trying to get Syria to intervene in Lebanon to help disarm Hezbollah, another Iran-backed group.

Syrian rebels have been deployed to other conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa during their attempts to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s government from 2011 to 2024. Syrian fighters allegedly took part in Azerbaijan’s war against Armenia in 2020.

“Syrians are combat-experienced and -capable, and they’re cohesive, so there’s a potential tactical advantage there,” Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer on security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.

“Overall, this is very much a common Saudi approach to strategy and security issues, basically leaning on partners they courted through diplomatic links.”

Since the fall of al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Saudi Arabia is believed to have been instrumental in helping the US remove Assad-era sanctions on Syria, which has been critical in legitimising the post-war government in Damascus.

With Saudi Arabia now fully embroiled in the Yemen war by backing its internationally recognised government and being targeted by regular Houthi air attacks, the deployment of Syrian troops would provide it with additional expertise and guidance on how to confront the Houthis.

The AFP news agency reported that Syrians in Yemen are now leading drone operations against the Houthis although the Syrian government has denied these claims.

Samy Akil, senior programme adviser with The Syria Report website, said Syria’s cooperation gives Riyadh another ally in the region and potential partner in the Mecca Defence Alliance.

“Syria has so far tried to navigate different competing regional interests across several regional capitals. It tried to not align itself with a specific camp, but I think as time goes on, it needs to kind of start settling on [a] hierarchy in terms of regional partners, and obviously, Saudi Arabia is one of the top contenders to do so,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It’s basically signalling that Syria is willing to support and help with the limited resources and capabilities it has, but it also inadvertently legitimises the Syrian government’s foreign policy approach of supporting regional countries and kind of showcase that it is not only a country that is asking for support, but it is also a country willing to provide support.”

With Israeli raids and attacks on southwestern Syria continuing, Damascus could also benefit from having a regional power such as Saudi Arabia as an ally.

“The fact is that Syria recognises that it has little policy options to deter a further entrenchment of Israeli forces into southern Syria in [the] hope that the potential of joining the [Mecca] agreement would act somewhat of a deterrence to, at the very least, stop further encroachment of Israeli troops in Quneitra and Daraa.”

Four children and a woman were killed after heavy rain caused a sandbank to collapse on their tent.

Palestinian authorities have criticised global “indifference and inaction” after a landslide killed five displaced people sheltering in tents in the central Gaza Strip following heavy rains.

“This is a scene that should shame the conscience of humanity and reflects the extent of the complicity and abandonment to which our […] people are subjected,” the Gaza Government Media Office said in a statement on Monday.

Four children and a woman were killed and two people remain missing after a sandbank collapsed onto their tent in Deir el-Balah on Sunday. The landslide happened after heavy rains brought by the first winter storm of the year hit the besieged territory on Friday, causing widespread flooding.

Floodwaters have inundated displacement camps and weakened buildings already damaged by Israeli air raids.

Restrictions imposed by the Israeli military mean specialist search and rescue equipment is in short supply, and Gaza residents were forced to dig using their bare hands to try and reach survivors.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said the victims were living in flimsy tents, on exposed ground, with no protection from the heavy rain.

“When the embankment collapsed, those people had no chance to escape or protect themselves, and this raises difficult conditions about what people on the ground are left to endure,” he said.

About 70,000 tents were flooded when the storm hit Gaza at the weekend. According to data from Save the Children, more than half a million children are living in “critical or catastrophic” shelter conditions.

In a statement, Save the Children said, “While the so-called ceasefire announced over a year ago stipulated the entry of caravans as a more durable alternative to tents, Israeli authorities have repeatedly blocked their entry into Gaza, leaving hundreds of thousands of children exposed to another winter of hardship.”

The Government Media Office held Israel, the United States and the international community “fully and directly responsible”, citing their “absolute silence regarding the occupation’s crimes and their complicity in preventing the entry of shelter supplies, construction materials, caravans, fuel, and spare parts required to operate municipal and Civil Defence machinery and equipment”.

“We strongly condemn and denounce the state of inaction and the complete absence of the Board of Peace and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, as though this catastrophe were of no concern to them. Their complete failure to act and their flagrant abdication of the responsibilities entrusted to them raise serious questions about the very purpose of these bodies, which remain passive observers in the face of the suffering of the Palestinian people.”

More than 74,600 people have been killed since Israel’s genocidal war began on October 7, 2023, in response to a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. Since a “ceasefire” took effect in October 2025, Israel has killed more than 1,600 Palestinians.

World leaders and delegates are gathering in Antalya, Turkiye, for COP31, the annual climate summit of the United Nations, which runs from November 9 to 20.

They meet as global emissions continue to climb. The world emitted 54.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2025, 0.7 percent more than the year before and 68.5 percent more than in 1990, according to the latest figures from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures and fuelling heatwaves, droughts, floods and other extreme weather conditions.

In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera breaks down which gases are warming the planet, which industries and countries emit the most, and how their emissions have changed over time.

Which gases are warming the planet?

Carbon dioxide (CO2) made up 73.8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2025. It is released mainly when fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas are burned, while deforestation removes trees that would otherwise absorb it.

Methane (CH4) accounted for 17.6 percent of emissions that year, followed by nitrous oxide (N2O) at 5.3 percent and fluorinated gases (F-gases) at 3.3 percent.

Global CO2 emissions have risen by 76.3 percent since 1990, according to the JRC.

How is a warming planet affecting the world?

As these gases build up in the atmosphere, they trap more heat. In 2025, the heat stored in the world’s oceans reached its highest level on record, and the rate of ocean warming has increased sharply over the past two decades, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Extreme weather has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions from their homes in 2026, according to the WMO.

In Europe, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires between May and August caused more than 30,000 excess deaths, and 220,000 people were evacuated in France alone.

On August 26, a glacier collapse and the resulting flash flood in the Himalayas killed more than 1,500 people in Nepal along its border with China, while about 5,600 remain missing, according to the UN.

In June and July, Typhoon Bavi forced three million people to evacuate in China and killed 26 in the Philippines. Weeks later, severe Tropical Storm Maysak killed 171 people and caused more than $3bn in losses in China.

Earlier in the year, floods and windstorms across the western Mediterranean displaced more than 180,000 people in Morocco, while extreme cold and snow in North America killed 174 people.

The map below shows some of the most extreme weather events of 2026.

Where do the world’s emissions come from?

The world’s greenhouse gas emissions have more than doubled since 1970, rising from about 23 billion tonnes to 54.1 billion tonnes in 2025, according to the JRC.

The power industry, which generates electricity, is the largest source, producing nearly 30 percent of global emissions in 2025. Its emissions have roughly quadrupled since 1970, driven by soaring demand for electricity in fast-growing economies such as China and India.

Industry, including manufacturing and mining, is the second-largest source at 21 percent. This covers fuel burned in factories as well as gases released when producing cement, metals and chemicals. Industrial emissions climbed steeply in the 2000s as China’s manufacturing boomed.

Transport, including cars, shipping and aviation, is third at 16 percent.

Together, these three sectors produce about two-thirds of the world’s emissions. The rest comes from agriculture (12 percent), the extraction of coal, oil and gas (11 percent), buildings (6.6 percent) and waste (3.6 percent).

Global emissions have fallen only a handful of times since 1970, including in the early 1980s, after the 2008 financial crisis and during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Each time, they rebounded.

Who are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases?

In 2025, the three largest emitters produced almost half of the world’s greenhouse gases. China emitted almost 16 billion tonnes (29.5 percent), the United States 6.02 billion tonnes (11.1 percent) and India 4.51 billion tonnes (8.3 percent).

The 27 countries of the European Union together accounted for 5.8 percent, followed by Russia (4.8 percent), Indonesia (2.5 percent), Brazil (2.4 percent) and Iran (2.1 percent).

International shipping and aviation, which fall outside any single country’s total, together produced 2.6 percent of global emissions, more than most countries.

It was not always this way. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries drove up emissions first in the West, particularly in the United Kingdom and the US, as they built factories and moved to mass manufacturing. Global emissions then rose sharply after World War II and have more than doubled since 1970.

China’s emissions surged in the early 2000s as its economy boomed, and it overtook the US as the world’s largest emitter in the mid-2000s.

But measured over time, the picture changes. Since the mid-18th century, the US has produced 23.5 percent of all CO2 emissions, compared with 15.4 percent from China, according to the Global Carbon Budget.

Which industries drive each country’s emissions?

In China, the power sector is the largest source, producing 42 percent of the country’s almost 16 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases. Industry accounts for 31 percent and fuel production for 9.5 percent.

In September 2025, Chinese President Xi Jinping, for the first time, pledged to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 7 to 10 percent from their peak by 2035.

In the US, transport is the largest source at 29 percent, mostly from cars and trucks. The power sector accounts for 26 percent and industry for 14 percent.

In India, which still relies heavily on coal for electricity, the power sector produces 35 percent of emissions, followed by industry at 24 percent and agriculture at 19 percent.

Explore the table below to see which sectors produce the most greenhouse gas emissions in each country.

In the occupied West Bank, a barrier of concrete and fencing cuts Palestinians off from their land, their families and nearby towns.

Israel began building its separation wall in 2002. Planned to stretch 712km (442 miles), it runs deep inside Palestinian territory rather than along the boundary with Israel. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled it illegal.

Today’s date carries extra weight. Thirty-seven years ago on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.

Built by East Germany in 1961 to stop its citizens fleeing to the West, it encircled West Berlin for 155km (96 miles), dividing the city and its people for 28 years.

Since 2003, Palestinians have marked the same date as an international day of action against Israel’s wall, which is more than four times as long and still being built. In urban areas, its concrete rises to about 9 metres (30ft), more than twice the height of Berlin’s.

But the wall is more than a physical structure. It operates alongside a wider network of checkpoints, roadblocks, gates and permits that restricts Palestinian movement across the occupied territory.

Where does the wall run?

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 456km (283 miles), or 64 percent, of the planned route had been built by April.

About 85 percent of it runs inside the West Bank rather than along the Green Line, the 1949 armistice line separating Israel from the West Bank. That route determines which communities, roads and farmland are cut off from their surroundings.

In some urban areas, the barrier is a concrete wall. Elsewhere, it is made up of fences, patrol roads, ditches and other security infrastructure.

For Palestinians, the comparison with Berlin carries a message. “It doesn’t matter how high the barriers will be, they will fall,” a Palestinian activist in Bir Nabala told Al Jazeera. “Like the Berlin Wall fell, the Palestinian wall will fall.”

How many people are cut off from their land?

The wall’s impact reaches far beyond the structure itself. Its route cuts Palestinian communities off from neighbouring towns, workplaces and farmland, disrupting livelihoods and everyday life.

More than 14,000 Palestinians live between the wall and the Green Line in an area known as the Seam Zone. To reach basic services, markets and relatives on the other side, they must pass through checkpoints.

Farmers are among the hardest hit. According to OCHA, about 150 Palestinian communities have land in this area. Reaching it depends on permits, prior coordination with Israeli authorities and access through designated agricultural gates.

There are about 62 such gates along the wall, and most stay closed for much of the year. During the 2025 olive harvest, 74 percent opened only on a limited number of days.

In Qalqiliya, the wall wraps around much of the city, cutting it off from nearby Palestinian communities and the land around it. Journeys to neighbouring towns that were once short can now mean passing through checkpoints or taking long detours.

The wall restricts more than movement. It reshapes how communities relate to their land and places that are part of their everyday lives.

Israel’s wider system of control

The wall is only one part of a much wider network restricting Palestinian movement across the West Bank.

As of December, OCHA documented 925 checkpoints, road gates, earth mounds and other obstacles across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. They restrict the movement of about 3.4 million Palestinians, often forcing long detours to reach work, school, hospitals and other services.

The network includes 89 permanently staffed checkpoints, 218 partial checkpoints, 232 road gates, 167 earth mounds, 114 linear closures and 105 roadblocks.

Checkpoints and road gates now make up nearly 60 percent of these obstacles, up from 15 percent two decades ago when temporary blockages, such as earth mounds and roadblocks, were far more common.

Crossing the wall itself requires permits. Of its 13 checkpoints, only three can be used by Palestinians with West Bank IDs and Israeli-issued permits to enter East Jerusalem and Israel. OCHA said these permits are hard to get and many have been revoked or suspended since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel and the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.

The wall stretches for hundreds of kilometres, but its impact cannot be measured by distance alone. It is measured in the farmland farmers struggle to reach, the communities cut off from nearby towns and the checkpoints between people and the places they need to go.

There are two ways to read the results of the Israeli elections. One way would be to see them as a defeat for the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. From holding a solid majority in the 120-member Knesset, the Netanyahu bloc has been reduced to a minority of 53 members. Anti-Netanyahu lawmakers, by contrast, hold 67 seats.

Had Israel been a democracy, we would have seen scenes of celebration similar to the ones we saw this year in Hungary, Brazil and Serbia, where political forces with undemocratic tendencies were defeated. But Israel is not a democracy, and Netanyahu was not necessarily defeated.

The second, more relevant way of reading the results of the Israeli election would necessitate accepting the apartheid nature of Israel and seeing the electoral arithmetic through that prism. In this case, Netanyahu won because he secured 53 seats in the Knesset – five more than the anti-Netanyahu Jewish bloc.

To form a government, a bloc needs to have the support of at least 61 members of the Knesset. The only way Netanyahu can do it is by enticing parties or lawmakers from the anti-Netanyahu bloc to join his bloc, as he has succeeded in doing many times in the past. Working with Palestinian parties, which secured 19 seats, is out of the question for him.

The obvious path for government formation for the anti-Netanyahu bloc would be to form a coalition – one that would include the two Palestinian parties. But to do so would mean to challenge Israeli apartheid. The main leaders of the Jewish anti-Netanyahu bloc, including Gadi Eisenkot, have promised not to do so under any circumstances.

There is another option: seeking the support of the religious Orthodox parties, which have so far been part of the Netanyahu bloc. To secure their backing, the anti-Netanyahu bloc would have to promise to exempt religious Orthodox youth from military service and guarantee funding for their learning centres.

However, Eisenkot’s main election promise was forcing young Haredi Jews into the army. So this is not a very likely scenario, but in politics, never say never.

There is also the option of a “unity government” led by some sort of rotation between the leading figures of the anti-Netanyahu bloc and Netanyahu. The problem here is that, according to a law passed a few years ago, as long as Netanyahu is still a defendant in an ongoing trial, he cannot serve as a minister; his coalition made sure that the legislation ridiculously would not apply to a prime minister.

Given that Netanyahu’s corruption trial is destined to go on for a very long time, the rotation would make it impossible for Netanyahu to be part of a government under Eisenkot as prime minister. That means he would demand to hold the rotating premiership first and leave open the option to collapse the government once his rotation is over.

Netanyahu has already done that before. In 2020, without any hesitation, he broke a rotation agreement with Benny Gantz, who had naively believed that after two years he would be the prime minister. This resulted in new elections, which Netanyahu won.

Finally, a very possible scenario is that neither of the two blocs would be able to form a government, which would mean new elections in six months. Netanyahu and his government would remain in office until the new polls, albeit with more limited authority.

This would give them the opportunity to reignite a war with Iran and Hezbollah and continue with their violent policies in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in an attempt to attract more public support and win the elections.

This is the preferred option for Netanyahu because his relative defeat in the October 27 elections had a lot to do with the unprecedented galvanisation among the Palestinian voters in Israel and the more liberal Jewish Israelis living abroad who came back home in huge numbers to vote.

These possible scenarios tell only part of the story and are not enough to fully understand what the election results mean for Israel, the Palestinians and the region. Here are the more important conclusions one should draw from the results:

The first pertains to the future of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. They still could turn out to vote in large numbers if new elections are held soon. But if they are once more ignored and sidelined by the other political parties, they will never try it again.

In this case, it would be difficult for the leadership of this community to continue to delay a strategic decision: choosing which political space Palestinian citizens of Israel belong to – the Israeli or the Palestinian one?

Until today, they have given a chance to the Israeli political system despite its racism, apartheid tendencies and criminal policies towards Palestinians. Palestinian parties recommended Eisenkot for the premiership to President Isaac Herzog, who has now tasked him with forming a government.

If I can venture a prediction – and it is only a prediction – the anti-Netanyahu bloc would not engage meaningfully with the Palestinian parties. Its message, therefore, will be that the Palestinians of Israel are not legitimate players in the Israeli political field.

If I am wrong, this would be an incredible and transformative moment in the history of both Israel and Palestine, but there seems to be very little hope for such a development.

There are other lessons we can learn from where we are now with the knowledge that this is a very volatile moment in the history of Israel.

The first and most important one is that whoever forms the next government of Israel will continue the incremental genocide in Gaza, the intensified ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and the aggressive policies towards the region. These policies as before can only be stopped or tamed by the region and the international community sending a clear message to Israel that there will be a price tag attached to such policies.

The second lesson is that the Israeli Jewish society is as deeply divided as ever, to the point that it is impossible for it to maintain a stable political system, a thriving economy and a positive strategy towards the region and the world.

The third lesson is that Israel’s international isolation will increase as a result of this trajectory, including the continued dissociation from Zionism among young Jews around the world, including in the United States.

Finally and most importantly, this can have an impact on the global discussion about Zionism. The move by the Green Party in Britain to define Zionism as racism – despite being currently an exception and widely condemned – will gain validity with time.

These elections and future developments are making clear that Zionism in the current Israeli politics means the exclusion of Palestinian citizens of Israel from politics – first by ignoring them and quite possibly in the future by denying them the right to vote

Moreover, many in the international community will associate the term Zionism with a consensual Israeli policy of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.

The outlook in the short term is worrying. The overall message from the Israeli elections is that the future policies of the state will continue to threaten the lives of the Palestinians in occupied territory, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the people of southern Lebanon and Syria. There will be more instability in the region.

In the long run, however, as bad as it is, the fundamental cracks in the Zionist project will widen, which might lead to its demise. One can only hope this will also lead to the beginning of a political reality that would benefit everyone who lives in historical Palestine and the region.

A version of this oped was first published by Al Jazeera Arabic.

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

Az-Zawayda, Gaza Strip – On Saturday night, water began rushing into Jaber al-Kaseeh’s tent in central Gaza’s az-Zawayda area, waking him and his family as heavy rain swept across Gaza. Soon the tent’s floor was flooded, soaking mattresses, carpets, blankets and spoiling what little food the family had managed to keep.

“Everyone woke up and stayed awake, asking their neighbours about the extent of damage and inquiring about children,” Jaber, who is in his 70s, told Al Jazeera.

He described the area outside the displacement camp, where thousands of Palestinians have taken refuge, as a swimming pool.

More than 70,000 tents have been flooded since heavy rains began late on Friday, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering in locations considered “highly vulnerable” to more flooding.

More than a year after the so-called “ceasefire” deal was signed between Israel and Hamas, Israel has continued to flout the terms of the agreement, blocking the entry of goods into Gaza, including 60,000 mobile homes and 200,000 tents.

Only 20,000 tents have been allowed in, and mobile homes have remained parked on the Egyptian side of the border, many of them for more than two years.

Fourth winter in tents

This is the fourth winter for Jaber and his family living in a tent house in the az-Zawayda area. Originally from Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, Jaber has been displaced several times, like most Palestinians since Israel launched its genocidal war on October 7, 2023.

More than 90 percent of Palestinians have been displaced, many of them multiple times, by the war that has attracted global condemnation.

Jaber says his camp was flooded three or four times last winter, forcing many families to leave. Around 40 tents still remain there, but the latest flooding has left them in even worse condition.

“All the tents are now damaged, torn and covered in mud,” Jaber told Al Jazeera.

“We urgently need tents, tarpaulins, plastic sheets, mattresses, blankets and carpets to protect us from the difficult days ahead.

“We keep hearing about tents and tarpaulins being distributed, but we have received nothing.

“We had hoped the mobile homes and temporary housing units promised under the ceasefire deal would allow us to rest and return to a life of safety and peace. But it was all just words in the air. We have seen nothing.”

Promised shelter, unmet needs

Jaber’s experience reflects the wider shelter crisis facing displaced Palestinians across Gaza. Despite the “ceasefire” agreement, which included provisions for temporary housing units, tents and heavy machinery to clear rubble, large numbers of families remain in makeshift shelters exposed to winter weather.

Under the first phase of the agreement, along with temporary housing units and tents, heavy equipment was also supposed to be allowed in to remove rubble and help restore damaged infrastructure.

But the arrival of mobile homes and heavy machinery has been delayed as Israel has found excuses to restrict their entry into the enclave of 2.3 million people.

Trucks carrying mobile homes and equipment have reportedly been waiting on the Egyptian side of the border while Palestinians live in misery in dilapidated tent camps.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Gaza requires approximately 121,000 tents and 561,000 tarpaulins, while available stocks remain far below what is needed.

For Om Hani Hamouda, a displaced woman from Beit Lahiya now sheltering in al-Zawayda, replacing her worn-out tent with a caravan has become a dream.

“We did not expect that the first rainfall would leave us in this condition,” she told Al Jazeera. “These tents do not protect us from the cold, storms or rain. Whenever winter comes, everyone holds their breath.”

Hamouda had hoped the ceasefire agreement would allow her family to return to northern Gaza or at least receive a caravan or building materials to secure better shelter. But she said there had been no sign of progress.

“We are asking for a dignified life. We want these tents to be replaced with caravans. Even a simple caravan would be better,” she told Al Jazeera.

Hamouda’s family has been displaced around 15 times during the war. She spent more than 15 years living and working in the United Arab Emirates before returning to Gaza nearly two years before the war began.

“My children cry because they miss the life we had there,” she said. “Life here is so difficult. There is no life in any sense.”

Families left exposed to the rain

Ramy Abdu, chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, told Al Jazeera that large quantities of tents, caravans, prefabricated housing units and shelter equipment remain stranded at Gaza’s borders because of Israeli restrictions.

He said that while more than 1.5 million displaced Palestinians were facing another winter in worn-out tents, even people living in houses and apartments remained exposed to the elements because of the extensive damage to homes and infrastructure.

“Today, we cannot even say that those living in houses and apartments are safe from extreme weather because, with around 85 percent of homes destroyed or damaged, every family is exposed to some degree of harsh weather conditions,” Abdu said, adding that Israel continues to reject shipments containing timber and emergency shelter kits, depriving families of the ability to repair homes that could otherwise accommodate them.

Abdu said Israel, as the occupying power, was legally obligated under the Fourth Geneva Convention to ensure essential supplies reached civilians and to facilitate humanitarian relief.

Jihad Dawwas, 51, says he felt helpless as he could not do anything as his children had nowhere dry to sleep amid the rains.

Water poured into the tents at the displacement camp where he is sheltering, while strong winds blew away many of the surrounding tents. His children ended up sleeping while standing, he said, after rainwater soaked their mattresses and the plastic sheets covering their shelter.

“They slept standing up. By morning, some of my children had become ill because of the cold and the storm,” he told Al Jazeera.

Dawwas, who was displaced from northern Gaza, is sheltering with seven of his own children and three orphaned children of his brother. He said he had bought the family’s tent with his own money and had received no tent from any charity or aid initiative.

“A tent cannot replace a home, not even by one percent,” he said. “We are living in what is left of our lives.”

He said he had seen no caravans or temporary housing units arrive to help displaced families, despite the expectations raised by the ceasefire agreement.

“Our lives are a daily hell. We are completely forgotten. There is no fair distribution of aid, and no one is really asking about us,” Dawwas said.

He questioned why even basic shelter supplies had become so difficult to obtain.

“Do tents and tarpaulins really need all this pressure and effort just to become something we can ask for?” he asked. “They should provide us with tents and tarpaulins, and give us at least a dignified life.”

Trump says Washington’s land blockade on Iran is now in effect, as Tehran threatens to ‘rain down hell’ if US resumes attacks.

The strike leaves more than 70 percent of northern Iraq’s Kurdish region without power.

A drone attack on the Khor Mor gasfield in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq has caused a fire at the facility and cut power to the region, according to Iraqi and Kurdish officials.

The Sunday night attack left more than 70 percent of the Kurdish region without power.

It was not clear who was responsible for the attack or whether it was related to the United States and Israel’s war on Iran.

Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad has verified footage of smoke and flames rising from the vicinity of the gasfield in the Sulaimaniyah governorate.

Omid Ahmed, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Electricity, said the attack suspended gas supply to power plants in the cities of Erbil, Sulaimaniyah, Bazian, Chamchamal and Duhok, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

The strike knocked between 2,500 and 2,800 megawatts of electricity generation off the grid, he said.

He added that the ministry would provide electricity to critical facilities, such as hospitals and water treatment plants, by operating hydroelectric power stations and other plants that run on alternative fuel.

Al Jazeera’s Peter Smith, reporting from Baghdad, cited security sources as saying the explosive-laden drone struck the Khor Mor gas storage facility, reducing the energy grid’s capacity by 70 to 80 percent.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said there were no casualties as a result of the attack, based on an initial assessment, the INA reported.

Al-Zaidi also directed that a joint investigative committee be formed with the relevant authorities in the Kurdish region to investigate the circumstances surrounding the attack, INA reported.

The attack comes amid heightened regional tensions. A drone strike hit the same facility last year, with no group having claimed responsibility.