Images of the Pentagon, Washington DC. Credit: Kevin Doyle / Unsplash

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2026 (IPS)

An age-old axiom in Statistics reads : Figures Cannot Lie, But Liars Can Figure.

And more so, in military conflicts, including the five-month-old US-Iran war, where casualty figures are difficult to track down because of lack of transparency and false accounting.

According to CNN, the Pentagon updated its war casualty database last week, recording more than 140 additionally wounded, and restoring the four soldiers killed due to Iranian strikes amid questions about a lack of transparency over the war’s toll.

The Pentagon drew scrutiny from media outlets and lawmakers last week when the number of US troops killed and wounded decreased in the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, as Iranian attacks continued. CNN observed fluctuating casualty totals when monitoring the site on a minute-by-minute basis last week.

Pentagon updates Iran war casualty count to 624, restoring 4 deaths to tally, CNN’s Davis Winkie reports on why casualty numbers decreased & were later revised.

The Iranian government, not surprisingly, hasn’t provided any casualty figures at all.

In a bygone era, the United States reportedly suffered 58,281 military deaths in the Vietnam War and 2,459 military deaths during the war in Afghanistan.

The exact breakdown of total casualties—including deaths and those wounded in action (WIA)—differs significantly between the two conflicts:

Stephen Zunes, a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco specializing in Middle Eastern politics, told Inter Press Service (IPS) many thousands of Iranians, Lebanese, and others have been killed as a result of the U.S. war on Iran but Americans–as in previous wars–tend to focus on U.S. casualties. Though they have thankfully been limited, the eighteen fatalities and more than 600 wounded–some of them seriously–have become a major focus of war opponents.

Trump has tried to downplay and manipulate these figures by comparing the casualties with other U.S. wars which included significant ground operations, claiming without evidence that the dead soldiers strongly supported the war, and undercounting those wounded by initially only listing those with severe injuries, said Zunes.

More recently, he pointed out, the administration was caught placing those killed and wounded, subsequent to the collapse of the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, in a separate category than those killed and wounded during the first phase of the war, thereby lessening the overall total.

“Such efforts are only strengthening antiwar sentiment in Washington and elsewhere, adding to the upset by veterans and others over Trump’s draft dodging during the Vietnam War and his insults of those who fought in unpopular conflicts, including war heroes”.

During his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton, and to a somewhat lesser extent in his 2024 campaign against Kamala Harris, he portrayed himself as the antiwar candidate who opposed Democrats’ “forever wars” and who as a president would “bring our troops home.” As U.S. casualties in the Middle East mount, his credibility will only be eroded further, declared Zunes.

Meanwhile, a group of Democratic Senators sent a letter last week to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting a “comprehensive accounting” about the number of service members wounded or killed.”

The Senators wrote: “First, we wish to honor the service members who have lost their lives in Operation Epic Fury and extend our deepest condolences to their families. We thank all those who continue to serve in harm’s way. Their sacrifice is why we write to express our concern regarding the Department of Defense’s (DoD or the Department) public reporting and statements on U.S. military casualties associated with Operation Epic Fury.

We formally request a comprehensive accounting of the number of service members who have been killed, wounded, or injured in support of the operation. The American people, Congress, service members, and their families are entitled to a full and accurate accounting of the human costs of war. The information currently available to the public suggests that the Department has not consistently provided timely and comprehensive public casualty reporting throughout the conflict.

The Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), which the Department has described as being “regularly updated,” has reported inconsistent casualty figures, raising additional questions about the transparency and reliability of the Department’s public reporting and statement.”

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In Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, children received polio vaccines as part of the vaccination campaign conducted by UNICEF and its partners in 2025. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammed Nateel

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 27 2026 (IPS)

On Monday July 20, a team from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) visited two displacement sites in Gaza where they found two family tents decimated by domestic fires. This incident is indicative of the increasing frequency of domestic fires in Gaza.

Families are resorting to burning waste, cardboard, and trash to help prepare meals following the ban on gas cylinders and cooking stoves from entering Gaza since October 2023. While cooking gas is available, it is only offered in limited quantities and at extremely high prices.

The domestic fire risk in Gaza is situated within a larger, much more dire humanitarian access crisis, as documented in UNICEF’s Humanitarian Situation Update Mid-Year Review. Access restrictions and operational constraints continue to disrupt humanitarian delivery, with only 44 percent of aid trucks from Egypt able to offload between May and June. Severe restrictions remain in place for the entry of fuel, spare parts, and essential materials, which have driven system failures across health and water services. Across the Gaza Strip, an estimated 82 percent of families are water insecure, and nearly 90 percent of water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

Violence against civilians has also intensified across Gaza. The UN Human Rights Office reported that Israeli forces killed at least 57 people, including women and children, between July 13th and July 20th.

UN Spokesperson to the Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric also detailed the aftermath of an Israeli drone strike on July 17th west of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in which seven people were reportedly killed and others injured as the strike coincided with mourners leaving a nearby funeral prayer.

On July 15th, a teacher was injured after being shot by Israeli forces while she was working at a temporary learning space west of Khan Younis. Since the start of 2026, OCHA has reported 26 education-related incidents. These findings echo their Humanitarian Situation Report from July 16th, in which 84 schools are under pending demolition or stop-work orders.

Despite operational constraints and security risks, humanitarian organizations have been working to restore and expand access to education after more than two years of disruption. At the beginning of 2026, UN partners helped 435,000 pre-primary and school-aged children, including 9,300 children with disabilities, access structured learning at 610 temporary learning spaces. Furthermore, 344,000 children received learning materials and 11,000 teachers were supported. UNICEF’s Mid-Year Review reported helping 266,000 children access formal and non-formal education opportunities, which has helped provide children with a sense of normalcy amid the ongoing upheaval and crisis.

Since the ceasefire was reached last October, there have been some improvements and gains in food security and nutrition levels, thanks to expanded humanitarian food, nutrition and agricultural assistance. But those gains are still fragile. UNICEF, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme warned that families are struggling to meet basic needs, and these gains will be reversed without continuous humanitarian aid, funding and investment in recovery in the Gaza Strip. As of now, only one crossing, the Kerem Shalom/Abu Salem crossing in the south of Gaza, remains open for humanitarian assistance. The latest analysis on food security shows that an estimated 1.4 million people, or 67 percent of Gaza’s population, are experiencing crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.

Health and infrastructure remain heavily strained across the Gaza Strip. On July 20th, the Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator Susanne Tkalec met with leadership members of the Emirati Hospital in Rafah to determine solutions to strengthen the medical waste management systems in Gaza amid ongoing health and sanitation system stress.

Despite hospitals being explicitly protected under international humanitarian law, “healthcare workers, patients, ambulances, and hospitals have all been targeted,” said Dr. Javid Abdelmoneim, International President of Médecins Sans Frontières. Dr. Abdelmoneim went on to explain that “whether through direct violence, dismantling the healthcare system or obstructuring humanitarian assistance, inducing famine, weaponising water, causing higher levels of prematurity and mortality among infants and high levels of miscarriage, or denying care… it’s clear: the number one health issue in Palestine is Israel’s occupation.”

Shelter needs across Gaza remain outmatched by supply. In the first ten days of July, UN humanitarian partners provided 2,300 households with bedding items, tarpaulins and tents, and 13,000 families received kitchen sets. However, access to cooking fuel is still severely limited, as noted by the domestic fires. In addition, the supply stockpiles themselves are severely limited, with less than 1,000 tents currently available and only enough essential household supplies to support 7,000 families.

Across the occupied Palestinian territory, UN agencies continue to warn that violence, funding gaps, and access restrictions have created an unprecedented need that continues to outpace what can be delivered in terms of water, healthcare, education, and shelter.

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A view of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Credit: Unsplash/Ekrem Osmanoglu

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 27 2026 (IPS)

On Wednesday, July 22, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, and Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, HRH Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, best known as a 123 agreement, as well as an accompanying bilateral safeguards agreement, according to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Saudi Ministry of Energy.

While the agreement was expected to be submitted to Congress for review, President Donald Trump has conditioned U.S. nuclear cooperation on Riyadh, normalizing relations with Israel in order to receive U.S. nuclear technology. A condition that appears difficult to satisfy given the Kingdom’s hardline stance that it will not normalize relations with Israel until a Palestinian state is established with East Jerusalem as its capital, according to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader.

Washington mentions that these two agreements “lay the legal foundation for a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar partnership that advances several priority economic and strategic objectives, including nuclear nonproliferation.” The agreement has a 30-year term.

The 123 agreement, named after Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 – a U.S. federal law – provides the legal framework for long-term civilian nuclear cooperation between the United States and partner countries. The 123 agreement is mandatory before any significant exports of U.S.-origin nuclear material, such as nuclear reactors, nuclear fuel, and other major components can go to any partner.

Saudi Arabia’s nuclear agreement with the U.S. is more than an energy deal. It has the potential to reshape the Kingdom’s relationship with oil, and its geopolitical role in building the Middle East’s next-generation clean-energy infrastructure.

The advent of nuclear energy could also free up the amount of hydrocarbons Saudi Arabia can export. The Kingdom produced 22,744,529.0 TJ of oil and oil products in 2023, having consumed 6.4 million TJ domestically, equivalent to approximately 28 percent of its production. The Kingdom also produced 3,640,348.0 TJ of natural gas, having consumed all of its domestically produced natural gas that year. For reference, 3,600 TJ is equal to 1 TWh.

Expressed in barrels of oil equivalent (boe), Saudi Arabia produced the energy equivalent to 3.72 billion barrels of oil, in oil and oil products in 2023, consuming 1.05 billion barrels of that oil. This indicates that roughly 72 percent of the Kingdom’s oil and oil products, measured in energy terms, are not domestically consumed, leaving a substantial share available for exports and other uses. Saudi Arabia is the world’s second to third largest exporter of oil, producing 11 percent of global demand.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), transport accounts for roughly 30 percent of Saudi Arabia’s final energy consumption, followed by non-energy uses (29.7 percent), industry (19.9 percent), and commercial and public services (11 percent).

Although the pace at which Saudi Arabia can transition away from fossil fuels remains uncertain, nuclear power could gradually reduce domestic oil consumption, freeing up oil for export. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), a reactor can take about five or more years to be built after licensing and regulatory approvals are already completed.

Saudi Arabia’s first nuclear plant is expected to consist of two reactors, each producing around 1.4 GW, bringing the plant to a total capacity of 2.8 GW (2,800 MW). Assuming a 90 percent capacity factor, annual energy generation will be 22.1 TWh per year, nearly five percent of Saudi Arabia’s 431.9 TWh electricity generation.

Although Saudi Arabia’s first nuclear plant would account for only about 5 percent of the Kingdom’s current electricity generation, it would represent an important step toward reducing domestic hydrocarbon consumption in support of the country’s national strategy, Vision 2030.

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Satellite image of the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb strait being at the bottom right opening. Credit: Wikimedia/NASA

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 24 2026 (IPS)

With regional friction between Iran and the Gulf monarchies escalating, Houthi leadership in Yemen has proclaimed a total maritime blockade against all vessels linked to Saudi shipping. While this declaration does not constitute a verified military obstruction of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, it significantly heightens the risk of volatility at the Red Sea’s southern gateway, potentially severing the primary arterial link to the Suez Canal.

The embargo is already being framed as more than a simple ban on Saudi-flagged vessels. In messages sent to shipping companies navigating the Strait, the Houthis warned against any activities at Saudi ports, including by non-Saudi-flagged ships, saying that vessels could be targeted “in any location.” This is significant as Saudi Arabia’s maritime infrastructure managed 331 million tonnes of freight in 2024—a volume roughly equal to 12 million fully laden 20-foot containers.

Within days of these threats being made, five ships have been recorded turning around after heading towards the Bab el-Mandeb passage. Among these ships, the Xin Long Yang, a VLCC loaded at Yanbu and bound for Qinzhou, China, carrying 2 million barrels of Saudi crude, initially reversed north towards the Suez Canal. The vessel later reversed course again, choosing to resume its original route heading south towards Bab el-Mandeb.

Additionally, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that two Saudi oil tankers, named Encelia and Layla, were targeted for their “violation of the blockade decision issued by the armed forces.”

Jeddah Islamic Port, the Kingdom’s principal commercial gateway on the Red Sea, received 3,805 vessel calls in 2024, more than any other Saudi port. Yanbu has become Saudi Arabia’s critical Red Sea oil-export network, where crude is moved from eastern fields using the East–West pipeline before being loaded onto tankers. With the Strait of Hormuz severely disrupted, the Red Sea corridor is no longer simply an alternative route: it is Saudi Arabia’s critical remaining maritime outlet to Asian markets.

Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port was loading approximately 4 million b/d in mid-July, close to 4 percent of daily global oil demand. Disruptions at Bab el-Mandeb would also affect the Suez Canal, which carried approximately 22 percent of global seaborne container trade in 2023 and acts as the link between European and Asian markets. Of the cargo which transits through Bab el-Mandeb, 3.97 million b/d of crude passed through its gates in March, according to Kpler.

If the Houthis can continue to enforce their threat and create enough uncertainty, even selective attacks on some vessels can increase wartime insurance costs and undermine security guarantees, which could push carriers to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.

Credit: Maximilian Malawista

For an Asia–Europe container voyage, rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope can add roughly 3,000 to 3,500 nautical miles and approximately seven to ten days of sailing time. This also increases the cost of the voyage, heightening fuel costs, requiring more vessel capacity to maintain scheduled services, and exposing cargo to higher insurance premiums. The World Bank has estimated that the additional fuel bill alone could reach USD 1 million for a round trip. Analysis by the OECD put the wider cost increase at USD 1.7 million for a medium-sized container ship on an Asia–Europe round trip—roughly an increase of USD 272, or 19 percent, for one standard 40-foot container.

In late 2023, similar Houthi threats, which led to selective attacks against commercial vessels, led major carriers to avoid the Red Sea passage and use the alternative route around the Cape of Good Hope. In just three months, by mid-February 2024, UNCTAD had recorded 586 container vessels taking the longer route around Africa, while container tonnage moving through the Suez Canal had simultaneously fallen 82 percent. Spot rates—the price of booking a container on short notice—also rose by 256 percent during the same period on voyages from Shanghai to Europe.

The Suez Canal in Egypt. Credit: Unsplash/Samuel Hanna

For Yemen, the consequences could be especially severe. The country relies on imports for more than 90 percent of its staple foods, including about 90 percent of its wheat and all of its rice requirements. Much of that supply enters through the ports of Aden and Hodeidah. The World Food Programme estimates that 18.2 million people in Yemen require humanitarian aid, being in dire need of humanitarian assistance and protection services.

Even considering that the Houthis formally exempt humanitarian cargo from the embargo, an escalation of insecurity can delay vessels and raise freight and insurance costs, deterring commercial shipping lines from calling at Yemeni ports. Humanitarian aid will not be nearly enough to replace the normal commercial flow of food and fuel, which affects Yemeni civilians first, who are already facing hunger and economic collapse.

The central question is not whether the Houthis can permanently seal Bab el-Mandeb. It is whether they can make the route risky enough that insurers, carriers, and oil traders abandon it themselves.

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Amir Saeid Iravani, Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations, addresses the Security Council high-level debate on the safety of global waterways, amid growing concerns over threats to shipping and freedom of navigation, held on April 27, 2026. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 23 2026 (IPS)

Prior to the latest round of hostilities between the United States and Iran, freight traffic had been increasing in the Strait of Hormuz, and negotiations were underway for a new agreement to fully restore trade through this channel.

According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), energy markets were likely to bounce back to normal pre-conflict levels faster than that of food, public finance, and transport, leaving many vulnerable economies worse off. UNCTAD research shows a change from about 125 daily ship transits through the Strait of Hormuz in 2026, January 1st through February 27th, to a drop of around 10 daily transits from February 28th through June 14th during the conflict, marking a 92 percent decrease in overall transit ability.

According to UNCTAD and the Strait of Hormuz monitor, levels on June 2nd recorded around 40 ship transits, with an average of 60 through the days after signing the MOU (The Memorandum of Understanding signed by both US and Iranian delegations). This represents roughly half of pre-conflict transit levels.

Source: Author’s visualizations using data from Strait of Hormuz Trade Tracker (WTO)
Note: Daily outbound shipments represent AIS-traceable crude oil tanker departures from the Strait of Hormuz to destinations outside the Persian Gulf. Additionally, this graph is roughly similar to overall shipments of LNG, fertilizer, and Agricultural products through the same period.

Following the closure of the Strait, the daily price of crude oil jumped to USD 120 per barrel, then averaged around USD 100 per barrel throughout the conflict. The daily price of crude oil fell to USD 70 per barrel upon the signing of the MOU, roughly returning to pre-conflict levels. However, following the latest escalations and the breaking of the MOU, crude prices have risen again to approximately USD 100, indicating that agreements to cease conflicts can quickly bring prices down significantly, if agreed to once more.

On the contrary, the IGC Grains and Oilseeds Freight index (GOFI), indicates a slow decrease of the heightened costs of transporting both grains and oilseeds by sea (e.g., Wheat, Corn, Barley, Sorghum, Soybeans, Rapeseed (canola), Sunflower seed), across 68 key exporting origins in the regions of the United States, The European Union, Canada, the Black Sea region, Brazil, Australia, and Argentina.

Source: Author’s visualizations using data from the International Grains Council (IGC).
Note: The index is normalized so that 100 represents the average grain and oilseed freight rate on January 1, 2013. During the conflict, the index rose to approximately 190, representing a 90 percent increase relative to the base value and a 30 percent increase from the beginning of the conflict on February 28, 2026.

As a result of the heightened price of grains and oilseeds, among other agriculture components, UNCTAD says, “Past input price shocks remain a risk to future food security,” laying out the cycle in which costs can amount:

1. Traffic through the strait was disrupted.
2. Limited freight traffic constricts the availability and raises the cost of oil, gas and nitrogenous fertilizer.
3. A decrease in energy exports creates higher energy prices, increasing transport and shipping costs.
4. Further fuel inflation slows down the global economy.
5. Agricultural production costs increase.
6. Food production may be affected by the increased cost of agricultural components such as fertilizer, pushing domestic food prices further up.
7. Vulnerable populations may face greater food insecurity and hunger, as a result of the heightened cost of importing food, and domestic agriculture production.

This process has exposed 61 vulnerable economies to dual impact of higher oil and cereal import prices. (e.g., wheat, rice, corn, barley, oats, sorghum, millet, rye) These countries consist of 35 least developed countries and 26 small island states, with seven of those countries being both least developed and small island developing states.

According to UNCTAD, the pressure is “sharpest for economies that rely heavily on imported fuel”, citing an example in Cabo Verde where net imports of oil and petroleum products averaged 24.6 percent of GDP within recent years. This dependence on fuel imports means that those extra costs can quickly make food prices, electricity, transport, and public finances more expensive.

Source: Author’s visualizations using data from UNCTADStat.
Notes: Orange countries are small island states, and blue countries are least developed countries (LDCs).

Yemen was also cited to be at high risk, with analysis showing that net imports of cereal and cereal products averaged 10.8 percent of GDP. For countries like Yemen dealing with conflict, hyperinflation, debt pressure, and limited public financing, a higher import bill for grain compounds an already declining situation.

Source: Author’s visualizations using data from UNCTADStat.
Notes: Orange countries are small island states, and blue countries are least developed countries (LDCs).

UNCTAD analysis indicates that a real increase of food cost by just 5 percent is associated with a higher risk of child wasting (a life-threatening form of acute malnutrition), especially among poor children and children living in rural landless households.

While restoring full trade through the strait is a necessary step to recovery, this will not undo the aftermath that higher import bills, delayed shipments, and higher priced food and energy have on the global economy, especially vulnerable economies.

“The policy task is therefore broader than reopening a route. Vulnerable economies need support to manage higher import bills, protect households from food and fuel shocks, and invest in systems that reduce exposure before the next disruption hits household budgets,” said UNCTAD, indicating the importance for vulnerable economies to develop supply chain resilience, sustainable systems, and have less reliance on concentrated international trade for vital goods such as food and energy, among financial support from the international system.

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Map of the Strait of Hormuz. Credit: Wikimedia/Goran_tek-en

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 17 2026 (IPS)

A continuation of hostilities within the Strait of Hormuz is once again threatening one of the world’s most critical supply chain arteries, posing another wave of disruption which could choke the global energy, shipping and commodity markets. With roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade transiting through the Strait, alongside significant flows of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers, further constraints on commercial traffic could send new cost pressures cascading through supply chains that have yet to absorb the full effects of the earlier conflict.

Unlike the initial disruption, this latest escalation is hitting an already elevated and damaged cost base. U.S. President Donald Trump had proposed a 20 percent charge on cargo transiting the Strait, a plan he abandoned on July 14th after pressure from Gulf allies. At a current crude oil price of roughly USD 85 per barrel, a 20 percent levy on all cargo would amount to an additional USD 17 per barrel, around 17 times Iran’s previously proposed USD 1 per barrel toll.

Yet, the larger challenge remains whether an assurance of safety through the Strait can really be guaranteed. While Washington has promised to safeguard commercial vessels attempting to transit, multiple vessels have been struck by Iranian forces, including the UAE-flagged supertankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah on July 12th. Both vessels have a capacity of roughly 2 million barrels of oil, placing the potential value of a full cargo at roughly USD 171 million before insurance, maintenance and transit costs are considered.

If continued attacks deter vessels from transiting the Strait, constrained oil flows could combine with increased insurance premiums and higher transport costs, pushing additional expenses through global supply chains and eventually onto consumers.

These effects are already visible when examining vessel movements. On July 15th, a total of five transits were recorded, three inbound and two outbound, with one of those ships being Iranian-flagged outbound. Daily throughput in deadweight tonnage (DWT) stood at 130,311 DWT, or just 1.27 percent of the 10.3 million DWT pre-conflict daily average. Meanwhile, approximately 450 vessels remain waiting to transit the Strait, including 120 tankers, 180 bulk carriers and 150 other vessels.

War risk premiums, the additional fees charged to insure vessels operating within conflict zones, have skyrocketed from a 0.15 percent pre-conflict rate to 5 percent, a more than 33-fold increase. Very large crude carriers (VLCCs) can be valued from USD 130 million to more than USD 170 million, meaning a five percent premium could add an additional cost of USD 6.5 million to USD 8.75 million per voyage. For a VLCC carrying 2 million barrels, that would amount to roughly USD 7.5 million, compared with approximately USD 2.225 million under Iran’s proposed USD 1-per-barrel toll combined with pre-conflict war-risk premiums.

However, the compounding effects extend beyond oil. Data from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Strait of Hormuz Trade Tracker shows that while crude oil shipments had begun to recover marginally, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and fertilizer-related shipments remain at a virtual standstill, with zero outbound shipments currently recorded. Renewed escalations risk further restricting already depressed commodity flows, with approximately one-third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer trade and one-fifth of global LNG transiting through the Strait.

Using a volume index in which 100 represents average volume levels, the WTO recorded a volume index of 25.69 for LNG on July 5th, following nearly four months in which shipments were recorded on only four other days. Fertilizer-related shipments showed greater resilience, recording a volume index of 97.62 on June 23rd. However, no further fertilizer-related shipments have been recorded, leaving the trade flow at a standstill for more than three weeks.

These restrictions could be particularly damaging for energy- and food-importing economies, notably developing countries that spend significant shares of national income on essential imports of energy and food. Simultaneous increases in fuel, transportation, and agricultural inputs risk creating a broader inflationary shock. Higher fertilizer costs can increase agricultural production costs, while elevated energy and shipping expenses raise the cost of transporting goods from exporters to importers, leaving consumers exposed to several layers of the same disruption.

The disruption has also carried a significant human cost. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has warned against continued commercial transit through the Strait, with IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez urging shipowners, operators, and flag States, along with all relevant authorities to “avoid exposing seafarers to unnecessary danger by transiting the Strait.” At the same time, the United States has announced that it will resume a naval blockade targeting vessels transiting to and from Iranian ports. Iran, meanwhile, has framed its control over the Strait as a national security issue and has threatened that it will remain closed “until the end of America’s evils.”

At its 137th session, the IMO Council reaffirmed that the right of transit through straits used for international navigation “should not be threatened, impeded, denied, hampered, impaired or suspended,” reiterating that any measures taken by coastal states to regulate traffic in vital shipping lanes should be done in accordance with IMO regulations under the International Convention on the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). The Council also stated that traffic through the Strait must “remain free of any tolls and charges, in accordance with international law, including the IMO Convention.”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that “Reports on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are very alarming for their impact on human rights far beyond the region,” describing the Strait as “a vital lifeline on which millions are reliant.”

The dangers are also being borne directly by seafarers trapped in the Persian Gulf. Of approximately 20,000 seafarers stranded by the crisis, around 11,000 have been evacuated through an IMO-supported initiative. However, evacuation operations have reportedly been paused since June 25, leaving thousands still stranded.

The economic consequences of the initial disruption were already substantial before this latest escalation. According to the World Bank, global energy prices rose by 24 percent following the conflict’s onset, with fertilizer prices projected to rise by more than 30 percent in 2026. Renewed hostilities in the Strait now threaten to compound these pressures, demonstrating how insecurity within a narrow stretch of water can transmit costs across global supply chains, from ships at sea to businesses, households and economies around the world.

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A cargo vessel docked at a port facility. Credit: UNCTAD

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 16 2026 (IPS)

The full economic impact of the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz may not become clear until the second half of 2026, warns the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Prior to the closure, an average of 129 maritime vessels transited daily through the strait, carrying approximately 34 percent of globally traded crude oil and 20 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG). Asia is by far the largest importer of Gulf crude and oil products, receiving 91 percent of Gulf crude and petroleum products or roughly 16.5 million barrels per day.

Daily oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz by destination, million barrels per day (mb/d). Credit: Maximilian Malawista (Data: IEA)

While much of the global economy appears to be absorbing the shock rather decently, UNCTAD warned that the broader consequences of the Strait of Hormuz disruption have yet to fully materialize.

“I should qualify that the full picture on Hormuz disruptions should become clearer in the second half of 2026, once the higher costs have been fully absorbed through value chains, the broader macroeconomy, and financial conditions.” UNCTADS’s Head of Macroeconomic and Development Policies, Anastasia Nesveailtova, told Inter Press Service.

Oil prices in recent months have reached an amount higher than USD 100 per barrel, up from roughly USD 60 per barrel last June. While the immediate effects have been largely visible in the energy markets, economists note that secondary shocks often take months to fully solidify through the broader global economy.

Higher fuel costs increase expenses for agricultural producers, shipping companies, and manufacturers, all which are heavily reliant on energy intensive operations. As businesses begin to absorb these costs, they are often felt later by the consumer as it takes time for the full supply chain costs to trickle down.

UNCTAD warned about these secondary effects as early as March this year, noting that “Freight rates for oil tankers and war risk insurance premiums are surging, while marine fuel costs are also rising, increasing shipping costs across supply chains.”

Credit: Maximilian Malawista (Data: UNCTAD)

Beyond transport costs, the disruption also threatens global agricultural supply chains. UNCTAD notes that “Around one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade (about 16 million tonnes) passes through the strait,” raising concerns that prolonged disruption of the strait could increase agricultural production costs by limiting access to fertilizer.

Several countries that rely heavily on fertilizer imports from the Persian Gulf are also major agricultural producers and exporters. According to UNCTAD, Australia for example sources 32 percent of its seaborne fertilizer imports from the Gulf. According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Australia is among the world’s largest agricultural exporters, accounting for 12.8 percent of global agricultural exports, making it a top five exporter.

Likely as a result of fertilizer being a critical input to agricultural production, a decrease in supply of fertilizer signals an increase in price, meaning growing food becomes more costly. These effects also reach other exporters such as Pakistan, Thailand and New Zealand, but largely will affect them less than the secondary result of a supply constriction which raises regional food prices for vulnerable countries.

UNCTAD records that Sudan receives 54 percent of its fertilizer through seaborne imports from the Gulf, along with the United Republic of Tanzania, Somalia, and Mozambique also receiving large percentages from the region. Sudan and Somalia in particular are currently in a humanitarian food insecurity crisis, with parts of Mozambique also continuing to experience food security pressures.

The economic consequences of the Strait of Hormuz’s disruption may therefore extend far beyond just energy markets, reaching consumers worldwide through higher transportation, agricultural and supply chain expenses.

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Aerial view of the Port of Dubai Emirate located in Jebel Ali district, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Credit: WikiMedia/Imre Solt

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 14 2026 (IPS)

Despite the importance of international trade as an engine for economic growth and development, only fourteen of the twenty-two Arab states are members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The remaining Arab states risk missing out on opportunities for greater integration into the global economy and the multilateral trading system facilitated by the WTO.

A new joint study produced by the WTO, the Arab Monetary Fund, the Islamic Development Bank, and the Islamic Centre for Development of Trade examines the benefits of WTO membership, the barriers facing Arab states seeking accession and the economic characteristics which define the region.

According to the publication, WTO membership has “facilitated and secured significant export opportunities in the markets of other WTO members,” while also developing “competitive market conditions and a business-friendly environment.” Membership can create the predictability and stability needed to attract foreign direct investment, while encouraging economic diversification and supporting regulatory reform.

The potential benefits of WTO membership can also be reflected by logistics performance of Arab economies. According to the World Bank’s 2023 Logistics Performance Index, Arab members of the WTO generally outperform non-member economies across infrastructure, international shipments, logistics competence, and other logistics related sectors.

The Index recorded that Arab WTO members had an average logistics score of 3.17 compared to an average of 2.25 among non-member states. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranked the highest among Arab economies with a score of 4.0. In contrast, non-member states such as Somalia and Libya received scores of 2.0 and 1.9.

Source: Author’s visualizations using data from International Logistics Performance Index (LPI) 2023, World Bank Group

Despite the potential benefits of WTO membership, WTO accession has proven to be a lengthy process for Arab states. Seven countries seeking membership — Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Syria — have been engaged in accession processes for an average of 18 or more years, with negotiations for some countries remaining inactive for extended periods.

The report attributed these delays to a combination of institutional challenges, political instability and economic turmoil. Political instability and conflict have especially disrupted investment and infrastructure which has halted much needed development across parts of the region, while weak regulatory frameworks have complicated efforts to align national policies with WTO requirements.

For accession to occur, it requires extensive legal and institutional reforms, coordination among regulatory agencies and ministries, and sustained political commitment throughout the years of negotiations. The report identifies the history of centrally planned economies as one of the defining characteristics which has complicated accession for some Arab states.

“An inevitable consequence of this history was the limited experience gained in regulating and governing a competitive private sector-led economy.” the report states. “A transformation from a centrally planned economy to a market economy model normally requires a fundamental shift in the government’s role from being a producer to becoming a regulator.”

These challenges are further complicated by the considerable economic differences among the Arab economies seeking integration within the global trading system.

Dependence on oil and gas for exports remains particularly significant. In 2020, 97 percent of Iraq’s total exports and 95 percent of both Algeria and Libya’s exports were fuel, all three of which are seeking WTO membership. The report argues that this dependence leaves economies vulnerable to fluctuations in global commodity markets and calls for greater economic diversification.

Economic disparities in the region can also be seen through merchandise trade composition. During 2022, Saudi Arabia had recorded a merchandise trade surplus of USD 221.3 billion, followed by the UAE at USD 112.3 billion and Qatar at USD 97.5 billion. Egypt on the other hand recorded a USD 37 billion trade deficit, while Morocco and Lebanon recorded deficits of USD 30.3 billion and USD 15.1 billion, reflecting their respective trade.

These trade compositions highlight the vastly different economic characteristics between Arab states and how they partake in the global trading system. Several of the region’s largest commodity exporters depend heavily on oil and gas, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, and Libya. Other Arab economies such as Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, and Lebanon, have smaller hydrocarbon sectors and greater dependence on imported goods.

These structural differences alongside varying levels of political stability and institutional capacity, mean that strategies for greater integration into the global trade system cannot be uniform. The report argues that WTO accession strategies must instead be tailored to individual economic and institutional circumstances of each country.

Although the Arab states might differ in how they trade, trade remains central to the region’s economic engine, accounting for 87 percent of GDP across the Arab economies in 2023. Intra-Arab trade on the other hand only accounted only for 9.9 percent of total exports, while intra-Arab imports represented 12.1 percent of total imports during the same period.

International organizations have sought to address some of the barriers facing countries seeking WTO membership. In Iraq, the European Union (EU) funded “strengthening the Agriculture and Agri-Food Value Chain and Improving Trade Policy project” (SAAVI) which has provided aid to Iraq’s WTO accession. SAAVI aims to align Iraq’s trade policies and international standards with the WTO framework through technical assistance, capacity building, and advisory services.

The report argues that greater involvement in the multilateral trading system can greatly support economic diversification and further integrate Arab economies into global value and supply chains. Especially when looking at the model of the gulf countries, where vital energy, petrochemicals, and metals have become nonnegotiable parts of the international trade system. However the report indicated that WTO membership alone cannot guarantee these outcomes. For the seven Arab states seeking accession, strengthening regulatory institutions, improving coordination across government agencies and maintaining sustained political commitment will be critical to advancing accession processes that have already lasted an average of more than 18 years.

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For most individuals, the process of peace starts with the signing of a ceasefire or an agreement among politicians. However, those who live in regions experiencing violence understand that peace is made long before politicians meet at the negotiating table. Peace is created among communities by people who work everyday to ensure that no violence takes place, and that disputes are sorted out.

Muna Luqman, Yemeni peacebuilding advisor and humanitarian leader.

Speaking to IPS Inter Press Service, Yemeni peacebuilding advisor and humanitarian leader Muna Luqman challenged conventional thinking about who builds peace and where peacebuilding truly begins, “Communities never wait until peace happens,” Luqman said. “They’re working to protect peace on a daily basis.”

Based on her extensive experience working in Yemen for more than 15 years, Luqman explained how local communities, especially women, resolve disputes, provide crucial services, negotiate humanitarian assistance and create dialogical spaces way ahead of any intervention of international organizations.

Luqman is the founder and chairperson of Food for Humanity, has seen first-hand the changes conflict brings about in society. While living through the Yemeni civil war, she faced airstrikes and negotiated the evacuation of civilians caught up in the war zone. These experiences led her to realize that humanitarian response alone is inadequate.

“If we only respond to the consequences of conflict without addressing its causes, we will always be a step behind,” she reflected. Her experience also exposed one of the greatest challenges facing local peacebuilders and that is of recognition.

“We thought we would be the first to be supported,” she said, referring to local organisations that led humanitarian responses before international actors arrived. “But we found out that it was a long process.”

According to a report by UN Women, around 676 million lived within 50 kilometers of deadly conflict in 2024 – the highest figure since the 1990s. Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, said, “Women and girls are being killed in record numbers, shut out of peace tables, and left unprotected as wars multiply. Women do not need more promises, they need power, protection, and equal participation.”

Data collected by the United Nations from 2020-2024 found that, “Women’s representation as negotiators, mediators and signatories in peace processes is far below the target set by the UN. In 2024, women made up only seven percent of negotiators on average worldwide, and nearly nine out of ten negotiation tracks included no women negotiators”. The report stated, women were slightly more represented in mediation roles, averaging 14 percent but still, two-thirds of mediation efforts did not include women.

The discrepancy for Luqman pointed to an underlying problem in international peacebuilding. While local groups responded immediately to communities in need, other institutions were bound by mandates, funding, and procedures. It becomes evident, she says, why true inclusion in peacebuilding should be more than merely symbolic in nature.

True inclusion requires recognizing women not as mere recipients of help or observers of processes, but as active participants in negotiating, mediating, and taking crucial decisions. It is proven that peace treaties are much more sustainable in those cases where women are actively involved in the negotiation process. Women broaden the agenda from purely political aspects like political power-sharing to such crucial areas as justice, education, health care, livelihoods, displacement, and community reconciliation.

Luqman believes that local women possess a unique understanding of these realities because they remain deeply embedded within their communities. “Women mediators are willing to prevent disagreements before they become violence,” she explained. She has witnessed women in Yemen securing the release of prisoners, organizing their communities to rebuild schools and water supplies, and preventing children from joining armed groups. This is often done discreetly, outside the limelight of the international community.

“The strength of women peacebuilders is their ability to mobilize their communities,” she said. However, it is precisely these women who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. They are threatened, intimidated, forced to flee, and often lack funds despite helping others. Protecting women peacebuilders must be a priority on the global agenda, Luqman asserts.

“They do this work while they are facing either lack of funding or no funding at all. They remain resilient, they remain vulnerable at the same time, and they remain under threats.”

She believes that the international community needs to go beyond recognizing the contribution of women and work to provide financial support to women-led organizations that are trusted and credible within the local communities.

While serving as the United Nations National Coordinator on Inclusion in the Peace Process of Yemen, Luqman developed an approach that would allow local people to speak up. The initiative did not consider participation just as a formal aspect but actually aimed to bring in the community perspective. “It wasn’t symbolic participation,” she told me. “We really took that analysis and used it in our system.” This is because peace processes cannot be made by the political elite only; they need to be inclusive of communities that have been experiencing conflict.

In Luqman’s opinion, local governance, climate challenges, livelihoods, transitional justice, and building trust are not marginal questions but rather central factors in avoiding further outbreaks of violence.

Luqman insists on the need for peacebuilding to involve listening: “Sometimes listening to the people themselves and giving them a space is in itself a peace process.”

In the context of rising complexity of conflicts, the importance of inclusion into peace processes has never been so urgent. Women’s involvement in the processes cannot be considered as some kind of equality issue or simply as an obligation under international mechanisms.

On the contrary, it is strategically necessary based on experience and community trust. The message from Luqman to policymakers is obvious: local women peacebuilders are not marginal figures in peacebuilding but its cornerstone. “The local women peacebuilders are the structure and the backbone of these societies,” Luqman said. “They are valuable. They should be treated as valuable assets. They should be supported and protected.” Constructing sustainable peace is not possible only through negotiations of the parties involved in armed conflict but also through investing in people who have done so many years of keeping communities together despite the situation being unrecognizable.

Sania Farooqui is an independent journalist and host of The Peace Brief, a platform dedicated to amplifying the voices of women in peacebuilding and human rights.

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Satellite image of the Strait of Hormuz. Credit WikiMedia

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 10 2026 (IPS)

Renewed attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz have intensified concerns over global energy markets along with supply chain disruptions, as the United Nations calls for an end to escalating hostilities within the Persian Gulf.

According to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), three merchant vessels were reportedly struck amid new attacks, prompting IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez to condemn the violence and urge “maximum restraint and de-escalation”.

“No seafarer should have to risk their life simply for doing their job,” Dominguez said, warning flag states, ship owners and operators against exposing their crews to unnecessary danger by transiting through the Strait.”

Approximately 6,000 seafarers still remain stranded aboard hundreds of vessels. The Strait used to handle around 130 transits daily, now seeing around 30 transits as of July 10th daily, according to the Strait of Hormuz Tracker.

The disruptions have lasted more than 100 days, placing continuous pressure on global energy markets and countries dependent on imports from the Gulf. The UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) warned that market volatility, elevated prices, and localized supply disruptions could continue for months.

“We can expect prices and price volatility to remain high and supply disruptions – especially in local markets – to continue for the months ahead,” said UNECE’s Dario Liguti, Director of Energy, Housing & Land Management Division (UNECE).

Liguti mentioned that although a global shortage of fuel and fertilizers have been avoided, the effects of this year’s disruption will still be felt “even if the situation normalizes rapidly”. Liguti also stressed that strategic oil reserves are at their lowest levels in decades.

For global supply chains, continued instability could increase transportation and insurance costs, along with complicating shipping schedules and further extending shipping delays. The Strait of Hormuz Tracker records a war-risk premium increase of 53.3 times normal rates, jumping from 0.15 percent to 8 percent. Currently 120 tankers, 90 bulk carriers, and 90 other ships are waiting to transit, raising production and transportation costs across industries, extending its damage far beyond countries directly dependent on Gulf energy exports.

The latest attacks come as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have struggled to gain traction. Responding to renewed hostilities in the Strait, during a UN press briefing the Secretary-General’s Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric called for an immediate return to negotiations.

“This tit-for-tat needs to stop,” Dujarric said. “A return to diplomacy is urgently needed for the sake of stability in the region, for the sake of global stability.”

The renewed violence has also raised questions over the future of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) intended to put a cease on the conflict for at least sixty days. Accord Referring to the agreement, U.S. President Donald Trump said “As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has reiterated the UN’s readiness to aid diplomatic efforts. His personal envoy to the conflict in the Middle East, Jean Arnault, remains in contact with relevant parties, while the IMO continues to address maritime security within the Strait.

As the attacks continue, and diplomatic efforts remain uncertain, prolonged disruptions to one of the world’s most strategic waterways risks further destabilizing energy markets and global supply chains, which have faced months of disruptions. Continued instability will only worsen the effect, as Liguti reiterates

“If the instability does continue, we should get ready for another rise in prices and a larger-scale raw material shortage”.

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Reef fish and corals. Credit: UNDP

By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Jul 3 2026 (IPS)

In just the first half of this year, Abu Dhabi’s Environment Agency has cultivated 302,415 new coral colonies, bringing the total under the Abu Dhabi Coral Gardens Project to around 1.8 million – a scale of restoration that demands global attention.

Abu Dhabi’s coral project is more than a good news story – it is a glimpse of the future we urgently need.

For decades, I have argued that ocean protection, climate stability and human prosperity are inseparable. I have seen what happens when we ignore this truth: coral reefs bleaching, fisheries collapsing, coastlines exposed, communities losing both livelihoods and hope. That is why what Abu Dhabi is doing today with its coral restoration work speaks directly to my convictions about ocean health, climate resilience and the regenerative blue economy.

This is not a symbolic gesture. Through the Abu Dhabi Coral Gardens Project, the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) is building one of the largest coral reef restoration initiatives in the Middle East. Scientists cultivate fragments of heat resilient corals in nurseries, then carefully transplant them onto degraded reefs and artificial structures across the emirate’s coastal and offshore waters. Colony by colony, reef by reef, damaged seabeds are being transformed into living “coral gardens” capable of supporting fish, restoring biodiversity and strengthening coastal protection.

Coral as an investment, not a charity case

When a government decides to cultivate millions of coral colonies and restore vast areas of degraded reef, it is making a strategic economic choice, not simply ticking an environmental box. Coral reefs are infrastructure – natural infrastructure. They protect coasts from storms and erosion, underpin tourism and recreation, support fisheries, and safeguard cultures that have lived with and from the sea for generations.

President James Michel with His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan

Abu Dhabi’s decision to expand coral restoration at scale shows a clear understanding: it is cheaper and wiser to invest in living systems now than to pay later for disaster response, coastal damage and social instability.

This is the kind of thinking I have long argued for – treating the ocean not as a dumping ground, but as the foundation of long term resilience and prosperity.

A city of the future

What impresses me most is that coral restoration in Abu Dhabi is not happening in isolation. It sits alongside major investments in renewable energy, digital infrastructure and urban greening. Abu Dhabi is using its fossil fuel wealth to prepare for a post oil future – and that is no small shift.

Across the emirate, we see large scale solar projects harnessing the desert sun, new low carbon infrastructure, and modern digital networks designed for a smarter, cleaner economy. We see mangrove forests being expanded along the coast, seagrass meadows protected, and the city itself being “greened” to make it more liveable as temperatures rise. Abu Dhabi is becoming a prototype of the “city of the future”: one that understands that climate resilience, nature restoration and clean technology are central to development, not optional add ons.

Too many wealthy states still pour money into wars, arms and short term political games, even as their people face heatwaves, floods and collapsing ecosystems. Abu Dhabi may have its shortcomings – all countries have – but it has a vision and is putting serious capital into the pillars of a different future: clean energy, climate resilience, nature based solutions and large scale coral and mangrove restoration. For a resource rich economy, this is a profound shift in mindset.

This is what I mean by a regenerative blue economy: one that restores nature as it develops, rather than consuming it to exhaustion.

Corals on the frontline of climate change

Let us be clear: coral reefs are on the frontline of climate breakdown. In my own region, the Indian Ocean, we have watched reefs bleach and die as waters warm. The Gulf has suffered the same fate. When a place like Abu Dhabi deliberately farms corals that can better withstand heat, it is not clinging to the past – it is trying to give the future a fighting chance.

Instead of simply lamenting the loss of reefs, Abu Dhabi is experimenting, innovating and acting. It is accepting that the climate is already changing, and that we must adapt with intelligence rather than despair.

By focusing on more heat tolerant coral colonies, the project is quietly advancing a new frontier of climate adaptation: learning how to work with nature’s own resilience, rather than against it. If successful, lessons from the Abu Dhabi Coral Gardens could inform restoration efforts in many other warming seas.

Mangroves, greening and clean infrastructure

Coral nurseries alone are not enough, and Abu Dhabi knows this. The drive to expand mangrove forests, protect seagrass and green the city is part of the same story: recognising that nature is our strongest ally in storing carbon, calming storms and cooling our cities.

Alongside nature based solutions, the emirate is directing significant investment into clean infrastructure: solar farms, energy efficient grids, and other low carbon projects that will gradually reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Importantly, some of this effort is outward looking, supporting clean energy initiatives in vulnerable countries, including small island states such as Seychelles. When a wealthy state backs solar panels, wind turbines and resilient infrastructure in nations on the frontlines of climate change, it does more than tick a development box – it helps anchor a fairer, more stable world.

I have long argued that a healthy ocean is our first line of defence against climate change.

When you connect coral restoration, mangrove expansion and renewable energy under one vision, you start to see what real climate leadership looks like. It is not just about speeches at summits; it is about decisions on land use, budgets, technology and national priorities. It is about accepting that the only truly secure societies in the twenty first century will be those that learn to live within planetary boundaries.

A message to wealthy nations

This is where my opinion becomes blunt.

If you are a wealthy country today and you are not using your resources to restore ecosystems, decarbonise your economy and support those most vulnerable to climate impacts, then you are failing your citizens and the world. It is that simple.

Abu Dhabi shows that another path is possible. You can be an energy producer and still invest heavily in renewables. You can be a global city and still prioritise mangroves and coral reefs. You can be rich and choose to fund regeneration rather than destruction.

So when I look at this coral project, I see more than a local environmental initiative. I see a challenge to the complacency of other rich nations that prefer to invest in weapons and fossil infrastructure rather than in the living systems that sustain us all. It exposes a stark moral choice: spend on the machinery of war and planetary destabilisation, or spend on the stability and dignity that come from a thriving natural world.

Why this matters to me

As someone who has spent much of his life fighting for ocean protection, I cannot simply observe this from a distance. I feel a deep sense of responsibility – and, frankly, urgency. We are fast approaching the limits of what the ocean can absorb. We are already seeing climate impacts that once belonged to scientific warnings, not daily news.

Yet Abu Dhabi’s coral work gives me a measure of hope. It confirms that when visionary leadership, political will, financial capacity and scientific knowledge align, we can still repair, restore and reimagine our relationship with the ocean. It shows that a city built on hydrocarbons can choose to become a champion of coral, mangroves and clean energy instead of doubling down on the old model.

My vision has always been that countries, especially those with resources, should use their wealth to heal rather than harm: to farm corals instead of conflict, to grow mangroves instead of militaries, to build renewable capacity instead of new fossil dependencies.

Abu Dhabi is working towards the embodiment of that vision and it deserves recognition.

If more wealthy states chose this path, the global story on climate and ocean health would look very different – and future generations might say that, when it truly mattered, some leaders chose to use their power and their wealth to restore the ocean that makes life on Earth possible.

James Alix Michel, former President of Seychelles and Founder, James Michel Foundation

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U.S. and Israeli army officers talk in front a US Patriot missile defense system. Credit: Jack Guez/Getty Images Source: Council on Foreign Relations

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Jul 3 2026 (IPS)

For a generation, no foreign leader bet more heavily on a single American president than Benjamin Netanyahu bet on Donald Trump. Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, tore up the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and in February 2026 joined Israel in the opening strikes of a war against Iran that Netanyahu had spent three decades urging Washington to wage.

The partnership looked unbreakable. It was, in fact, conditional—and the condition was that their interests never diverge. In June 2026 they diverged completely, and the rupture has exposed a truth Netanyahu has spent his career denying: when Israeli security and the prime minister’s political survival point in opposite directions, he chooses himself.

The break came over a single document. On June 17, Trump signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Iran—the Islamabad Memorandum, brokered by Pakistan—formally ending the war he had pushed to start. The 14-point framework in the memorandum declares a permanent halt to hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon, reopens the Strait of Hormuz, lifts the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports, and waives sanctions on Iran’s oil exports. It also commits the United States and regional partners to assemble a $300 billion reconstruction fund and to negotiate the gradual release of Iran’s frozen assets worldwide.

What it does not do is what Israel went to war to achieve. The framework deferred the negotiation over Iran’s nuclear program to a later date, and it says nothing about Iran’s ballistic missiles or its regional proxies. Essentially, Trump wanted a short war that would compel Iran to come to the negotiating table. Netanyahu, on the other hand, wanted Iran permanently broken as a regional power. Those two visions could coexist while the fighting continued, but could not survive peace.

Thus, Netanyahu set out to wreck it. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich branded the agreement bad for Israel and for the free world. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir declared that Trump’s deal “does not bind us” and that Israel “is not subject to the United States.” And Israeli jets kept hitting Lebanon. On June 14, with the signing supposedly hours away, Israel struck Beirut. Trump erupted publicly, then telephoned Netanyahu.

The call was not diplomatic. In a telephone call by Trump to Netanyahu, he said, ”Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon.” In a subsequent call with Netanyahu, there was an even angrier exchange: Trump called the Israeli leader “crazy,” accused him of ingratitude, and—according to US officials briefed on the call—reminded him bluntly: “You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me.”

That last line is the key to everything. Netanyahu has one political lifeline left: the war. As long as Israel is fighting, there will be no elections; as long as there are no elections, he stays in office, and as long as he stays in office, he can postpone the corruption trials, waiting for the moment he loses power. For Netanyahu, peace is not merely inconvenient—it is politically existential.

The US intelligence community reportedly warned the White House that Netanyahu was actively working to blow up Trump’s Iran deal, and analysts said plainly that Trump would have to play the middle man against his own ally. The man who lobbied for the war had become the chief obstacle to the peace.

Then came the moment the world was meant to absorb. On June 18, Vice President JD Vance stood at a White House podium and delivered a rebuke unlike any an American administration has aimed at Israel in living memory. “Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” he said. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally I have left.”

Then the reminder that doubled as a threat: “Over the last three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.” Anyone in Israel who thinks their problem is Trump, Vance added, needs to “wake up and smell the reality.” He was basically warning Israel and reminding it who arms its skies to protect the peace deal with Iran.

The warning has not been heeded, and the cost is mounting. The first round of US-Iran technical talks was set for Switzerland’s Birkenstock resort on June 19. The night before, Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon killed 47 people, by the Lebanese health ministry’s count, and wounded scores more. Iran demanded a guarantee that the fighting would stop before it would sit down. Vance canceled his trip; the talks collapsed.

On June 20, Iran announced it was closing the Strait of Hormuz again, citing Israel’s strikes as a violation of the agreement. Vance worked to salvage the deal; Smotrich went public: Israel will stay in southern Lebanon “for as many years as necessary,” until Hezbollah disarms, and will not withdraw—adding that the prime minister agrees. It was a statement engineered to sabotage a peace Israel’s closest patron was risking its credibility to build.

This is the heart of the matter, and it is the part Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir refuse to grasp: Israel is almost wholly dependent on the United States—financially, militarily, and diplomatically. Washington is the shield that absorbs global outrage, vetoes resolutions, and replenishes arsenals. Openly defying a deal Trump personally signed is not bold statecraft. It is a slap in the face of the one ally Israel cannot afford to lose, delivered by a government that has confused its own survival with the nation’s.

The damage will outlast this episode. America’s interest now is a stable region, open shipping lanes, and a managed diplomacy with Iran rather than perpetual war. Netanyahu’s interest is the war itself. Those are not tactical differences to be smoothed over; they are structurally opposed, and they will keep colliding for as long as Netanyahu is in power.

The relationship that defined Israeli security for decades has been quietly inverted—the enemy has become the deal partner, and the indispensable ally has become the liability. It will not be repaired by reassurances or photo opportunities. It will be repaired only when Israel has a leader whose political life does not depend on keeping the country at war.

Until then, the rupture is not a crisis to be weathered. It is the new baseline. Netanyahu’s arrogance (chutzpah) will finally come back to haunt him.

Dr Alon Ben-Meir is President of the Institute for Humanitarian Conflict Resolution

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The report - Military Escalation in the Middle East: Cushioning the Global Shock – reveals that low- and middle-income countries have partially protected their populations from soaring oil prices through fossil fuel subsidies, price caps, tax rebates and demand-management measures. Credit: UNDP

By UN Development Programme
NEW YORK, Jul 1 2026 (IPS)

Developing countries’ efforts to tackle the ongoing effects of conflict in the Middle East carry a high price that leaves little room for critical investments in education, health and other development priorities, according to a new report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) released today.

The report – Military Escalation in the Middle East: Cushioning the Global Shock – reveals that low- and middle-income countries have partially protected their populations from soaring oil prices through fossil fuel subsidies, price caps, tax rebates and demand-management measures.

Fossil fuel subsidies, which had been on a downward trend globally, are on track to reach US$1.1 trillion in 2026 – US$ 410 billion more than in 2025, assuming the current average oil price settles at US$88.6 per barrel.

This projection climbs to as much as US$1.43 trillion in a ‘severe’ scenario where oil prices climb to an average of US$110 per barrel.

The UNDP report warns that while fossil fuel subsidies provide temporary relief, they ultimately undermine climate and development goals, locking countries into high-carbon pathways and limiting future investment.

“The global spillover of the Middle East conflict is profound and potentially long-lasting. Developing countries, many already struggling with debt, have temporarily managed to protect people from the worst of the energy shock,” said UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo. “These countries are doing everything they can, but there is a hidden cost. To deal with today’s crisis, governments are postponing tomorrow’s investments. Money that should be building schools, hospitals, and clean energy systems is being used simply to keep economies afloat. Without international support, these countries won’t escape the shock. They are absorbing it at the expense of future growth.”

Close to half of the world’s poorest countries are already either ‘in’ or at ‘high risk’ of debt distress, and debt continues to crowd out development spending at an increasing rate, according to the report.

This year, it is estimated that the median developing economy will spend 9.53 percent of total government revenue on interest payments alone – double the share of a decade ago and the highest level seen in 25 years.

Averaged over the three-year period 2024 to 2026, 55 developing economies are estimated to pay more than 10 percent of revenue in interest payments, compared to 32 countries a decade ago.

“No country should have to sacrifice its future development to manage a crisis it did not create,” said De Croo. “First, we must unlock multilateral liquidity in ways that are easy to access for low and middle-income countries. Second, we must accelerate investment in renewable energy. Every clean energy investment reduces exposure to future shocks. The crisis has made one thing clear: energy security and the energy transition are no longer separate agendas. They are one and the same.”

The report is being launched in the context of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC) taking place this week. The HSC is an annual high-level meeting that aims to foster new partnerships and collective action by global policymakers, private sector leaders, academia experts, and civil society representatives. The annual event is a joint initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the Michael Otto Foundation.

Full report
The full report is available online at https://www.undp.org/publications/military-escalation-middle-east-cushioning-global-shock

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Excerpt:

Tehran, Iran before the conflict began. Credit: Unsplash/Mohammad Takhsh

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 1 2026 (IPS)

The on-again, off-again US-Iran peace negotiations, which have been disparaged by Israeli leaders, have resulted in a rare rift between the US and Israel, a Middle East ally which has had America’s unwavering “iron clad” support since its creation in 1948.

The cracks were visible – all the way from Tel Aviv to Washington DC. But is this for real or just a passing family squabble?

US Vice President J.D. Vance, who has been leading the negotiations in Geneva, lambasted the Israelis last week for their very personal attack on President Donald Trump.

“Donald Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower,” he said, speaking to reporters at the White House.

Vance said ” two thirds of the weapons that protected Israel were American-made and paid for by US tax dollars.”

“If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that i have anywhere left in the entire world,” he warned.

Dr Ramzy Baroud, Palestinian author and editor of the Palestine Chronicle, told Inter Press Service “while Vice President J.D. Vance’s comments may suggest that there is some divergence between the United States and Israel, we should be cautious not to read too much into them or assume that they signal a fundamental shift in US policy”.

First, this is not the first time that criticism of Israel has emerged from a US administration, even from officials widely regarded as strong supporters of Israel, he pointed out. Similar disagreements have surfaced before without leading to any meaningful change in American policy.

Second, there have been credible reports indicating that, during the Biden administration, the appearance of tension between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu was often overstated and did not reflect the reality of continued US support for the genocide in Gaza.

Despite public disagreements, American military, financial, and diplomatic backing remained largely unchanged, he said.

Similarly, recent attempts to portray a rift between President Trump and Netanyahu—whether genuine or exaggerated—have so far had little impact on US support for Israel.

In fact, only days after Vice President Vance’s remarks, the United States carried out another strike against Iran, in line with objectives long advocated by the Netanyahu government, said Dr Baroud.

At the same time, Washington is actively advancing a broader scheme in Lebanon aimed at achieving politically what Israel failed to achieve militarily: weakening the Resistance, restructuring Lebanon’s political and security landscape in Israel’s favor, all while continuing to ignore the ongoing genocide in Gaza, declared Dr Baroud..

Meanwhile, according to a Fact Sheet from the US State Department “steadfast support for Israel’s security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. Administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman”.

“Since Israel’s founding in 1948, the United States has provided Israel with over $130 billion in bilateral assistance focused on addressing new and complex security threats, bridging Israel’s capability gaps through security assistance and cooperation, increasing interoperability through joint exercises, and helping Israel maintain its Qualitative Military Edge (QME).”

This assistance has helped transform the Israel Defense Forces into one of the world’s most capable, effective militaries and turned the Israeli military industry and technology sector into one of the largest exporters of military capabilities worldwide.

Since 1983, the United States and Israel have met regularly via the Joint Political-Military Group (JPMG) to promote shared policies, address common threats and concerns, and identify new areas for security cooperation.

The 48th JPMG, held in October 2022 reaffirmed the ironclad strategic partnership between the United States and Israel, underscoring a mutual commitment to advance collaboration in support of regional security and reinforce the historic achievements of recent normalization under the Abraham Accords.

Israel is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. This has been formalized by a 10-year (2019-2028) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Consistent with the MOU, the United States annually provides $3.3 billion in FMF and $500 million for cooperative programs for missile defense.

Since Elaborating further, FY 2009, the United States has provided Israel with $3.4 billion in funding for missile defense, including $1.3 billion for Iron Dome support starting in FY 2011. Through FMF, the United States provides Israel with access to some of the most advanced military equipment in the world, including the F-35 Lightning.

Israel is also eligible for Cash Flow Financing and is authorized to use its annual FMF allocation to procure defense articles, services, and training through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system, Direct Commercial Contract agreements – which are FMF-funded Direct Commercial Sales procurements – and through Off Shore Procurement (OSP). Via OSP the current MOU allows Israel to spend a portion of its FMF on Israeli-origin rather than U.S.-origin defense articles. This was 25 percent in FY 2019 but is set to phase-out and decrease to zero in FY 2028.

Elaborating further, Dr Baroud said It is important to note any signs of disagreement between Washington and Tel Aviv. However, political rhetoric is ultimately meaningless unless it is accompanied by tangible changes on the ground.

Israel remains the largest recipient of US military and financial assistance anywhere in the world, even as it carries out the genocide in Gaza.

As long as this fundamental equation remains unchanged, any supposed disagreements or personal feuds between the two governments amount to little more than empty words, he declared.

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(L-R) Horacio (Luis) Carvalho, CEO of Climate Change Ventures, and Faraz Khan, MBE, at London Climate Action Week. Carvalho's firm advises on carbon mitigation and green investment projects. They signed an MOU to develop markets with Brazilian CPR Verde (green rural product certificate), a Brazilian financial credit instrument used to fund environmental preservation, forestry conservation, and carbon sequestration. The markets they are eyeing will be Saudi Arabia, Africa and Pakistan. Credit: Faraz Khan

By Zofeen Ebrahim
LONDON & KARACHI, Pakistan, Jun 26 2026 (IPS)

The 30 COP gatherings may not have done what three months of US-Israeli war against Iran did: expose the world’s vulnerability to fossil fuels.

As the world faced its biggest energy shock in a decade, the case for investing in clean energy suddenly became far more compelling.

As an intense heatwave grips Europe, with London’s Met Office issuing a “risk to life” warning and the closure of shops, offices and schools alongside disruptions to transport during the London Climate Action Week (LCAW), calls for this shift are gaining even greater momentum.

New Sense of Urgency

“The sentiment is palpable among policymakers, investors and business leaders,” conceded Faraz Khan, MBE.

A Pakistani entrepreneur and co-founder and partner of Pakistan-based Sustainadility, a technology, data and advisory firm, with over 25 years of experience in multi-stakeholder investments and in drafting environmental, sustainability and governance frameworks, is among those gathered to discuss the future of climate finance and the energy transition.

Speaking to IPS by phone on the sidelines of LCAW which closes on June 28, Khan stressed the urgency of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy, saying the shift would not be possible without investors and businesses.

Khan described the mood at LCAW, as “optimistic” tempered by caution. He also welcomed the attention Pakistan was getting. “Our country was lauded for its efforts in brokering the peace deal,” referring to the Islamabad Memorandum between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

From Rule-Making to Seeking Investment

Comparing the two events, he said the annual Bonn climate talks, held from June 8 to 18, focused on diplomatic negotiations and climate rule-making, while LCAW, also an annual event held since 2019, centres on mobilising private investment in sustainability and ESG and scaling these initiatives commercially.

“LCAW is more business- and private sector-orientated,” said Khan, who is also the founder and director of  SeedVentures, a Pakistan-based social impact organisation and impact investor.

Still, he said: “There are two sides to the coin. On the one hand, the US-Iran peace deal and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz have shown the world that oil remains crucial for the world to exist; but, on the other, many countries recognise that dependence on fossil fuels is not in their national interest and even poses a national security risk.”

Geopolitical conflicts have exposed the vulnerabilities associated with oil production, trade and transportation, which is why investment in alternative energy is expected to accelerate.

At a COP31 presidential meeting with the private sector at LCAW, which Khan attended, the conversation revolved around the circular economy, electrification and climate finance with some of the biggest names in the global climate community, including BlackRock, the World Bank, UNIDO, the IFC and several trade organisations.

“It was a gathering of the who’s who of the climate world,” Khan said with a laugh. “Even we made the cut.”

What was missing, however, Khan said, were women in decision-making roles. He was, however, impressed by those in the Turkish COP team, praising their intellectual rigour and commanding presence in the room, which he found to be “truly impressive”.

Beyond the composition of the meetings, Khan said the discussions themselves reflected a growing determination to move beyond rhetoric.

There was a strong sense in the room that a new precedent was about to be set by shifting the focus from negotiations to implementation, investment and action.

“Governments can create an enabling environment and UN frameworks can provide the rules, but ultimately it is investors, bankable projects and big businesses that will drive change,” he said.

While the Bonn climate talks focused on regulatory frameworks, LCAW’s focus is on climate finance and transactions, he noted. “And at Antalya, where the COP31 will be held this November, it will be about putting money where our mouths are—deploying capital into bankable projects and creating collaborative investment vehicles to scale climate action,” said Khan.

Private Sector Takes Centre Stage

He also observed that China was frequently cited as a global leader in clean energy investment.

“Across the various meetings, I sensed a strong and growing appetite for investment in renewable energy, and I believe this momentum will only accelerate,” he said.

Large businesses and institutions, he added, would be critical to delivering a just transition because their extensive operations and community links give them the reach needed to drive meaningful change.

The emphasis on electrification and reducing dependence on fossil fuels was echoed by Türkiye’s COP31 leadership.

Earlier this month, speaking to The Guardian on the sidelines of the climate talks in Bonn, Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s environment minister, said the 35% target would be “one of the defining priorities” of the COP31 presidency.

“By electrifying daily life, from transport to buildings and industry, we can protect families and businesses from volatile energy markets,” he told the media outlet.

Khan believed Pakistan has an opportunity to position itself at the forefront of this transition.

While Pakistan is frequently showcased as a victim of climate disasters, despite contributing less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Khan said the global focus on solar should also shine a light on the country’s “silent solar revolution”, which has transformed its investment landscape.

“Pakistan has become a global example of how solar adoption can evolve rapidly, opening up substantial investment opportunities in solar manufacturing and battery production,” he said, adding that modernising the grid and scaling up utility-scale energy storage have become increasingly urgent.

Investing in Nature

Beyond renewable energy, Khan saw significant opportunities in nature-based investments.

Khan said Pakistan’s rich biodiversity—from mangroves and forests to wetlands, rangelands and mountain ecosystems—offers enormous investment potential, with private capital capable of both restoring and protecting these natural assets.

Agriculture accounts for a large share of Pakistan’s economy and is a major driver of biodiversity loss. He said private businesses could invest in regenerative agriculture, agroforestry and sustainable rice and cotton production, either to meet sustainability goals or as part of emerging biodiversity credit markets.

“Just as there are carbon credits, there are biodiversity credits, and these are directly linked to food security and agriculture,” Khan said. Given agriculture’s central role in Pakistan’s economy, he argued that the country holds enormous potential for biodiversity credits. “I think this is going to be truly phenomenal because it presents enormous investment opportunities,” he said.

But realising this potential will depend on Pakistan’s ability to attract sustained private investment.

Investment Challenges

Sadly, there are few takers.

Khan said Pakistan’s high sovereign risk remains the biggest obstacle to attracting international climate investment at scale, although recent policy reforms, including the Pakistan Green Taxonomy, green banking guidelines and ESG standards, have improved investor confidence.

He also pointed to a shortage of bankable projects, with many failing to attract global investors despite their strong fundamentals. Still, he said, the investment potential remains enormous.

Yet time may be of the essence.

If the recent turmoil in the Middle East exposed the world’s vulnerability to fossil fuels, Khan believes it also underscored the urgency of accelerating the clean energy transition. For Pakistan, he said, the opportunity is immense—but only if the country can create the conditions needed to attract the investment required to realise it.

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The German government, along with a number of other countries, are currently organising flights to evacuate travellers and influencers stranded in the Gulf states. For many citizens of other nationalities, however, there is no such assistance. They remain stuck in precarious situations, marked by exploitation and insecurity.

Robin Frisch

A system based on exploitation

The fact that these migrant workers cannot be evacuated is due to structural reasons. In the Gulf monarchies, the kafala system binds migrant workers to a kafil, or sponsor. This modern form of servitude gives employers virtually unlimited control over their workforce. The Gulf model only functions because workers are permanently kept in temporary employment. They are imported, but not integrated. Their rights remain limited, social security is minimal and political participation not permitted. This arrangement is not a shortcoming but a prerequisite for maximum flexibility and low costs.

The fact that the Gulf states’ economic model is reaching its limits is also increasingly the subject of current debate. In a much-discussed New York Times essay, Richard Florida explains that the economic model in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is actually exacerbating the crisis. His question – ‘Could this be the end of Dubai?’ – can certainly be answered in the affirmative, at least from a social perspective. The Gulf states have all failed to provide a social safety net for their millions of workers. The mere import of workers, and complete absence of integration or social security, signal the end of the Dubai model. For decades, the Gulf states have profited from permanently keeping their workers in temporary employment. This model may be economically efficient, but it is structurally vulnerable.

The current war is acting as a stress test for this system. And it has shown that there are no institutional mechanisms in place to protect migrant workers. While citizens are being evacuated, millions of migrant workers are left behind. While supply chains are being secured, there remains a lack of the most basic protection for those who keep those chains running. Nobody is taking responsibility — it is just being passed from pillar to post, between countries of origin, employers and governments.

An International Labour Organization (ILO) study showed that social security, if it exists at all, only ever applies to formal employment contracts. In almost all the Gulf states, these regulations place the burden on the employee. Health insurance is mandatory and must be purchased privately. Not one Gulf state has a functioning system of unemployment insurance. Saudi Arabia is the only state that provides social security coverage for workers from certain countries of origin. This model of temporary migration appears to be so successful that even the current crisis will not change it. It is not in the interests of the Gulf states to provide social security as they derive no benefit from it themselves.

Not a single Gulf country has ratified the landmark ILO Convention 189 on decent work for domestic workers, though Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have at least made slight improvements to their national legislation and acknowledge the problems. In Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, union activity is not strictly prohibited, and trade unions are working to better integrate migrant workers. However, the crisis caused by the war is now so dire that the extent to which the situation has improved for domestic workers seems of secondary importance. Whether through trade unions, government measures or employer obligations, what matters is that the situation for migrant workers in the Gulf states is fundamentally improved. Reforms will achieve little. It is time for systemic change.

Developing a social safety net

The executive secretary of the Arab Trade Union Confederation, Hind Benammar, has criticised the kafala system, but at the same time advocates for channels of communication to be opened with Saudi Arabia. Such diplomatic efforts are important now as they can help initiate reforms and resolve conflicts between governments. But the fundamental problem remains: How can working conditions be improved in the long term, and what form might an effective social security net take?

The victims of Iranian attacks in Dubai and the UAE were almost all migrant workers. In Dubai, there were even alarming social media posts about labour migrants being imprisoned. The strict internet censorship in these countries complicates the situation, as members of migrant communities are often unable to openly discuss the conditions on the ground. The fact that in this situation, it is the migrant networks – not governments – that are picking up the slack is not a sign of resilience but systematic failure.

One of the few organisations that are actually helping migrant workers at the moment is the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF). The IDWF organises emergency accommodation and coordinates aid, thereby effectively replacing government safety nets. Social security only exists where it is improvised. The millions of jobs as cleaners, nannies and nurses are primarily carried out by women. Domestic workers are often not even allowed to leave their workplaces, let alone move freely in public spaces. The social isolation of these workers is reminiscent of the pandemic. Here, too, they had nobody to rely on except for their own communities.

When governments, employers and insurances fail to provide assistance, communities must step into the breach. The IDWF approaches the embassies of workers’ countries of origin, calls for repatriation flights to be organised and provides its members with individual-level safeguards. They make contact with domestic workers through community leaders. These individuals, who together play a role similar to that of a works council, provide information about the situation, offer support in emergencies and organise training sessions on issues such as mental health, which is becoming increasingly important in light of the severe social isolation. In some of the Gulf states, this work has been criminalised, and several community leaders have even been detained. For domestic workers, but also for those in the construction and transportation sectors, this is a matter of sheer survival. For the most part, however, the Gulf states have no established trade union tradition. In the Gulf monarchies, policy-making is controlled by a handful of powerful men.

Over the last few years, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have sought to make financial contributions to the ILO. But the Gulf states will not be able to simply buy themselves a clean slate. Ambet Yuson, general secretary of the six-million-member Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI), has condemned the fact that Saudi Arabia’s reforms by no means signify an abolition of the kafala system, claiming they are in fact little more than rebranding. In Saudi Arabia, stadiums for the 2034 World Cup are currently being built, but the construction sector also lacks a basic social safety net. It would be disastrous if the mistakes made in Qatar were to be repeated here. There, too, the kafala system resulted in exploitation, as any worker who lost their job found it nigh on impossible to switch to a new sponsor. Recruitment practices and indebtedness in the home country further exacerbate this dependence.

Thus, the war has not only exposed a crisis — it has marked a boundary. A model that consistently shifts risks onto legally marginalised workers will only remain stable provided no shocks occur. As soon as they do, it becomes clear that there is no social security because uncertainty is an inherent part of the system. The Gulf crisis shows just how important it is to develop the social safety net that the trade unions are advocating for. The much-discussed question of reforms does not go far enough. The real problem is structural. Yet this does not automatically result in systemic change. On the contrary: reactions so far suggest that the cost of the crisis will, in fact, continue to be shifted onto migrant workers.

Change will therefore not come from the Gulf states alone. Here, external and transnational levers are crucial. Countries of origin must enforce stronger protection mechanisms and binding social security agreements; international organisations such as the ILO must strengthen minimum standards; and European countries must take responsibility, for instance by regulating recruitment practices, supply chains and labour standards.

Robin Frisch is the head of the regional trade union project in the MENA region and of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s office in Algeria.

Source: International Politics and Society, published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

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Distribution of emergency shelter supplies in Abyan, Yemen funded by the Yemen Humanitarian Fund (YHF). Credit: UN OCHA/Altawasul

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 2026 (IPS)

In Yemen, increasing funding constraints on humanitarian operations have put millions of civilians in dire need of life-saving assistance amid overlapping crises. Acute food insecurity is a persistent issue, as recent reports from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) give a stark warning of conditions without urgent intervention.

According to the IPC Acute Food Insecurity Snapshot, one in two people within Government of Yemen (GoY) controlled areas are experiencing high levels of food insecurity, with percentages only expecting to rise or maintain as the conflict goes on. 3.6 million people are experiencing IPC phase 3 (crisis level), and 1.4 million people are experiencing even worse conditions at IPC Phase 4 (emergency). Such measures indicate “extreme coping strategies” where families are forced to sell their house, land, their last female animal, and beg due to the limited supply of food.

Food Insecurity Projection in Yemen | June – September 2026. Credit: IPC

As the crisis looms, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have “jointly called on the international community to urgently scale up funding for humanitarian food assistance, nutrition services, health, agriculture and resilience programming.” according to the spokesperson for the Secretary General, Stéphane Dujarric.

The IPC projects that food supply conditions will only worsen through October and December 2026, with 1.8 million people being in phase 4, 3.6 million being in phase 3, and 3.2 million being in phase 2.

The ongoing conflict is driving heightened amounts of food insecurity due to intensifying macroeconomic pressures, making the local currency, the Yemeni Riyal, highly volatile due to “depleted reserves of halted oil exports”. Insecurity is also impacted by irregular salaries, limited labor opportunities, and a smaller and smaller household purchasing power each day.

Food Insecurity Projection in Yemen | October – December 2026. Credit: IPC

In April, the Houthis, which controls the northwest of Yemen and the capital of Sana’a, threatened to close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. In the event of this strait being closed, the entire red sea and the Suez Canal would virtually be unpassable other than a few exports / imports between Saudi Arabia’s western province, Egypt, Sudan, and Eritrea, which would likely still receive pressure at its ports. This would further increase food insecurity in Yemen, as humanitarian assistance is the only lifeline keeping Yemenis under famine levels. Without humanitarian assistance the situation would become increasingly lethal, making this call for action vital for the safety and vitality of Yemeni lives.

According to OCHA, at least USD 2.2 billion will be needed for assistance of twelve million people of the 22.3 million in need. Approximately 14.71 percent of such funding has been covered, leaving a funding gap of USD 1.8 billion. This is likely to become larger as the conflict becomes more costly, increasing food insecurity as the projections suggest.

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CIVICUS discusses the interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla on its mission to bring humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza with Musa Roshdy, a humanitarian activist who took part in the flotilla.

Musa Roshdy

What’s the Global Sumud Flotilla and why is it important?

The Global Sumud Flotilla was the second civilian maritime mission launched by a coalition of Palestinian solidarity organisations advocating for aid delivery to Palestinians in Gaza and the end of Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza. While it was the Global Sumud Flotilla’s second mission, this was the 39th sea-based attempt to break Israel’s illegal blockade. The Spring 2026 flotilla was organised in direct response to a call for aid put out by civil society organisations on the ground in Palestine.

On 15 April, we sailed from Barcelona with several hundred activists from dozens of countries including Brazil and Spain, determined to deliver aid to Palestinians facing severe deprivation. Our mission highlighted a crucial reality: if everyday civilians from all over the world can mobilise and get this close to establishing a humanitarian corridor, then governments can certainly do it. What’s missing is not ability or infrastructure, but political will. The flotilla represents civilian solidarity with Palestinians and a direct challenge to the illegal blockade. We were prepared for interception after Israel arrested the previous flotilla last year, but not for the scale of violence that followed.

How were you kidnapped?

I was kidnapped by the Israeli navy in the interception that occurred on 29 April, when we were sailing in international waters over 600 miles from occupied Palestine, off the coast of Crete. They attacked us in the middle of the night. We had little warning before military motorboats approached us at high speed. They pointed rifles at us and announced on a megaphone that they were the Israeli navy, they were boarding our vessel and we needed to go inside immediately or they would shoot us.

That night, the Israeli military stopped 22 of the 54 boats in the flotilla en route to Gaza. There’s no legal precedent for military action so far from Israel’s sea borders. We were in the European Union’s search-and-rescue zone, under Greek jurisdiction. But instead of protecting us, Greek coastguard ships observed Israel’s raid and then received us after we were tortured for two days.

Israel’s legal claims were absurd. They accused us of illegal entry into Israel when we were sailing to Gaza and were kidnapped en route. Most of the 180 activists were released in Greece, but two of us were abducted and brought before Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court in Israel on charges with no legal basis.

This violated fundamental principles of international law. You cannot take military action in international waters so far from your territory. You cannot abduct foreign nationals without due process. You cannot torture detainees. Yet all this happened.

Israel acts with impunity because the international community has failed to hold it accountable.

What did you endure in detention?

It was clear from the start they were trying to denigrate us for standing with Palestinians. I was forced onto my hands and knees and held in uncomfortable positions for hours. Soldiers stole my shoes, then stomped on my feet with their combat boots. I was left in just leggings and a tank top. We were held in makeshift prisons built from shipping containers. The soldiers deliberately manipulated the temperature, wetting the floor to freeze us at night, then forcing us outside under intense heat during the day. I experienced hypothermia both nights, as confirmed by a doctor who was imprisoned with me. When comrades tried to give me sweaters, soldiers took them away. At one point, a soldier pointed a rifle at my comrade and threatened to kill him for offering me a jacket in the cold.

Soldiers banged on containers and shone huge lights while we slept to keep us awake. They threw flashbangs and used force to drag people into solitary confinement. On the last day, they shot activists at point-blank range with rubber bullets. They took photographs and videos that showed us collecting our medications when they kidnapped us, but then denied us access to our medications once we were on the prison boat. Sixty-one people went on hunger strike. The food they provided, mostly bread, was insufficient to feed the rest of us, even with a third of us not eating. This cruelty is consistent with what Palestinians experience in Israeli detention, though what we experienced pales in comparison with the cruelty they face.

The Israeli military intended to deter the humanitarians sailing to deliver aid to the people of Gaza, but they were unsuccessful. People around the world recognise that Palestinians in Gaza still have an overwhelming need for aid, legal protection and solidarity. Many activists who were detained with me on 29 April set sail again a few weeks later on 14 May and were intercepted off Cyprus just days later on 18 and 19 May.

What must change internationally?

What governments must do is clear but consistently absent. They must condemn the kidnapping of their citizens. They must impose targeted sanctions against Israeli officials, not humanitarian activists. They must denormalise diplomatic relations with Israel. For instance, Croatia’s leader just refused to approve Israel’s new ambassador to Croatia due to Israel’s current policies.

The most fundamental step is an arms embargo. If we stop supplying weapons to Israel, it cannot do what it is doing. Last year, civil society in Belgium won a court case preventing the transit of military equipment to Israel. France recognises Palestine but still supplies weapons. Governments know these mechanisms exist but lack the political will to prioritise Palestinian lives over strategic interests.

Western states are also complicit in other ways. Some of our torturers had US accents. Another had a German accent. Western governments allow their citizens to join the Israeli military, which commits war crimes and kidnaps and tortures their nationals, then lets them return home without consequence.

Instead of holding Israel accountable, many western states are restricting the space for pro-Palestinian activism. In the UK, Palestine Action faced an absurd terrorism designation for blocking weapons manufacturing. In Germany, authorities banned the watermelon symbol as antisemitic.

On 19 May, as the Israeli military was kidnapping humanitarians in international waters, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned four leaders of the Global Sumud Flotilla, calling humanitarian aid delivery ‘pro-terror’, and blocking all access to financial institutions in the USA. The mechanism used by the USA to sanction humanitarian activists was recently deemed illegal by a federal judge when applied to Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It criminalises support for Palestine and conflates it with support for terrorism.

What lies ahead for activism for Palestinian rights?

Our detention and torture were intended as a deterrent, but they failed. In practice, they had the opposite effect. Frontline work exacts a real human cost and people need time to recharge. But activism will continue because Palestinians in Gaza are still facing genocide.

What this moment teaches is that rights exist because we enact them. When everyday people learn from Palestinian courage how to stand up, call atrocities atrocities, and demand basic decency and access to life itself, movements spread across borders. People will continue to pursue humanitarian work, join future flotillas and resist authoritarian restrictions on civic space. Tactics will adapt, new symbols will emerge – as when the watermelon was adopted because Palestinians couldn’t display their flag – but the work won’t stop.

Credit: D.V. Bakke

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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Global Sumud Flotilla/Instagram
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Musa Roshdy/Instagram

SEE ALSO
USA: sanctions weaponised against human rights CIVICUS Lens 01.Jun.2026
Gaza: ceasefire an illusion CIVICUS Lens 16.Mar.2026
Palestine: ‘The EU cannot position itself as a defender of human rights while being one of Israel’s primary arms markets’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with 7amleh 26.Mar.2026

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Picture alliance/abaca. Even the world’s strongest fleet is reaching its limits. Source: International Politics and Society, Brussels
 
The US failure in Iran exposes the limits of power. But it also shows a deeper loss of moral and leadership capital that may be harder to recover

By Dan Smith
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Jun 4 2026 (IPS)

The outcome of the current Iran war is still in doubt, but one consequence is already becoming clear: it has weakened America’s capacity to project power. Many are asking who won. The more important question may be what the war has cost.

The Gulf’s geo-economic position means that this war, short and small by historic standards, will have long-lasting global effects. One of the most important concerns the future US capacity to project power. A quick look at the balance sheet helps identify how that may play out.

Gains and losses

The losses, of course, include the impact on nature, on the people of Iran and on the Gulf states. The poor in other regions will suffer as food insecurity rises. On the sidelines, Putin’s Russia has benefitted by being able to sell more oil, but its support for Iran will cost it friends and investment capital from the Gulf. Meanwhile, Ukraine has also benefitted because several Gulf states want its drones and technical support.

Of the main combatants, Israel gained some freedom of action in Gaza and Lebanon. But it is piling up problems for the future, just as it did when it escalated in Lebanon in the early 1980s. Iran has gained a kind of win by not losing while, conversely, the US loses by not winning. And this will have a serious impact on its capacity to project power in the coming years.

There are two aspects to this. One is material and concerns the ability to coerce; the other is non-material and concerns influence. The material aspect would be significant even if the war had been more successful.

The US struck over 13 000 targets in Iran in 39 days of fighting. It used up more than half its stealth cruise missiles. At current rates of production, replacing them will take five to six years. It used as many Tomahawk cruise missiles as it produced in 10 years and about two years’ worth of Patriot interceptor missiles.

The US still has huge capacity to use force, though it may have to use it differently.

Not surprisingly, some anxiety has been expressed that the US military capacity to respond to another crisis has been reduced. Equally unsurprisingly, top-level military leaders and civilian officials assure allies and adversaries alike that the US can still handle all contingencies and project its power at will.

The amount of weaponry used is emphasised by critics because they see that the US has gained nothing by it. But even if the victory the President has frequently proclaimed were real, the weapons would still have been used. If reduced weapon stockpiles cause a problem, it is a problem regardless of the war’s outcome.

Both the concern and the complacency are overstated. The US still has huge capacity to use force, though it may have to use it differently if the President sees a new need or opportunity for military action. It remains a military superpower, but one with thinner margins, more difficult trade-offs and less freedom to respond simultaneously to crises in different regions.

The non-material aspect is even more significant. Influence takes many forms — political, economic and cultural. One source of political influence is military superiority. States that are seen as overwhelmingly powerful often gain friends and persuade adversaries to give way. The Gulf war, however, has exposed the limits of that logic.

President Trump is not wrong when he praises US military prowess. But his boasts during the Iran War have only drawn attention to the tightly limited utility of all that force. Iran’s military capacity has been damaged, and the economy is in terrible condition, but the regime is still in power, with a harder line and tighter control. When the ceasefire started, it still had 70 per cent of its pre-war stock of missiles and has doubtless produced more by now.

The US is no closer than it was the day before the war to getting Iran’s enriched uranium out of the country. It can only do that with Iranian agreement, which will take time and require US concessions over sanctions. And whereas shipping moved freely through the Strait of Hormuz before the war, now it does not, and Iran has turned that into a bargaining chip.

Trapped again

The lesson is that superior force can knock things down and kill people, but does not necessarily give its holder the power to achieve objectives. The same lesson is unfolding in another theatre of operations: in the American campaign against drug traffickers, there have been over 60 attacks on small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing more than 200 people. According to the latest studies, this has had no effect on the street price and availability of cocaine in US cities.

The problem in the Gulf is that Trump has taken his government into a hole from which it is hard to see a way out. We have encountered this before. It is a characteristic dilemma of a great power facing a resilient foe. Think not just Iran, but Ukraine. Think Vietnam.

In March 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, as American opinion began turning decisively against it, Theodore Sorensen, President Kennedy’s former speechwriter, depicted the US predicament as being trapped in a six-sided box, which he described with three simple sentences: America’s military primacy could not produce victory, while its political primacy made withdrawal humiliating.

It could not impose its will on South Vietnam or break the will of North Vietnam. Escalation risked Chinese or Soviet intervention, while serious negotiation meant accepting the possibility of a Communist South Vietnam.

It is not hard to apply the underlying analysis to the US against Iran. Some translation is needed: the war is unwinnable but withdrawal is humiliating; no ally is giving meaningful help and the enemy is too stubborn; all-out escalation is unthinkable, while good-faith negotiation means acknowledging that the war was wrong from the outset.

Hedging against US unreliability will be part of Europe’s and other US allies’ long-term policies for years to come

The US never managed to break out of that box in Vietnam and will probably be unable to do so in the Gulf. This failure – there is no other word for it – is draining the US capacity for strategic leadership. Allies are faced with reckless behaviour, frequent disregard and contempt, demands to back actions on which they were not consulted and which they oppose, inconsistent and misleading statements, and a war without strategy, legality or ethics.

It is hard to see how the US will regain the moral capital and leadership capacity it has lost this year. More bluster will not do it. Nor will resuming the war or coming to an agreement that makes major concessions to Iran. And it is currently impossible to see why Iran would make concessions to the US.

The United States remains the most powerful military actor in the world. But even the world’s strongest military cannot automatically translate force into political success. The danger is that future leaders continue to believe otherwise.

A strategically astute president who does not casually abuse and threaten allies may emerge in the future. But if the US electorate can do it twice, it can do it a third time — if not with Trump, due to age and the constitution, then with Vance, Rubio, Hegseth or someone else.

Accordingly, hedging against US unreliability will be part of Europe’s and other US allies’ long-term policies for years to come, maybe forever. As they become less dependent on the US, they will also be less compliant. In a few years, the US can restore much of its material power. Its non-material power will grow back only slowly, if at all.

Therein lies the most serious risk: that Trump, or a future leader, continues to believe against all the evidence that force equates to power, and uses it destructively, desperately and pointlessly.

Dan Smith is a Senior Fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and conducts research on issues relating to peace, security and international politics, with a focus on the Middle East and North-East Asia.

Source: International Politics and Society, Brussels

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A street in Beirut, Lebanon, where civilian infrastructure has sustained significant damage. Credit: Pexels/Jo Kassis

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 2 2026 (IPS)

Last week on May 28, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) issued an evacuation order to Lebanese civilians ordering them to move north of the Zahrani River, approximately 25 miles from the Israeli border, and roughly 20 percent of the Lebanese territory. These new escalations bring the displaced population to more than 1.3 million people, including more than 300,000 of those people being children. 1.3 million people represents approximately 1/4th of the nation’s population of 5.3 million.

On Friday May 29th, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the following regarding the current situation of displacement: “Just in the past 48 hours, renewed displacement orders by the Israeli Defence Forces have affected hundreds of thousands of people south of the Zahrani River, including in the cities of Tyre and Nabatieh. Collective shelters in Tyre and Saida in the South Governorate are reportedly full and can’t take in more people.”

On Friday May 22nd, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) observed a continuation of Israeli military aggression along with Hezbollah attacks on Israeli force mission areas. In the following week, on Monday May 25th, the largest number of airspace violations at 91 occurrences, along with 399 firing incidents by the IDF were recorded. Additionally, on May 27th, 670 trajectories of projectiles were reported, making this the highest since the cessation of hostilities on April 17th. The IDF has also been attributed to separate incidents of firings on Saturday May 23rd and Sunday May 24th, at approximately 160 per day, with about 16 launches of projectiles by Hezbollah; along with large-scale engineering works, logistical traffic, and armored vehicle convoys through this escalation by the IDF.

Between May 21 and May 24, the World Health Organization (WHO) recorded 8 health workers killed and 45 injured, with 25 medical staff just on May 23rd being injured at the Hiram Hospital in the South governorate following airstrikes.

“We reiterate that attacks on health workers and health facilities are unacceptable. All parties to conflicts must immediately stop them and ensure protection for healthcare,” said Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Farhan Haq.

As of March 2026, a flash appeal has been submitted by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), acting as a funding instrument to garner USD 308.3 million to provide life-saving assistance and protection targeting up to 1 million people. Within this appeal, USD 61 million is planned to be allocated to Multi-purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA), $56 million to Food Security & Agriculture, $42.5 million to Shelter, and $40 million and $37 million to WASH and Health, along with other allocations to much needed life-saving sectors. Prior to these latest advancements, an estimated 3 million people were already requiring assistance, with 961,000 people facing acute food insecurity.

Although conditions are worsening, all ports remain operational and accessible, according to the latest report from Logistics Cluster. Airspace is open as well, however humanitarian and commercial access remains limited. Also, according to the same report from Logistics Cluster, many roads and bridges in southern Lebanon remain not passable or closed, limiting crucial movements of goods into the most affected areas of hostilities.

OCHA told Inter Press Service that these constraints have been “complicating planning and limiting sustained operations, even as partners continue to reach people where access permits.”

As of May 2026, fuel prices are higher in Lebanon than any other state in the region, besides Pakistan. Since February 28th 2026, the following increases have been recorded:

The estimated fuel increase by country since February 28th, 2026. Credit: Maximilian Malawista

OCHA added that “Rising costs are adding further pressure on an already fragile humanitarian response. Fuel prices have surged significantly, driving up transport and production costs, while the cost of basic food items has also increased.” OCHA warned that these trends are “undermining people’s ability to afford essentials”, and are “further complicating the delivery of humanitarian assistance.”

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As Gaza’s fragile ceasefire frays and humanitarian conditions deteriorate, a senior UN envoy warned the Security Council last week that delays in implementing the Council-backed transition plan for the enclave will only increase suffering and undermine recovery. Credit: UN News

By James E. Jennings
ATLANTA, USA, May 29 2026 (IPS)

If you have been paying attention to the ongoing wars in Ukraine, Iran, Lebanon, and many other places, perhaps you have noticed that battles today are far different from those of the last century. Now it’s not only tanks and planes but also scores of long-range missiles and massive flights of drones linked to cybernetic warfare.

The tragedy of military and civilian deaths continues, however, with the number of casualties among Russian soldiers in Ukraine reportedly reaching an astonishing 25,000 every month. As always in warfare, civilians are unfairly targeted and suffer the most, with senseless random missile and drone attacks killing innocent people on both sides with regularity.

Professed lovers of peace, like US President Trump and Israel’s Mr. Netanyahu, both of whom have agreed to brokered ceasefire agreements in Gaza and in Lebanon, continue to bomb the other side with impunity. For the most part they are getting away with it, without protests from anybody except a few ineffective agencies and lonely voices.

That is indeed a new, inventive way of war: the combatants agree to a ceasefire, and then one side keeps bombing but insists that the other stop because of the agreed ceasefire. Under such circumstances, all a ceasefire really means is “Your side must stop firing—but we’ll fire at will.”

Such nonsense is a game of meaningless words with no resolution in sight. The increasingly Nazified Likud Party in Israel continues to bomb cities, villages, and individual homes and apartment buildings in Lebanon as if it were licensed to do so, with little effective pushback from the world community.

That is perhaps to be expected since the world has largely stood by silently for almost four years during the certifiable genocide in Gaza. And by now more than 1.2 million people have been driven out of their homes in South Lebanon into a life of desperation and uncertainty.

The efficient US-backed Israeli killing machine in Lebanon has continued to smash residential buildings with impunity and pile up an obscene list of civilians murdered—innocent mothers, fathers, grandparents, and many children.

In Gaza, Palestinian sources have recorded more than 2,000 Israeli violations of the so-called “ceasefire” between October 2025 and March 2026, with a total of over 700 Palestinians killed.

Only a temporary hold from the United States has kept Israel from continuing to bomb Iran. Israel refuses to listen to any restrictions on bombing Lebanon even though there is supposedly a ceasefire in effect.

Deaths there since the short April 17 “ceasefire” continue to escalate day by day. In Iran, both Israel and the US have promised to keep obliterating what was long ago announced as already obliterated.

The number of Iranians killed and wounded in the first three months of the joint US-Israeli aggression has been announced by the Tehran government as in the tens of thousands, and the war is not over yet. Most memorable is the massacre of 120 schoolchildren, mainly girls, on the first day of US bombing at Minab, Iran. Casualties so far on the US side number 13 killed and several dozens wounded. That’s the definition of one-sided warfare.

Modern wars may puzzle observers, but the art of twisting words and phrases and their associated meanings is as old as time. Lying, obfuscation, and obscene claims are the essence of war’s primary weapon, deception. Words can kill and do. “Ceasefire” is the latest lie. For Israel and the US, it means “You cease—we fire.”

James E. Jennings is the Founder and President of the aid agency Conscience International www.conscienceinternational.org and a longtime Middle East Peace Advocate.

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Credit: Rizwan Tabassum/AFP

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, May 22 2026 (IPS)

Narges Mohammadi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights activism in Iran, has been allowed to go home. After guards found her unconscious in her cell, the apparent victim of a heart attack, she was granted temporary release from prison and transferred to a hospital. However, she still faces the threat of being taken back to jail once her condition has improved.

Mohammadi has been repeatedly imprisoned for criticising the theocratic regime, demanding women’s rights, advocating for prison reform and campaigning against the death penalty. Over her lifetime she’s been sentenced to a total of 44 years. She’s already spent more than a decade behind bars, including 161 days in solitary confinement, and has also been sentenced to 154 lashes. In February she was handed a further seven-and-a-half-year sentence. From prison – where she experienced cardiac and blood pressure problems and severe weight loss – she has documented systematic rights violations against political prisoners, including sexual and physical abuse of women detainees, torture and extensive use of solitary confinement.

Mohammadi’s case is one among many. While her ordeal has rightly drawn international attention, others more distant from the spotlight are in danger. Three more women human rights activists – Pakhshan Azizi, Sharifeh Mohammadi and Varisheh Moradi – are on death row at imminent risk of execution. The dangers they and countless others face have grown sharply since the current war began.

Repression tightens

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear he wants regime change in Iran. On 1 March, an Israeli strike killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But if the intention was to topple the regime, it didn’t happen. Iran’s ruling theocratic structures run deep, with multiple layers of planned succession. Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, injured in the same attack, was quickly named his replacement, despite Iran’s official ideology formally rejecting hereditary succession.

While clerical leaders have been killed, Iran’s coercive apparatus has gained in its day-to-day power, hardening the theocracy into something closer to a military dictatorship, with the Basij, the paramilitary volunteer force long deployed to crush public dissent, now front and centre.

Israeli and US hopes that Iranians would rise up against the regime have been disappointed. Iran has seen successive mass protest waves, each crushed with large-scale lethal violence. They include the Green Movement that demanded democracy in 2009 and 2010 and the Woman, Life, Freedom protests that demanded women’s rights in 2022 and 2023. The latest uprising came in December 2025 and January 2026, triggered by economic collapse, forging a movement that united broad sections of society to demand an end to the theocratic regime. The state suppressed it with shocking brutality, killing thousands and detaining tens of thousands.

By February, the uprising had been crushed. The Israeli-US intervention was unlikely to reignite a meaningful mass protest movement. If anything, for some Iranians the war has stoked patriotism and more intense enmity towards Israel and the USA. The anticipated revolt simply hasn’t happened.

Much of Iran’s vast diaspora has rallied in support of the war as a means of toppling the regime. But while the diaspora is united in demanding change, its array of ethnic minority organisations, Islamist factions, leftists, monarchists and republicans is bitterly divided over what should come next. Reza Pahlavi, son of the last shah, enjoys some support but others are wary about monarchical nostalgia and his close ties to Israel and the USA. The most credible potential unifying figures inside Iran are imprisoned or otherwise silenced.

Instead of losing control, the regime has tightened its repression. Even as Iran’s leaders wage a social media propaganda war abroad, at home they’ve imposed a near-total internet shutdown, including a block on VPN services. The blackout has caused immense economic harm, disrupting businesses and financial transactions and hitting women the hardest. This comes on top of the economic effects of the current US blockade of Iranian ports, sending inflation and unemployment soaring.

Under the cover of war and the internet shutdown, the government has accelerated executions of political prisoners. While precise figures are hard to get, rights groups report close to 200 executions so far this year, most preceded by prolonged torture to extract false confessions. Secret hangings are reportedly being carried out on an almost daily basis. Among those killed are people detained during the January protests. On 4 May, it was reported that three people arrested at protests on 8 and 9 January – Ebrahim Dolatabadinejad, Mohammadreza Miri and Mehdi Rasouli – had been hanged. For families, the suffering doesn’t end there, as authorities reportedly refuse to return bodies and pressure relatives to stay silent.

Local priorities

Democracy and human rights in Iran depend on the regime’s departure. But the latest war isn’t about any of this. For Netanyahu, with an election impending and anger remaining at his corruption charges and Israel’s security failures around the 7 October Hamas attacks, permanent warfare is a political strategy. Donald Trump’s many social media announcements provide little clue of what motivates a president who promised not to mire the USA in foreign wars, but distraction from low popularity ratings and his many appearances in the Epstein files may be a factor.

This war isn’t the way to achieve change. The regime appears entrenched and capable of surviving a longer conflict. Any peace deal would leave it intact, which its rulers would treat as a victory.

Real change will come when protests can grow into a mass movement large enough to withstand the lethal repression the state will inevitably deploy. That can only happen with sustained support that respects the autonomy of local civil society leaders and strengthens their capacity. The immediate priorities must be to protect credible local sources of information amid the information blackout and ensure the safety and security of Iran’s democracy and human rights activists.

Above all, states must press the Iranian government to halt executions and release everyone detained for speaking out, protesting and demanding change, beginning with Narges Mohammadi. Temporary medical release is nowhere near enough. The Iranian regime must let her be free.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Parliamentarians from Africa, Asia, and the Arab world gathered to assess pledges made at last year’s TICAD9 summit in Yokohama. Credit: APDA

By Hisham Allam
CAIRO, May 14 2026 (IPS)

The word heard most often at a two-day parliamentary forum in Cairo last week was not “commitment”; it was “follow-up.” And the difference mattered.

Parliamentarians from Africa, Asia, and the Arab world gathered 28–29 April not to renew pledges made at last year’s TICAD9 summit in Yokohama, but to ask what had actually been done. The answer was uneven, and delegates said so plainly.

The meeting, organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD) with support from UNFPA, the Japan Trust Fund, and IPPF, focused on sexual and reproductive health, universal health coverage, youth investment, and gender equality. It convened against a difficult backdrop: shrinking donor budgets, deepening demographic pressure across Africa, and a persistent gap between legislation and delivery.

Japan’s Makishima Karen, a member of the House of Representatives, Vice Chair of the Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population, and former Minister for Digital Affairs, set the tone early. “Once a conference is finished, it’s no longer the finish – we should follow up the outcomes and the concrete actions,” she told IPS on the sidelines.

Makishima was direct about where progress begins. “Wherever you live or wherever you are born, the right to live healthily is a human right,” she said. “That is why I focus on the necessity of universal health coverage (UHC) for all.” She argued that UHC cannot be achieved without bringing finance ministries into the conversation: “The understanding of the Minister of Finance is necessary. We are encouraging ministries of finance to join the process.”

On what actually drives change at the community level, she was equally clear: “When mothers cannot read, it must be difficult for their communities to live healthily and safely. Education of women and girls is essential to protect the next generation.”

She also raised a dimension of the agenda that often goes unstated: the role of digital tools. Drawing on her background in digital governance, she argued that technology is not a separate track but integral to delivery: “With one smartphone, every person can access information, check their own data, and have the ability to control it. That is part of democracy.”

Meeting chairs set the tone, demanding asking for action, not new pledges, at a recent two-day forum in Cairo. Credit: APDA

On the wave of aid cuts hitting development programmes globally, she did not deflect. “I believe in the necessity of multilateral organisational frameworks; otherwise, it is very difficult to continue the necessary programmes in each region.” The longer-term answer, she said, is not to wait for donors to return. “Within five or ten years, each government should take on the responsibility to continue these programmes. We must have a very long-term perspective.”

Tanzania’s Jackson Kiswaga, MP, offered the clearest example of what domestic ownership can look like. His country, with 71.5 million people, 60 percent under 24, growing at nearly three percent a year, has been moving fast. In 2023, Tanzania passed the Universal Health Insurance Act, integrating reproductive health services into mandatory coverage spanning formal and informal sectors. A dedicated Youth Ministry was established under the President’s Office. A national scholarship programme has since supported over 400 girls in science education, with measurable reductions in early marriage and pregnancy.

“Institutional innovations are models for other countries,” Kiswaga said. “Strong partnerships in the health sector are key to ensuring sustainability.”

Morocco’s Soukaina Lahmouch, MP, offered a sharper warning. Her country enacted landmark legislation against gender-based violence in 2018, but seven years on, implementation has stalled. Procedural complexity, weak enforcement, and cultural resistance, particularly in domestic violence cases, have blunted the law’s impact.

“Women in Morocco still suffer discrimination and exclusion,” she said, “despite the progress made.” She called on TICAD to support not just the drafting of laws but their enforcement through court reform, rural health infrastructure, and access to financing for women.

Parliamentarians were reminded that the outcomes from Cairo would be reported to the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development in Tokyo 2027. Credit: APDA

Two other delegates raised pressures that seldom receive equal billing. Tunisia’s Ezzeddine Tayeb, MP warned that his country’s rapidly ageing population is straining its pension system and called for a comprehensive law guaranteeing the rights of elderly citizens, including enforceable standards for long-term care. Algeria’s MP Khaled Bourenane placed the forum’s agenda inside Africa’s continental trajectory: a population heading toward 2.5 billion by 2050, with over 20 million people displaced by climate events annually. Demographic challenges at this scale, he argued, cannot be addressed in silos.

JICA representative Yo Ebisawa pointed to Egypt as a live test case. In 2017, Egypt ranked the third globally in out-of-pocket health spending as a share of household budgets.

Since passing its Universal Health Insurance Law, the country has been rolling out coverage across all 27 governorates, targeting completion by 2030. So far, six million people across six governorates have been enrolled. In Port Said, the share of households facing catastrophic health expenditure has fallen by 40 percent. Japan has backed the rollout with a $400 million development policy loan and an $8 million joint JICA-WHO project providing equipment and training, including for facilities serving Sudanese refugees and medical evacuees from Gaza.

APDA Vice Chair Prof. Kiyoko Ikegami closed the first day with a pointed reminder: the outcomes from Cairo will be reported to the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development in Tokyo 2027. The chain of accountability, she said, must hold.

Whether the commitments made in Cairo translate into budget lines, legislation, and services – that is the only measure that counts.

Note: The meeting was organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD). It was supported by the Japan Trust Fund (JTF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Arab States Regional Office (ASRO),  and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), in collaboration with the African Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (FPA).

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A residential building in Beirut, Lebanon, lies in ruins. Credit: UNICEF/Fouad Choufany

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, May 13 2026 (IPS)

Violence has metastasized into humanity’s baseline condition. Yet international institutions remain paralyzed by vetoes and rivalry, offering hollow declarations while dehumanization becomes normalized. Coordinated action, not gestures, is desperately needed.

Global violence today is metastasizing, not contained; over 180,000 violent events reported globally by the International Institute for Strategic Studies signal a world in which conflict has become a baseline condition rather than an exception. More than 130 armed conflicts now rage—over twice the number of 15 years ago—shattering infrastructure, tearing apart social fabric, and normalizing dehumanization as a political weapon.

Women and children bear the brunt: hundreds of millions live within range of armed clashes, with millions of preventable deaths and lifelong trauma caused not only by bullets and bombs but by hunger, disease, and gender-based violence unleashed by war’s chaos.

Yet the UN system and the world’s democracies appear increasingly paralyzed—trapped in vetoes, geopolitical rivalries, and hollow declarations—offering gestures of concern rather than the coordinated, enforced accountability this modern plague of violence so desperately demands.

The global escalation of violence is a structural crisis rather than an aberration—one that reveals the failure of international institutions, exposing the normalization of suffering across political, economic, and societal dimensions.

The proliferation of violence signals not just an increase in armed confrontations but a breakdown in the very mechanisms meant to constrain conflict, rendering dehumanization a routine tool of power, as demonstrated in the following.

The Philosophical Angle

Violence represents the collapse of legitimate political authority and the rise of impotence masquerading as force. Hannah Arendt’s foundational insight remains essential: “Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course, it ends in power’s disappearance” (On Violence, 1970).

This speaks directly to today’s proliferation of conflicts, which indicate not state strength but institutional failure, where violence substitutes for the consent and legitimacy governments can no longer command. The resort to violence signals the exhaustion of political dialogue and the absence of legitimate power structures capable of resolving disputes.

Economic Disenfranchisement

Economic drivers are critical accelerants of contemporary violence through resource competition, commodity exploitation, and systemic inequality. Slavoj Žižek’s concept of systemic violence captures the pervasive economic roots: “Therein resides the fundamental systemic violence of capitalism, much more uncanny than the direct pre-capitalist socio-ideological violence: this violence is no longer attributable to concrete individuals and their ‘evil’ intentions, but is purely ‘objective,’ systemic, anonymous.”

The greed-driven exploitation of natural resources—from diamonds in Sierra Leone to oil in Venezuela and cobalt and other conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo—finances rebellions and turns conflict into a profitable enterprise. Economic deprivation, geoeconomic confrontation through weaponized tariffs and sanctions, and commodity price shocks directly shape military capacity and conflict outcomes.

The Political Compulsion of Violence

Political violence emerges not merely from divergent interests but from the deliberate choice to pursue objectives through coercion rather than negotiation. The paralysis of the UNSC and democratic institutions reflects what Arendt identified as bureaucratic tyranny: “In a fully developed bureaucracy, there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can present grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. … everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act… where we are all equally powerless, we have a tyranny without a tyrant.”

This captures the international community’s inability to enforce accountability—vetoes and geopolitical rivalries create a structural void where violence thrives unchecked. Political fragility and weakening institutions, seen in Syria and Myanmar, make societies vulnerable to breakdown, radicalization, and violent dissent.

Societal Fragmentation

Societal conditions create climates where violence becomes normalized through inequality and the erosion of social cohesion. Thomas Hobbes’s bleak assessment of unconstrained human nature remains relevant: in the state of nature, “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” While Hobbes described a pre-political condition, his insight applies to societies where governance collapses and fear dominates, conditions now afflicting millions living within range of armed clashes.

Social norms that accept violence as conflict resolution, combined with economic inequalities and a lack of community participation, create environments where aggression flourishes. This normalizes dehumanization, where, as in Nigeria, Israel and South Africa, gendered violence, ethnic tensions, and historical grievances fuel recurring cycles of brutality.

Nationalism, Repression and State Complicity

State-level factors amplifying violence include the failure to address ethnic marginalization, resource competition, and the absence of functional governance. Walter Benjamin warned of violence’s relationship to law and state power: “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism” (On the Concept of History, 1940).

This observation underscores how national institutions perpetuate violence through their foundational structures and exclusionary practices. Nations repeatedly falling victim to civil and international wars demonstrate governments’ inability to recognize and address destabilizing issues like political, religious, or ethnic marginalization. The weaponization of state apparatus through totalitarian mobilization of violence destroys the very space where political thinking and resistance might occur, as demonstrated in China and Eritrea.

Religious Instrumentalization

Religion, when co-opted by political actors or stripped of its ethical core, becomes a potent catalyst for violence, sanctifying exclusion and legitimizing brutality. Sectarian divides—whether in the Middle East, South Asia, or parts of Africa—transform identity into a battlefield where compromise is heresy and annihilation becomes duty. René Girard’s insight is instructive: “Religion shelters us from violence just as violence seeks shelter in religion.” When faith is manipulated to justify power or grievance, such as in India, Israel or Iraq, it ceases to restrain violence and instead consecrates it, deepening cycles of retribution and rendering conflicts existential rather than negotiable.

The convergence of these dimensions explains why violence has become a baseline condition rather than an exception. Several measures must be considered to de-escalate global violence. Although effecting change is extremely difficult, every effort must still be made, provided the public leads the charge through sustained protest, continuous advocacy, and relentless pressure on policymakers to enact change.

Reform UN Security Council Veto Power

Governments must constrain veto authority by restricting its use in cases involving genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Permanent members should abstain when directly involved, transforming the veto from obstruction into accountability and addressing institutional paralysis that enables unchecked violence.

Establish Functional Early Warning Systems

International bodies should implement systems linking detection to preventive action, closing the warning-response gap. These must integrate predictive analytics, local expertise, and cross-border coordination to anticipate violence months before eruption, enabling timely diplomatic and humanitarian intervention.

Address Economic Inequality and Insecurity

Governments should implement policies that reduce income inequality—including wage increases, tax reform, and financial assistance—aimed at addressing violence triggers. Targeted lending, job creation, and redistributive policies alleviate financial strain that fuels conflict and crime, making structural prevention more effective than reactive measures.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is President of the Institute for Humanitarian Conflict Resolution.

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UNICEF and partners established the first Primary Health Care (PHC) Centre and Child-Friendly Space/Learning Space in Jabalia, North Gaza on 12 January, 2026. Credit: UNICEF/Rawan Eleyan

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 2026 (IPS)

Despite the implementation of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel last October, Israeli forces continue to launch airstrikes into the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This has resulted in extensive destruction of infrastructure, loss of human life and exacerbating immense health needs amid an increasingly strained health system in Gaza.

Recent months have marked a significant escalation in hostilities, with routine bombardment pushing communities that have been displaced multiple times to the brink, while continued blockages of humanitarian aid hinder relief efforts and deprive thousands of life-saving services.

“Gaza’s crisis is far from over. For millions of civilians, the emergency is ongoing, relentless, and life-threatening. Food insecurity remains widespread and severe,” said Faten, the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) Senior Protection Manager in Gaza. “Gaza’s healthcare system has all but collapsed with 94% of Gaza’s hospitals destroyed or damaged.”

Findings from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) underscore the urgent state of crisis in the Gaza Strip. OCHA experts leading a safety report recorded a significant number of security incidents over the past week, noting that the figures are among the highest reported since the declaration of the ceasefire last year. Experts from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) note that Israeli forces continue to maintain a high level of activity across the Gaza Strip, most notably in the northern region, where the scale of needs is most pronounced.

According to figures from OCHA, between October 7, 2023, and April 29, 2026, a total of 72,599 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip and another 172,411 injured. UNRWA has also reported that over 391 UN personnel have been killed since the start of the war through May 7. Hostilities from Israeli forces remain a routine part of daily life for Palestinians across Gaza, with UN experts recording airstrikes, shelling, and gunfire across all areas, particularly densely populated ones.

In May, a UNRWA school in Jabalia was struck by gunfire, injuring two displaced civilians residing within the school for shelter. OCHA also recorded two separate incidents in which humanitarian facilities came under fire in May, alongside an airstrike landing near a UN warehouse and a stone-throwing incident that damaged humanitarian relief vehicles. The UN continues to underscore the urgency of all actors complying with international humanitarian law, including all parties’ obligations to facilitate humanitarian operations and protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in all contexts.

Displacement also remains widespread, with over 90 percent of the population having been internally displaced. Many communities have been displaced multiple times, with more than half of the displaced population being children. Thousands of families currently reside in poor-quality makeshift shelters, such as damaged residential buildings and schools, where they face increasingly limited access to basic essential services, such as food, water, fuel and sanitation.

It is estimated that UNRWA currently hosts over 65,000 displaced Palestinians across 82 collective emergency shelters throughout the enclave. Approximately 126 UNRWA displacement sites are located with the Yellow Line, as well as areas within the Orange Line, where humanitarian aid remains subject to Israeli monitoring and intervention.

Many of these displacement sites face severe security concerns, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions, while health responses fail to keep pace and mitigate the rapid spread of infectious disease and illnesses.

Gaza’s health system has borne the brunt of the crisis, being on the brink of collapse as the immense scale of needs continues to grow every day. Compounded by Israeli blockades on humanitarian aid deliveries, relief efforts have been severely hindered by a lack of supplies, such as batteries, lubricants, and spare parts.

“51 percent of essential medicines are currently at zero stock in Gaza, which is severely limiting the ability to treat patients with life-threatening conditions, including those requiring intensive care and cancer treatment,” said Faten. “Hospitals are overwhelmed, under-resourced, and increasingly unable to provide adequate care.”

Additionally, humanitarian movement remains severely constricted as armored vehicles break down, posing significant security risks to aid personnel as they attempt to assist vulnerable populations. Furthermore, continued restrictions on generators, engine oil, and other key supplies hinder sanitation efforts, debris clearance, food distribution, water trucking, ambulance services, and the delivery of educational and medical supplies.

Over the past several months, UNRWA teams on the frontlines have recorded a significant uptick in rodent infestations across multiple overcrowded displacement shelters across the enclave, being most pronounced in Khan Younis, as well as areas with large amounts of rubble, including northern Gaza.

Heath facilities have also reported a significant increase in the frequency of rat bites, which are linked to the transmission of rodent-borne diseases such as leptospirosis. Efforts to contain the spread of infection are hindered by a severe shortage of pesticides, anti-lice shampoos, and scabicidal medications. As a result, UNRWA has recorded a significant increase in cases of chickenpox, as well as ectoparasitic skin diseases, such as scabies, over the past few months.

“With designated landfills becoming inaccessible during hostilities, the market has been used as a major solid waste dump, with trash now covering an entire city block and exceeding four flights in height,” said Stéphane Dujarric, UN Spokesperson for the Secretary-General during a press briefing on May 7.

“Our sanitation partners report that Gaza’s two sanitary landfills are near the perimeter fence surrounding the Strip, where access needs to be enabled by Israeli authorities. They also stress the need for permissions to bring into Gaza the machinery to remove the waste, the rubble and explosive ordnance, as well as the spare parts required to operate that equipment. These permissions are also critical to address health risks linked to pests and rodents,” Dujarric continued.

Despite immense challenges, UNRWA remains on the frontlines of this crisis, providing lifesaving services to vulnerable, displaced communities. Since October 2023, the agency has conducted over 17.2 million health consultations, including over 71,800 consultations between April 20 and 26 of this year alone. UNRWA continues to support six health centers, four temporary centers, and 28 medical points across the enclave, and have provided psychosocial support services to over 730,000 displaced Palestinians, including 520,000 children. The agency also continues to provide protection services, which have proved to be instrumental as security concerns reach new highs, particularly around displacement sites.

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Picture alliance/AA/Royal Court of Saudi Arabia. Source: International Politics & Society
 
The war with Iran is exposing deep fractures beneath the surface of Gulf unity. Still, cooperation remains the only viable option.

By Sebastian Sons
BONN, Germany, Apr 29 2026 (IPS)

While the world watches the Strait of Hormuz and the discord in negotiations between Iran and the United States, the role of the Gulf states is fading into the background. Iran’s attacks on the Arab Gulf states have triggered a threefold shock.

First, their business model – built on free trade routes, logistics, energy, tourism and entertainment – is under strain. Second, they are losing the confidence of international investors as safe havens, undermining their narrative as a reliable bulwark against the chaos in their neighbourhood. And lastly, their strategy of shielding themselves from external threats through comprehensive diplomacy, de-escalation and dialogue is at stake.

Influential mediators such as Qatar and Oman have come into the crosshairs of the war, as has Saudi Arabia, which only in 2023 resumed relations with Iran precisely to prevent such a scenario of regional escalation. This threefold shock is now forcing all Gulf states to rethink their security architecture in order to better protect themselves in the future.

Contrasting strategies

At present, it appears as though each ruler in the Gulf is pursuing their own strategy, relying on their own instruments and forging their own alliances. This is particularly evident in the case of the Gulf heavyweights Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Saudi kingdom sees itself more as an actor committed to de-escalation, coordinating closely with regional players such as Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan.

Despite considerable frustration with the Islamic Republic, which has torpedoed any rapprochement in recent weeks, diplomatic relations with Tehran have not been severed. Instead, Riyadh recognises that some form of modus operandi with Iran will remain necessary.

The UAE, by contrast, has sharpened its rhetoric towards Iran in recent weeks, is increasingly adopting a confrontational stance and emphasises that Israel and the United States will assume an even more dominant role in the region after the war.

These differing positions point to deep-seated divergences between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, which had already become apparent before the war. In Yemen, the rivalry between the two regional powers escalated in December, culminating in Saudi Arabia publicly criticising its Emirati ‘brother’ and taking military action against its local partner, the Southern Transitional Council.

In Sudan, both governments support opposing sides – the UAE backs the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), while Saudi Arabia supports the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – further fuelling the humanitarian catastrophe three years into the bloody civil war.

The Gulf states are not striving for pure harmony, but rather pursuing similar interests through different instruments.

The two states also pursue contrasting strategies towards Israel. While the UAE signed the Abraham Accords in 2020 and continues to maintain diplomatic and economic ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia has positioned itself as an active defender of the Palestinian cause since Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and rejects any normalisation of relations with Israel.

These differing positions also reverberate beyond the region. Saudi Arabia, for example, criticised Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025, where the UAE operates an important port — another illustration of the growing divergence between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

Two rival axes thus appear to have emerged, further consolidated by the current war. On one side stands Saudi Arabia as the representative of a more restrained approach to regional policy, working with partners such as Oman, Qatar, Pakistan and Turkey to pursue assertive diplomacy.

On the other side, the UAE – particularly the powerful emirate of Abu Dhabi – has adopted a policy of interventionist strength against Iran and Islamist movements, a stance that is supported in varying degrees by Kuwait and Bahrain. Along these axes, a regional arms race could intensify, economic rivalry could grow, and hyper-nationalism could deepen, leading to further hardening and polarisation of positions across the Gulf.

Yet this seemingly irreconcilable confrontation overlooks the fact that the Gulf states are not striving for pure harmony, but rather pursuing similar interests through different instruments. Their approach is based on a pragmatic both-and strategy that relies on flexible alliances to achieve their objectives. In fact, their goals are not as divergent as often assumed, but can be summarised as three core priorities: preserving national legitimacy, maintaining regional stability and safeguarding economic development.

These are all threatened by the war, creating a natural interest among the Gulf states in avoiding lasting harm to one another — or even outright conflict.

Competition does not preclude cooperation

The Gulf states have a long and shifting history of conflict and rapprochement. Disputes over borders, rivalries between ruling dynasties and families, conflicts over resources and trade routes, and competing approaches to developing their oil- and gas-dependent economies have repeatedly led to periods of defamation, demonisation and disintegration.

Most recently, the so-called Gulf crisis from 2017 to 2021 shook Gulf unity, when the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt imposed an air, sea and land blockade on Qatar. Despite these cycles of tension and reconciliation, the Gulf states have proven remarkably resilient, not least because of their ability to adapt flexibly to new challenges.

They must now demonstrate this capacity more than ever. The current war represents a pivotal moment in Gulf history, redefining how their both-and strategy can remain effective. To ensure this, they may increasingly rely on comprehensive deterrence, flexible alliances and diplomacy, which could lead to closer cooperation in certain policy areas.

This may include enhanced military cooperation, aimed at strengthening national security through regional defence capabilities and reducing dependence on the United States.

The development of a joint drone programme and protection against attacks on maritime security, desalination plants and future technologies are in the interests of all Gulf states — despite their differences in dealing with Iran. The same applies to other areas.

The war, through the sinking of tankers and the deployment of mines in the Persian Gulf, could seriously endanger an already fragile environment. Environmental disasters such as oil spills must therefore be prevented, which can only be achieved through collective action.

The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has made it abundantly clear to most Gulf states how dependent they are on this sensitive maritime chokepoint for their energy exports.

The impact on the collective psyche of Gulf societies should not be underestimated either. Addressing this will require joint efforts in trauma recovery. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has made it abundantly clear to most Gulf states how dependent they are on this sensitive maritime chokepoint for their energy exports.

Alternatives are scarce, benefiting primarily Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait are being cut off from international maritime trade. Alternative trade routes are therefore essential, but can only be developed through partnership.

Plans for such routes have existed for years and could gain renewed momentum in the context of the crisis — whether in energy, transport or the construction of a Gulf railway network. Saudi Arabia, for instance, is planning new logistics corridors with Egypt and Jordan to enhance its independence.

At present, all Gulf states are suffering from declining revenues from oil and gas sales, tourism and financial services. Overall, economic growth in the region is projected to fall in 2026 from an expected 3.7 per cent to just 1.4 per cent. In Qatar, economic output could shrink by as much as 13 per cent, in the UAE by 8 per cent and in Saudi Arabia by 6.6 per cent.

This will likely lead all Gulf states to invest more cautiously and more selectively — particularly at home. The more they channel their reduced funds domestically, the fewer resources will be available for the urgently needed reconstruction in regional crisis zones such as Syria.

Here too, closer coordination in development cooperation could prove beneficial, as was the case during the Gulf crisis within the framework of the Arab Coordination Group, which brings together the development funds of all Gulf states alongside regional donor organisations such as the Islamic Development Bank.

These examples demonstrate that competition does not necessarily preclude cooperation, but rather depends heavily on context. The existing divergences among the Gulf states should therefore not be seen as set in stone, but as part of a complex process of negotiation and adaptation in times of crisis.

Alliances are shifting, leading to profound transformations that are particularly affecting the Gulf states. They will not abandon their both-and approach, but will recalibrate it. Whether they act against or alongside one another will depend more than ever on circumstances and the instruments they choose — resulting in a dynamic that could combine partnership with simultaneous polarisation.

Dr Sebastian Sons is a scientist at the CARPO research institute and conducts research primarily on the economic, foreign, social, development and sports policy of the Arab Gulf monarchies.

Source: International Politics and Society. Brussels

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Credit: UNFPA Lebanon

By UN Population Fund
CAIRO, Egypt, Apr 23 2026 (IPS)

Six weeks into the 2026 Middle East military escalation, UNFPA Arab States Regional Office warns that its impact on 161 million women and girls living in conflict-affected areas across the region remain largely invisible in conflict analysis, humanitarian response, and funding priorities.

A new Call to Action, Regional Analysis of the Socio-Economic Impact of the 2026 Middle East Conflict on Women and Girls published by UNFPA, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, highlights that current response mechanisms remain overwhelmingly gender-blind, treating gender-based violence (GBV) and maternal health as secondary concerns rather than life-saving priorities.

“The omission is not merely analytical – it is structural,” the report states. Without sex-disaggregated data and gender perspectives, the international community is conducting incomplete risk assessments, misaligning interventions, and missing critical opportunities for stabilization and peace.

The conflict is projected to cost regional economies $120–194 billion – equivalent to 3.7 to 6 percent of collective GDP. Four million additional people are estimated to be pushed into poverty and 3.64 million jobs may be lost. Women – overrepresented in informal employment – face disproportionate livelihood collapse while shouldering increased unpaid care work.

Supply chain shocks through the Strait of Hormuz threaten to delay lifesaving humanitarian supplies by up to six months. Across Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan, and Yemen, more than 260 health facilities and 14 mobile medical units have already shut down. Food insecurity is intensifying, with documented patterns showing women and girls eat last and least.

The report also highlights a surge in GBV risks driven by hyper-displacement, while sanctions and financial “de-risking” are crippling the ability of women-led organizations to deliver essential services. These organizations—often the first responders in crises—are being cut off from the very funding streams meant to sustain them.

UNFPA is calling on national governments, UN agencies, donors, and civil society to:

● Integrate gender systematically into all conflict analysis and response frameworks.
● Protect and fund GBV and sexual and reproductive health services as core, lifesaving interventions.
● Finance and empower local women-led organizations, removing barriers to their access and participation.
● Ensure women’s leadership in recovery, peacebuilding, and decision-making processes.

“Making women and girls visible is not optional,” the report concludes. “It is fundamental to effective humanitarian action, sustainable recovery, and lasting peace.”

UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency.

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Rescue workers survey the damage in the town of Toul in Lebanon’s Nabatieh governorate in the south, following bombing by Israel in response to rocket attacks by militant group Hezbollah. Credit: Action Against Hunger

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Apr 20 2026 (IPS)

Aid groups have welcomed a ten-day ceasefire agreed between Israel and Lebanon but warn only a permanent halt to fighting can allow for the kind of response needed to address the dire humanitarian situation in the country.

A ten-day truce ​to enable peace negotiations between the two countries came into effect on April 16. It can be extended by mutual agreement by both sides after that period.

The ceasefire comes after more than a month of conflict following Israel’s response to rocket attacks by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Since March 2, more than 2,000 people have been killed and 7,000 wounded in Israeli attacks, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Meanwhile, more than 1.2 million – one fifth of the estimated total population – are internally displaced, including over 400,000 children, according to humanitarian organisations, and Israeli strikes have destroyed essential civilian infrastructure and heavily affected healthcare services.

This has deepened what was already a fragile humanitarian situation following years of economic problems, a Syrian refugee crisis, and previous conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

And while the attacks may have stopped, many people continue to face displacement, massive destruction and a lack of access to basic services and real relief will only come with a long-term end to fighting.

“We welcome the truce as a critical pause in violence, but it is not enough. Only a permanent ceasefire will allow for a response at the scale required—one that reaches families across all of Lebanon, including those in border areas who remain among the most vulnerable,” Suzanne Takkenberg, Lebanon Country Director of humanitarian group Action Against Hunger (ACF), told IPS.

Following the announcement of the truce, there have been reports of huge numbers of displaced people returning to their home towns. Aid groups have warned, though, that many are likely to return to find they have no homes left, or even if they do, conditions are so bad it will be impossible to remain there.

“Families are beginning to return to their homes, but the scale of destruction is staggering. Many are finding their houses damaged or completely destroyed, with no access to water, electricity, or basic services. People who fled with almost nothing are now returning to even less—facing conditions that make dignified living impossible,” said Takkenberg.

The destruction has been worst in the south of the country. Israel has been looking to create what it has called a “security zone”, keeping troops in an area around 10 kilometres deep inside southern Lebanon. Reports suggest many villages in that area have been utterly destroyed.

Recent, intense Israeli airstrikes targeted Tyre, Lebanon, causing significant casualties and damage to residential areas and infrastructure. The strikes were part of an ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Credit: Action Against

“This new buffer zone that Israel is talking about – from videos I’ve seen, it’s completely demolished. We don’t expect them to allow [people] to return there, and I don’t think people will be trying to move back to that buffer zone,” Elizabeth Cossor, Head of Country Office Lebanon at Terre des hommes, which is providing humanitarian aid to children and their families in the country, told IPS.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to remain displaced. They’re not going to be able to return. That’s really devastating [for them],” she added.

The impacts of the attacks on civilians have alarmed rights groups and humanitarian organisations.

A coalition of NGOs last week released a report documenting the effects of Israeli attacks on the civilian population.

It highlighted how the continued displacement in the country is driving significant health and protection risks, with women, children, the elderly and persons with disabilities disproportionately affected.

Reports indicate high instances of respiratory infections due to cold temperatures in collective shelters, gastroenteritis cases linked to insufficient food and cooking facilities, and disruption to treatment for patients with chronic diseases. Shelters are invariably overcrowded and lack adequate water and sanitation infrastructure, severely limiting privacy, dignity and psychological safety for residents, the group said. Moreover, roughly 88% of those displaced are living outside collective shelters, many in cars, public spaces or other insecure settings, the groups said.

Children have been impacted especially hard by the fighting.

Aid groups working with children have highlighted serious problems with child nutrition. According to Action Against Hunger, while 24 percent of the population faces acute food insecurity, around 15 percent of children aged 6 to 23 months in displacement zones are being fed only milk.

Meanwhile, one in five children in Lebanon has been forced from their homes by the conflict, with many suffering acute psychological distress and anxiety, according to UNICEF.

“The humanitarian situation for children in Lebanon is severe and deeply alarming. Over the past 46 days, children have paid a devastating price, with reports of at least 172 children killed and 661 injured. More than 415,000 children have been displaced, some for the third or fourth time. Their most urgent needs are safety, healthcare, safe water, nutrition, psychosocial support, child protection and access to learning,” Ricardo Pires, Communication Manager at UNICEF, told IPS.

“Children have been uprooted repeatedly, many are under acute stress, and essential services have been badly disrupted. The health system is still operating, but under severe strain. Hospitals and health workers have come under repeated impact, facilities have been damaged or forced to close, and access to care is increasingly difficult in high-risk and isolated areas. The destruction already caused to homes, schools, hospitals, water systems and roads means many children and families are likely to face serious hardship for some time, even if the fighting stops. It continues to have serious humanitarian consequences for children and families,” he added.

Cossor said the conflict could have a long-term impact on a generation of Lebanese kids.

“We still don’t have a sense of just how many children have lost their parents, their caregivers. We’re visiting hospitals where children are waking up and discovering that they’ve lost their parents and, you know, it’s just devastating. For those who also cannot return to their childhood home, you know, they’re not in school, missing family, they’ve lost their homes…. They’re losing part of their childhood, their connection to the place of their family, the place of their community. This has very long-term impacts for children,” she said.

As well as highlighting the harm caused to the civilian population, the NGOs’ report pointed to serious concerns regarding compliance with International Humanitarian Law (IHL), particularly the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attacks. Likewise, IHL affords special protection to medical and humanitarian personnel and infrastructure, yet the conflict has been marked by a concerning number of attacks affecting healthcare and growing restrictions on humanitarian access, the groups said.

They also called for adherence to the IHL by all parties to the conflict, as well as urgent, sustained, and flexible funding from the international community to support the growing needs of displaced persons and those remaining in vulnerable areas.

International help will be vital given the damage that has been done, no matter what efforts the Lebanese government makes to help the population.

“The government will repair things as best they can in the cities that are north – again, north of that buffer zone area. They will do their best to restore, rehabilitate, but services will be heavily impacted. Eight bridges [in southern Lebanon] have now been destroyed, and Lebanese forces have managed to sort of put rubble together so that the last destroyed bridge is passable one car at a time. But that’s not enough to start bringing big trucks of humanitarian assistance or to start bringing in food and vegetables and other medical supplies and other things that they need in the south,” said Cossor.

“Infrastructure is destroyed, including in heavily populated areas. The Lebanese government will need enormous assistance to restore this infrastructure,” she added.

Beyond these problems, another major concern is the fragility of the current ceasefire – within hours of it coming into force, there were reports of violations.

UNICEF’S Pires said the ceasefire offered a critical opportunity to improve humanitarian access and begin restoring basic services in all areas impacted by the recent attacks. He warned, though, that if it collapsed, there would be “a grave risk of further killing, injury, displacement and trauma”.

“The weapons must remain silent and humanitarian access and workers must be protected at all times,” he said.

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A view of the rubble in Jabalia, northern Gaza, after heavy Israeli bombardment. Credit: UNICEF/Rawan Eleyan

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

Roughly six months after the ceasefire in the Occupied Palestinian Territory went into effect, the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains precariously fragile, despite a relative decline in hostilities. The crisis, marked by ongoing Israeli airstrikes and shelling, continued blockades on humanitarian aid, and widespread displacement, has pushed the majority of Palestinians in Gaza to the brink. Amid the vast scale of needs, basic services are increasingly strained, and humanitarian experts warn that the situation could deteriorate further in the coming months unless sustained aid and funding are secured.

A new report from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians in the Near East (UNRWA) on the current conditions in Gaza confirmed a continuation of airstrikes, shelling, and gunfire across multiple areas, including Beit Lahia, Jabalia, Deir al Balah, Khan Younis, Rafah, and Bureij. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that since the eruption of hostilities on October 7, 2023, approximately 72,315 Gazans have been killed and another 172,137 injured.

“The scale and pattern of these actions, occurring alongside mass displacement of Palestinians from their homes and land in Gaza shows once again the ongoing broader policy of ethnic cleansing across the occupied Palestinian territory,” said a group of United Nations (UN) experts on April 13. “This cycle of displacement, terror, and targeted attacks serves an ultimate purpose: to make life unbearable for Palestinians and permanently force them from their land…Targeting areas known to shelter displaced civilians is a grave breach of international humanitarian law and is a grim reminder of the urgent need for international action and accountability.”

According to Palestine’s Ministry of Health, at least 32 Gazans have been killed by Israeli forces in early April alone. Airstrikes, gunfire, and shelling are daily occurrences, with women, children, disabled persons, humanitarian workers, and journalists being routinely targeted. On April 9, a young girl was killed by Israeli gunfire in a crowded classroom-turned-makeshift encampment.

“For the past 10 days, Palestinians are still being killed and injured in what is left of their homes, shelters, and tents of displaced families, on the streets, in vehicles, at a medical facility and in a classroom,” said United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. “Movement itself has become a life-threatening activity. Incidents of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces while walking, driving, or standing outside are recorded nearly every day.”

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) also confirmed that there have been increasing cases of Israeli forces killing Palestinians based on their proximity to the “yellow line”, a line of demarcation that divides the Palestinian-controlled areas of Gaza and the Israeli-controlled areas. “Targeting civilians not taking direct part in hostilities is a war crime, regardless of their proximity to deployment lines,” said Türk

On April 6, Israeli forces shot at vehicles from the World Health Organization (WHO), killing a driver. Two days later, Israeli drone strikes killed Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Washah in Gaza City, marking the 294th Palestinian journalist to be killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023. Additionally, Israel has continued to ban international journalists from accessing Gaza, further compounding the regional decline of journalistic freedom.

“The number of journalists and humanitarian personnel killed in Gaza is unprecedented, and further compounds civilian harm as it makes reporting on the situation and responding to its humanitarian implications life-threatening,” added Türk.

Internal displacement is particularly rampant, with OCHA estimating that routine evacuation orders and bombardment have affected roughly 92 percent of all housing across the enclave, with the vast majority of affected communities having been displaced multiple times. Civilians residing in overcrowded, makeshift encampments are disproportionately affected by insecurity, freezing temperatures, building collapse, and a severe shortage of humanitarian aid and basic services.

Humanitarian movement remains severely constrained, with all UNRWA staff banned from accessing the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory since March 2025. The agency, which has long acted as a critical lifeline for Palestinians, has pre-positioned food parcels, flour, and shelter supplies at Gaza’s borders, which could help hundreds of thousands of Gazans.

Thousands of Palestinians across the enclave are in urgent need of medical care as Gaza’s health system nears the brink of collapse, facing severe shortages of supplies amid an influx of injured and ill patients. Medications are critically short in supply, and UNRWA has reported a sharp uptick in cases of ectoparasitic infections such as scabies and fleas, as well as chickenpox and other skin diseases, which have been linked to disrupted water and hygiene (WASH) services, overcrowding, and pests.

Despite these challenges, humanitarian experts have expressed optimism that the situation in Gaza could improve as access constraints begin to fade. Following nearly 40 days of closure, the critical Zikim crossing reopened in early April, allowing nutritional and health supplies to reach northern Gaza directly. UNRWA is currently supporting over 67,000 displaced individuals across 83 collective emergency shelters, with over 11,000 personnel providing lifesaving care.

UNRWA, in collaboration with WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Palestine’s Ministry of Health, reached almost 2,100 children under three years of age with vaccinations between April 5 and 9. WHO and its partners have also been facilitating dozens of medical evacuations through the Rafah border crossing and providing access to medical care, food, water, and psychosocial services to returning Gazans.

The UN experts stressed that a definitive end to hostilities, an expansion of protection services, and the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid are crucial in coordinating an effective return to stability in Gaza. Additionally, the experts called on Israeli authorities to ensure a safe and dignified return to Gaza for displaced individuals, as well as the lifting of restrictions for UNRWA operations.

“We reiterate our call on States to bring Israel’s unlawful occupation to an end and ensure the immediate protection of civilians sheltering in displacement sites across the Gaza Strip, including by scaling up vital humanitarian assistance,” the experts said. “States must comply with their legal obligations. They must bring Israel’s unlawful occupation to an end, refrain from recognising it and withhold assistance to it, and take effective measures to ensure investigations and accountability for grave violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian Territory.”

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The GEF actively supports climate resilience and sustainable livelihoods in Zanzibar, with a specific focus on the seaweed farming sector, which is crucial for over 20,000 farmers—mostly women—in the region. Here a woman identified as Jazaa is pictured working as a seaweed farmer. She carefully attaches little seaweed seedlings to the rope that she will harvest after two months. Credit: Natalija Gormalova/Climate Visuals Countdown

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Apr 16 2026 (IPS)

The Global Environment Facility, widely known as the GEF, plays a central role in financing environmental protection across the world. It supports developing countries in tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, pollution, and threats to ecosystems.

Since its establishment in the early 1990s, the GEF has grown as a multilateral environmental fund, supporting projects in more than 170 countries.

Over time, the GEF has evolved into what it calls a “family of funds”, each targeting a specific global environmental challenge while operating under a shared strategic framework.

This explainer looks at how the GEF funding works, the origins of its financing model, and the role of six major funds that channel resources toward global environmental goals.

While the GEF predates the 1992 Rio ‘Earth’ Summit, its importance as a financial mechanism grew after the summit. Here UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali opens the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, which aimed to develop a global blueprint for balancing economic development with environmental protection. Credit: Michos Tzavaras/UN Photo

Origins of the GEF Funding Model

The GEF was created in 1991, before the Rio ‘Earth’ Summit in 1992, which aimed to develop a global blueprint for balancing economic development with environmental protection; however, its importance grew after the summit.

The Rio Summit produced three major environmental conventions. These were the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity, and, later in 1994, the Convention to Combat Desertification. The GEF became the financial mechanism for these agreements, meaning it mobilises and distributes funds to help countries implement them.

Over the past 35 years, the GEF has expanded its mandate. Today it supports multiple conventions and environmental initiatives through a structured set of trust funds. This architecture allows the facility to coordinate funding across different environmental priorities while maintaining specialised programs for each global commitment.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is now focusing on solving environmental problems together instead of separately. It looks at climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution as connected issues and works with governments, international groups, civil society, and businesses to address them.

The GEF Trust Fund was initially created to support multiple environmental agreements simultaneously. Over time, countries preferred more specific funding for their particular needs.

Because of these changes, the GEF now has different funds, each designed for different purposes and methods of giving money.

Some funds – like the Trust Fund, the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), and part of the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) – use a system that helps countries know in advance how much funding they can expect.

The GEF Trust Fund

The Global Environment Facility Trust Fund is the main source of funds for the GEF. It provides grants to support environmental projects in developing countries.

The Trust Fund finances activities across several environmental areas.

These include

• Biodiversity conservation,
• Climate change mitigation,
• Land degradation control,
• International waters management, and
• Chemicals and waste reduction.

Countries receive funding through a system known as the System for Transparent Allocation of Resources, or STAR, which distributes funds based on their environmental needs and eligibility.

Projects funded by the Trust Fund often focus on creating global environmental benefits. These may include:

• Protecting endangered species,
• Restoring ecosystems,
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and
• Improving pollution management systems.

The Trust Fund operates through periodic “replenishment” cycles. Donor countries pledge new contributions every four years, which allows the GEF to finance programs during the next funding period. For example, the GEF-9 cycle will cover the period from July 2026 to June 2030 and focus on scaling up environmental investments while mobilising private capital and strengthening country ownership of environmental policies.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has created Integrated Programs. These are special programs designed to address multiple environmental goals at the same time in a more coordinated and efficient way.

For example, the Food Systems Integrated Program does not fund separate projects for climate change, biodiversity, and land degradation. Instead, it combines them into one unified project, which helps achieve stronger and longer-lasting results while making better use of funding.

The GEF helps fund biodiversity across the globe, helping to create conditions to prevent the further endangerment of species like the Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii). Credit: Thomas Gabernig/Unsplash

Global Biodiversity Framework Fund

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund is a relatively new component of the GEF family of funds. It was created to help countries implement the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which was adopted in 2022 under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The biodiversity framework sets ambitious targets for protecting nature by 2030. Its most prominent targets include the “30 by 30” target, which calls for protecting at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean areas by the end of the decade.  The Framework also sets a 30 percent target for the restoration of ecosystems and a target of mobilising 30 billion dollars in international financial flows to developing countries for biodiversity action.

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund supports actions that help countries meet these targets.

Actions that are supported include the following:

• Expanding protected areas,
• Restoring degraded ecosystems,
• Protecting endangered species, and
• Strengthening biodiversity monitoring.

Another important focus is the integration of biodiversity into economic planning. Many projects supported by this fund work with governments and businesses to match financial flows with biodiversity goals. This means reducing financial support for activities that damage the environment and encouraging more sustainable farming, forestry, and fishing practices.

By providing targeted financing for biodiversity commitments, the fund helps translate global agreements into practical actions at the national and local levels.

It is also important to highlight that the fund sets a target of providing at least 20% of its resources to support actions by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This form of direct financing is unique for a multilateral environmental fund.  To date, this target has been exceeded and mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility are considering replicating this approach.

GEF-9 biodiversity investments will bring together four interconnected pathways:

• Scaling up financial flows to close the nature financing gap,
• Embedding environmental priorities in national development strategies,
• Mobilising private capital through blended finance, and
• Empowering Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and civil society as active conservation partners.

“A renewed emphasis on the Forest Biomes Integrated Program will continue directing investment into the landscapes most critical for achieving 30×30 – ensuring that GEF financing remains focused where the stakes are highest,” said Chizuru Aoki, the head of the GEF Conventions and Funds Division.

Medicinal and aromatic plant species, such as the baobab, are often exploited; however, the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing aims to ensure fair use of the planet’s genetic resources and secure benefits for Indigenous knowledge holders. Credit Noah Grossenbacher/Unsplash

Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund

The Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund supports countries in implementing the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing. This international agreement, part of the Convention on Biological Diversity, aims to make sure that the genetic resources of the planet are used fairly and equitably, with benefits shared with those who provide them.

Genetic resources include plants, animals, and microorganisms that are used in research and commercial products such as medicines, cosmetics, and agricultural technologies. Historically, many developing countries have expressed concerns that companies and researchers benefit from these resources without sharing profits or knowledge.

The Nagoya Protocol fixes these issues by requiring users to do the following:

• Get permission from the country providing the resources, and
• Agree on how benefits (like money or knowledge) will be shared.

The fund supports countries by helping them:

• Create laws and rules for using genetic resources,
• Improve monitoring systems, and
• Build skills among researchers and policymakers.

Projects funded also support Indigenous peoples and local communities, who often hold traditional knowledge associated with biological resources. Protecting this knowledge and ensuring fair compensation is a key objective of the Nagoya framework.

Least Developed Countries Fund

The Least Developed Countries Fund focuses on supporting climate adaptation in the world’s most vulnerable nations. These countries often face severe environmental risks but lack the finances and systems to respond efficiently.

The fund supports the preparation and implementation of National Adaptation Programs of Action and National Adaptation Plans. These are country-specific strategies that identify the most urgent climate risks facing each country and outline measures to reduce vulnerability.

Typical projects include the following:

• Strengthening climate-resilient agriculture,
• Improving water management systems,
• Protecting coastal zones, and
• Building early warning systems for extreme weather events.

Because many least developed countries face multiple environmental issues at once, the fund often supports integrated projects that address climate change alongside biodiversity conservation and land management.

This funding system makes sure that the poorest and most vulnerable countries get the help they need to deal with climate change, even though they did very little to cause it.

Villagers in Nyamisati, Rufiji District, wade through muddy tidal flats to plant mangrove seedlings—part of a grassroots effort to curb saline intrusion that has begun to poison nearby rice paddies as saltwater seeps underground. The initiative reflects growing local responses to environmental degradation driven by human activity along Tanzania’s coast. The GEF supports projects like these that help mitigate the impacts of climate change. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

Special Climate Change Fund

The Special Climate Change Fund supports climate action in developing countries and works alongside the Least Developed Countries Fund.

While the Least Developed Countries Fund focuses on the poorest nations, this fund helps other developing countries that are also affected by climate change.

It supports projects that:

• Help countries prepare for climate impacts,
• Include climate planning in development and infrastructure,
• Improve water management and agriculture.
• Reduce disaster risks, and
• Promote environmentally friendly technologies.

The SCCF also, in some cases, supports mitigation efforts, particularly when they involve innovative technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By financing both adaptation and mitigation initiatives, the fund contributes to global efforts to stabilise the climate system.

Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency Trust Fund

The Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency Trust Fund supports countries in implementing transparency requirements under the Paris Agreement.

Under this agreement, countries must regularly report their greenhouse gas emissions and track their progress on climate goals. However, many developing countries do not have the tools or skills to do this properly.

This fund helps by supporting:

• Training for government officials,
• Creation of national emissions data systems, and
• Better monitoring and reporting methods.

Strong reporting systems are important because they:

• Help track climate progress,
• Build trust between countries, and
• Ensure countries meet their commitments.

The fund helps developing countries improve their climate reporting so they can fully take part in global climate efforts.

How the “family of funds” works together

One of the defining features of the GEF funding model is that each part speaks to the others.

Think of it like a team of funds working together, rather than separate, isolated programs.

These funds are coordinated so they can:

• Support the same project from different angles,
• Avoid duplication (no overlapping funding for the same purpose), and
• Align with global environmental agreements.

For example:

• A biodiversity project might use:
  • The main GEF Trust Fund
  • Plus the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund
• A climate adaptation project could combine:
  • Least Developed Countries Fund
  • Special Climate Change Fund

This ‘family’ structure improves:

• Coordination, so different funds work in sync,
• Efficiency, so funds work with less waste and duplication, and
• Flexibility, so projects can tap into multiple funding sources.

Environmental problems are interconnected. A single project (like forest conservation) can:

• Reduce carbon emissions,
• Protect biodiversity,
• Improve water systems, and
• Avoid land degradation.

Because of the integrated funding system, the GEF can support all these goals at once, rather than funding them separately.

The “family of funds” is a coordinated funding system that allows the GEF to:

• Combine resources;
• Support complex, multi-sector projects; and
• Maximise environmental impact

The Future of GEF Financing

As global environmental crises grow, so does the demand for money and resources to meet climate and biodiversity needs. International assessments suggest that hundreds of billions of dollars are needed each year.

The GEF aims to play a “catalytic” role in closing this gap – in short, the GEF acts as a “catalyst” or tool for using limited public funds to unlock much larger investments.

Its funding model mobilises additional resources from

• Governments,
• Development banks, and
• Private investors.

“In practical terms, the mechanisms being supported in GEF-9 include debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swaps, green bonds, pooled investment vehicles, and outcome-based financing structures. Each of these can serve a different purpose depending on the context – but the common thread is that they allow the GEF to use its resources strategically to unlock much larger pools of capital from the private sector, multiplying the environmental impact that public funding alone could achieve,” Aoki said.

Note: This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

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Protesters demonstrate outside the Columbia University campus in New York City. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
 
For decades, five powerful actors—the United States, the Arab states, the European Union, AIPAC, and Israel’s own opposition—have all claimed to seek Israeli-Palestinian peace while enabling permanent occupation, together burying the two-state solution.

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Apr 15 2026 (IPS)

Every powerful actor in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict professes to seek peace. The US and EU repeat the two-state mantra, the Arab states invoke Palestinian rights, AIPAC proclaims its defense of Israel’s security, and Israeli opposition parties promise “responsible” leadership and stability.

Yet each, in its own way, has enabled and entrenched a destructive status quo—shielding Israel from accountability, normalizing permanent ruthless occupation, and rendering Palestinian statehood ever more illusory while fueling radicalization on both sides.

The US as the Prime Enabler

Successive US administrations have long recited support for a two-state solution, yet in practice, Washington has done more to bury that prospect than to realize it. For decades, the United States has shielded Israel from real international accountability while refusing to use its vast leverage to compel any meaningful movement toward Palestinian statehood.

By turning the “peace process” into an empty ritual, the US has provided cover for a status quo that is neither peaceful nor temporary.

At the same time, unconditional US military, financial, and diplomatic backing has enabled Israel’s relentless settlement expansion and creeping annexation of Palestinian land. American officials issue ritual complaints about settlements, but the financial and military aid kept flowing and the vetoes at the UN kept coming, signaling that no red line would ever be enforced.

This toxic mix of lofty rhetoric and impunity has locked both peoples into an ever more entrenched, zero-sum conflict and foreclosed the only viable formula—two states—for ending it.

The Gaza war has stripped away any remaining illusions. Even amid mass devastation and accusations of genocidal conduct, Washington has continued to arm and protect Israel diplomatically, becoming complicit in Israel’s war crimes. To be sure, in the name of protecting Israel, the United States has gravely imperiled Israel’s viability as a democratic state and its long-term security while setting the stage for the next violent conflagration, to Israel’s detriment.

The Arab States’ Shortcomings

The Arab states, though never tiring of affirming the justice of the Palestinian cause and the necessity of a two-state solution, have consistently fallen short of their words. Although they possess enormous strategic weight—withholding or granting diplomatic recognition, and opening markets, energy, airspace, and security cooperation—they have rarely used these tools to force Israel to choose between occupation and peace with the Palestinians.

This failure has signaled to Israel that it can normalize relations with some Arab states, à la the Abraham Accords, while maintaining its grip on Palestinian land without risking any backlash.

Even in the face of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, most Arab governments limited themselves to statements, summits, and carefully choreographed outrage that stopped well short of meaningful pressure.

The Arab states that normalized relations with Israel continued to protect key political and economic ties, while the front-line states—Egypt and Jordan—maintained security coordination that shielded Israel from real strategic isolation.

By doing so little when so much was at stake, Arab states have become, in effect, accomplices to the perpetuation of the conflict they denounce. Their inaction has left Palestinians without a credible Arab shield, allowed Israel to entrench settlement and annexation, and pushed the two-state solution—the only realistic path to a just peace and security for both Israel and the Palestinians—to the wayside.

The EU’s Shortsightedness

The European Union is Israel’s largest trading partner and a major source of investment, technology, and diplomatic legitimacy. Yet, it has systematically refused to wield this considerable leverage to force a choice between occupation and peace with the Palestinians.

Instead of linking market access, research cooperation, or association agreements to clear benchmarks on settlements and Palestinian rights, Brussels has largely confined itself to criticism and symbolic measures that Israel has comfortably ignored.

The EU’s posture has effectively insulated Israel from serious economic or diplomatic consequences for entrenching an apartheid one-state reality of perpetual domination.

At the same time, although individual EU states, including France, the United Kingdom, and Spain, have recognized the Palestinian state, they have done virtually nothing to turn that recognition into hard power; arms exports and trade preferences continue with Israel as usual. Recognition becomes a cheap, cost-free declaration rather than a meaningful constraint on Israeli policy.

Thus, EU passivity has helped normalize occupation and settlement expansion while leaving Palestinians without an effective European counterweight, making a genuine two-state solution ever more remote, to the detriment of both Israel and the Palestinians.

AIPAC’s Culpability

AIPAC presents itself as a friend of Israel. Still, by relentlessly reinforcing the country’s most hardline positions, it has turned “pro-Israel” into a rigid orthodoxy that equates any pressure on Israeli governments with betrayal, thereby narrowing the range of policies American lawmakers feel politically safe to support.

For decades, AIPAC has backed Israeli governments without qualification—endorsing military campaigns, providing political cover for settlement expansion, and supporting a maximalist posture toward the Palestinians.

It rallies Congress behind unconditional aid, arms transfers, and diplomatic protection. This has helped Israeli leaders believe they can permanently deepen occupation and de facto annexation while still counting on automatic American support.

AIPAC has refused to use its considerable leverage to press for peace-oriented concessions and territorial compromise. Instead, it has rendered the two state solution an empty slogan while supporting the Israeli policies that make it impossible. In doing so, AIPAC has directly contributed to the ever worsening conflict and put Israel’s security under constant threat.

Still, AIPAC has not awakened from its blind support that jeopardizes Israel’s very existence and, with that, scuttles any prospect for an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Israeli Opposition Parties’ Dismal Failure

Israel’s opposition parties have failed to offer a credible, sustained alternative to the right’s permanent conflict paradigm, and in doing so have gravely weakened Israel’s chances for peace. Instead of forcefully championing a two-state solution, most opposition leaders tiptoe around the very words “Palestinian state,” intimidated by electoral backlash and the charge of being “soft” on security. Their political inaptitude has allowed the right to define what is “realistic,” narrowing the political options to endless occupation and recurrent war.

Thus, they have directly contributed to the current impasse, making the conflict ever more intractable. Without a major party willing to argue that Israel’s long-term security depends on a two-state solution, the public hears only variations of the same message: manage, contain, punish, but never resolve. This abdication cedes the strategic debate to the extremist Netanyahu and his messianic lunatics, who are creepingly implementing their scheme of greater Israel, which would bury any prospect for peace.

It is a dire reality for the country that the opposing parties failed to coalesce and present a united front to push for a two-state solution, even following the Gaza war, which has unequivocally demonstrated that after nearly 80 years of conflict, only peace would provide Israel with ultimate security.

Every leader from these parties feels they are the most qualified to be the prime minister, but has failed miserably to offer realistic plans to end the conflict.

By failing to unite, organize, educate, and mobilize Israelis around a clear two state vision, these parties are undermining Israel’s security, eroding its international standing, and endangering its very future as a Jewish, democratic state.

The record of these five enablers is devastating. They made a just peace ever more remote, pushing Israel precariously toward an apartheid one state reality it cannot sustain morally, demographically, or strategically, while abandoning the Palestinians to the cruelest, inhumane occupation.

They must change course now—or condemn Israelis and Palestinians to generations of bloodshed that will erase Israel’s reason for being and extinguish Palestinian nationhood.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

IPS UN Bureau

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