Middle East

Iranian officials have been speaking with Qatari mediators about a two-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in the latest effort to find a diplomatic path out of the US-Israel war on Iran that has caused a serious global energy crisis.

But even amid signs of diplomatic progress, officials from both sides say they are ready for renewed military escalation.

President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly suggested the United States could attack Iran after the November 3 midterm elections, said the latest negotiations were “going fine”, but added that the US still had several Iranian targets to “take care of”.

Meanwhile, Araghchi has also said Iran’s military was more prepared than ever for renewed war, while the country’s security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, threatened Iran would use “new weaponry” in response to any future attack.

Here’s what we know about the latest diplomatic efforts and the sharp rhetoric from both sides, and what it could mean for what lies ahead:

What is the status of talks?

Araghchi said on Saturday that an Iranian delegation, including one of his aides, travelled to Doha to meet Qatari mediators. Earlier, Qatari officials also travelled to Tehran for consultations.

The latest discussions in Doha centred on a plan that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a global energy chokepoint, within two days and restart peace talks with the US, provided Washington meets a set of demands from Tehran, Araghchi told Al Jazeera.

Those demands include the lifting of recently imposed US sanctions, the reinstatement of oil waivers granted in June, a reduction in the US military presence in the region, recognition of new shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz designated by Iran and Oman, and an end to the conflict on all fronts, including Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, said Araghchi.

Qatari and Pakistani mediators were “continuing consultations regarding our conditions”, said the top Iranian diplomat.

Pakistan has been mediating between the US and Iran, with its army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, visiting Tehran several times as part of the diplomatic efforts to end the war. Doha and Islamabad played key roles in the signing of the June memorandum of understanding (MoU) that collapsed in August.

Iran’s Rezaei said the US had “indicated its readiness” to accept its conditions, although Washington has not confirmed this.

On the US side, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed Qatar-led talks were ongoing, but said he was not aware of a timeframe for them.

“There are multiple talks. Talks have actually never stopped,” said Rubio. “If there is a diplomatic solution, we would be open to it.”

Why has Iran noted a change in the US’s ‘tone’?

The renewed diplomatic activity comes after US Vice President JD Vance sent a letter earlier this week to Rezaei, reportedly seeking to gauge the prospects of restarting negotiations and averting another round of military escalation.

Rezaei confirmed on Saturday that he had read the letter, whose tone he said had “completely changed” compared with earlier correspondence from Trump.

Araghchi also said he had studied Vance’s letter, which he described positively.

“The American side’s attempt to open the door to dialogue and understanding more broadly is a positive step,” Araghchi told Al Jazeera.

However, he warned, “If Washington’s goal in sending this letter is to stir up discord, it would be yet another mistake to add to its previous ones.”

What has Iran said about prospects for peace and war?

Iranian officials have said they are open to new peace talks if the US meets their conditions, but also ready to act more aggressively in any new military confrontation.

“I know that our armed forces are more prepared for war than any time before, and we are ready for any scenario,” Araghchi told Al Jazeera.

In the event of any new military threat from the US or Israel, Iran’s response would be “immediate” and “without geographical limitations”, according to a statement by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

Khamenei ordered commanders to update Iran’s target list to include “all types of tangible and intangible assets belonging to the American-Zionist enemy”.

Rezaei told Al Jazeera that Iran would use “new weaponry” in its response to any future attacks. He also said Iran’s government was weighing a change to its “nuclear doctrine”, which currently includes a ban on nuclear weapons.

Iran’s nuclear programme has been a major point of contention in the conflict with the US, and Trump has repeatedly said Iran must never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon. Tehran insists its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

What is the latest from Trump?

The US president has sent mixed signals about the status of peace talks. On Saturday, he said negotiations were “going fine” but added that they were “not very reliable”.

He also said the US military still needed to “take care of” several Iranian sites, singling out a suspected underground nuclear complex known as Pickaxe Mountain.

Trump added that the US could achieve its military objectives “very quickly” and was not in a hurry.

Previously, he threatened to renew attacks that would “finish off” Iran, while the US has reportedly warned its Gulf allies to prepare for a short, high-intensity round of conflict after the midterm elections.

Rubio said Trump had not yet decided on whether to carry out new strikes, but warned the US “can achieve military objectives if we seek to”.

How could Israel play into the calculation?

Israel, which joined the US in initiating the war against Iran in February, is preparing for another round of potential conflict right after the US midterm elections, according to a senior Israeli official cited by Israel’s Ynet News site.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel has a “historic, one-time opportunity … to remove the Iranian threat once and for all”. While Netanyahu’s coalition lost its parliamentary majority in recent legislative elections, the 77-year-old leader remains in office as caretaker until a new government is formed.

Andreas Krieg, an associate professor of security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu’s threats complicate Iran’s calculus because Tehran fears “even a nuclear agreement with Washington may not end the threat of another Israeli attack”.

Brigadier-General Yadollah Javani, the deputy for political affairs of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Iranian forces are operating on the assumption that the US or Israel could strike at any moment.

What explains the parallel diplomatic efforts and war rhetoric?

Hamidreza Azizi, a senior Iran analyst with the Crisis Group, said Tehran is pursuing diplomacy while also “attempting to redefine” the military implications of another potential conflict.

“For now, diplomacy and military preparations are proceeding simultaneously,” he wrote in a post on X. “The emerging Iranian position seems to be that an agreement remains possible, but another war would be fought under different rules and on a much wider battlefield.”

He added, “Whether Washington takes these warnings as credible deterrence or further escalatory threats could significantly influence what happens next.”

Krieg said the November 3 elections give Iran an incentive to delay concessions to deny Trump a diplomatic victory. But that calculus could change afterwards when he has fewer domestic political restraints on military action.

“We could therefore reach a situation where Iran becomes more willing to compromise precisely when Washington becomes more willing to strike,” said Krieg.

UNRWA’s West Bank director, Roland Friedrich, said the scenes in Hebron carry “alarming echoes” of the mass displacement in the northern occupied West Bank in early 2025, when Israeli military operations emptied the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps.

More than 34,000 Palestinian refugees from the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps remain displaced, according to UNRWA, more than a year after Israel’s “Iron Wall” operation began in January 2025. The operation destroyed more than half of the camps’ residential buildings.

OCHA’s demolition records capture only a fraction of that destruction. Between 2009 and October 2026, the agency recorded 1,399 buildings demolished in the Jenin and Tulkarem governorates, displacing 4,139 people. Those records mainly track demolitions carried out for lack of permits or as punishment, not buildings destroyed during military raids.

An investigation by the research group Forensic Architecture found evidence of deliberate, systematic destruction. Researchers verified more than 200 incidents involving the destruction of buildings and streets across four refugee camps, using armoured bulldozers, controlled demolitions and air attacks. They found that roads were widened through homes and gardens to create routes for military vehicles. The group concluded that Israel was applying tactics in the occupied West Bank similar to those it had used in Gaza.

In February 2025, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Tulkarem and Jenin would come to resemble Jabalia and Shujayea, two of Gaza’s most devastated areas.

The raids have not stopped. Last week, Israeli forces detained four Palestinians in Tulkarem, and in the village of Burin, south of Nablus, troops converted several homes into military barracks, as they have in Hebron.

Near Jenin, the army has ordered the residents of an entire village to leave permanently. “I have sheep and cows. Our entire lives are tied to this land,” said farmer Jabri Yahya. “Last year they uprooted our olive trees, and this year they want to force us to leave. We don’t know where to go.”

Iran’s top diplomat tells Al Jazeera Tehran has reached a plan with Qatari mediators to reopen Hormuz within two days if the US meets its conditions.

Israel carried out several attacks in Gaza, including shelling the Nuseirat refugee camp.

At least four Palestinians in Gaza have been killed as Israel continues to attack the enclave, despite a so-called “ceasefire” that has been in place for over a year.

Israel carried out several attacks in Gaza on Saturday, including shelling the Nuseirat refugee camp, in which Palestinian teacher Diaa Abu al-Rous was killed, al-Awda Hospital confirmed.

Separately, another man, Arafat al-Arair, died after sustaining serious injuries days earlier when Israel struck a vehicle in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City. A medical source at al-Shifa Hospital confirmed his death.

Meanwhile, two girls also died on Saturday from injuries sustained the previous evening when their tent caught fire at a camp for displaced people in al-Mawasi, in Khan Younis. Nasser Medical Complex confirmed their deaths. It is not clear what caused the fire.

At least six Palestinians were killed in Gaza over the past 48 hours, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health, bringing the number of people killed since the October 2025 ceasefire to 1,580.

In its daily statistical report on Saturday, the ministry said another 26 people were injured over the same period.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warned on Friday that Israeli forces in Gaza were continuing to displace Palestinians and that their actions continued to raise concerns of ethnic cleansing.

The OHCHR said in a statement that Palestinians were increasingly being forced into a shrinking area of the territory, which has been decimated following three years of Israeli siege.

The office said Israeli forces were destroying what remained of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. The Israeli military is working to expand its control over Gaza’s territory to 70 percent, following an order from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said Israel was targeting civilians as it sought to displace Palestinians from the city.

“We have testimonies from people who have evacuated their homes in the eastern part of Deir el-Balah city, confirming that the Israeli military has adjusted the yellow demarcation line by opening fire on civilians to push them from these areas,” Abu Azzoum said.

Since a nominal “ceasefire” came into effect a year ago, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,580 Palestinians and injured 5,711 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Talks aimed at permanently ending Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza under United States President Donald Trump’s peace plan have stalled. Reconstruction efforts have yet to begin amid disputes between Hamas and Israel over the implementation of Trump’s plan.

Hamas says it will not fully disarm until Israel withdraws entirely from Gaza. However, Israel maintains it will not leave the territory until Hamas forfeits its weapons.

EXCLUSIVE

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi tells Al Jazeera Tehran doesn’t rule out attack, is ‘prepared for all scenarios’.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says a United States effort to open dialogue with Tehran is “a positive step”, but that there are currently no plans for meetings with US officials.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Saturday, Araghchi said Iran had studied a letter sent by US Vice President JD Vance in high-level meetings, and set out Tehran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which he said would pave the way for renewed negotiations with Washington.

He added that an Iranian delegation has travelled to Doha, a day after Qatari mediators were in Tehran in an apparent bid to negotiate a revival of the US-Iran ceasefire. Araghchi said one of his aides is in Qatar to continue consultations.

“The American side’s attempt to open the door to dialogue and understanding more broadly is a positive step,” the foreign minister told Al Jazeera.

However, he warned: “If Washington’s goal in sending this letter is to stir up discord, it would be yet another mistake to add to its previous ones.”

‘No need to meet with the Americans’

Araghchi played down talk of upcoming meetings between the two sides.

“What is being circulated in this regard is merely media speculation,” he said.

“We see no need to meet with the Americans at this stage. Our conditions are clear, and mediators are continuing their consultations regarding them,” he added.

He said whether Iran would hold direct or indirect talks with the US depended on Tehran’s conditions being met.

“Mediators have presented proposals concerning the nuclear dossier, which we are currently reviewing as part of the second phase,” he said.

“Qatari and Pakistani mediators are continuing consultations regarding our conditions,” Araghchi said.

Conditions for Hormuz

Araghchi said talks with Qatari mediators had shortened the time needed to implement Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“The Qatari side proposed shortening the implementation period of the Iranian proposal to five days. We have reached a proposal at this stage that reduces the implementation period to two days,” he said.

“Our conditions include lifting the sanctions imposed following the Islamabad memorandum and reducing US forces in the region,” he said, adding, “We demand the restoration of oil waivers and the release of all our frozen funds, including those held in Qatar.”

Iran is also demanding recognition of shipping routes through the strait that it had discussed with Oman, and the closure of other routes, he said.

‘Prepared for all scenarios’

Araghchi also said his country does not rule out the possibility of an attack against Iran.

“We are prepared for all scenarios,” he said.

“We have upgraded our weaponry, addressed our vulnerabilities, and tested new arms. Our forces are at the highest level of readiness.”

Israel’s parliament remains in deadlock.

After one of the highest voter turnouts in decades, neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the self-styled Zionist opposition alliance secured the 61 seats required for a parliamentary majority in the October 27 polls.

Netanyahu’s camp came first, with 53 seats, five more than the main opposition bloc. The Arab parties surged to a record 19 seats but have been relegated to merely observing coalition negotiations.

Viewed from a distance, the results could appear startling.

The judicial reforms ushered in at the start of Netanyahu’s government term in 2022 provoked the largest street protests in Israel’s history, while the prime minister himself is still embroiled in a corruption trial dating back to 2019. Alleged failures ahead of the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, that triggered Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have still to be reckoned with, despite overwhelming public pressure to do so. Moreover, the genocide has led to growing international isolation, while also providing the pretext for multiple attacks on countries across the region – the latest of which, undertaken with the United States on Iran in February, continues to roil energy markets around the world.

Nevertheless, roughly 2.38 million Israelis on Tuesday made the journey to the polls to back Netanyahu’s coalition, led by his Likud party, while some 2.21 million cast their ballots for the opposition alliance.

Between the two, little space was given to examine the multiple war crimes Israel stands accused of having carried out in Gaza, where Israeli attacks have killed more than 74,500 people and left much of it in ruins, or government complicity in the surging violence and pogroms in the occupied West Bank, where a United Nations commission of inquiry said on Monday that Israel had been committing crimes against humanity, including extermination, torture and rape.

Gaza did not make the ballot

Analysts said the fact that neither Gaza nor the West Bank were a deciding factor in how Israelis voted on Tuesday was largely because they already represented an area of broad agreement across both alliances.

Instead, the election was fought on largely internal issues: the power of Israel’s courts, whether members of the ultra-Orthodox minority should be exempted from military service, and whether the government’s alleged culpability in missing the warnings of the October 2023 attack should be examined.

Leading Israeli sociologist Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani said the issues were pitched to the Israeli public along broadly similar lines to those used by the politicians enacting the policies.

“I don’t think the problem is simply that people are uninformed or disengaged,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Many Israelis know that Gaza has been devastated, even though they are exposed to a very selective representation of that devastation. But knowing something and recognising its moral and political implications are different things,” Shenhav-Shahrabani added, providing one explanation for the absence of empathy displayed by many Israelis in the face of the widely reported suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

“Ordinary people, who love their families, care for their friends, and consider themselves decent human beings, can participate in or acquiesce to a political order that produces immense suffering for others,” he said.

For Shenhav-Shahrabani, there has been “a powerful mechanism of denial” at work. “Not necessarily denial of the facts, but denial of their meaning,” he said.

Security on the agenda

For Netanyahu’s supporters, however, this denial could be traced to something more personal.

“The Likud is a tribe, or perhaps a cult and, as far as they are concerned, Dear Leader is always right,” Israeli analyst Ahron Bregman said of the prime minister’s base, which has sustained his rule for a cumulative 19 years – roughly a quarter of Israel’s entire existence.

“For them, the enemy, straight after the Arabs, is the left, and they would vote for Netanyahu regardless of his faults,” added Bregman, a senior teaching fellow at King’s College London.

For much of this electorate, the vote was less a judgement on the government’s conduct than a choice between competing claims to political legitimacy – or as Israeli academic Roi Zur put it, a contest over “the heart and soul of democracy” and the future of Jewish and Israeli identity.

“The most important thing, I think, for turnout among Netanyahu’s supporters is the understanding, or the belief, that the alternative coalition would be weaker on security,” said Zur, an expert on voter behaviour who teaches at Essex University.

What Netanyahu had been particularly successful in doing, he continued, was creating “this campaign of fear and the belief that he is the only one who can deal with this situation, that he is the only strong enough prime minister”.

“The idea that Netanyahu is the only and the strongest leader that can lead Israel through these recent times and the post-October 7 war.”

War and occupation, according to Shenhav-Shahrabani, were not choices to be made on the ballot paper.

Instead, they had become the prism through which, over decades, Israelis had come to view “security, citizenship, and the very meaning of democracy”.

“That is why replacing Netanyahu, important as it may be, would not by itself resolve the deeper problem.”

Port Sudan, Sudan – Awad Haroun, 45, a visual artist and theatre director, fled his home in Al-Halfaya, Khartoum North, after war destroyed a life he had worked hard to build in the capital.

He moved to Port Sudan with his wife and son, leaving behind his home, artistic workspace and the tools he needed to work, shortly after fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary in April 2023.

When he fled, he carried little: Two shirts, two pairs of trousers, two books and a few torn drawing papers, expecting to return soon. Instead, he has been forced to rebuild his life far from home.

He lost not only his home but also the tools and materials he relied on to work and make a living.

In Port Sudan, he looked to use his skills in sculpture, design and decoration for some money. He has since participated in theatrical performances at Wasel Festival, organised by Ahalina Cultural Group in partnership with UNESCO, and led traditional arts workshops with cultural groups.

Awad founded Ahalina cultural group in 2013 with a group of young people, using theatre, visual arts, music and puppetry to engage with young people and promote peace and social cohesion.

Drawing, storytelling, music and play have also given children opportunities to express themselves and connect with others.

“Losing my tools does not mean I have lost my skills, and losing my workspace does not mean I have lost my ability to create,” Awad told Al Jazeera.

Awad and other displaced artists found shelter at an old school in Port Sudan, where they helped clean and prepare the building for families forced from their homes.

“Now, concerns about the possibility of eviction have left us uncertain about where we will go next,” he said.

While art cannot replace a lost home or end the war, Awad believes it can preserve memories, bring communities together and offer children space to play and express themselves.

“From the ashes, we will rise” is the motto of Ahalina cultural group. This is more than a slogan for Awad; it is a reminder to keep creating, despite everything the war has taken from him.

The war has taken a heavy toll on Sudan’s cultural life, damaging heritage sites and disrupting the livelihoods of artists across the country.

In June 2026, UNESCO estimated that Sudan’s cultural sector faced a $30m funding gap. But behind this figure are deeply personal losses: Artists killed by the war or forced to leave behind studios, galleries, artworks and the tools they need to create.

In April 2024, UNESCO reported that the Artists and Writers Union in Port Sudan had provided shelter to more than 112 displaced artists and other cultural professionals.

The challenges remain significant, but cultural initiatives have continued. In April 2026, UNESCO said its initiatives in Port Sudan had benefitted more than 350 artists, women, girls and internally displaced cultural professionals, supporting efforts to sustain Sudan’s cultural life amid the conflict.

Asim Abdelaziz, 31, a musician and filmmaker, left El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, amid escalating fighting and repeated drone attacks. He arrived in Port Sudan in November 2023, hoping to find safety and work.

Separated from his family, who are scattered between Omdurman and El Obeid, Asim lives alone in a shelter for displaced artists. The war has uprooted his life and disrupted his career, but he continues to use music to preserve Sudan’s cultural heritage and bring communities together.

In Port Sudan, he has worked with the local Artists and Writers Union, UNESCO and community organisations.  He has also collaborated with the Ministry of Culture and Information and other artists on music programmes to address social issues, including hate speech and racism.

Asim said the war has spurred hate speech and deepened divisions between Sudan’s different communities. He believes art can counter these differences by promoting diversity, mutual acceptance and peaceful coexistence.

“I have seen firsthand how hate speech affects people’s lives,” Asim told Al Jazeera. “Through music, I try to remind Sudanese people that we are all brothers and sisters, and that war does not represent who we are.”

Mokhalaya, a project he founded to document and archive traditional music and rhythms from across the country a year ago, is one avenue for this.

“I hope to take the project to international festivals, introducing audiences abroad to [showcase] Sudan’s rich musical traditions and cultural diversity,” he said.

Preserving heritage is not just about safeguarding the past, but also about keeping Sudan’s cultural identity alive during a war that has displaced communities and disrupted lives, he said.

Abdelqader Hashem, secretary of the Red Sea State Writers and Artists Union, told Al Jazeera the union has supported artists and their families who fled fighting in other parts of Sudan since the war began on April 15, 2023.

“We worked to establish a shelter for displaced artists in a school in Port Sudan and sought support from local and international organisations to provide for their basic needs,” he said.

Beyond providing shelter, the union has helped displaced artists take part in the city’s cultural activities, contributing to community awareness programmes that address important societal issues such as the dangers of drug use, a growing concern in Sudan.

“We have also implemented projects in partnership with UNESCO to train children in displacement camps in handicrafts, including concrete crafts,” Hashem said.

“Most of the displaced artists have since returned to their homes in Khartoum following the Sudanese army’s recapture of the capital.”

Gaza City— Mohammed Hamad, 14, was on his way home from school in Deir el-Balah on October 17 when an Israeli strike targeted the road he was travelling along.

He had finished classes at the makeshift school and was walking home through the al-Baraka neighbourhood with his 10-year-old brother, Abdullah. Mohammed was killed in the strike along with another man. Abdullah survived.

Mohammed was Riyad Hamad’s third child, an eighth-grade student among the top pupils in his class. His loss is difficult for the 44-year-old father to comprehend.

“He was not just my son, he was my friend,” Hamad told Al Jazeera from his family tent in Deir el-Balah. “He was doing so well. May God have mercy on him.”

The family has struggled to come to terms with the death of a boy whose schoolwork and achievements had been a source of pride.

“Mohammed used to ask me: ‘How am I with you?’ I swear, I never asked him for anything more,” he said.

The loss has also left a deep mark on Abdullah, who now fears losing his father, too.

“He has become very afraid of going to school. They used to go together every day and come back together. Now he cannot come to terms with having to go on his own,” Hamad said.

“We are living in fear. When I go out into the streets, I swear I am afraid. Even when I am walking or sitting in a car, my heart is filled with fear … Why should our children have to live with this constant fear and anxiety, even until the last moment?

“Enough is enough. The child is supposed to bury his father, not the father bury his child. They have turned the order of things upside down.”

The gradual return of children to school – even in makeshift classrooms and tents – had offered families in Gaza some hope of restoring a sense of normality after years of disruptions.

But Israeli air raids and sniper fire have continued, despite a ceasefire being established last October for Gaza. Since then, Israel has killed at least 1,574 Palestinians and injured 5,687 in Gaza, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health.

The academic year resumed in Gaza on September 19, after nearly three years of disruptions caused by Israel’s war – and with it came more Israeli strikes.

Ten children aged from six to 16 and a teacher were killed between October 18 and 24. In a statement last Sunday, the Ministry of Education said that two girls were wounded during morning assembly at Muradiya School in Jabalia on October 21. Five students were also injured, some critically, in an attack on the Islamic University campus in Gaza City on Sunday.

The ministry called for urgent international action to protect students, schools and universities in Gaza.

The risks are particularly high for schools located near the so-called “Yellow Line”, a point that divided Gaza’s territory between Israeli and Palestinian control as part of the October 2025 “ceasefire” agreement. The line has moved westward to give Israel control of more than 65 percent of Gaza, according to the United Nations, up from the 53 percent agreed upon a year ago

At least 66 Palestinian children have been killed close to the Yellow Line, and pupils and teachers travelling near this zone remain in mortal danger from Israeli snipers and bombs.

On October 21, Suad Abd Rabbo, a fourth-grade student, went to school carrying her bag and books. Not long afterwards, her older sister rushed home shouting that Suad had been shot.

“I ran out barefoot,” Suad’s mother, Aliaa Abd Rabbo, recalled. “When I saw her, I was confused. I didn’t know what to do. She was bleeding, crying and screaming.”

The bullet struck Suad above the knee and lodged in a sensitive area close to her nerves and tendons. She was rushed to hospital, where doctors warned that trying to remove it could cause paralysis. They operated on Suad but were still unable to extract the bullet, which remains in her leg.

Abd Rabbo remembers when Suad came round from the anaesthesia after surgery and started reciting a passage she had been preparing for a school dictation exercise.

“‘O symbol of generosity and resilience … When I feel tired, I sit under an olive tree in the yard of our home, and feel rested after the exhaustion,” her mother recalled her saying.

Suad has since been discharged from hospital and has returned to her tent, where she remains unable to walk or move around. She needs surgery abroad to fully recover, but with Israel tightly controlling exit and entry from Gaza, her prospects of proper treatment are remote.

“Suad is now deeply frustrated. She cries and asks: ‘Why did this happen to me? Why was I targeted? What did I do?’” Abd Rabbo said.

Israeli tanks, military vehicles and cranes regularly open fire close to their tent in northern Gaza, particularly after sunset. Families often have to lie flat on the ground for hours to avoid the stray bullets that ricochet through the camp.

“My heart hurts when I send the girls to school. I told my husband I regret coming back from the south,” Abd Rabbo said about their return home to Jabalia after fleeing to Deir el-Balah during the war.

Another girl was also injured on the same day as Suad as students at Muradiya School were preparing for assembly at about 10:30am, Naim Aloush, the school’s principal, said.

“The girls had formed two lines … one suddenly screamed and fell to the ground … another girl standing nearby was struck by a bullet in her side,” she told Al Jazeera.

Teachers rushed to the girls and found that Suad had been shot while the second pupil, Amina Khader, a fifth-grade student, sustained a minor injury to her abdomen.

Aloush said the shooting sent fear through the school, with parents rushing to collect their children.

Pupils who had witnessed the incident were left terrified, and the school saw a marked increase in absenteeism in the days that followed.

The principal sees this incident as part of wider dangers facing the school in the al-Ghubari area, west of Jabalia al-Balad, consisting of 20 educational tents and serving about 1,000 pupils in the surrounding community, close to the Yellow Line.

Aloush said stray bullets or projectiles – from Israeli artillery, quadcopter drones and snipers – still regularly hit the school.

“Education is under fire, and our whole lives are under fire. At any moment, there can be gunfire. It is not light … it comes down like rain,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Every day, I come to school with my hand over my heart, afraid that one of my pupils or a member of the teaching staff might be hit.”

Amina, the other child injured along with Suad, has been left deeply traumatised by the incident, her father, Khaled Khader, said.

Khader said he rushed to the school after hearing that Amina had been injured and carried his daughter to a nearby clinic.

“There was terror, absolute terror. My daughter was in shock. She broke down, started screaming and collapsed,” Khader told Al Jazeera.

“Thank God she is safe … but the psychological impact of what happened will take years to overcome.”

Amina has since been afraid to return to school. Her family tried taking her back once, but she left early, unable to bear the sound of the gunfire.

“She is now afraid of the school itself. She keeps dreaming about her classmate lying there with blood running from her,” Khader said.

He said the incident had also left him afraid for the rest of his children and his wife, with Israeli air raids, random gunfire and shelling continuing to affect streets near the school.

“We are confused about what to do. Do we keep our children away from school and deprive them of their education, or do we send them out, knowing that they could be targeted at any moment?” Khader said. “A student needs stability to be able to learn. But we have no stability, and there are no alternatives.”

EXCLUSIVE

Siddiq Ander has accused RSF leader Hemedti of running the paramilitary group like a family business and suppressing dissent.

Senior commander Siddiq Ander says he has defected from Sudan‘s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to exclusive video footage obtained by Al Jazeera.

The footage, published on Friday, shows Ander accusing relatives of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti”, of tightly controlling the group’s finances, weapons, troop movements and military promotions.

Ander’s exit follows a string of high-profile defections this year, with some commanders leaving alongside hundreds of fighters.

“It has become clear to us beyond any doubt that we were serving a purely family-based project controlled by Hemedti’s relatives in every aspect, money, weapons, fighters’ movements and the granting of ranks,” Ander said.

“Anyone who speaks out and tells the whole truth faces expulsion, imprisonment or a hidden death.”

Hemedti’s brother, Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo, serves as the RSF deputy commander.

Senior commanders break ranks

A wave of defections has seen several senior RSF commanders leave the group this year, including Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Azraq al-Fanjari, who announced on October 8 that he was leaving, along with 300 officers and soldiers and 30 military vehicles.

Al-Fanjari also urged other fighters to abandon the RSF, expressing regret over the suffering caused by the war.

His announcement came after the September 25 defection of Al-Tayeb al-Wahidu, who joined the enemy Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) with 50 fighters in Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, according to The Sudan Tribune.

Al-Wahidu cited abuses within the RSF as his reason for leaving.

Earlier, in May, Brigadier Ali Rizqallah, known as Savannah, announced his departure.

Yet another senior commander, Major General al-Nour Ahmed Adam, known as al-Qubba, joined the SAF in April and was publicly welcomed by Sudanese leader and military chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Al-Qubba’s departure followed disagreements over military appointments within the RSF leadership, the Tribune reported.

Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023 after a power struggle between the army and the RSF, including disagreements over plans to integrate the paramilitary group into the regular military.

The conflict has since displaced about 13 million people and pushed parts of the country into famine.

The latest defections come as both sides increasingly use drones in attacks that have caused mounting civilian casualties.

On October 26, strikes hit a market and residential area in Nyala, an RSF-controlled city in South Darfur.

Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese rights group, reported more than 100 deaths, although other medical organisations recorded lower figures.

The United Nations says drone strikes have become the leading cause of civilian deaths in Sudan’s war.

Vatican confirms the pope submitted a mail-in ballot in his native Chicago ahead of November 3 midterm elections

Pope Leo XIV has become the first pontiff to vote in a United States general election after casting a mail-in ballot in Chicago, where he was born.

The Vatican confirmed on Friday that the pope submitted a mail-in ballot in the city ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, citing his longstanding belief in civic participation.

Leo, formerly Robert Prevost, “has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen”, as he has done “whenever he was eligible to do so”, the Vatican’s press office said.

“The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes,” it added.

The Vatican did not say which candidates Leo voted for.

In a note commenting on Leo’s vote, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops urged Catholics to put “our faith before our politics” and “uphold human dignity and the common good”.

“In voting, our Holy Father sets the example that encourages each citizen to exercise their civic responsibility,” said the conference’s director of public affairs, Chieko Noguchi.

Leo is a citizen not only of the US but also of Peru, where he lived as a priest and bishop for more than 20 years, as well as of the Vatican, where he is head of state.

US federal law allows citizens living abroad, even those working for foreign governments, to vote via absentee ballot.

Americans working for foreign governments are not automatically at risk of losing their US citizenship, but the US State Department says on its website that it may “actively review” the citizenship status of Americans who “serve as a foreign head of state, foreign head of government, or foreign minister”.

A regular voter

In this year’s midterm elections, voters in the solidly ⁠Democratic state of Illinois, where Chicago is located, will select a successor to retiring Senator Dick Durbin and choose whether to re-elect Governor JB Pritzker.

Leo requested a mail-in ballot on October 3, just 10 days before he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his right lung. He has slowly been resuming his activities at the Vatican after being released from the hospital on October 17.

Since 2000, Leo has voted in five primary elections as Prevost, requesting Democratic ballots twice and Republican ballots three times, according to records held by the Illinois State Board of Elections, which do not show which candidates he supported.

Illinois voters must declare a party preference to receive a primary ballot.

While registered in heavily-Democratic Cook County, Prevost requested Democratic primary ballots in 2008 and 2010. After moving to the more conservative Will County, he requested Republican primary ballots in 2012, 2014 and 2016.

Clashes with Trump

Since Leo’s ascent to the papacy in May 2025, US President Donald Trump has clashed with the pontiff several times.

Trump criticised the pope for repeatedly condemning the US-Israel war on Iran and for challenging his administration’s crackdown on immigrants.

Earlier this year, Trump called Leo “weak” and captive to the “radical left”, kicking off a remarkable back-and-forth argument.

Leo responded by telling reporters: “I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the church works for.”

Over the past week, Washington and Tehran have sent mixed signals about whether their eight-month war is heading back to full-scale strikes or towards a peace deal.

On Thursday, the head of United States Central Command (CENTCOM), Admiral Brad Cooper, briefed US President Donald Trump on options for renewed attacks on Iran, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

The US and Israel have drawn up joint plans to attack Iran after the November 3 US midterm elections, The New York Times (NYT) reported last week.

Yet on the same day, The Washington Post reported that Vice President JD Vance had offered to meet Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in person to negotiate an end to the war.

On Friday, Qatari mediators returned to Tehran for talks coordinated with the US, an official told Reuters.

So is Washington heading back to war, or towards a deal? Here’s what we know:

Why are there conflicting reports?

Essentially, Washington is preparing for war while keeping a diplomatic channel open.

The WSJ reported that the US has boosted air defences and munitions in the region and moved some troops away from bases vulnerable to Iranian retaliation.

Ten US military cargo planes landed at the Ovda and Nevatim air bases in Israel’s Negev region on Thursday, with more sent to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who said he had been briefed on the plans, called them “insane” and warned of a devastating escalation.

Can diplomatic efforts hold off a return to strikes?

Diplomacy has not stopped.

Vance’s letter, delivered to Rezaei through Qatari mediators on Sunday, proposed direct talks led by Vance, with Iran’s nuclear programme on the table from the start, according to the NYT, in a bid to prevent a renewal of strikes.

Whether it might have any influence over what happens next is a matter for debate. Rouzbeh Parsi, an Iran analyst who is an affiliated researcher at Lund University’s Department of History and Human Rights Studies in Sweden, described Vance as the “voice of reason” on Iran within the Trump administration, saying his signals have been “the least volatile and unpredictable”.

But he also told Al Jazeera that Vance’s position has “never proven to be sturdy enough to actually sway Trump”.

“Thus, while the optics with Vance look better than anyone else in the Trump administration, I doubt that they [Iranian officials] give the outreach much credence until Vance proves able to actually deliver something on his own,” he said.

Furthermore, Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University, told Al Jazeera that “Rezaei is just one voice among many” adding that the “reality is that decisions are made collectively inside the Islamic republic”.

Wolfgang Pusztai, a security and defence analyst and Austria’s former defence attache to Libya, has a different view, however, telling Al Jazeera, “There is no doubt that the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] currently calls the shots in Iran.”

In February, Iran’s then supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the initial attacks by Israel and the United States, and his son became the new supreme leader, but Pusztai says he “simply does not have the influence his father did”.

“Without the IRGC’s approval, there will be no agreement with Iran,” Pusztai said, adding it is safe to assume that when Rezaei makes a statement or endorses a proposal, “it reflects the position of the IRGC leadership” and that the US was “absolutely right to negotiate with him”.

Pusztai said it is unclear whether Rezaei is indeed ready to make a serious compromise, but under sustained US pressure, Rezaei, who holds a doctorate in economics, could come to see that “Iran’s interests and the regime’s survival can be better secured without nuclear weapons and through a less aggressive foreign policy”.

“He certainly knows that peak oil is approaching and that time is running out for Iran’s economic recovery through the use of its oil revenues,” he said.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said progress depends on Iran’s seven conditions being met – including the lifting of sanctions, ending the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, guarantees to an end to US-Israeli strikes, and the unfreezing of Iranian assets – adding that the “carrot-and-stick approach has no effect on Iran”, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Vance, meanwhile, told Fox News on Thursday that Trump would “never” let the conflict become “a forever war”.

Which of all these signals matter most?

The diplomacy may say more than the threats.

Andreas Krieg, an associate professor of security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that Vance’s offer of direct talks “suggests that the Americans do have second thoughts” and that they are less ready to strike than they publicly suggest.

But he warned that Cooper, whom he called “quite hawkish”, could give Trump false confidence “that there is a military way out of it, when in reality there isn’t a military way out of it”.

“This idea that there is a short and crisp military operation to solve this issue is obviously an illusion,” he said.

Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera the White House could be sending signals to coerce Tehran, but that “the better interpretation is the simplest one”.

He believes “the United States is getting ready to carry out substantial attacks relatively soon”. He said he does not expect Washington to accept what he called the unfavourable deal Tehran is offering “without another round of attacks”.

Pusztai said Trump’s main focus is now the midterms, making it “very unlikely that he will order another large-scale attack on Iran before the elections”.

“Starting in mid to late November, there could be a major wave of attacks aimed at advancing the American agenda,” he said, adding that the aim would be to weaken the IRGC enough to push it towards a deal on US terms.

Whatever the vote’s result, “in the short term it will not change much”, Musgrave said.

A strong Republican showing could encourage more aggressive tactics, while a Democratic win could push Trump to show his unilateral powers, including by attacking, he said.

Hasn’t this all happened before?

It has. Iran was attacked by Israel or the US while talks were under way in both 2025 and 2026.

“We’ve seen this pattern of behaviour before from the United States,” Hashemi said, describing it as “talking diplomacy while preparing for war”.

On June 13, 2025, Israel launched major strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites, two days before a sixth round of US-Iran talks was due in Oman. The US joined on June 22, bombing Iran’s Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear sites.

This year, the US and Israel attacked on February 28, two days after talks in Geneva that mediator Oman said had made “significant progress”.

A day before the strikes, Oman’s foreign minister said Iran had agreed to reduce its nuclear stockpiles to “the lowest level possible”.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Al Jazeera in September that Iran no longer trusts negotiations with Washington because attacks had come during previous rounds of talks.

Hashemi said he suspects “the same pattern is repeating itself”, with the US preparing “a massive bombing campaign in Iran, replete with war crimes like we haven’t seen before”, citing his reading of Murphy’s comments.

What is blocking a deal?

“The issue is mostly around sequencing and the lack of trust on the Iranian side that the Americans will actually follow through with their commitments,” Krieg said.

Tehran wants sanctions and the US naval blockade lifted quickly, fearing that a slow process gives Trump room to backtrack, he said.

Some IRGC hardliners do not necessarily see war as a bad thing if it tightens their grip on the Hormuz strait, he added, and “the Iranians have been prepping for this war for the last three weeks, so they are ready to fight”.

Krieg said he expects “nothing is going to happen until the 3rd of November [the date of the US midterm elections]”. After that, he said, the likelihood of war will “increase exponentially”.

Any new escalation would be worse than in February and March, he said, with Iran readier to strike critical infrastructure in Gulf countries.

He said the threat to the Gulf “will be unprecedented”.

Dock and port workers have long had a tradition of solidarity with the oppressed, upheld by strong labour unions and workers’ rights.

In February 2025, nearly a year and a half into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, dockworkers’ unions from Mediterranean countries came together to disrupt weapons shipments to Israel and Western countries’ military support of the onslaught.

“Weapons need transport, infrastructure, and workers’ hands to reach their destination,” Markos Bekris, leader of Greece’s dockworkers’ union, ENEDEP, at the Port of Piraeus in Athens, told Al Jazeera. “That is where our power lies.”

Now, dock and port workers in 22 countries across five continents are holding a strike on Friday, which workers and researchers told Al Jazeera is expected to be “historic” in scale. The International Day of Action of Dockworkers and Port Workers – also called “Dockworkers do not work for war” – involves 110 ports and 25 trade unions.

“Every union will do what they choose, but be connected to the same principles and struggle,” Francesco Staccioli, the national secretary of transport and ports in Italy’s USB trade union, told Al Jazeera.

The unions’ main demand is “an immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and all imperialist wars”.

Mohammed al-Attar, a dockworker who left Gaza in 2015 and is now based in Hamburg, Germany, said the workers “are the power”.

“We can save thousands of lives if we stop working just for two days,” he said.

Al-Attar feels hopeful about the global strike, but is “deeply disappointed” in his trade union Ver.di in Germany, which he accused of “incomprehensible silence” over Gaza.

What is the International Day of Action of Dockworkers and Port Workers?

In early 2025, dockworkers in the Mediterranean area came together to discuss how to concretely act “against privatisation, and against the genocide in Palestine”.

The original meeting included five unions organising in 20 ports across five countries, but continued to grow. The unions met several times, first in Athens, then in Genoa, and later in Istanbul. That was where unions from more than 35 ports published the Istanbul Declaration in May this year, and declared October 30 as their day of action.

In a statement, the unions called for the “recognition of an independent Palestinian state, recognised by the international community, within the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital”, and “an end to the US-Israeli wars of aggression in the Middle East and against Iran, and full solidarity with the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela and Sudan”.

“Refusing the war is giving humanity a chance to live better. This is what I’m really convinced about,” the USB’s Staccioli told Al Jazeera.

How many ports and unions are taking part?

More than 25 dockworkers’ trade unions, representing more than 110 ports in 22 countries and regions across five continents, are taking part. Most of the strikes will happen at regular working hours, but in France, Italy, India, Greece and Turkiye, 24-hour strikes have been called.

Strikes of up to two hours have also been announced in Morocco, Cyprus and other ports.

Organisers told Al Jazeera that workers and trade unions from other sectors have been called on to join with port workers, notably in Greece, while in Italy the USB has called for a general strike.

“It’s bigger than we thought,” Staccioli said. “This has spread all over the world.”

No Harbour for Genocide (NHG), a campaigning collective that researches weapon supply chains, supports the action. A spokesperson told Al Jazeera that maritime infrastructure was important in “facilitating military trade within the context of the genocide in Palestine”.

Dockworker unions in India, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and the west coast of the United States have all pledged to take part, the spokesperson added.

The Palestinian labour movement endorsed the strike and called on more to join, urging unions to “escalate Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) pressure to end all state, corporate and institutional complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide.”

How are these ports involved in wars?

Of the ports participating, Genoa, Livorno and Gioia Tauro in Italy, Marseille in France, Piraeus in Greece, and Tangier in Morocco all have proven links to weapons shipments to Israel, according to No Harbour for Genocide.

The group said that between August 2025 and September 2026 it tracked 315 shipments of components for Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, moving through 56 commercial ports in 29 countries. All these 56 ports are expected to be on strike on October 30 , representing a major disruption, even if only for a day.

NHG said it expects that more than $2bn worth of cargo will sit idle on October 30 .

“Up to 95 percent of Israel’s imports and exports travel by sea, relying on port infrastructure across the Mediterranean,” the campaign’s spokesperson said. “Tangier, Piraeus, Gioia Tauro and Genoa, where the largest vessels unload containers onto smaller ships for the rest of the sea, are a few of the Mediterranean’s most frequently used transshipment hubs. All four are taking part on Friday.”

“The participating Mediterranean ports handle 63 percent of all container activity in the sea,” the spokesperson added, noting that “between southern France and Piraeus, the striking ports hold 74 percent of container activity. Worldwide, the ports taking part [in the strike] handle 13.5 percent of global shipping.”

Linda Maggiore, an Italian journalist and activist, said that she has discovered several examples of increasing weapons shipments from Italy’s major ports to Israel since the start of the war on Gaza.

“In Europe, a regulation on military mobility is about to be approved, which will make it even easier for arms to be transferred without scrutiny,” Maggiore told Al Jazeera. “Blockades are essential actions, because they make it clear that civil society does not wish to be complicit.”

From the Vietnam war to Iraq, the USB’s Staccioli said that “dockworkers have a long tradition of rallying against any imperialist war or aggression in the world.”

Are protest actions prosecuted?

In Greece, union leader Bekris is facing prosecution for a protest in which he and other workers blocked the loading of a container holding 21 tonnes of ammunition destined for Israel in October 2024.

“We carry forward the tradition of workers who refuse to load weapons against other people,” Bekris told Al Jazeera on the eve of the global strike. “Our hands get covered in grease and sweat every day. We refuse to let them be stained with the blood of other people.”

Oil flows out of the Gulf have increased substantially, easing the huge supply disruption caused by the United States/Israel war on Iran.

Crude exports from the Gulf averaged 24.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in the week to October 18, exceeding the pre-war average, according to market intelligence firm Kpler.

Yet, oil prices continue to rise.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, is trading at its highest prices since April, up more than 60 percent compared with before the war.

On Friday, Brent crude front-month futures – contracts for oil deliveries in December – rose more than 2 percent to briefly top $117 a barrel.

The climbing prices reflect anxiety about the possibility of renewed hostilities in the US war on Iran, dwindling oil stocks, and the increased costs of transporting supplies out of the region, according to market analysts.

“The market is doing exactly what it is supposed to do: It is telling us there is plenty of prompt oil, but there is no end to this war in sight – in fact … escalation is very likely,” Adi Imsirovic, a lecturer in energy systems at the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera.

“Therefore, futures markets reflect that expectation,” Imsirovic, a veteran oil trader, said.

Oil producers have become increasingly adept at responding to the volatile climate in the Middle East to keep supplies flowing.

Facing the threat of Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, shipping lines have established a shuttle system involving ship-to-ship transfers off Oman and the United Arab Emirates to reduce the distance any one vessel must travel in perilous waters.

Shuttle boats carry the oil through the strait and load it onto waiting tankers once they are out of the danger zone.

In August, more than 70 percent of the crude that crossed the strait did so via ship-to-ship transfers, according to Kpler.

Oil producers have also ramped up exports that bypass the strait altogether via Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, which carries oil supplies from its eastern oil fields to its Yanbu port on the Red Sea in the west, and the United Arab Emirates’ Habshan-Fujairah pipeline.

As of September, 40 percent of exports from the Gulf were bypassing the strait, a conduit for one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies during peacetime, compared with 17 percent before the war, according to Kpler data.

The soaring cost of delivery

Such workarounds have nonetheless come at a cost.

Freight costs have reached as much as $40 per barrel in recent weeks, about 10 times the usual rate, according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group, the surge driven by elevated insurance premiums in addition to logistical challenges.

October has been the deadliest month for attacks on commercial vessels since the start of the war, with 32 incidents logged by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) as of Friday.

“So barrels are moving, but neither smoothly nor reliably. That should not be read as a sign of normalisation,” Isabel Figuerola-Ferretti, an expert in oil markets at Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid, Spain, told Al Jazeera.

“Delivering a barrel has become far more expensive,” Figuerola-Ferretti said.

While market intelligence data has shown exports reaching pre-war levels at various points in recent weeks, the longer-term supply trend is less clear.

Pavel Molchanov, an investment strategist at Raymond James & Associates, expressed scepticism that supply has returned to the pre-conflict trend.

“The IEA’s most recent production data – for September – shows OPEC Gulf production at 15.8 million bpd, which equates to 75 percent of the pre-war baseline,” Molchanov told Al Jazeera, referring to the International Energy Agency’s latest energy outlook.

“That slightly surpassed July’s 74 percent to reach the highest level since the start of the war, but it’s still a considerable distance from 100 percent.”

Meanwhile, oil stockpiles, a buffer during supply disruptions, are waning.

Observed inventories fell by 10 million barrels in September, taking the global stockpile to 509 million barrels below its pre-war level, according to the IEA.

“The market has moved to a chronic squeeze, driven by concrete supply risks: Hormuz transit, shipping and depleted inventories,” Figuerola-Ferretti said.

No reprieve anytime soon

With no permanent end to the Iran war in sight, few analysts see prices returning to normal anytime soon.

Brent futures for delivery in October 2027 stood at more than $90 a barrel on Friday, in a sign that markets see normality as a long way off, still.

“When could prices return to $70? Not soon,” Figuerola-Ferretti said.

“It would need durable de-escalation, a return to normal transit and shipping conditions through Hormuz, rebuilt inventories and freight costs back to normal,” she added.

Molchanov, the investment strategist, said he did not believe supply could realistically exceed 85 percent of pre-war levels without a permanent diplomatic solution to the war.

“Once the political groundwork is in place, the next steps will be logistical: Demining Hormuz, bringing shipping crews back to work, and resuming production at currently shut-in oilfields,” he said.