(October 24, 2025)
The USS Gravely (DDG-107) will visit Trinidad and Tobago from October 26 to 30, mooring in Port of Spain, while the 22nd U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit will train alongside the Trinidad and Tobago Defense Force (TTDF) during the same week. The U.S. military services’ presence in Trinidad and Tobago is part of the longstanding cooperation between the United States and Trinidad and Tobago.
US State Department said on Friday that Steve Fagin, a career diplomat, will work alongside US Army Lieutenant General Patrick Frank, the military head already appointed to the hub set up after the October 10 ceasefire.
Some 200 US troops were sent to the centre, set up in a rented warehouse, where they work with soldiers from Israel and European countries, representatives of the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, and personnel from the United Nations and aid groups.
A European and US-backed UN security council motion to give a planned international stabilisation force robust powers to control security inside Gaza is being prepared, with the strong expectation that Egypt will lead it, diplomats have said.
The US is pressing for the force to have a UN mandate without being a fully fledged UN peacekeeping force and will operate with the kind of powers given to international troops operating in Haiti to combat armed gangs.
Turkey, Indonesia and Azerbaijan are also being billed alongside Egypt as the main troop contributors.
“No one expects that the force would fight Hamas,” a western diplomat told the Financial Times. They argued that the mere presence of the force would make it harder for either side to resume the conflict even if it did “absolutely nothing”.
There are reasons for scepticism about whether the ISF could reliably prevent either side from acting, as illustrated by a recent grenade attack by an Israeli drone near UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. There may be wider lessons from that deployment. You might have a model similarly mandated to patrol and report on ceasefire violations. But in southern Lebanon, they have been pretty toothless.
Also 18 Turkish citizens, detained aboard the ships of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, had been taken to Ketziot Detention Center in Israel, and Turkish Consulate officials were set to meet them face-to-face, they added.
The sources also emphasized that all necessary steps had been taken to ensure the Turkish citizens‘ return to their country as soon as possible, including the arrangement of a special flight.
Watch the full conversation above or on YouTube to also hear David discuss his treatment as a Jewish activist receiving “special interrogation by Ben-Gvir” and the US’s lack of response to his illegal detention.
People were taken individually out of their cells and regularly beaten, handcuffed, ankle-cuffed, and left in solitary confinement. This happened many times over many days. We were denied the most basic things, like critical access to insulin for diabetic detainees that were part of the flotilla. In short, we were treated as terrorists, just as national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had promised.
From the first moment that we stepped onto that tarmac after interception, we were violently forced onto our knees into positions of submission. The two Jews of the flotilla were taken by the rear and ripped from the group for a photo op with Ben-Gvir — staring at the flag of the State of Israel and taunted by his goons. Thus began a five-day nightmare of serial and systematic violation of our most basic rights. Reports varied from the different cellblocks. But one report that is consistent is that we were all denied food and water. At all times, we were denied access to medicine based on the whims of individual officers working shifts.
(…)
Of course, all of this pales in comparison to the treatment that Palestinians endure every single day. Eleven thousand of them are in indefinite detention at the moment, including in the same internment camp where we were held as terrorists by Israel.
The Palestinian flag was raised outside Palestine‘s mission to the UK in London on Monday after Keir Starmer made a statement over the weekend formally recognising a Palestinian state.
(September 12, 2025)
The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) summoned the Russian ambassador to Bucharest on September 11 to convey its position of firm condemnation of the violation of Polish airspace by Russian drones, according to a ministry‘s press release.
„The Romanian side stressed that, by its gravity, implications and scope, the incident represents an unprecedented escalation, as well as a threat to the security of the citizens of an Allied state and strategic partner of Romania,“ the MAE said.
The incident, reported by Israeli broadcaster KAN, has not elicited immediate responses from either the UAE or Israeli foreign ministries.
This development underscores growing tensions and the fragile nature of regional relations as the situation continues to unfold.
A billionaire real estate investor, Barrack, like his boss at the White House, has chaffed at the traditional US foreign policy establishment – including its preference for maintaining quiet ties with American establishment media. Instead, he has given shoot-from-the-hip style interviews.
On Thursday, he called himself an “events-driven mercenary”.
“What’s going on in Gaza makes the rest of the Arab world totally freaked out,” Barrack said.
“In Israel’s mind, these lines that were created by Sykes-Picot are meaningless. They will go where they want, when they want, and do what they want to protect the Israelis and their borders,” Barrack said.
(August 26, 2025)
Open Letter co-signed by 209 former EU and Member State Ambassadors and Senior Staff
Issued ahead of informal meeting of Foreign Ministers Gymnich, 29 – 30 Aug 2025
Addressed to:
Heads of State and Government, and Foreign Ministers of the EU 27 Member States
President of the European Council
President of the European Commission
President of European Parliament
High Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy / VP of the Commission
Commissioners for: Mediterranean; Trade; Equality, Preparedness & Crisis Management
Chair, Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET), European Parliament
(August 28, 2025)
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, at least eight people were killed in the Russian airstrikes in Kiev, and dozens were injured. The Kyiv Independent newspaper reported the death toll was at least 10.
The Russian military used not only drones but also ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missiles.
Russia has killed at least 23 people including four children in a massive wave of drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s capital that has drawn international condemnation.
Sir Keir Starmer accused Vladimir Putin of “sabotaging hopes of peace” with the attacks that took place in the early hours of Thursday and saw more than 600 drones and over 30 missiles launched.
We, a group now comprising 206 former EU and Member State ambassadors and senior officials, are writing in furtherance of the nine proposed EU actions that we compiled in our open letter of 28 July, in response to the Israeli government’s unlawful actions in Gaza and the West Bank, following Hamas’ heinous attacks on 7 October 2023. We note with dismay that, in the ensuing four weeks since our letter, no ceasefire has been agreed in Gaza, no Israeli hostages
have been released, and, alarmingly, the Israeli government has begun implementing plans to empty Gaza City and its environs of one million Palestinians, by forcing them into concentration areas in the south, in preparation for possible large-scale deportations to third countries with the risk of fomenting a migration crisis. If this was not bad enough the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed on 22 August that a man-made famine now exists in these same areas of Gaza, with half a million people there facing starvation, destitution and death. Malnutrition now threatens the lives of 132,000 children under five through June 2026 and by the end of September 2025 it is estimated
that 640,000 people (a third of the population) will face catastrophic levels of food insecurity. Tragically, already over 200 Gazan citizens, including over 60 children, have succumbed to malnutrition-related deaths. Furthermore:
● Estimates suggest that just since our letter of 28 July more than 2,600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, many of them women and children, with over 12,000 injured;
………………………..
An unprecedented number of former EU and national ambassadors, as well as former senior EU officials, have signed a fresh letter urging the EU to take tougher action against Israel over the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The joint letter has been signed by 206 former European ambassadors and officials.
That compares to a previous letter sent in July, which had 58 signatures.
U.S. and British warplanes indiscriminately bombed Dresden with munitions including 4,000-pound „blockbusters“ and incendiary explosives over two days in February 1945. The heat generated by the inferno melted human flesh, turning many victims into piles of goop. Men, women, children; the sick and the elderly; refugees and Allied prisoners of war—even the animals in the city zoo—were incinerated together.
Acclaimed author Kurt Vonnegut—an American POW imprisoned in Dresden at the time, whose seminal novel Slaughterhouse-Five was inspired by the firebombing—later described the attack as „carnage unfathomable.“ After viewing images of the bombing, then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked: „Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?“
As the old adage posits, „history is written by the victors,“ and no Allied officials were ever held accountable for atrocities committed against their Axis enemies. However, after the war, the Nuremberg trials, Fourth Geneva Convention, and Genocide Convention sought to ensure that horrors like Nazi and Japanese war crimes and what the British described as the „terror bombing“ of Germany never happened again.
(August 6, 2025)
Kühn von Burgsdorff served as EU ambassador to Palestinian occupied territories and the Gaza Strip between January 2020 and July 2023. He was recently a coordinator of a letter sent by 27 former EU ambassadors – and subsequently endorsed by 58 – to heads of governments and EU institutions on July 10, calling for actions against Israel due to the ongoing situations in Gaza and in the West Bank.
(July 23, 2025)
The world will remember how the EU and its member states respond to this catastrophic tragedy.
Silence and neutrality in the face of genocide constitute complicity. Inaction emboldens perpetrators and betrays every principle the Union and its member states claim to uphold.
While continuing to call unceasingly for the return of the hostages, a permanent ceasefire and the end to the war, the European Union, long a champion of human rights and the rule of law, must act now in the name of international law, humanity, and justice for the Palestinian people — or risk forfeiting its credibility, influence and moral standing in the world.
Several activists told Middle East Eye that they had intensified their campaign to end what they called South Africa‘s complicity in Israel‘s war on Gaza, where more than 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded and the entire population is facing famine.
Zukiswa Wanner, a writer and activist, said that many South Africans had thought Pretoria‘s decision to take Israel to the International Court of Justice in late 2023 would result in a swift end to the 22-month conflict, but Israel, with full Western backing, continued its war on Gaza.
„Almost two years later, Israel has not relented and we continue seeing the horror visited on the Palestinians,“ Wanner told MEE.
„As individuals, we are all quite powerless on pushing the stop of the genocide – but as citizens – we can demand of our government that they finalise this small thing: South Africa can‘t be having normal relations with an abnormal, genocidal government.
(June 12, 2025)
Here‘s what the president said earlier today.
Donald Trump, President of the United States: Well, I don‘t want to say imminent, but it looks like it‘s something that could very well happen.
Look, it‘s very simple, not complicated. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Other than that, I want them to be successful. I want them to be tremendous. We will help them be successful. We will trade with them. We will do whatever is necessary. I want to have an agreement with Iran. We‘re fairly close to an agreement. As long as I think there is an agreement, I don‘t want them going in, because I think That would blow it.
Might help it, actually, but it also could blow it. There‘s a chance of massive conflict. We have a lot of American people in this area. And I said, we got to tell them to get out because something could happen soon.
(June 12, 2025)
CENTCOM added that it was “monitoring the developing tension.”
According to US and Iraqi sources cited by Reuters, “the US is preparing a partial evacuation of its Iraqi embassy and will allow military dependents to leave locations around the [region] due to heightened security risks.”
The sources did not say what prompted the concerns over security risks.
(June 12, 2025)
While the exact cause of the shift in posture remains unclear, a defence official told CNN that US Central Command (CENTCOM) is monitoring “developing tension in the Middle East.”
President Donald Trump, commenting on the situation, said, “They are being moved out because it could be a dangerous place… we’ve given notice to move out, and we’ll see what happens.
CNN reported that the voluntary departure of military dependents from locations across the region has been authorized by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. “The safety and security of our service members and their families remains our highest priority,” an official said.
The suspect in a shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., shouted pro-Palestinian chants after he fatally shot two Israeli embassy workers, authorities said.
(…)
The Israeli foreign ministry identified the victims as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim.
A European diplomat said the group had gone to the area „to see the destruction“ caused by months of Israeli operations.
The Israeli military claimed that „the delegation deviated from the approved route“, prompting troops to fire „warning shots“ to keep them away from „an area where they were not authorised to be“.
The incident sparked condemnation from nations around the world.
The delegation included the ambassadors of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, the European Union, Portugal, China, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Turkey, Spain, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Japan, Romania, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Canada, India, Chile, France, the United Kingdom, and several representatives of other countries.
(April 10, 2025)
Activists from Greenpeace UK poured blood-red dye into the pond at the US embassy in London.
The red dye highlights the death and devastation caused in Gaza as a direct result of the US’ continued sale of weapons, ammunition and military hardware to Israel.
Greenpeace UK is urging the US and UK governments to stop selling arms to Israel immediately.
Iran‘s foreign ministry characterized the indirect discussions with the U.S. in Oman as „constructive“ and generally „positive“ in a statement released shortly after the talks concluded. The discussions centered on Iran‘s nuclear program and Washington’s sanctions against the country.
Emphasizing the indirect nature of the talks, the statement noted that the Iranian and American delegations were situated in separate halls for the two-and-a-half-hour negotiation, communicating through written messages. At the end of the session, Iran‘s Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Special Envoy to West Asia Steve Witkoff had a brief face-to-face encounter and “exchanged greetings out of courtesy” as they departed.
Middle East envoy Steve Wiktoff, alongside U.S. Ambassador to Oman Ana Escrogima, spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Saturday in a nearly two-and-a-half-hour-long meeting that was mediated by Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidy.
The two sides started talking at about 3:30 p.m. local time and finished at around 5:50 p.m. They were held just outside of Muscat, the capital of Oman.
The participation of the Israeli ambassador was unexpected, according to Al-Jazeera’s correspondent, who spoke to diplomatic sources at the meeting.
The sources said that delegations from several African countries objected to his presence, and the meeting was paused until his departure.
The African Union is reportedly conducting an investigation to determine who invited him.
Minister Abdel Aty highlighted the broad regional and international support for Egypt‘s reconstruction plan. He announced ongoing preparations for an international conference in Cairo to secure the necessary funding for the plan‘s implementation.
Additionally, he proposed that the United Nations Security Council consider establishing an international presence in Palestinian territories, potentially through deploying peacekeeping or protection forces, to ensure stability and support the path toward establishing an independent Palestinian state.
The talks in Istanbul follow a phone call between Trump and President Vladimir Putin on February 12, and a high-level diplomatic meeting in Saudi Arabia six days later.
The Russian team arrived in a black Mercedes van for the meeting at the gated residence of the U.S. consul general in Istanbul. Russian state TV said the talks were expected to last five to six hours.