Middle East

Doha, Qatar — Qatar’s deputy prime minister has warned that global energy shockwaves from the US-Israel war on Iran have yet to reach their peak, raising concerns about further disruption to supplies, international trade and economic growth.

Speaking at the Global Security Forum in Doha on Monday, Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also serves as Minister of State for Defence Affairs, identified several threats facing Qatar and the wider Gulf, including risks to sovereignty and disruptions to energy supplies.

“We haven’t reached the peak with respect to energy,” he said, warning of further repercussions “in the coming days and months”.

His remarks come amid continued instability in the Strait of Hormuz – a vital waterway for global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments – following the US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28, and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes across the region.

Iranian strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial complex in March damaged facilities, with repairs expected to take several years.

“We were surprised,” Al Thani said when asked about the attack, adding that there had since been “a lot of discussion with Iran”.

He said Qatar had drawn lessons from the strikes, “to make sure that all of our assets will be protected from any unexpected attack”.

Al Thani also warned against imposing tolls on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Transit fees should not be applied,” he said, adding that uncertainty over the waterway would ultimately affect consumers worldwide.

‘We never stop our communication’

Despite the attacks, Al Thani said Qatar continued to maintain contact with Tehran.

“We never stop our communication,” he said, adding that the two countries remained in touch at different levels despite their disagreements.

He described Qatar’s relationship with Iran before the attacks as one of trust, pointing to their shared offshore gasfield and longstanding economic interests.

Al Thani expressed hope that mediation efforts involving Qatar, Pakistan and Oman would help produce an agreement between the United States, Iran and other parties, including Israel.

He said a sustainable settlement would require broader regional dialogue involving Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Pakistan and Turkiye, in consultation with international allies.

“We need to build this on trust,” he added.

Al Thani also suggested developing economic ties with Iran to prevent future conflicts, citing cooperation between France and Germany following decades of hostilities.

“Iran is our neighbour. We need to find ways to live with them,” he said.

US defence ties

Al Thani also highlighted Qatar’s longstanding defence partnership with Washington, saying that “more than 90 percent” of attacks had been prevented through shared expertise and military capabilities developed over the past three to four decades.

He said Qatar was continuing to develop Al Udeid airbase, which hosts US forces and military personnel from other partner countries.

The base was itself targeted by Iran during the conflict, with Qatar reporting that it had shot down two Iranian warplanes during an attack in early March.

Al Thani also announced plans for a new regional defence partnership, saying Qatar was prioritising several aspects including air defence, counter-drone measures and cybersecurity.

“I’m happy to announce today also that soon we’re going to announce a new partnership,” he said, without naming the regional partners involved.

The deputy prime minister stressed that Qatar’s mediation efforts did not diminish its commitment to defending its territory.

“Mediation doesn’t mean that we should not be ready for any defensive action from our side,” he said.

US president accuses Ukrainian leader of not wanting to end the war, as Zelenskyy speaks with Washington envoys.

United States President Donald Trump has defended sanction waivers for Russia, saying he wants to keep Moscow at the bargaining table and accusing his counterpart in Kyiv of not wanting to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump made the comments on Truth Social on Sunday in response to criticism of his decision to block numerous sanctions on Russia just days before they were due to take effect.

“My decision on Russia is a very simple one. I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and don’t want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table,” he said.

The move has triggered a significant diplomatic fallout between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the past week.

Zelenskyy said that waiving sanctions on Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022, “will hurt Ukraine”, telling NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that it would strengthen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war effort.

“We can’t compare me and Putin. He’s [an] aggressor. He occupied us. He killed adults and children, his soldiers. He’s a terrorist, and that’s why I hope that President Trump will be very clear with this position.”

Trump reiterated his claim that Zelenskyy does not want the war on his country to end, saying on Truth Social that Kyiv was launching attacks on diesel refineries in Russia despite knowing it was “seriously hurting the world diesel markets”.

“Zelenskyy doesn’t care, and frankly, with all of the money that Europe is famously giving him… he doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” Trump wrote.

Trump announced plans on October 9 for Russia to supply more than 300,000 metric tonnes of diesel to US and global markets to tackle fuel prices that have soared since the US and Israel launched war on Iran in late February. The move led Tehran to effectively close the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of global energy exports transited before the war.

Trump’s embrace of Russian energy has angered not only Kyiv, but also European partners and many US officials, who say the move rewards Moscow while it continues its four-and-a-half-year war against Ukraine.

US-Ukraine talks continue

The Ukrainian president said on X on Sunday that he has spoken with US presidential envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as part of “virtually non-stop communication” between the two countries’ teams aimed at the “next steps in diplomacy”.

“We are doing everything on our part to make this happen, and to ensure that America’s position is strong and helps bring peace closer. Peace that everyone, except Russia, has been waiting for over the past four and a half years,” Zelenskyy wrote.

Zelenskyy spoke with Witkoff and Kushner as Russia and Ukraine continued to strike each other’s energy sites, with Moscow leaving thousands without power, and Kyiv carrying out the largest drone attack on Russia, in St Petersburg, since the war began.

Crew of Austrian Airlines flight OS82 decides to land in Sofia after receiving bomb threat, Bulgarian authorities say.

An Airbus A320 flight from Tel Aviv to Vienna has made an emergency landing in Bulgaria following a reported bomb threat, according to the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport.

Austrian Airlines flight OS82 was near the border with Romania when the crew received a bomb threat and decided to land in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, the Transport Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Bulgaria’s Ministry of Defence said an air force MiG-29 fighter jet escorted the plane to Sofia airport.

Initial information showed the aircraft carried six crew members and 51 passengers, all of whom have all since disembarked, according to the Transport Ministry’s statement.

The airline told the AFP news agency that a security search of the aircraft was conducted.

“Once the search of the aircraft is complete, the passengers will be rebooked onto alternative flights as quickly as possible,” the airline said.

A crisis response team has been set up, and relevant authorities have launched an investigation into the incident, the Bulgarian Transport Ministry said.

According to aviation and flight tracking site FlightAware, Austrian Airlines 82 left the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv on Sunday at 6:46pm local time (15:46 GMT) and landed about three hours later at Vasil Levski airport in Sofia at 9:43pm (18:43 GMT).

Flightradar24 data showed it entered Romanian airspace at about 9:10pm (18:10 GMT) before turning south and heading back towards Bulgaria.

Information from the flight-tracking platform ADS-B Exchange indicates the aircraft was transmitting squawk code 7700 – a signal for a general emergency – at around the same time.

Flydubai incident

Last month, a Flydubai plane carrying 174 passengers was on its way from the United Arab Emirates to Tel Aviv when a co-pilot allegedly attacked the pilot with an axe in an attempt to crash the plane.

The aircraft plunged about 17,000 feet (5,180 metres) before it was brought back under control by other Flydubai pilots after passengers and other crew subdued the alleged attacker.

The flight was diverted and forced to make an emergency landing at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk, northwestern Saudi Arabia.

Authorities in the UAE said the co-pilot was on a “suicide” mission to crash the plane at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.

The co-pilot, Hamam Al-Hammami, an Omani national, has since been charged with terrorism offences in the UAE.

The Israeli government responded to the incident by ordering checks on the identities of all pilots flying into the country.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks more war before elections.

Gulf ministers urge action against Houthis as fighting displaces more than 233,000 people across Yemen.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has condemned repeated attacks by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi fighters on Saudi Arabia and pledged support for the kingdom.

The political and economic bloc that includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates issued a statement on Sunday, shortly after their foreign ministers’ meeting in Manama, Bahrain.

The statement said an attack on any member affected all six, invoking a joint defence agreement and backing Saudi Arabia’s right to protect itself.

The condemnation came as the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis reported shooting down two drones near Riyadh and in Saudi Arabia‘s Eastern Province early on Sunday.

The coalition said another drone had been intercepted near the capital hours earlier, but did not identify who launched it.

Gulf ministers accused the Houthis of carrying out deadly strikes on civilian airports and vital facilities.

They also pressed for tighter enforcement of a United Nations arms embargo against the group and urged countries to formally designate it “a terrorist organisation”.

The ministers welcomed an October 15 statement from the UN Security Council (UNSC), the body responsible for maintaining international peace, which condemned Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia and threats to Red Sea shipping.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government separately appealed to the UNSC to act against Houthi attacks on homes and state facilities.

In letters addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UNSC’s president for October, Aglaia Balta, the Yemeni government cited an attack on the presidential palace in Aden, where the government is temporarily based.

Separately on Sunday, UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan met Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud in Abu Dhabi to discuss regional security, the UAE’s state news agency WAM reported.

Meanwhile, Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces press offensives on several fronts.

The Yemeni military said the Houthis fired missiles towards the central city of Marib on Sunday, while government troops reported gains in Taiz, further south.

Government-aligned commanders said eight soldiers died in fighting in Lahij province on Saturday.

Government forces also claimed to have killed 12 Houthi fighters in southern Taiz, figures that could not be independently confirmed.

This latest phase of the war followed Houthi gains along Yemen’s Red Sea coast last month.

Government forces launched a counteroffensive intended to recapture territory from the Houthis, who seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.

Civilians face deepening shortages

The fighting has uprooted more than 233,000 people, according to the International Organization for Migration, the UN’s migration agency.

About 121,000 are in Taiz province, where supply routes have been disrupted by the fighting.

Al Jazeera’s Hadeel al-Yamani, reporting from Taiz, said cooking gas was unavailable and food stocks were dwindling as Houthi forces blocked supplies through the city’s western entrance.

A local office tracking the siege said food prices had risen fivefold.

The World Health Organization, the UN health agency, warned that Taiz’s 12 hospitals had fuel for just four more days and had run out of surgical supplies.

Oxygen and medicines were also critically scarce as the city struggled with a cholera outbreak.

European diplomats and officials were attacked on Saturday amid a surge in settler pogroms across the occupied West Bank in recent weeks, coinciding with olive harvest season.

The settler pogroms have escalated just weeks before Israel heads to the polls on October 27.

The European Union (EU) on Sunday condemned settler attacks on European diplomats and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. A day earlier, a veteran American journalist working for the Washington Post was also brutally attacked.

But this is not the first time Israeli settlers have assaulted foreign officials or prominent Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Here’s a timeline of some of the recent and past attacks:

October 17, 2026

Israeli settlers assaulted European diplomats, including a French mayor, near the Palestinian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank.

The delegation was visiting Palestinian olive harvesters on Saturday when the Israeli attackers confronted the group.

In Saturday’s incident, the settlers targeted Belgium’s consul general, French and Polish diplomats, and Catholic representatives, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Prevot said.

“A French mayor was assaulted and a Belgian vehicle damaged,” Prevot said, linking the incident to Israel’s “illegal settlement policy” and pledging to push for further EU sanctions.

Bernard Baudoux, the French mayor who was assaulted, told the AFP news agency the attack suggests that “there is a tolerance on the part of the Israeli government” towards settler violence.

Video shared by an activist at the scene, Amit Orfali, shows Baudoux leaning against a vehicle while sitting on the dusty ground. Other clips showed young masked men knocking insistently on a driver’s side window and asking for identification, while other masked men carrying sticks advanced in the distance. Orfali said the masked men “threatened to kill us”.

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called on Israel to arrest the “extremist settlers” who “violently assaulted” Baudoux, and bring them to justice. “They must urgently halt this criminal violence and guarantee the safety of civilian populations, as they are compelled to do under international law,” he said in a post on X.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has, however, appeared to question the reports of the attack on the Europeans, saying on X that they are “alleged” and require “compelling evidence”, despite acknowledging that published footage of the incident exists.

“We take positive note of statements by several Israeli representatives who condemned the attacks,” the EU said in a statement on Sunday. “But we expect full accountability as well as effective measures to prevent continued acts of violence and violent harassment against Palestinians, including during the ongoing olive harvest season, as well as against journalists.”

October 16, 2026

Palestinian farmers harvesting olives and veteran American journalist Heidi Levine, 64, who freelances for the Washington Post, were brutally attacked by settlers.

Levine fell to the ground during the assault before she was set upon, witnesses said. “We looked and saw that there was a journalist … on the ground with people surrounding her, beating her, clubbing her, robbing her, pulling her up, beating her again and kicking her,” Jasper Nathaniel, an independent journalist who witnessed the attack, told Al Jazeera.

Levine later told reporters that her attackers “just kept kicking me and kicking me, like probably 50 times”.

Levine was wearing a protective vest marked “PRESS” on the front and back. Her cameras and phone were taken from her during the assault, the Washington Post reported.

Nathaniel said he and others managed to reach her when the settlers briefly backed away, but she struggled to stand. “She was in very, very bad shape. She couldn’t really get up off the ground,” he said.

As they helped Levine towards paramedics, settlers charged again, throwing more stones, he added. The journalist was eventually taken to a hospital in Ramallah.

Nathaniel said Israeli soldiers arrived after the settler assault and opened fire and used tear gas against Palestinians, shooting a man in the leg. “They do nothing to stop the settlers, and they speed into town and start firing their guns and tear-gassing, and they shoot a Palestinian man in the leg,” he said.

“They’re pointing their guns at the paramedics who are helping him, shoving journalists, including myself,” Nathaniel said, adding that the injured man was eventually taken away in an ambulance.

Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported that Israeli forces fired live ammunition and tear gas at Palestinians during the attack. After the soldiers left, Palestinians returned to harvesting their olives, Nathaniel added.

Netanyahu’s office has said the facts around the settler attack “remain unclear”, as it offered a conditional condemnation.

“Serious questions remain”, said a post on the official X account of the prime minister’s office, calling for an investigation to “establish the facts, including who initiated the violence”.

October 6, 2026

Israeli settlers beat Palestinian AFP news agency photographer Jaafar Ashtiyeh, 58, with rifle butts near Aqraba, south of Nablus. He suffered bruises to his head and torso and was taken by ambulance to a hospital, according to witnesses, his family and fellow journalists cited by AFP.

AFP photographer John Wessels was with Ashtiyeh when the incident occurred.

The news agency reported that a quadbike had raced towards the journalists and a man had opened live fire.

“At least six other people then rushed towards the AFP journalists, firing guns,” AFP reported. “As Ashtiyeh attempted to enter a car, which was clearly marked ‘Press’, two men jumped on him and beat him repeatedly with the butts of their rifles. ‘I could hear his screams,’ said Wessels, who was also threatened at gunpoint.”

While Ashtiyeh is now conscious in a hospital in Nablus, the assailants have taken his camera equipment, according to his colleague Wessels.

The Israeli military has yet to respond to the AFP news agency.

July 11, 2026

United States Congressional Representative Ro Khanna said he and his tour group were detained by rifle-wielding Israeli settlers during a trip to Palestine.

In a post on X, Khanna had accused the Israeli army of supporting the settlers.

“When the [Israeli army] arrived, they sided with the settlers and continued our detention,” Khanna wrote.

Khanna, a Democrat who is considering running for US president in 2028, told the Reuters news agency that “hoodlums … with machine guns” had detained his group a day earlier. “They block off the road. And then they call the [Israeli military] and the [Israeli military] is on their side,” Khanna said.

He added that the settlers were armed with US-made assault rifles.

In an interview with DRM News, Khanna said his experience in the occupied West Bank and Israel was the “first time” he had “really been acutely aware of being brown”.

“I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers. Twenty-one and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us. The arrogance of those young [Israeli army] soldiers that my tax dollars are funding. Having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans,” he added.

The Israeli military disputed Khanna’s version of the events, saying that it “dispersed” civilians who were blocking the road.

Israeli officials have, however, ruled out apologising to Khanna or holding the settlers accountable.

Three months after the incident, on Saturday, October 17, Khanna called Netanyahu a “liar” after his office released an October 16 statement on X saying that “serious questions remain” about “who initiated the violence” and other details of the attack on Washington Post journalist Heidi Levine.

“Netanyahu called me a liar when settlers detained me, along with a NYT photographer, in Zanuta this past July,” Khanna wrote. “Netanyahu, you are the liar with the blood of Palestinian children on your hands.”

November 2025

One Canadian and three Italian activists were injured by illegal Israeli settlers in the Ein ad-Duyuk village in the Jericho governorate in the central West Bank, local sources told the Anadolu news agency.

Anadolu reported that settlers had stormed into a Bedouin community where the activists were residing and then assaulted them. Three activists sustained moderate injuries, while one was critically wounded, the news agency said and added that their passports, phones, and belongings were also taken.

July 2025

Palestinian activist and English teacher Awdah Hathaleen, who contributed to the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, was shot and killed on July 28, 2025, in the occupied West Bank village of Umm al-Khair in the Masafer Yatta region.

The beloved 31-year-old activist and father of three fell to the ground as people rushed over to try to help him. Then an ambulance came out of the nearby illegal settlement of Carmel and took him away.

Footage published by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem appears to show the suspect Yinon Levi opening fire on Hathaleen during a confrontation in the village.

Despite the visual evidence and prior sanctions imposed on Levi by both the EU and the United States over past attacks on Palestinians, Israeli authorities released him to house arrest.

US President Donald Trump also removed the penalties against Levi and other settlers accused of extremist violence after assuming office in January 2025.

July 2024

Israeli settlers attacked a group of foreign volunteers helping Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank.

David Hummel, an American-German in the group, told the AFP news agency that eight mainly American volunteers were working with the farmers in an olive grove near the Palestinian village of Qusra when settlers attacked them.

“They started attacking and beating us all with sticks and metal pipes, and they were throwing rocks as well at us,” he said.

“I was attacked on my legs, on my arms and here on my jaw as well and it was … very violent,” he added.

The Israeli army condemned the violence and said its troops were deployed to the scene and had fired warning shots into the air, causing the Israeli settlers to flee the area.

Most of the victims were from the Daraj neighbourhood in Gaza City, the Health Ministry says.

A mass funeral has been held for 75 Palestinians whose remains were found recently under the rubble of homes and buildings destroyed in the months since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, the Ministry of Health announced.

Hundreds of Palestinians attended the funeral procession before the remains were buried at the Sheikh Radwan Cemetery on Sunday morning.

Most of the victims were from the Daraj neighbourhood in the northeastern part of Gaza City.

Al Jazeera correspondent Nour Khaled said the majority of the remains belonged to women and children “who were inside their homes when they were targeted”.

The remains consisted of some body parts and personal belongings and were wrapped in Palestinian flags before the burial, she said.

Abdullah al-Majdalawi, director of public relations and media for Gaza’s Civil Defence, told the Turkish state news agency Anadolu that the remains had been recovered over recent weeks from several destroyed homes in Daraj.

He said the buildings were bombed while residents were inside during the early months of the war and that the victims belonged to about 20 Palestinian families, including people who had been displaced to the homes.

Efforts to recover bodies from beneath the rubble continue to face severe difficulties due to a lack of equipment and heavy machinery, he added.

The Civil Defence launched the second phase of its recovery operations in July. It recovered 333 bodies and remains of 559 people during its first operation in November 2025.

The Civil Defence says it believes the remains of another 8,000 Palestinians are still trapped beneath the rubble across Gaza. There are about 200,000 damaged and destroyed buildings in Gaza, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

At least 74,475 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched the genocidal war three years ago.

Amman, Jordan – Jordanians fear the country’s border with Israel is turning into a major drug-smuggling route amid a surge in high-tech operations by gangs using drones and helium-filled balloons.

Organised networks active in southern Israel’s Negev Desert have links to groups in Jordan and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, operating along one of the most heavily surveilled borders in the world, with Jordanian authorities increasingly concerned about the implications this could have for the kingdom.

This escalation coincides with changes in the regional drug trade, particularly after the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.

Elements in his regime were linked to the manufacturing and distribution of Captagon, an illegal amphetamine stimulant.

Syria became a hub for the distribution of Captagon to the Gulf, with Jordan a transit point and market for the drug. The Royal Jordanian Air Force carried out periodic strikes on drug manufacturing and smuggling points inside Syria, highlighting the huge security concerns Jordan had about the trade.

Since the collapse of the Assad government and the establishment of a new authority that views the Captagon trade as a national security issue, there has been a decrease in the drug trade from Syria into Jordan.

Although Druze militias in the Syrian province of Suwayda allegedly linked to Israel have been accused of continuing the drug trade, Jordanian security forces are increasingly focused on the Jordan-Israel border.

The use of quadcopter drones and balloons is reportedly among the new tactics used by gangs in Israel to smuggle hashish, crystal meth, and amphetamines into Jordan.

Jordanian security forces are said to be increasingly unhappy with the scale of the drug smuggling operations and have accused the Israeli army of not taking the issue seriously.

Initial data from Jordanian forces recorded 17 interception operations linked to drones during the first half of 2026 in Jordan’s southwestern border area with Israel.

They also recorded 231 smuggling and infiltration attempts and downed 56 drones across various borders during the same period.

Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya told Al Jazeera that Jordanian forces were continuing efforts to prevent drugs from being smuggled into the kingdom. But they are evidently facing more complex activities by drug dealers.

“There is an increase in drug smuggling operations from Israel to Jordan using drones,” he said. “The number of seized drug cases during the current year reached 15,342 cases. Trafficking cases constituted about 28 percent of them, compared with 72 percent for usage cases.”

Israeli media reports indicate that gangs active in the Negev Desert are behind some of the smuggling operations into Jordan, where drugs can fetch higher profits.

There are estimates that 1kg of hashish can sell for approximately 7,500 pounds sterling (almost $10,000), according to the British newspaper The Telegraph, which recently uncovered the drug smugglers’ latest operations. Israeli security services believe that the price of hashish in Jordan is about 15 times higher than in Israel.

Due to widespread disenfranchisement and poverty, elements within Palestinian communities in Israel have been linked to the drug trade, according to reports. Multiple sources have accused Israel of allowing Palestinian towns and cities to become hotbeds of crime to create divisions and prevent calls for greater rights.

Ammar al-Qudah, a member of the Jordanian Senate and retired major-general in the Public Security Directorate, claimed that organised gangs in the Negev had obtained more than 1,000 drones that were originally used for agricultural and security purposes.

“The smuggling networks are linked to other gangs in Jordan, Sinai and the Negev, and rely on a route starting from Sinai, passing through the Negev, and reaching Wadi Araba, in addition to other routes including the Lebanese border with Israel and the Galilee region towards Syria,” he told Al Jazeera.

They are also using a range of sophisticated technology to bypass security on both sides of the border. This includes the use of helium-filled balloons equipped with GPS devices, drones capable of carrying about 50kg of narcotics, including black hashish and crystal meth, al-Qudah said.

He warned that a portion of the black hashish and crystal meth being smuggled into the kingdom is being sold domestically, with the rest going to other markets in the region.

With such high-tech operations, there are accusations that members of Israeli forces know about drug gang activities, based on past experiences in Egypt.

One West Point report said current and former trackers in the Israeli military in the Negev are being recruited by traffickers to provide intelligence to facilitate their operations in Egypt. In 2012, a number of Israeli service personnel were arrested on suspicion of collaborating with drug smugglers across the Egyptian border.

While there is no proof that the same situation is being repeated in Jordan, many have questioned how drones and balloons carrying drugs could cross a heavily surveilled and guarded Israeli border into Jordan.

Jordan’s counternarcotics department, in cooperation with the armed forces, has tracked such cases and made arrests.

Retired Brigadier-General Daifallah al-Daboubi, a strategic and military expert, said Jordan is witnessing a “reverse drug migration”, starting from the Sinai Peninsula, passing through the Negev region, and reaching the kingdom.

“Groups active in Beersheba and the Negev possess great financial capabilities and use advanced smuggling methods, most notably drones,” he said.

The Israeli army’s preoccupation with wars in Gaza, Lebanon and the occupied Golan Heights has provided smugglers with room to manoeuvre on the Jordan border, he added. But he ruled out the direct involvement of the Israeli political or military leadership in any drug smuggling.

Steps taken by Israel to boost security on its eastern border include the establishment of the 96th Division, which began operating in the Jordan Valley in 2025, and the construction of a controversial security barrier with Jordan.

But none of these measures appears to be designed to prevent drugs from leaving Israel; instead, they appear to be designed to prevent weapons and other illicit merchandise from entering the country from Jordan.

Since the start of the war, there have been several negotiation initiatives between the United States and Iran. Only one – the memorandum of understanding signed in Islamabad on June 18 – was concluded, but it collapsed within days.

While prevailing analyses tend to explain this failure through the details of the provisions, this article proceeds from a different premise: that the diplomatic stalemate between the two sides is shaped by a syndrome that has governed US-Iranian relations for years.

In international relations, psychological syndromes can arise as a result of deep crises that leave their mark on political consciousness and memory, potentially obstructing efforts at rapprochement and negotiation between countries.

In the case of Iran and the US, the syndrome is comprised of two complexes: the complex Washington developed as a result of the 1979 siege of the US embassy in Tehran and the complex Tehran developed as a result of historical US hostility and its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

The roots of the rupture between the two countries go as far back as August 1953 when US and British intelligence agencies helped overthrow the nationalist government of Mohammad Mosaddegh after it nationalised the oil industry in 1951. Since then, a perception has become entrenched in Iranian consciousness: that Washington does not accept an independent government in Tehran and it is prepared to sabotage it if it goes against its interests.

From this perspective, Washington’s decision to host Shah Reza Pahlavi, who had just been overthrown by his people, for medical treatment in October 1979 was read in revolutionary Tehran as a prelude to a second coup.

Iranian students stormed the US embassy on November 4 that year and held 52 Americans for 444 days. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed and have not been restored to this day.

While the incident is portrayed in the Iranian narrative as a defence of the revolution, in American consciousness, it established the image of Iran as a state that does not respect international norms, whose word cannot be relied upon and whose behaviour should not be rewarded.

That is the embassy siege complex. It is not about the incident itself so much as the informal rule it produced in US decision-making: that Iran must concede first and its concession must be verified before it receives anything in return.

The Iranian complex was shaped by this history as well, but it reached its peak in May 2018 when US President Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) despite the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) confirmation that Tehran was complying with it.

Just two weeks later, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced 12 demands for a new deal, only four of which were related to the nuclear file. Seven of them were related to Iran’s regional behaviour in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and the Gulf. In other words, Washington did not merely revoke an existing agreement; it also raised the ceiling of its conditions for any future agreement.

The knot then deepened in June 2025 when the US took part in the Twelve-Day War and struck the nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan at a time when a new round of indirect negotiations was scheduled in Muscat. It then reached its furthest point with Washington’s participation alongside Israel in the current war.

Accordingly, a conviction became entrenched in the Iranian consciousness that an American signature guarantees nothing, that any agreement can be overturned with a change of administration and indeed that negotiation itself may be a cover for war rather than an alternative to it.

The informal rule this has produced in Iranian decision-making is that there will be no step taken before binding guarantees and no concession before pressure is lifted.

Thus, the two complexes stand at opposite ends: The first requires Iranian action before an American quid pro quo while the second requires an American guarantee before Iranian action.

A reading of the recent negotiation initiatives shows that every US initiative bears the imprint of the embassy siege complex. The 15-point plan put forward in March demanded the dismantling of the Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow facilities; an end to uranium enrichment; the suspension of Iran’s missile programme; and the abandonment of its allies in exchange for promises to lift sanctions later.

The May draft by White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner linked the release of Iran’s frozen funds to the suspension of enrichment first. The American response in September also stipulated the freezing of enrichment and the entry of inspectors throughout the negotiation period.

What remains constant in the American initiatives is that Iranian action precedes the quid pro quo and verification precedes trust.

The imprint of the JCPOA withdrawal complex in the Iranian initiatives is also a constant. The five-point response in late March demanded guarantees that war would not be repeated. The 10 points put forward in April demanded a binding UN Security Council resolution shielding any agreement from being overturned. And the 14 points in May demanded a nonaggression pledge that includes Israel.

Meanwhile, the seven-day plan proposed by Tehran last month stipulated the lifting of sanctions and the US naval blockade on Iran before the opening of the Strait of Hormuz on the sixth day and the start of nuclear negotiations on the seventh. What remains constant in the Iranian initiatives is that guarantees precede action and the lifting of pressure precedes Iranian concessions.

All these initiatives were dialogue between two complexes with each side drafting its text to protect itself from a repetition of its historical experience with the other, rather than to meet the other halfway. This may explain why the gap in substance has narrowed, but the gap in trust has not.

The Islamabad memorandum represents the exception that proves the rule as it was the closest moment to a settlement because it was formulated to reassure both sides over their core concerns. To reassure Washington, it stipulated the dilution of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium and made the lifting of sanctions and unfreezing of funds conditional on Iranian implementation.

To reassure Tehran, it provided for an end to hostilities, respect for mutual sovereignty, a mechanism to monitor implementation and UN Security Council approval of the final agreement. Ballistic missiles were also entirely absent from the text.

But this agreement did not hold. Tehran suspended its participation in the Geneva round of talks because of the absence of a ceasefire in Lebanon, which had been a consistent demand in every Iranian initiative since March. In the Iranian reading, Washington’s inability to rein in Israel confirmed that an American signature was not enough. The JCPOA withdrawal complex immediately kicked in, and the two sides returned to square one.

By late September, the dispute appeared to have shifted definitively from substance to sequencing. Informed sources indicated that it now revolves around the order of steps rather than their content and the stated goal has become a return to an enhanced version of the June memorandum.

Here the two complexes appear in their clearest form: Washington wants the Strait of Hormuz opened and enrichment frozen first because it does not trust Iran while Tehran wants the naval blockade lifted first because it does not trust the US.

A comparison between Pompeo’s 2018 conditions and the June 2026 memorandum shows that US demands have retreated from redefining Iran’s regional role to focusing on the nuclear file and the Strait of Hormuz while Iranian demands have shifted from compensation to be paid by Washington to a conditional investment fund financed by other parties.

In other words, the substantive gap between the two sides has narrowed considerably – something that would have been unimaginable eight years ago.

However, the two complexes have not diminished; indeed, they may have deepened because of the war. Each complex feeds the other until together they have become a single syndrome, and diplomatic deadlock has turned from a passing condition into a stable structure.

Accordingly, any new formula for sequencing the steps, however precise, will remain unable to break this deadlock unless it addresses both complexes at once – something that requires a third party capable of guaranteeing both the action and the reciprocal action simultaneously.

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

The Trump administration has asked Israel to stop settler attacks in the occupied West Bank, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. This comes amid outrage over a savage settler attack on Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine on Friday.

Fires reported on three tankers in Strait of Hormuz and Sea of Oman, as masked settlers attack European politicians in occupied West Bank.

Trump-appointed Ambassador Mike Huckabee calls attack in occupied West Bank a ‘despicable act of terror’.

United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has demanded Israel prosecute and jail those responsible for the attack on Washington Post journalist Heidi Levine in the occupied West Bank.

“Attacking a female photographer is a despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards,” Huckabee wrote on X on Saturday.

“Those who attacked unarmed reporter should spend YRS in prison,” he added. “We have called for a full investigation, arrest, and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law to whoever participated in this.”

Levine was covering Palestinians’ annual harvest of olives on Friday in the occupied West Bank when Israeli settlers brutally attacked her and several Palestinians.

Israeli settlers stormed the area, beat her and stole her passport, telephone, wallet and equipment, according to witnesses.

The perpetrators, armed with bottles and slingshots, “were kicking me for like 10 minutes, and I was trying to hold onto my cameras and my bag”, Levine said.

Jasper Nathaniel, an independent journalist who witnessed the attack, told Al Jazeera that Levine “was in very, very bad shape. She couldn’t really get up off the ground.”

Levine, 64, was taken to hospital after the assault in Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah.

The American photojournalist underwent surgery on her finger, which was nearly detached from her hand, and was left with a broken rib and multiple broken vertebrae, as well as lacerations, her daughter told The Associated Press news agency.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants to shore up his pro-settlement right-wing base ahead of closely fought October 27 elections, claimed on Friday that Palestinians or “far-left” activists may have been responsible for the attack on Levine and other Palestinians.

Huckabee, a staunch ally of Israel who has sharply criticised Israeli settler attacks against Americans, did not identify the culprits as settlers after Netanyahu tried to sow doubt as to their identity.

The ambassador, appointed by US President Donald Trump, met Palestinian-Americans in the occupied West Bank town of Turmus Aya in September to hear locals’ testimony about their experiences with pogroms. In August, Huckabee called a days-long Israeli settler siege an “act of terror”.

The US State Department criticised Friday’s attack using a cautious tone on Levine’s beating, stating condemnation of “criminal violence by any party”.

Egyptian president pledges ‘any measure’ to help defend Saudi Arabia ‘if it is requested of us’.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has called for an emergency parliamentary session to authorise him to approve any requests from Saudi Arabia for defence assistance, if Riyadh were to ask.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony at the Egyptian Military Academy on Saturday, el-Sisi emphasised Cairo’s readiness to back the kingdom.

Egypt will “carry out any measure to protect” Saudi Arabia “in accordance with the directives of His Majesty King Salman and the directives of the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman”, he said.

“I know that this matter requires the approval of the Egyptian parliament, and I hope that parliament will convene in an emergency session to give us this authorisation, if it is requested of us,” he said.

“I am not speaking in order for us to fight anyone or attack anyone. I am speaking only for defence.”

Attacks on Saudi Arabia

The request follows a barrage of attacks on the kingdom from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, including airports and oil facilities.

Recent Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia have mainly targeted key infrastructure on the outskirts of the capital, Riyadh, but they appear to be edging closer to the city centre.

Houthi attacks on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport earlier this month killed 14 people and wounded more than 300. Houthi attacks have also been reported on other airports, including Dammam, Abha, Jazan and Najran.

Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government launched a full-scale military campaign against the Houthis this month to recapture territory seized by them.

El-Sisi had backed Saudi calls for secure and unhindered navigation in the Red Sea in a meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince, known as MBS, in Cairo last month.

A statement from the Egyptian presidency then said that “the security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states is an integral part of Egypt’s national security”.

Red Sea security

That meeting came just days after the Houthis seized Yemen’s Red Sea coast, gaining significant control over the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the southern gateway to the Suez Canal.

Saudi Arabia already has a defence pact with Pakistan and Turkiye, known as the Mecca Alliance for Defence, which was signed in August.

Earlier this month, the three countries agreed to activate “deterrence measures” under the pact and rapidly deploy forces to the Gulf kingdom to counter attacks by Yemen’s Houthis.

Analysts say Riyadh is looking for help to protect the kingdom and Red Sea shipping and that Egypt, whose Suez Canal revenue depends on the same traffic, is an obvious partner.

They say Egypt is eager to prevent Iran and its allies from imposing control over the region, especially over maritime traffic in the Red Sea, given the direct repercussions for the Suez Canal.

Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of encouraging Houthi attacks against the kingdom, a claim Tehran rejects. Iran has offered assistance to halt the conflict between the two sides.

Several Palestinians have been injured by Israeli settlers, and farmers have been arrested by Israeli forces during Israeli pogroms across the occupied West Bank.

Four women and a child were among six people injured on Saturday when Israeli settlers attacked residents in Ma’in village in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

In the town of Deir Ammar, west of Ramallah, Israeli forces opened fire on farmers picking olives, forcing them to leave their land, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

In the same area, Israeli settlers shot and injured two Palestinians. In the village of Tuqu, southeast of Bethlehem, Israeli forces fired on a Palestinian civilian vehicle.

‘Part of campaign’

In the village of Kafr Malek, northeast of Ramallah, settlers raided a farm at dawn and killed about 20 sheep, Mayor Najeh Rustum told Al Jazeera.

He added that Israeli forces had raided the village the previous night as well, firing tear gas canisters that ignited a fire in a house and caused material damage.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said settlers destroyed olive trees across the Beit Furik plain, east of Nablus, in the northern West Bank while Israeli forces arrested landowners and olive pickers.

In the village of Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah, she said, settlers under army protection fired live ammunition at farmers in the al-Hariq area to prevent them from completing the harvest and forced them off their land. Settlers also smashed the vehicle of international activist Jonathan Budlak in the village and threw stones at a farmer’s vehicle.

In the village of Burqa near Ramallah, Israeli forces and settlers prevented farmers from picking olives, Odeh said, adding that settlers attacked farmers in the Wadi al-Sha’er area, southeast of Salfit.

“What we see, whether it’s in Beit Furik, Kafr Malek, Deir Jarir or elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, is part of a campaign,” Odeh said.

She said settlers have become increasingly emboldened, publicly advertising attack campaigns on social media platforms.

“There have been 300 documented attacks since the beginning of October, and that has had a devastating impact on a very important season for Palestinian farmers,” she said, adding that danger comes from soldiers and settlers alike as military forces routinely intervene to protect settlers and attack Palestinians defending their land.

Prominent rabbi justifies attacks

The attacks follow a religious edict issued by Rabbi Dov Lior, a prominent rabbi for National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and a leading authority among the Hilltop Youth, which is a religious Zionist group devoted to seizing Palestinian land in the West Bank.

In the edict, Lior stated that harvesting olives in the Holy Land is entirely permitted and carries an added virtue, given security dangers.

He wrote that Jews are permitted to harvest olives even in areas far from Jewish communities to publicly display ownership of the land and fulfil God’s commandment of conquering it. He claimed the land belongs to the Jewish people and Palestinians did not buy or rent it.

Odeh said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplays pogroms and no concrete action is taken to stop them.

“It is a matter of debate among politicians, but no one is stopping these settlers, whose names, locations and homes are known,” she said, adding that politicians permit the violence to continue because “it is politically expedient” and secures votes before elections on October 27.

Sanaa, Yemen – A missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi group, also known as Ansar Allah, streaks across the sky over Sanaa at midday, leaving a trail of smoke behind it.

Its intended target is unclear. It could have been a site in Saudi Arabia or territory to the south and east held by Yemen’s internationally recognised government. For people in northern Yemen, missile launches have become a familiar sight.

On Thursday, at least five people were killed near the al-Maashiq presidential palace in Aden after Houthi missile strikes. Yemeni Prime Minister Shaya al-Zindani was present at the palace at the time of the attack, but was unharmed.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the attack targeted an operational headquarters, part of its campaign against Saudi-backed fighters and equipment supporting the internationally recognised government in Aden.

Frequent Houthi missile attacks – combined with the Iranian-backed group’s territorial gains around the city of Taiz in southwestern Yemen – have severed key supply routes and threatened other roads, ports, and airports that government forces rely on for supplies.

The disruptions could undermine the government’s Dawn of Yemen operation, which aims to recapture territory held by the Houthi group. This includes the capital, Sanaa, which the Houthis seized at the start of the war in 2014.

Government officials, however, say supply issues will not halt the offensive, emphasising that their forces can overcome logistical challenges.

“The Houthi group consistently attempts to sever supply lines to government forces, but they have been unable to halt these supplies. So, military operations against the Houthis will continue,” Colonel Wadah al-Dubaish, spokesperson for the government-aligned Joint Forces on Yemen’s West Coast, told Al Jazeera.

But losses to the Houthis over the past few months have been damaging to the government.

A rapid Houthi advance south along the Red Sea coast in early September captured Mocha, a port on the Red Sea coast and a key supply hub for pro-government forces in western Taiz governorate.

A government counter-offensive reclaimed some of the territory lost in the southern Red Sea coast region, but not Mocha itself, which continues to be in Houthi hands.

Houthi attacks and ground advances, al-Dubaish said, may delay the delivery of supplies to government military forces or increase the cost of delivering supplies to certain fronts.

“However, they cannot stop the flow of supplies because the air, land and sea routes are still available, allowing supplies to continue reaching the front lines,” he said.

But the situation in the city of Taiz illustrates the limits of that logistical flexibility. Houthi forces have cut the main road connecting the city to Aden, the seat of the internationally recognised government. Alternative routes through the surrounding mountains have also been disrupted, leaving Taiz effectively besieged.

The consequences are already being felt. Fuel shortages and soaring prices have affected Taiz since the latest Houthi advances, with the cost of petrol tripling last week.

The loss of vital supply routes also threatens the government’s ability to deliver ammunition, reinforcements and other essential supplies to its troops, even as they face heavy and sustained Houthi attacks.

Al-Dubaish argued, however, that there are always advances and retreats in war, and that losing one battle does not mean losing the conflict as a whole.

“The war is still ongoing and will not cease until the Houthis are defeated,” he said.

‘Logistical flexibility’

Yemeni government forces are currently fighting the Houthis on several fronts in Yemen, including the southern Red Sea coast, around Taiz city, and in Marib and al-Jawf east of Sanaa.

Faisal al-Majidi, Yemen’s deputy minister of justice, told Al Jazeera that government forces rely on “logistical flexibility and decentralisation” to secure supply lines across the country.

“This approach involves dividing supply routes into semi-autonomous sectors, supported by nearby access points and key supply hubs – such as Shabwa, Marib, Houthi-free areas in Taiz, the Red Sea coast, and the southern governorates,” al-Majidi said.

Such an approach, he noted, mitigates the difficulties of moving between widely separated front lines.

“Furthermore, government forces have been fighting for the control of high points overlooking major roads to help protect vital supply arteries from bombardment,” al-Majidi added.

Among the areas pro-government forces have focused on is the strategic mountainous district of al-Waziiya in Taiz governorate, which overlooks the Red Sea coast and could also be a launching pad to relieve the siege on Taiz city from its western approaches. Fighting with the Houthis in al-Waziiya continues.

The Saudi role

Saudi Arabia has stepped up its support for the Yemeni government and allied forces since the launch of Dawn of Yemen, acknowledging airstrikes against Houthi forces in the country for the first time since a 2022 truce. Riyadh first intervened in the conflict in Yemen in 2015 in an effort to restore the Yemeni government to Sanaa.

Al-Dubaish said the Saudi military role is a pivotal and indispensable source of support for Yemeni government forces.

“Saudi support is a decisive factor in the conflict. Without Saudi Arabia, it would be a huge challenge for the Yemeni government to confront the Houthis, who possess advanced military capabilities – such as ballistic and cruise missiles supplied by Iran – along with a large pool of fighters,” said al-Dubaish.

The Saudi-led coalition has said airstrikes have destroyed hundreds of high-value targets since early October.

Al-Majidi described the Saudi air support as a “strategic balancer” and a vital pillar of the Dawn of Yemen operation.

“The Saudi role centres on providing direct cover for ground forces and, more importantly, neutralising the reinforcements of the [Houthis], as well as targeting missile and drone launch platforms – thereby mitigating their destructive impact,” he said.

The Saudi-led coalition has previously airdropped weapons and ammunition to pro-government fighters in Taiz when it was besieged in the early years of the war, but there have been no reports of similar operations since the latest siege began this month.

Coordination: The litmus test

Saudi Arabia is also vital for what may be an even more important task: uniting an anti-Houthi side that remains divided with disjointed command structures.

Al-Dubaish said that poor coordination among military units remains a significant challenge.

“The coordination problem stems from the presence of multiple military units operating under different command structures,” he added. “This fragmentation is not in the best interest of the forces fighting the Houthis.”

The government’s loss of the Red Sea coast in September was partly the result of faulty coordination among anti-Houthi forces, who appeared unable to respond quickly to the Houthi advance.

That was despite messaging from the Yemeni government since the start of the year that anti-Houthi forces were operating under a unified command structure, after the defeat of separatist Southern Transitional Council forces – who had been backed by the United Arab Emirates – at the start of the year.

“The coordination among various field forces … remains the true litmus test for the success of the Dawn of Yemen operation,” said al-Majidi.

Adnan al-Jabarni, a Yemeni researcher specialising in military affairs, told Al Jazeera that the level of coordination among government forces is improving.

“These forces are currently testing their coordination, given that they only began to operate under a unified structure – following the withdrawal of the UAE from Yemen and the formation of the Supreme Military Committee (SMC), which incorporated all the various branches and units,” al-Jabarni said.

In January, the Presidential Leadership Council, Yemen’s United Nations-recognised authority led by President Rashad al-Alimi, established the SMC, with the goal of overseeing all anti-Houthi military units and integrating them into the official Yemeni military under one command.

However, establishing the committee has not eliminated longstanding divisions between the different forces. Their command structures and sources of funding have historically differed, and the losses on the Red Sea coast have highlighted the continuing difficulties of coordinating their battlefield operations.

That coordination is vital for Taiz, where holding off the Houthis will depend on recapturing roads for use as supply routes.

Al-Jabarni argued that friction among pro-government forces is diminishing and the supply lines for government forces remain intact despite the Houthi attacks.

“The Houthis are attempting to exert pressure on Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government by targeting civilian facilities and supply lines – specifically focusing on vital infrastructure – but I believe this is likely to intensify the pace of anti-Houthi operations rather than slowing them down,” al-Jabarni said.

The UK Foreign Office says it advises against “all but essential travel” to Saudi Arabia, after attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on the country.