Middle Orient

UK officials continue to promote trade and investment with Israel while it is massacring Palestinians. The British government is being urged to halt its trade negotiations with Israel as it continues to bombard and blockade Gaza. Chris Law MP, the Scottish National Party’s spokesman on international trade, has accused Labour …

This week, U.S. President Donald Trump is set to visit three key American partners in the Middle East: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is not yet clear what he hopes to achieve. He may be seeking to secure arms deals and investments in the United …

Palestinians who are saying that they are unaware of Hamas’s October 7 atrocities against Israelis are either engaged in self-deception or influenced by Hamas’s venomous propaganda machine, including the Qatar-owned Al-Jazeera TV network, which has long been serving as the terror group’s unofficial mouthpiece. Notably, according to several polls, Al-Jazeera …

Move by Kurdish armed group follows February call by jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan to lay down arms. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has announced that it plans to disband and disarm, potentially bringing decades of conflict with Turkiye to an end. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the move on …

E_093_25Download The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in November 2024, which ended the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, led the Lebanese authorities to declare their willingness to impose a state monopoly on weapons throughout the country. Their commitment was reinforced by the new president, Joseph Aoun, and the new government …

A variety of Syrian armed groups, including those associated with the new transitional government, the Assad regime, and hardline Islamic groups, have committed a series of extrajudicial killings since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. CTP-ISW absolutely condemns these extrajudicial killings. The verbal ceasefire between the United …

The eruption of violence in Ashrafiyet Sahnaya and surrounding areas has exposed the profound failures of the Syrian state to protect its citizens—especially its minorities—in the supposed aftermath of dictatorship. Far from being an isolated flare-up, the events represent a deepening crisis rooted in sectarian marginalisation, government negligence, and a …

According to Israel’s Channel N12, citing the Turkish opposition outlet Sozcu, Turkish F-16s conducted reconnaissance flights in the same area where Israeli jets were operating and issued “warning messages” via electronic warfare systems, al-Modon writes. Conflicting media reports indicate that Israeli and Turkish fighter jets narrowly avoided a direct confrontation …

The United Arab Emirates has discreetly established a backchannel to facilitate indirect talks between Syria and Israel, according to well-informed sources cited by Reuters. The initiative reportedly began just days after Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s visit to Abu Dhabi on April 13, reflecting a growing Emirati role in shaping regional …

Since its creation on the ruins of historic Palestine, Israel has loomed large in the Syrian national consciousness—not merely as a military adversary, but as an existential threat. Born of dispossession and expansion, it is still viewed by many Syrians as a usurper of part of “Greater Syria”—a historical identity …