Middle East

Iran has rejected Trump's threat to declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory, saying its blockade holds until Washington concedes defeat. Attacks on shipping are multiplying.

Geopolitics

Israeli air strikes on two villages in southern Lebanon killed at least 11 people, including three children, on Saturday, the deadliest day since the truce with Hezbollah took effect in June.

Geopolitics

Washington is preparing new economic measures to force Tehran to capitulate after almost six months of war. Iran says its ports and oil output are holding up.

Economy

Washington is pressing Israel's prime minister to condemn settlers besieging Palestinian families in the West Bank village of Qusra. Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented.

Geopolitics

Houthi missiles and drones hit residential areas of government-held Marib on Saturday and again overnight. Yemen's government calls the attacks an escalation; the port of Mokha has halted operations.

Geopolitics

Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya travelled to Cairo on Sunday to meet Egypt's intelligence chief. US envoy Jared Kushner is due in Israel and Egypt next week.

Geopolitics

Parliament has adopted an amnesty law for members of the PKK, which President Erdoğan presents as a gift of peace. The FAZ writes that something quite different lies behind the move, with critics reading the law as a political trade rather than an opening of democratic space.

Geopolitics

Al Jazeera reported on Saturday that cleanup crews are working along 12 kilometres of Omani coastline after a spill from the grounded tanker. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei put the region's environmental damage from the Hormuz oil slicks in the trillions of dollars and said everyone involved in commercial shipping operations must bear legal and moral responsibility for clearing the aftermath.

Geopolitics

Iran has formally accused Qatar of holding three air force pilots as prisoners of war since their fighter jets were shot down in March during an attack on the US Al Udeid air base, and has asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to examine the case. Qatar denies detaining any Iranian pilots and dismissed Tehran's account as misleading.

Geopolitics

Iran's intelligence ministry says it has detained two French diplomats and that seized material points to a foreign influence operation. Tehran said on Saturday that France should not waste its citizens' tax money on illegal interference in Iranian affairs.

Geopolitics

US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would soon declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States. Tehran rejected the claim.

Geopolitics

Israel's defence minister ordered the army on Friday to hand civilian law enforcement in the occupied West Bank to the police. Settlers have besieged Palestinian families in Qusra since Sunday.

Geopolitics

Crude closed Friday with a weekly gain of about 6 percent, with the Strait of Hormuz shut since February. Economists warn Iran's economy is nearing collapse.

Economy

Houthi forces fired six ballistic missiles at the government-held Red Sea port of al-Makha on Friday, killing at least four. They also claimed a drone strike on a Saudi Aramco site in Najran.

Geopolitics

Jared Kushner is due in Israel next week to save the US-backed Gaza plan. Netanyahu rejected its Hamas disarmament terms on Sunday.

Geopolitics

Lebanon's prime minister pressed US mediators on Friday for a date for Israel's withdrawal. Hezbollah's leader rejected the framework the same day.

Geopolitics

Cairo is examining the legal issues around joining the Mecca Agreement, the defence pact signed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey, The National reported on Friday. Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan said Ankara and Cairo would continue to deepen their ties, while the Iranian daily Javan called the pact a message to Washington.

Geopolitics

An Iran-aligned militia told the Iraqi government that any attempt to disarm it by force would trigger internal strife, The National reported on Friday. The warning comes as Washington presses Baghdad to rein in armed groups.

Geopolitics

Türkiye imported around 1.01 billion cubic metres of pipeline gas from Azerbaijan in June, pushing Russia into second place, Daily Sabah reported on Friday, citing official data. It is the first time Azerbaijan has led Turkish pipeline gas imports.

Economy

The UAE accuses Iran of attacking two ADNOC ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday evening. Tehran says no ship may pass without its permission.

Geopolitics

Israeli soldiers moved Palestinian families out of their besieged homes in Qusra in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, but the settlers blockading them since Sunday stayed.

Geopolitics

The UN envoy warned on Thursday that Yemen is closer to all-out war than at any time since the 2022 truce. Houthi forces hit a military airfield near Bab al-Mandeb and claimed a drone strike on a Saudi refinery.

Geopolitics

An Israeli drone killed Gaza City's police chief, Colonel Jamal Abu Kamil, on Thursday, a day after Israel resumed air raids. A second strike killed one person in Khan Younis.

Geopolitics

Specialists have boarded the sanctioned tanker Caroline Bezengi, aground in a marine reserve off Oman since late June. Its crude has now reached the mainland.

Geopolitics

Turkey's Defence Ministry set out on Thursday how the Mecca pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will work: no common enemy, and a complement to NATO rather than a rival.

Geopolitics

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam accused Israel on Wednesday of systematically destroying homes in southern Lebanon in violation of international law, Daily Sabah reported. The National reports that Hezbollah, which once paid families $14,000 for a destroyed home, may no longer be able to compensate them.

Geopolitics

The National reports that some 3,500 former regime figures remain at large after the in absentia death sentence against Bashar al-Assad, a verdict many Syrians describe as bittersweet. The same paper reports plans for a Damascus investment conference with Lebanon, while Syrian artefacts returned from France went on display at a summer festival in the capital.

Geopolitics

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received the lawmakers Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar of the DEM Party's İmralı delegation at the Presidential Complex in Ankara on Thursday, together with families of fallen soldiers, Daily Sabah reported. It was the first such meeting since the framework law on reintegration entered into force.

Geopolitics

Lebanon has abolished capital punishment, The Hindu reported on Thursday. The newspaper set the step against the countries where the death penalty still exists.

Geopolitics

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan co-chaired the second meeting of the Türkiye-Egypt Joint Planning Group with his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty in El Alamein on Thursday. On the same day Fidan met Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Fahmy and the head of Egypt's General Intelligence Service, Maj. Gen. Hassan Rashad.

Geopolitics

Trump said on Wednesday the United States has "total control" of the closed Strait of Hormuz. Tehran denied the same day that talks on extending the ceasefire are under way.

Geopolitics

Israel struck Gaza on Wednesday for the first time in over a week, killing one man. Its defence minister ruled out any pullback from Gaza, Lebanon or Syria.

Geopolitics

Settlers have kept two Palestinian families trapped in their homes in the West Bank village of Qusra since Sunday. Israeli troops sent to lift the siege pulled back on Wednesday without ending it.

Geopolitics

The EU and 32 countries condemned Iran's continuing executions of protesters in a joint statement on Wednesday. Tehran rejected the criticism as hypocrisy.

Geopolitics

A Pentagon review disclosed on Tuesday found that US strikes on Yemen's Houthis killed 153 civilians in 2025. It surfaced as the rebels escalated their attacks on shipping.

Geopolitics

Iraq has reached a final agreement with the United States on the withdrawal of the anti-ISIS coalition, Al Zaidi said, according to The National. Prime Minister al-Sudani is seeking legal cover to bring the weapons of Iran-backed militias under state control, and officials from Iraq, Jordan, Syria and the Kurdistan region met to discuss border security.

Geopolitics

Crude from a tanker suspected of belonging to Russia's shadow fleet, which ran aground in June, has come ashore on Oman's mainland and is approaching the country's largest island and a nature reserve, the United Nations said, while monsoon weather delays salvage work. Iran is dealing with a separate spill near Qeshm, and experts cited by The National say the environmental damage from the war could pollute Gulf land, sea and air for years.

Geopolitics

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday he hoped more countries would join the mutual defence agreement signed last week by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which he described as a stabilising factor for the region. The same day, Iran called on six major Muslim states, Turkey among them, to take a leading role in strengthening unity in the Islamic world.

Geopolitics

Syria has sent letters to the UN secretary-general and the Security Council objecting to Colombia's recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights. At home, death sentences issued in absentia against ousted leader Bashar al-Assad and eight others have opened a debate over what transitional justice can deliver.

Geopolitics

Emergency services, residents and environmental groups in south Lebanon told the Guardian on Wednesday that the Israeli military is dropping flares that burn forests and crops. Hussein Fakih, head of the civil defence in the Nabatiya region, said most of his teams' missions are now fire-related.

Geopolitics

Business associations said the reintegration law, passed in the early hours of Tuesday, would lift investor confidence and unlock spending in Turkey's southeast and east after nearly forty years of conflict. Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş called the text balanced, and officials argue that security money can now be redirected to public welfare.

Geopolitics

A US helicopter fired on a Panama-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday to enforce Washington's blockade of Iranian ports. Trump claimed full control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Geopolitics

A Damascus court on Tuesday sentenced ousted president Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher and seven other former officials to death over the civil war that killed about 500,000 people.

Geopolitics

Missiles set a cargo ship carrying food ablaze in the Bab al-Mandeb strait on Tuesday. Yemen's internationally recognised government blames the Houthis; crew members and rescuers were killed.

Geopolitics

Thousands of Gaza patients still await medical evacuation, with transfers running three to four times a week, the WHO said on Tuesday. Russia's UN envoy called the US peace plan stalled.

Geopolitics

Palestine's UN envoy asked the Security Council on Tuesday to enforce international law in the occupied West Bank. A UN official said settlement expansion must be treated as an emergency.

Geopolitics

Turkey's parliament approved the law dissolving the PKK in the early hours of Tuesday. In the Kurdish southeast, the conditional pardons drew relief and doubt.

Geopolitics

Qatar on Tuesday endorsed the collective defence agreement that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed on Friday in Mecca, calling it a positive step towards greater regional security, Daily Sabah reported. In New Delhi the pact has raised questions over whether Pakistan could use it to build wider security ties with Muslim-majority countries, according to the South China Morning Post.

Geopolitics

A double Israeli strike in Lebanon killed one person and damaged an ambulance, Le Monde reported, the latest bombardment despite the truce between Israel and Hezbollah. According to TASS, Lebanese officials say Beirut is in no rush for further talks and insists first on expanding the zones in southern Lebanon free of Israeli troops, consolidating the ceasefire and halting strikes on infrastructure.

Geopolitics

Lebanon's parliament on Tuesday approved legislation abolishing the death penalty and replacing it with life imprisonment with aggravated hard labour. According to the South China Morning Post, the vote makes Lebanon the first Arab country to end capital punishment outright.

Geopolitics

Syria will host a delegation from the UN nuclear watchdog in the coming days and expects to announce what it describes as significant progress on material left behind by the former government, Daily Sabah and The National reported on Tuesday. The visit follows an arrangement with Damascus and Israel brokered by the United States.

Geopolitics

Many residents of Syria's Druze-majority Sweida province say it is only a matter of time before the central government moves to assert control there, the New York Times reports. The National reports separately that President Al Shara and the UN refugee chief discussed the safe return of Syrians.

Geopolitics

Donald Trump wants Iran to pay compensation for people killed over five decades. Tehran keeps the Strait of Hormuz shut until its terms are met.

Geopolitics

Netanyahu is sticking to his rejection of the US-backed 15-point Gaza roadmap, announced on Sunday, and rules out any withdrawal before Hamas disarms. Washington says the process continues.

Geopolitics

Turkey's parliament passed a law on Monday letting PKK fighters who disarm return to civilian life. Its leadership called the terms deficient.

Geopolitics

A fire at a factory in the Saudi capital Riyadh killed 16 Bangladeshi migrant workers, The Hindu and The National reported on Monday. Neither report gives a cause for the fire.

Geopolitics

The IAEA is to remove nuclear material from an undisclosed site in Syria under a US-brokered deal. Syrian officials say they did not know it was there.

Geopolitics

The tanker Caroline Bezengi ran aground off Oman and leaked oil, leaving a slick of about 390 square kilometres, Meduza reported on Tuesday, and Oman is taking measures to keep it away from its coast. Le Monde says the ship is under British sanctions, is suspected of belonging to Russia's shadow fleet and was damaged in June by three explosions of unknown origin.

Geopolitics

American forces are preparing to complete their withdrawal from Iraq's Kurdistan region by the end of September, The National reported on Monday. The step would close the final phase of the US-led coalition presence in Iraq.

Geopolitics

Colombia recognised Israeli sovereignty over the annexed Golan Heights, becoming the second country to do so after the United States. Bogota called the territory an essential component of Israel's national defence, and Israeli foreign minister Sa'ar said the decision demonstrated the Colombian president's commitment to Israel.

Geopolitics

Talks between Lebanon and Israel brokered by Washington are to be held in Rome in early September, TASS reported on Monday, citing television reporting. A State Department official told Al Jazeera that both sides face political restrictions and internal pressure, while CENTCOM commander Cooper told an Israeli operational forum that US support would endure, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Geopolitics

Iran has welcomed the defence understanding between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey, calling it a sign of a change in perception towards the United States and a move toward security arrangements from within the region. The agreement was reached last week, and the South China Morning Post writes that it adds a further variable to the nuclear triangle of China, India and Pakistan.

Geopolitics

The National reported on Monday that the Houthis are seeking a role comparable to Hezbollah's and are preparing to escalate the conflict in Yemen in support of Iran. The Tehran Times writes that attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities and a naval blockade of Saudi-linked shipping are intended to force Riyadh to lift its blockade of Yemen.

Geopolitics

The Guardian reported on Monday that Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa compound has entered a new phase of confrontation, with Arab states and former Israeli officials warning that the long-standing arrangements at the site are being eroded. According to the newsletter, those critics accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of complicity.

Geopolitics

Hundreds of Syrian Kurds have returned to a border town after nearly seven years of displacement, The Hindu reported on Monday. The National reported that violence marred the return; the available reports do not identify who carried out the attacks.

Geopolitics

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the US-backed 15-point Gaza roadmap in a Sunday cabinet meeting, ruling out any withdrawal before Hamas disarms.

Geopolitics

Iran's supreme leader has put two Revolutionary Guard veterans into top security posts while the Strait of Hormuz stays shut. Washington is betting on pressure, not new strikes.

Geopolitics

Houthi missiles and drones struck Yemen's government-held port of al-Makha in two waves on Sunday. The same morning the rebels claimed a drone attack on Aramco's Jazan refinery.

Geopolitics

Damascus and Moscow signed a memorandum on Sunday turning Russia's two bases on Syria's Mediterranean coast into joint training centres. Syria takes over the civilian facilities within three months.

Geopolitics

Turkey's foreign minister Hakan Fidan says Egypt could join the defence pact signed on Friday by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan. Islamabad calls it purely defensive.

Geopolitics

The Israeli military has closed the Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, citing repeated settler attacks. The measure was reported on Sunday, a day after settlers stormed a mosque near Hebron.

Geopolitics

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the United States and Israel are targeting not only the weapons of the Lebanese group Hezbollah but also its money. Dmitri Gendelman, an adviser in the Israeli prime minister's office, said Israeli forces remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon because Hezbollah has not been disarmed.

Geopolitics

The National reports that Washington's insistence on non-proliferation conditions could derail the civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia. The dispute bears on the wider bargain Riyadh is seeking after signing the Mecca defence pact.

Geopolitics

Lawmakers in Ankara are to convene one last time before the summer recess to pass legislation underpinning the 'terror-free Türkiye' process, Daily Sabah reported on Sunday. The process follows the disarmament of the PKK.

Geopolitics

Human rights organisations say Iran has executed at least 56 people since 19 March and returned to public hangings last week. Politika reports that the wave accompanies the leadership's consolidation of power during the war with the United States.

Geopolitics

Up to 20,000 seafarers, mostly Indian and Filipino crews, have been stuck aboard ships in the Gulf since February because the war between the United States and Iran has closed shipping routes, The Guardian reported on Sunday. Crew members describe life on board as being like prison and say none of them knows when they will be able to leave.

Economy

Tehran says a deal with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz is close but will not itself reopen the waterway. The UAE blames an Iranian missile for Saturday's strike on an Adnoc tanker.

Geopolitics

Yemen's army says it struck Houthi positions on several fronts on Saturday, its first announced counteroffensive in months. Houthi shelling of Marib continued.

Geopolitics

Turkey's foreign minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday the new Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani defence pact is technically the same as NATO's Article 5, but names no common threat.

Geopolitics

Hamas said on Saturday it is ready for phase two of the US-backed Gaza plan and urged Washington to press Israel, which has not signed the roadmap.

Geopolitics

Lebanon said Israeli troops intruded into Zawtar al-Gharbiyah in the south, where Lebanese soldiers were injured while disarming unexploded ordnance near an earth barrier that Israeli forces reportedly built, Al Jazeera reported on Saturday. On Sunday the Israeli military said it had expanded its investigation into an abnormally strong explosion that killed two reservists in Lebanon, with its Northern Command saying it cannot be ruled out that Hezbollah tampered with an explosive device.

Geopolitics

Satellite images show the leaking tanker off the Omani coast settling deeper into the water, The Hindu reported on Saturday. The scale of the leak remains unclear.

Geopolitics

Residents near Bethlehem told Al Jazeera that Israeli settlers attack them daily as violence spreads across the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military said it would investigate footage showing a soldier striking a Palestinian, while Palestinian Christians say mounting hardship is driving their community to leave.

Geopolitics

Turkey's parliament approved legislation intended to advance a settlement with Kurdish militants, The Hindu reported on Saturday. The bill is a further step in the process that followed the PKK's move to disarm.

Geopolitics

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a trilateral defence pact in Mecca on Friday. It declares an armed attack on any one of the three an attack on all.

Geopolitics

Abu Dhabi's Adnoc said on Friday that missile and drone attacks have hit 15 of its vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one crew member and wounding 20. Iranian crude exports from Kharg Island have been at a standstill under the renewed US blockade.

Geopolitics

A US official said on Friday that Washington expects an Iran-Oman agreement to reopen commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz within days. Whether Iran may charge passing ships remains unresolved.

Geopolitics

Houthi missiles and drones killed at least 58 Yemeni government soldiers at camps in Marib and Hadramawt on Thursday, the deadliest day since the 2022 truce. The same attacks wounded 11 civilians across the border in Saudi Arabia's Najran region.

Geopolitics

Iranian drone and missile attacks on US bases across West Asia have wounded close to 700 American service members, according to an Associated Press count. Traumatic brain injury is the most common wound.

Geopolitics

Israeli ministers are pushing the government to renew military operations in the Gaza Strip and to reject the roadmap for the second phase of the US ceasefire plan, Daily Sabah reports. At a security cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the Israeli official Zini said Hamas sees a demilitarisation agreement with the Board of Peace as a way to trap Israel, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Geopolitics

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Dan Caine has privately told other senior advisers to President Donald Trump that airstrikes alone will not achieve Washington's goals against Iran, CNN reported. The US military assesses that continued strikes could trigger Iranian retaliation against allies in the Gulf, while the Wall Street Journal reports that Tehran sees an opening to push American forces out of the region.

Geopolitics

The conflict may have slowed but not stopped Iran's nuclear programme, officials and experts told the New York Times in an assessment of the country's three key nuclear sites. The judgement bears directly on the stated aim of the US campaign against Iran.

Geopolitics

The civil nuclear agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia raises radioactive questions, The Economist reports. No further details of the accord are available from the reporting at hand.

Geopolitics

Israeli troops pulled out of the Qalandiya refugee camp north of Jerusalem late on Thursday after a two-day assault that left 51 Palestinians injured and more than 60 detained, the Tehran Times reported, describing a camp-by-camp offensive in the West Bank. Daily Sabah reports that patients across the occupied West Bank are unable to obtain essential medicines as public health facilities deteriorate.

Geopolitics

Washington has called on Israel to reduce tensions in Lebanon and assured Beirut of its commitment to a successful conclusion of the negotiations, TASS reported on Friday, citing television sources. The Jerusalem Post reports that some sessions of last week's Rome talks ended early in response to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon, and that experts see Hezbollah's attempts to wreck the process as failing.

Geopolitics

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian pushed back on Friday against criticism of Tehran's June memorandum with Washington and against claims that he should resign, Daily Sabah reported. The New York Times reports that Trump's promises to protesters in Iran have fallen by the wayside as the war drags on, while Breitbart cites sources describing concern among senior officials over the health of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

Geopolitics

Iran said on Wednesday its talks with Oman on reopening the Strait of Hormuz had reached their final stages. Reports on Friday say the draft would bar US and Israeli vessels and charge hostile states for passage.

Geopolitics

Israel resumed air and artillery attacks in southern Lebanon after two of its soldiers were killed by an explosive device on Wednesday. The strikes ran alongside US-mediated talks with Lebanon in Rome that brought little movement.

Geopolitics

US Central Command says the US military has rerouted 49 merchant ships since it resumed the blockade of Iran's seaports in mid-July. The running tally was posted on Thursday.

Geopolitics

Houthi drones and missiles hit Yemeni government army camps in the provinces of Marib and Hadhramaut on Thursday. It is the deadliest attack since the UN-brokered truce of 2022.

Geopolitics

A sanctioned tanker carrying an estimated 110,000 tonnes of crude is aground off Oman and leaking. Greenpeace puts the slick at around 600 square kilometres.

Geopolitics

Iran has told Gulf states it would hit their energy infrastructure if the United States attacks Iranian territory again. A Saudi official said on Thursday that Riyadh expects coordinated attacks by Yemen's Houthis and Iraqi militias.

Geopolitics

The Houthis said on Tuesday they had struck Najran Airport in response to Saudi drone incursions over Yemen; Saudi-led coalition spokesman Major General Turki Al-Maliki said they hit civilian targets in the Najran region, wounding 11 civilians including a child. Gulf shipping traffic fell after the rebels also said they had attacked a Saudi oil tanker, and the kingdom warned of escalation.

Geopolitics

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Legal Agenda found that an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon earlier this year deliberately attacked journalist Amal Khalil and her colleague Zeinab Faraj in the knowledge that they were civilians. Khalil was killed and Faraj wounded; the groups said the strike likely constituted a war crime.

Geopolitics

Iraq's leadership told Iran-backed armed groups to give up their weapons by 30 September or face terrorism charges. Al Hadath reported that at a special meeting with Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi the same groups warned they intend to attack neighbouring countries within 48 hours.

Geopolitics

Israeli forces continued their operation in the Qalandiya area near Jerusalem after an order to take over the Palestinian refugee camp, The National reported on Thursday. Al Jazeera reported on Friday that the raid injured 51 Palestinians and that Israeli forces arrested dozens, amid what it described as an uptick in military and settler violence in the West Bank.

Geopolitics

A 12-article draft Law on Strengthening National Solidarity and Social Integration was set for the agenda of the Turkish parliament's Justice Committee on Friday, Daily Sabah reported. FAZ reported that the linked amnesty, meant to allow PKK members to be released or to return to Turkey, will not apply to all of them.

Geopolitics

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey denounced Israeli violations in Gaza on Thursday, pointing in particular to attacks on health facilities and civilian sites. They said Israel's actions are undermining peace efforts, according to TASS and Daily Sabah.

Geopolitics

Iran announced on Wednesday that it had agreed with Oman on the coordinates of a new shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz. Bloomberg reports oil held a three-day drop on Thursday.

Geopolitics

Yemen's Houthis said on Wednesday they hit two Saudi oil tankers, the Wafa off Yanbu and the Daisy in the Gulf of Aden. Oil prices rebounded, and Saudi Arabia has not commented on the claims.

Geopolitics

In a video posted on Tuesday night, Netanyahu said Israel never agreed to the US-backed draft on Hamas disarmament. He ruled out leaving Israeli positions in Gaza until Hamas is fully disarmed.

Geopolitics

Trump said at a Nevada rally on Wednesday that he would rather reach a deal with Iran than kill people. Mediators are redrafting the June memorandum on the Strait of Hormuz; CNN puts the chance of an agreement by Friday at 50 percent.

Geopolitics

New reporting by Reuters, CBS and CNN sets out how far US missile and interceptor stocks have fallen after 159 days of the campaign against Iran. Talks between Iran and Oman on reopening the Strait of Hormuz are running in parallel.

Geopolitics

Israeli aircraft bombed two towns in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring 11, Lebanon's health ministry said. The Israeli military said the strikes answered Hezbollah violations of the June ceasefire and that it issued evacuation warnings beforehand, the first since June, while Israeli and Lebanese negotiators were meeting in Rome.

Geopolitics

US airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen killed or injured hundreds of civilians during 2025, according to media investigations cited by TASS on Thursday. The Pentagon has not acknowledged that the air campaign caused civilian casualties, despite detailed reports from human rights organisations.

Geopolitics

Iraq's oil exports fell from 100 million barrels in February to around 32 million in May and June, according to Oil Ministry figures shown to The National and cited by the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. Baghdad is struggling to cover public sector salaries as the Strait of Hormuz crisis deepens.

Economy

The ruling AK Party presented a draft law on the dissolution of the PKK to the Turkish parliament on Wednesday, Daily Sabah reported. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan welcomed the submission as the next stage of the 'Terror-Free Türkiye' initiative and called it a product of broad political consensus.

Geopolitics

Thousands joined the funeral procession for a family of three killed in a US strike on Iran's Qeshm Island, the Tehran Times reported on Wednesday. Health Minister Mohammad-Reza Zafarqandi visited the southern county of Lamerd and called a joint US-Israeli strike on the local stadium a clear crime, while Tehran's chief attorney set out plans to document alleged war crimes and take both countries to court.

Geopolitics

Israeli forces launched a large-scale military operation in the Qalandiya refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported. Jordan's foreign minister Ayman Safadi said Israeli actions are triggering escalation in the West Bank and Gaza, while Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met King Abdullah II in Amman and attended a ministerial meeting on Jerusalem.

Geopolitics

US, Qatari and Omani officials say a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could come within days, with draft language circulating. The waterway was still shut to shipping on Tuesday, day 158 of the US-Iran war.

Geopolitics

Israeli strikes killed 18 Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday and two more on Monday, one of the deadliest stretches since the October ceasefire.

Geopolitics

The Houthi campaign against Saudi Arabia widened on Tuesday, with a claimed drone strike inside the kingdom and an Indian-flagged vessel sunk off Yemen. Saudi crude is being pushed away from the Red Sea.

Geopolitics

El País reported on Tuesday that Iran has stepped up attacks on Jordan, which hosts 4,000 US military personnel. The strikes have prompted rare public criticism in Jordan of its security alliance with Washington.

Geopolitics

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israeli troops will not pull back from their current positions in the Gaza Strip until Hamas is completely disarmed, Politika reported on Tuesday. The Economist describes disarmament as one of the sticking points in the Gaza deal.

Geopolitics

Thousands gathered in central Gaza on Tuesday for a mass funeral for 112 members of the Abu Shreia and al-Hassaina families, among them 40 children, killed in an Israeli attack in 2023. Their remains were recovered from the rubble of destroyed homes almost three years later.

Geopolitics

Lebanon and Israel held a new round of direct negotiations in Rome. The National reported that Lebanon demanded Israel stop blocking its takeover of the agreed pilot zones.

Geopolitics

Thousands of civilian crew members remain stranded on ships at risk of attack by Iran in and around the Strait of Hormuz, and on one vessel sailors have been held by the Iranian navy for more than three months, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. CENTCOM said US forces have redirected 45 vessels and boarded two since the blockade of Iran resumed, according to TASS.

Geopolitics

Syrian leader Ahmed al-Shara met Kurdish commander Mazloum Abdi, The National reported on Tuesday. The outlet framed the meeting as taking place while regional dynamics strengthen Damascus's position.

Geopolitics

A new bill tied to the 'terror-free Türkiye' initiative is making the rounds among lawmakers, Daily Sabah reported on Tuesday. Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the governing coalition's ally MHP and one of the architects of the initiative, was among the first politicians to sign it.

Geopolitics

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that negotiations with Iran are under way and are Tehran's "last chance" before what he called a "decapitation". Iran's foreign ministry denies any contact with Washington and says it is talking only to Oman.

Geopolitics

An Israeli air strike killed two Palestinians in a car in Gaza City on Monday evening, medics said. The truce's mediators, Türkiye, Egypt and Qatar, condemned Israel's ceasefire violations the same day.

Geopolitics

After its envoy met Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday, the US-led Board of Peace said Israeli forces will leave Gaza only once Hamas has handed over all weapons. Israel refuses to pull back before disarmament, Hamas refuses to disarm before a pullback.

Geopolitics

US Central Command says 35 commercial ships have been rerouted at the blockaded Strait of Hormuz as of Sunday. Iran's Foreign Ministry says a route agreement with Oman alone will not reopen the waterway.

Economy

An unidentified projectile struck a cargo vessel about 37 km northeast of Khasab, Oman, overnight into Tuesday. The Jerusalem Post reports that Iran's Revolutionary Guard attacked a US base in Kuwait with drones the same morning.

Geopolitics

Israeli forces carried out large demolition operations near the Beaufort fortress in south Lebanon in the night from Thursday to Friday, saying they were destroying Hezbollah tunnels, Le Monde reported. The blasts sent powerful shockwaves through the south of the country while negotiations continue.

Geopolitics

Nechirvan Barzani, leader of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government, met Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Monday, the first such visit by a KRG leader to Damascus since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Daily Sabah and The National reported. According to sources cited by The Hindu, the talks concerned a deal on Syria's Kurds, with the integration of the YPG into the new Syrian state at the centre.

Geopolitics

Residents of the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya, many of them US citizens, have seen a sharp rise in attacks by Israeli settlers, the Guardian reported on Monday. The increase followed visits by US ambassador Mike Huckabee to the nearby Israeli settlement of Shilo.

Geopolitics

US President Donald Trump says he cancelled a planned wave of strikes on Iran and that talks with Tehran open on Monday afternoon. Iranian agencies deny any deal on the Strait of Hormuz was reached.

Geopolitics

Israeli air strikes hit Gaza for a second straight day on Sunday, with Palestinian tallies of the dead ranging from 8 to 18. Israel has still not publicly responded to the US roadmap for Hamas's disarmament.

Geopolitics

Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday that talks with Oman on a new shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz are in their final stages. The US naval blockade of Iran, resumed in mid-July, is still in force.

Geopolitics

Dmitri Gendelman, an adviser in the Israeli prime minister's office, said implementation of the agreement with Lebanon depends on Hezbollah disarming, adding that 'Israel's security is not a bargaining chip'. Five Lebanese soldiers were wounded on Sunday when their vehicle ran over an explosive device in the southern town of Kafra; the Israeli military said the device belonged to Hezbollah and did not come from an Israeli strike.

Geopolitics

Israeli forces launched a new incursion into Quneitra province in southern Syria on Sunday, according to Syrian state media cited by Daily Sabah. The troops set up a temporary checkpoint to search civilians and passing vehicles.

Geopolitics

The National reported on Sunday that unusual movements of US forces in Iraqi Kurdistan have prompted questions about an early drawdown. The report ties the movements to speculation that the US withdrawal could come sooner than planned.

Geopolitics

The National on Monday assessed what the arrest of Riad Salameh, Lebanon's former central bank governor, means for the country. The timing of the arrest and the charges against him are not given in the material available to Bota.

Economy

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he had cancelled a planned major attack on Iran, saying Tehran and other Middle Eastern states had agreed the "outlines of a deal". He named two conditions: the complete opening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran's nuclear threat.

Geopolitics

Gaza's civil defence says it has ended a two-week search in the Sabra district and recovered 112 bodies from destroyed houses. It reports 157 more people still missing at the same site.

Geopolitics

The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency reported two incidents involving tankers off Oman on Saturday. One vessel was left inoperative after a projectile struck its engine room.

Geopolitics

Gaza's civil defence says Israeli strikes killed at least eight people across the Strip on Sunday, days after Hamas accepted a US-brokered disarmament deal. Israel has not said publicly whether it accepts the terms.

Geopolitics

Kuwait's army says Iranian drones attacked a government facility in the country's north on Saturday and that air defences intercepted them. No casualties were reported.

Geopolitics

A Hamas representative says the Palestinian side has fulfilled everything required of it and that decisions on collecting weapons rest with Palestinians alone. The UAE on Saturday welcomed the disarmament agreement announced two days earlier.

Geopolitics