Middle East Monitor

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is planning to skip a UN police chiefs conference in New York this week amid legal pressure over his prison policies and “involvement in war crimes,” Israeli media reported. Ben-Gvir’s office has yet to confirm the cancellation of the visit, the Jerusalem Post reported Saturday. The report came a day after the Israeli daily Haaretz, citing ministry officials, said the decision was made amid planned demonstrations against Ben-Gvir’s visit and gro

US President Donald Trump told Axios on Saturday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked him for a meeting at the White House and it could take place as early as next week, Anadolu reports. “We get along very good. (Netanyahu) knows who the boss is,” Trump said in a brief phone interview. This would be the first meeting between the two leaders since their February Situation Room meeting, when Netanyahu presented his plan for a joint war against Iran. An Israeli official said next we

A mass funeral prayer was held in Iran’s capital Tehran on Sunday for the country’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at Imam Khomeini Mosalla Mosque, Anadolu reports. The funeral ceremony for Khamenei and his family members drew hundreds of thousands of mourners, many of whom arrived at the venue in the early hours of the morning carrying Iranian flags. The prayer at the major prayer complex was led by Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, senior military and political of

Moroccans at home and abroad celebrated on Saturday after their national team’s 3-0 victory over Canada in the Round of 16 of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Houston, sending the Atlas Lions into the quarterfinals, Anadolu reports. The win over Canada, one of the tournament’s three co-hosts alongside the US and Mexico, made Morocco the first African side to reach the World Cup quarterfinals in back-to-back tournaments. Fans waving Moroccan flags and chanting “Dima Maghreb” – meaning “Always Morocco”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday criticised international institutions for what he described as their failure to stop Israeli actions in the region, saying global bodies have remained silent while Israel openly speaks of assassinations and targeted killings, Anadolu reports. Speaking at a conference in Tehran’s Summit Hall held in commemoration of slain former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Pezeshkian said international organisations and human rights advocates were expected to preve

At least one Palestinian was killed and several others injured in an Israeli strike on Gaza City on Saturday, while the Israeli army continued demolishing buildings and shelling areas across the enclave in the latest reported violations of the ceasefire in force since October 2025, Anadolu reports. The developments came hours after the Palestinian presidency warned that Israel’s “daily killing policy” in the Gaza Strip, along with settler attacks in the occupied West Bank, could lead to an “unco

Lebanese Social Affairs Minister Haneen El Sayed said Saturday that around 400,000 displaced people have returned to their areas in southern Lebanon, while many others remain unable to go back because of widespread destruction or lack of access to their homes, Anadolu reports. El Sayed made the remarks during a visit to the southern city of Tyre, where she met officials from the Union of Municipalities of Tyre district and the region’s disaster management unit, according to Lebanon’s National Ne

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said Iran’s influence over the Strait of Hormuz gives it leverage comparable to a “nuclear weapon,” arguing that restricting passage through the waterway showed Tehran’s strategic reach, Anadolu reports. Speaking to journalists after a visit to Iran, Medvedev said Tehran could disrupt shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the event of a wider regional conflict, warning that such a move could halt oil and commercial transport. “I hop

Israel’s intelligence agencies rejected a request from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to endorse the government’s claim that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely” destroyed, Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported Saturday, Anadolu reports. According to the newspaper, Netanyahu’s office pressured security, intelligence and military officials to issue an assessment stating that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been completely destroyed, reinforcing a claim made by US President Don

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi on Saturday said the Strait of Hormuz “is not a stage for extra-regional powers to display military force,” warning against “any military activity” in the key waterway, Anadolu reports. “The Strait of Hormuz is not a stage for extra-regional powers to display military force. “As a responsible power and the guarantor of security in the strait, Iran warns against any military activity in this sensitive waterway,” Gharibabadi wrote on US social media

Celebrations swept across Egypt on Friday evening after the national football team reached the Round of 16 at the 2026 FIFA World Cup for the first time in its history, defeating Australia on penalties in the Round of 32, Anadolu reports. Crowds gathered in streets across the country’s governorates, waving Egyptian flags and chanting in celebration of the team’s historic achievement, an Anadolu correspondent reported. Egypt will play against Argentina in the Round of 16. Egyptian President Abdel

This April to June saw 83 Israeli attacks on Christians in Israel or Israeli-occupied territories in 76 incidents, most of them in Jerusalem, according to a report released Friday, Anadolu reports. The report was issued by Israel’s Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC) and the its Hotline for Documenting Harassment against Christians in Israel, a nongovernmental center specializing in documenting attacks related to freedom of worship. According to the report, 68 incidents took place inside Jerusa

There is an old parable about two scorpions in a jar. Neither can leave. Neither trusts the other. And sooner or later, one strikes, not because it wants to kill the other, but because the jar has become unbearable. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are those scorpions now, and the jar is the wreckage of the Middle East they built together. For the better part of a year, they marched in locked steps. One man’s appetite for spectacle matched by the other’s genius for making disaster look like d

A casket draped in black makes its slow procession through Tehran, past millions of mourners whose chests beat in unison against the late-summer heat. Red fists—the funeral’s symbol—rise above a sea of black-clad bodies, fists clenched not in grief alone but in defiance. The slogan is stark: “We must rise”. This is the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for thirty-six turbulent years, killed in the opening salvo of the US-Israeli war on February 28. It is not merely a relig

For more than a century, geopolitical influence in the Middle East has been defined by oil reserves, natural gas resources and the strategic waterways that connect them to global markets. Pipelines, shipping lanes and export terminals have shaped alliances, driven conflicts and determined the economic fortunes of states across the region. Yet the global energy transition is quietly introducing a new strategic variable that could redefine regional power: energy storage. The rapid expansion of ren

The Israeli army on Thursday confirmed the authenticity of a widely circulated image showing a Palestinian detainee being abused by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports. The image shows the detainee lying face down, blindfolded and bound with wire, with an iron rod strapped to his back. The image sparked widespread criticism on social media and renewed calls from human rights advocates for an independent investigation into the treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody. T

Israeli forces dispersed a Palestinian protest Friday in the Abu Njeim community, located southeast of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank against the establishment of an illegal settlement outpost, injuring and arresting several Palestinians, Anadolu reports. Israeli occupiers had set up a tent on residents’ land in the community, an Anadolu cameraman said, in what residents viewed as an attempt to establish a new illegal settlement outpost. Dozens of Palestinians then staged a protest before

Two people were injured Friday in Israeli drone strikes targeting a vehicle in Lebanon’s southern Tyre district, in what Lebanese authorities described as another violation of the framework agreement between Beirut and Tel Aviv. The strikes targeted the vehicle overnight in the town of Siddiqin, injuring two people, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported. In a separate incident, an Israeli drone dropped a stun grenade in the town of Safad al-Battikh in Bint Jbeil district, with no injurie

Israeli spyware was used to hack the phone of a former Greek member of the European Parliament while he was serving on a committee investigating spyware abuses in Europe, according to a report by Citizen Lab published on Friday, Anadolu reports. The University of Toronto-based research group said that forensic analysis found Stelios Kouloglou’s iPhone was successfully infected with Pegasus spyware, developed by Israeli company NSO Group, in October 2022 and again the next March. Kouloglou, a jou

Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait condemned the deadly bombing that targeted a cafe in the Syrian capital Damascus, killing at least six people, Anadolu reports. In separate statements, the foreign ministries of the three Gulf countries condemned the attack, expressed solidarity with Syria, rejected all forms of violence and terrorism regardless of motive, and extended condolences to the victims’ families. Hamas also condemned the bombing, saying such attacks serve only projects of chaos and the des