Middle East

On Monday, Greece and Israel signed a $3.5bn defence deal to build an integrated, multilayered defence network to protect Greek territory dubbed the Achilles Shield. The package brings together the David’s Sling and Spyder interceptors, the Barak air and missile defence system and multimission radars, alongside a separate deal adding Drone Dome systems to protect strategic sites from UAVs.

It is the largest defence deal ever concluded between the two countries. It is also one of the most significant export agreements in Israel’s recent history.

What makes the agreement particularly striking is that it comes as Israel’s global standing is at one of its lowest points in decades. And Greece is no outlier, given that 65 percent of its citizens now view Israel unfavourably. Why, then, has Athens now chosen to openly deepen its ties with Israel in the most politically sensitive of areas: defence and military technology?

Firstly, the shadow of Israel’s conflict with Iran looms large. In early March, an Iranian drone struck Cyprus, Greece’s neighbour and close partner. This likely reinforced anxieties that were already visible in 2024. After Israel, with the help of the United States, downed approximately 300 Iranian drones and missiles, Greek Defence Minister Nikos Dendias called on Athens to develop its own antidrone “dome”.

The deal is therefore partly the product of pragmatic necessity as countries scramble for military solutions to growing drone threats. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, for example, are acquiring antidrone technology from Ukraine, another country able to market its products as battle-tested.

Despite its political disadvantage, Israel has a practical head start, given that it has long practised “arms diplomacy”, using its defence industry as a springboard to cultivate deeper bilateral ties with prospective buyers.

The second factor driving the Achilles Shield deal is another longstanding tenet of Israeli grand strategy: the “periphery doctrine”. This advocates that Israel develop ties with non-Arab states and peoples on the periphery of the Levant to counter the hostility between Israel and its immediate neighbours. It is a recognition that shared threats can produce strategic partnerships. And in the case of Israel and Greece, that shared threat is Turkiye.

The irony is that Turkiye – as a non-Arab state and the gateway between the Middle East and Europe – was Israel’s close partner in the early days of the periphery doctrine. In 1949, Turkiye was the first Muslim country to recognise Israel. In subsequent years, Ankara and Tel Aviv developed robust but clandestine security ties.

This worked as Israel intended in that it opened the door to increasingly public and broader bilateral relations, which continued even after the Islamist-oriented AK Party, or Justice and Development Party, came to power in Turkiye in 2002.

But both sides fell out in late 2008 after Israel launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip. Subsequent divergences over Israeli policies towards the occupied Palestinian territory have gradually unravelled their deep ties.

Bilateral trade has collapsed since Ankara imposed an embargo on Israel in 2024. There are no longer direct flights between the two countries. In June, US President Donald Trump claimed that US pressure stopped Turkiye from joining the war on Iran, on Tehran’s side. This may sound far-fetched, yet it illustrates how Israel and Turkiye not only disagree on many geopolitical issues, but increasingly see each other as rivals and even threats.

What is remarkable is how quickly Greece has filled the void. In previous years, Tel Aviv’s partnership with Ankara precluded closer ties with Athens. But no more: in late 2025, Israel, Cyprus and Greece signed a “Joint Action Plan” that mandates enhanced military cooperation.

Energy has reinforced this strategic convergence. The discovery of substantial gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean encouraged Israel, Greece and Cyprus to cooperate on pipelines and maritime security.

And, as was the case with Turkiye, more extensive bilateral ties followed security cooperation: some 744,000 Israelis visited Greece in 2025, compared with the peak of 558,000 Israeli tourists who travelled to Turkiye in 2008.

The increasing regional division into competing blocs has also driven the burgeoning Israel-Greece relationship. In February, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu floated a “hexagon alliance” of Israel, Greece, Cyprus, India and unnamed Arab and African countries.

Six months later, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. This alliance broadly overlaps with what commentators earlier labelled the “Islamic coalition”.

This is an evolving dynamic and inter-bloc collaboration is as common as intra-bloc divergences. But it demonstrates that the crisis of confidence in the US as a security guarantor extends beyond the Gulf states and predates the recent war on Iran. It also portends headaches for Washington’s policymakers, given that these increasingly competing states are all US allies.

The Achilles Shield deal is therefore the new manifestation of an old Israeli strategy that has been accelerated by the US-Israel war on Iran. Public scepticism may complicate Greece-Israel relations, but Israeli-Turkish ties deepened for decades despite similarly unfavourable public attitudes.

In short, in the eastern Mediterranean and elsewhere, growing popular outrage at Israel’s policies will continue to coexist uneasily with deepening security cooperation at an elite level. The irony is that the same conflicts that have damaged Israel’s international standing have also increased the value of its military experience and defence technology.

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

Israeli forces have fired tear gas into a mosque in the occupied West Bank, leaving worshippers inside struggling to breathe, hours after settlers tried to set fire to a second mosque in the territory.

The Palestinian Ministry of Religious Affairs condemned the continued pogroms on Tuesday, calling them a flagrant violation of the sanctity of places of worship.

Footage, verified by Al Jazeera, showed worshippers at the mosque in Madama, near Nablus, coughing in the aftermath of the tear gas attack.

One elderly man was seen bent over as another tried to help him.

The ministry said Israeli forces “fired tear gas canisters” into the mosque as people gathered for their evening prayers. The attack “resulted in several elderly worshippers suffering from suffocation and caused widespread disruption to the congregation”, it added.

The attack in Madama came hours after Israeli settlers tried to set fire to another mosque in the nearby town of Bazariya.

Photos and videos from Nur al-Din Zanki Mosque showed blackened burn marks around a window of a room and Hebrew phrases sprayed on the exterior walls.

Majed Nasr, who lives near the mosque, said the attack took place early on Tuesday morning. “There was a small explosion that caused a fire inside the mosque building,” he told the AFP news agency. “We managed to contain the blaze before things could get worse and reach the main upper part of the building.”

The Religious Affairs Ministry condemned the “criminal attack” and said some 13 mosques have been “violated” by the Israeli military or settlers since the start of 2026.

Local sources told the Anadolu agency that the racist slogans sprayed at the site included threats against Palestinians and a message to the United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, saying: “Huckabee, greetings from the terrorists.”

Last month, Huckabee had described Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in the town of Qusra and other areas of the occupied West Bank as “terrorists”.

The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement following the Madama attack, warning of “the dangers of the continued and escalating religious war” waged by Israeli forces and settlers against religious sites in the occupied West Bank, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.

The “systematic attacks … crossed all red lines and risked triggering a religious conflict with serious consequences for the region and the world”, it said.

Settlers also burned vehicles in the town of Beta, south of Nablus, and set fire to a Palestinian vehicle in Nahalin, west of Bethlehem, on Tuesday, according to media reports and footage posted online.

The attacks come amid a sharp increase in pogroms by Israeli forces and settlers across the occupied West Bank.

The United Nations said in August that at least 76 Palestinians have been killed in the territory this year and that some 3,800 people have been displaced by settler violence, as well as demolitions and evictions.

It also said settler violence had reached “unprecedented levels,” with more than 1,430 attacks resulting in casualties or property damage documented this year.

Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces arrested at least 14 Palestinians, including five in Rummanah, one at the Anab checkpoint, one in Tammun, three in Hebron, two in Bethlehem and two in Nablus.

Israeli forces also uprooted olive trees near Jenin, demolished greenhouses and issued a demolition notice for a home in the town of Idhna.

Hubert Bartkowiak, from Gniezno in Poland, was told he had to pay £8,640 for three rooms for three nights at the Luxor View Hotel in Egypt, or his reservation would be cancelled

Holidaymakers are being told to pay 12 times more for hotel rooms after booking – or face a cancelled reservation. Forward-thinking Hubert Bartkowiak had been looking forward to a trip to Luxor, Egypt, with friends.

The Pole had booked three rooms for four people at the Luxor View Hotel over a year before the holiday, through Booking.com, forking out $1,040 (£768) for three nights, working out at £64 per person, per night. Hubert, from Gniezno, was shocked to receive a message from the hotel demanding 12 times as much, otherwise the booking would be cancelled.

“Please note that prices have increased; for your booking during this period, the room will be $1,300 (£960) a night,” the message read. With each of the three rooms costing £960 a night, he faced a bill of £8,640. When he refused to pay, the hotel worker implied the reservation would be cancelled and the hotel closed “for renovations” if Hubert turned up.

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“The hotel will be closed for renovations. You’re free to leave. You won’t have any rooms,” a message seen by the Mirror reads. After The Mirror contacted Booking.com on Hubert’s behalf, the hotel decided to honour his booking at the original rate.

However, there are many more people heading to Spain, Tunisia, Egypt and other countries in the path of next August’s eclipse who have already had their bookings cancelled as prices spike. “Raising prices I can understand as demand is high, but changing the price after making a reservation or cancelling it for a better offer is simply unfair,” Hubert said.

Another spurned holidaymaker is Kara Wiley. She booked a hotel in Luxor, paying $681 (£504) for three nights, only to receive a message from the owner demanding $3,900 (£2,886). “This is not affordable for me, and my flights are already booked,” she wrote in a post on a Facebook group.

Facebook groups and Reddit threads are full of such horror stories, with many eclipse hunters now worried that they’ll arrive ahead of the August 2 to discover they’ve nowhere to stay.

Such a scenario befell David Tunnicliffe, who booked a villa in Escalona del Prado, Spain, two years before the eclipse this August. “It was just cancelled by the host one day before we were due to arrive for a week. Sucks to be me, I guess!” David said. David was blanked by the accommodation provider, and his emails bounced. Luckily, David managed to book back-up accommodation at the last minute. It cost twice as much, but the booking platform he used agreed to pay the extra expense.

On Monday, August 2 next year, the moon will block the sun starting in the Atlantic Ocean, crossing southern Spain and North Africa, and moving through the Middle East and the Horn of Africa before ending in the Indian Ocean. The event has been dubbed “the eclipse of the century” due to the length of totality. Total darkness will descend for 6 minutes and 23 seconds in some areas, including Luxor. That is roughly three times the duration of this year’s eclipse.

Following the eclipse this August and the buzz that’s generated, accommodation prices for next year have rocketed. In El Palmar, a villa for six people located around 600 metres from the beach will cost €33,129 (£28,379) for one night. Split between the six potential guests, that would be around €5,522 (£4,730) per person.

According to Citizens Advice, customers should check the terms and conditions for the holiday or booking they’ve made to see if they allow the company to increase the price. Look for something like ‘price variation’ – this means the price can change. They can’t increase it if the terms and conditions don’t allow it. Even if the terms and conditions allow price increases, the company can only increase the price because of:

• fuel price rises which mean transport costs have gone up
• changes to taxes or fees by third parties – like tourist taxes
• exchange rates which affect the price of the holiday

The company has to let you know in writing about their plans to increase the price. They also have to give you a reasonable time to tell them if you accept it or want to cancel. If they’re offering another package instead, they must tell you how much it costs.

The company must tell you about the price rise at least 20 days before the package starts and explain why they put the price up. You have the right to cancel the holiday without paying a fee if the increase is more than 8% – you’ll get back any money you’ve already paid.

Search and rescue operations under way as authorities lose contact with 10 crew members after a vessel collision near Istanbul.

Turkiye’s coastguard has launched a search and rescue operation after two Turkish-flagged commercial vessels collided off Istanbul and contact was lost with one vessel and its crew of 10.

The collision took place at 3am (00:00 GMT) in the Marmara Sea a little more than 20 miles (32 kilometres) south of Silivri, a suburb of Turkey’s largest city, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.

Contact was lost with the crew of the Tugberk Imamoglu, flagged to Turkey, after the collision with the Turkish-flagged Alsu, which appeared undamaged, the governor’s office said.

“Numerous naval units from the coast guard’s Marmara and Bosphorus Command and a coast guard helicopter were dispatched to the scene,” the office said.

Last week, Israel attacked Syrian territory yet again. Israeli forces shelled a hilltop near Beit Jinn in the western Damascus countryside, while soldiers raided a village in Quneitra province.

The attacks came just days after Israeli fighter jets struck the Abu al-Duhur military base in northern Syria, inflicting significant damage. Israel said the strike was intended to prevent a possible Turkish military deployment there, although both Damascus and Ankara disputed these claims. The Israeli attacks have persisted despite Syrian efforts to de-escalate through diplomacy, and criticism from Washington of the Abu al-Duhur strike.

While avoiding confrontation, the government of Ahmed al-Sharaa continues to insist that Israel withdraw from Syrian territory it has occupied and that Damascus must remain free to rebuild its armed forces and cooperate with the partners of its choosing.

All this reveals more than Syria’s military weakness. It suggests that the new Syrian leadership believes sovereignty can be recovered by rebuilding state capacity first. This strategy, however, carries potential risks: Israel may continue to encroach on Syrian sovereignty while taking advantage of Syrian restraint; and the Syrian government may eventually begin to lose the trust of Syrians and the wider Arab public, among whom Israel is overwhelmingly viewed as a threat.

Syria’s weakness is real. In late 2024, after the army of former President Bashar al-Assad collapsed, Israel struck strategic military assets across the country. The new government then had to begin assembling a national security architecture from dysfunctional institutions and a patchwork of armed groups.

For now, a Syrian military response capable of altering Israel’s behaviour is difficult to imagine.

Instead, al-Sharaa has placed economic recovery and international legitimacy at the top of his priorities. His government has focused on rebuilding state institutions, restructuring the security sector, restoring energy supplies, improving foreign relations and reconnecting Syria to the international economy. But rebuilding Syria is an enormous challenge.

The World Bank estimates that reconstructing Syria’s damaged physical assets will cost about $216bn. A state facing needs on that scale cannot restore its authority through military institutions alone. It needs revenue, electricity, functioning administration, banking access, investment and external relationships.

Al-Sharaa has achieved significant progress on the international front. Washington dismantled the broad Syria sanctions programme in 2025, while the European Union lifted its economic sanctions, although targeted and security-related measures remain. On August 24, Washington also removed Syria from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, eliminating another key obstacle to financial normalisation and investment.

For Damascus, these steps expand the resources with which the state can govern; they are not simply an economic dividend of avoiding war.

This also makes the dispute with Israel more consequential. Syria’s reconstruction strategy now depends heavily on precisely the international access that years of isolation denied it. A major military escalation with Israel could undermine investor confidence, complicate Syria’s reintegration into international banking and weaken the diplomatic support on which its recovery depends.

It could also expose Damascus to renewed political pressure by Washington and the EU, even if this does not automatically translate into the reimposition of broad sanctions.

The dilemma is therefore becoming sharper: Restraint helps Damascus preserve the international environment it needs to rebuild the state, but it also gives Israel room to constrain the very military and strategic capacity Syria is trying to reconstruct.

Israel has security concerns about the new Syrian government, whose leadership emerged from an armed Islamist movement, and it is increasingly alarmed by Turkiye’s military relationship with Damascus. But Israeli demands have extended well beyond preventing hostile forces from approaching its border.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for the demilitarisation of Syria’s Quneitra, Deraa and Suwayda provinces. His government has also opposed the deployment of forces belonging to Syria’s new army south of Damascus and has sought to restrict the scope of Damascus’s military cooperation with Turkiye.

Israel clearly wants to limit the rebuilding of Syria’s military capacity. It sees such interference through the prism of preventive security. Damascus sees the same issue through the prism of sovereignty: A state that cannot decide where its army deploys or with whom it trains has not fully recovered strategic autonomy.

This is one of the central risks of al-Sharaa’s strategy. Syria is avoiding an unwinnable confrontation partly to rebuild the capacities of state power, while those same capacities are increasingly becoming objects of Israeli pressure.

There are limits to what restraint can achieve. Syria has the backing of other Arab states, while the United States and EU have supported the reconstruction of a functioning Syrian state as part of their approach to regional stability. Damascus has also repeatedly expressed interest in reaching a security agreement with Israel.

And yet, none of this has stopped Israeli military action.

The other risk concerns Syrian public opinion. Appearing indefinitely unable to respond to Israeli attacks could eventually damage al-Sharaa’s public standing and the legitimacy of his government.

A large survey by the Arab Center Washington DC conducted in 2025 found that 74 percent of Syrians opposed recognising Israel, 70 percent rejected an agreement that did not include the return of the Golan Heights, and 88 percent believed Israel threatened Syria’s security and stability. At the same time, 61 percent said the current government’s foreign policy reflected the views of the Syrian people.

The findings are important precisely because they complicate the picture. The survey predates the latest confrontations and does not tell us whether Syrians favour military retaliation. It establishes political red lines, not a public demand for war.

Wider Arab polling points in the same direction. Across the countries surveyed in the 2025 Arab Opinion Index, opposition to recognising Israel remained overwhelming.

That said, Syria under the al-Assads also generally avoided confrontation with Israel while retaining a reputation for belonging to the regional “resistance” camp. The old model combined avoidance of direct war with alliances and armed networks that gave Damascus regional leverage.

Al-Sharaa’s government appears to be making a different bet, focusing on consolidated institutions, economic recovery, international access and a rebuilt national military.

This does not replace territorial sovereignty. It is an attempt to rebuild the means of exercising it.

The bet will become harder to defend, both at home and abroad, if restored state capacity does not eventually give Syria greater control over its territory, its security choices and its foreign relations.

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

UN watchdog says Syria ‘failed to report nuclear material, facilities and activities’ under Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Syria tried to construct a nuclear reactor in the eastern province of Deir Az Zor under ousted former President Bashar al-Assad.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in a confidential report seen by news agencies on Tuesday, said it visited several sites in Syria in August and carried out verification work.

Based on observations at the Deir Az Zor site, the agency said it confirms “that the cooling infrastructure which has now been uncovered is consistent with that of a nuclear reactor”. The agency said it would continue to monitor the activities at the site “as the excavation work progresses”.

Syria was believed to have operated an extensive undeclared nuclear programme under al-Assad that included a nuclear reactor built by North Korea in Deir Az Zor.

The site only became public knowledge after Israel launched air strikes in 2007 that destroyed the facility. Syria later levelled the site and never responded fully to the IAEA’s questions about it.

Israel is believed to have its own undeclared atomic weapons programme that makes it the only country in the Middle East with nuclear bombs. Israel neither confirms nor denies having atomic weapons.

Following al-Assad’s removal in early December 2024, the new government agreed to give IAEA inspectors access to suspected former nuclear sites.

The agency took samples at the site in 2024 and reported last year that they contained uranium particles.

In its Tuesday report, the IAEA said it was also able to “establish that the former Syrian authorities had failed to report nuclear material, facilities and activities”.

Besides the nuclear reactor under construction at Deir Az Zor, the IAEA listed a fuel fabrication plant, where the nuclear fuel for the reactor was manufactured, and a location where the nuclear fuel, as well as uranium scrap and waste, were stored.

During the visit to Syria, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi and a team of senior inspectors also visited a previously undeclared site.

The new Syrian administration notified the agency of the site’s existence in a July 17 letter and invited the IAEA “to cooperate with the Syrian authorities in the inspection and verification of the site and of any nuclear material to be potentially found”.

The IAEA said in its report that this new site contained “natural uranium metal in the form of fuel rods with cladding”.

The agency verified the material and confirmed “the presence of around 73 tonnes of natural uranium metal”. The agency reported that “all of this nuclear material is currently subject to Agency containment and surveillance measures”.

The new Syrian authorities have also expressed an interest in developing a civilian nuclear energy programme and said any nuclear material found in the country would remain in Syria’s custody under international safeguards.

US says its forces ‘successfully’ completed a wave of strikes against Iranian targets, accusing the IRGC of attempted attacks on shipping and US service members.