The battery was moved from the eastern island of Karpathos to Crete, where there is a major US base at Souda, the reports said.
The aim is to bolster air defence around Souda‘s strategically important naval and air facilities, which serve both the Greek Armed Forces and the United States and NATO.
The Souda base plays a pivotal role in supporting allied operations across the wider region, making its protection particularly critical under the current security conditions.
We urgently call for the deployment of a protection force in Sudan to protect and deter attacks against civilians amid the escalating violence between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). A robust force is vital to protect women, children, and at-risk communities, ensuring their safety and facilitating humanitarian aid. Sign the petition and demand deployment of a Protection Force in Sudan now.
(August 13, 2026)
In August 2025, the Security Council unanimously decided to extend the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which first deployed in 1978, one final time until the end of 2026, when it would begin a phased withdrawal. That decision came before the latest escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in March 2026—and before Israeli forces displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians and occupied large swathes of southern Lebanon. Deliberate acts of displacement may amount to the war crime of forced displacement.
“Pulling the plug on UNIFIL without a robust international force in place would effectively abandon millions of Lebanese civilians to an uncertain and potentially disastrous fate,” said Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch. “UN missions may not be a lasting solution, but the peacekeepers are a crucial deterrent against attacks on civilians and human rights abuses.”
President Joseph Aoun welcomed the parliamentary initiative and petition calling for an extension of the international forces’ mandate in southern Lebanon.
He said UNIFIL’s presence in the south is important for several reasons, including helping residents remain in their towns and villages and promoting stability in coordination with the Lebanese Army.
(August 17, 2026)
He said Israel had opposed UNIFIL‘s presence and „has been pressing in that direction for nearly a year,“ while Lebanon continued to call for the mission to remain.
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UNIFIL has been deployed since 1978 to monitor the ceasefire along the Lebanese-Israeli border and support the Lebanese Armed Forces in southern Lebanon.
Its current mandate is due to expire on December 31, 2026.
The Lincoln originally deployed Nov. 21 from San Diego, and it arrived in the Middle East in January, ahead of the launch of the Iran war on Feb. 28. The Navy conceded that the conflict created a „highly contested environment where traditional supply hubs in the Middle East were disrupted by combat actions.“ That, in turn, led to shortages and loss of mail aboard the aircraft carrier, the Navy said in a statement.
„Leadership prioritized mission-critical supplies: first food, then hygiene items, then mail,“ the statement said, before assuring that sailors aboard the ship now have access to clean water and „healthy meal options.“
Iraqi political leaders agreed on a mechanism for armed factions to hand over their weapons to the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), which would register and store the arms under state supervision, a source in the leading Shiite Coordination Framework told Shafaq News on Sunday.
Under the agreement, the PMF —a state security organization comprising mostly Shiite armed factions— would take custody of the weapons, document their types and storage locations, and oversee any subsequent movement of arms or personnel under orders from the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Falih al-Zaidi emphasized that regional issues should be resolved through dialogue, while recalling the end date of the US coalition mission in Iraq.
He also announced September 30 as the final deadline for the withdrawal of US coalition forces from Iraq.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his country has rejected the latest US-backed peace plan for Gaza, demanding the full disarmament of Hamas before any Israeli forces withdraw.
The comments come more than a week after Trump announced a breakthrough in negotiations, with his Board of Peace (BoP) issuing a new 15-point plan aimed at securing lasting peace in the territory
During Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi‘s visit to Washington, the United States and Iraq reaffirmed that all remaining U.S. military forces would withdraw from Iraq by 30 September 2026, marking the end of the U.S.-led military mission in the country.
The list was produced during meetings between Lebanon and Israel at the US embassy in Rome this week, the latest round of talks on how to implement a previous deal on 26 June that linked Israel‘s progressive withdrawal of troops from Lebanon to the disarmament of Hezbollah, which would be „verified“ by a third party.
Hezbollah is not a party to the agreement and has refused to give up its arsenal.
„We have reached a short list of countries. We decided which parties were impossible for each and set the potential actors,“ the Lebanese official said.
„The Americans will now decide, and could pick more than one country.“
Israel has since seized additional Palestinian territory and now controls more than 60 percent of the enclave, with Netanyahu even saying that the aim is to increase to around 70 percent.
The reported movements involve personnel and equipment being transferred between Harir Air Base, Erbil International Airport and the US consulate compound, in what sources described as preparations for the withdrawal of remaining US troops under a September 2024 agreement between Washington and Baghdad.
(July 31, 2026)
The battle to restore the State institutions and eliminate the militias‘ coup isn‘t just the army‘s battle, but it is everybody‘s fight, al-Alimi stressed.
The President emphasized that the current stage requires political parties to reclaim their natural role as forces of enlightenment, mobilization and rallying against threats, to restore respect for the idea of the national state and to reinforce the isolation of militias and their destructive agenda.
The political parties need to make the battle to restore the State institutions a matter for the whole society, not only a government‘s task or issue, al-Alimi noted.
Fourteen countries have backed a Saudi proposal to establish a multinational “Maritime Defense Alliance,” aimed at protecting international shipping routes and global trade, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement Thursday.
The countries are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia.
The ministry said military chiefs and other representatives from 43 countries attended a meeting on the initiative, either in person or by video link. A European Union delegation also took part.
The announcement that Hamas has agreed to a roadmap for its disarmament can now shift that dynamic, yet it is unlikely things will change on the ground anytime soon.
“The last thing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants going into October’s elections is US pressure to withdraw from Gaza, and it’s likely he will foot-drag any further negotiations as much as possible,” Norman said.
Hamas official Ghazi Hamad has told Al Jazeera that the group “made concessions for the sake of our Palestinian people”.
“Our primary objective is to protect our people in the Gaza Strip from the ongoing hostile measures and criminal plans pursued by the Israeli occupation,” he said.
“The agreement is a package,” Hamad said. “We will not begin any weapons-related steps until Israel implements these commitments. Frankly, if Israel does not implement them, we will not proceed.”
Hamad said Israel must first cease fire, stop all targeted killings in Gaza, withdraw its troops to the Yellow Line and allow for a surge of humanitarian aid consistent with the October ceasefire agreement. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a Palestinian technocratic committee appointed by the Board of Peace, must also enter Gaza and take over governance of the strip.
The NCAG will assume control of weapons belonging to Hamas’s police force in Gaza, Hamad said.
The agreement concludes months of intensive, good faith negotiations to advance President Donald J. Trump‘s vision for establishing new governance, security, humanitarian relief, reconstruction, and economic recovery in Gaza as set out in the Comprehensive Peace Plan and U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803.
The Roadmap represents a historic breakthrough. For the first time, Hamas officially has committed to an actionable plan for relinquishing all its weapons, which will be followed by Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
While the new blockade has disrupted shipping in the region, Ansar Allah hasn’t announced a blanket ban on shipping through the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Some Chinese ships loaded with Saudi crude have also been able to pass through the strait, and Reuters reported that Beijing had cleared each passage with Sanaa.
But as the US-Iran war and conflict across the region are escalating again, the chances of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait being completely closed are rising. The Al-Monitor report, which cited two diplomatic sources and an unnamed US official, said that Riyadh has invited around 50 nations to join the Red Sea coalition, but that US support was seen as vital for the initiative to take off, and it was unclear at this point if Washington would participate.
Der Bundestag hat am Donnerstag, 16. Oktober 2025, den Bundeswehreinsatz im Roten Meer um ein Jahr verlängert. Dazu lag ein Antrag der Bundesregierung für die fortgesetzte Beteiligung der Bundeswehr an der EU-geführten Operation Eunavfor Aspides zur Abwehr von Angriffen der Huthi-Milizen auf die Schifffahrt im Roten Meer vor (21/1372(Dokument, öffnet ein neues Fenster)). In namentlicher Abstimmung wurde der Antrag auf Empfehlung des Auswärtigen Ausschusses mit 435 Ja-Stimmen bei 69 Gegenstimmen und 77 Enthaltungen angenommen.
(January 30, 2026)
Die Bundeswehr beteiligt sich seit 2015 am internationalen Anti-IS-Einsatz. Die Mission wird von einer breiten Koalition aus mehr als 70 Ländern getragen – darunter auch Deutschland.
Die Personalobergrenze von 500 deutschen Soldatinnen und Soldaten wird unverändert beibehalten.
Das aktuelle Mandat ist bis zum 31. Januar 2027 verlängert worden.
Participants discussed possible responses to the attacks, including the option of carrying out military retaliation or refraining from any action.
The sources added that “the factions are facing significant political and government pressure not to escalate militarily,” amid concerns that any retaliation could trigger serious security and political repercussions inside Iraq and further widen the regional conflict.
During Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi‘s visit to Washington, the United States and Iraq reaffirmed that all remaining U.S. military forces would withdraw from Iraq by 30 September 2026, marking the end of the U.S.-led military mission in the country.
The structural reason attribution stays murky is itself worth naming because the „Islamic Resistance in Iraq“ is not a single group but an umbrella of interchangeable front names, staffed largely by Kataib Hezbollah personnel, under which the harder-line factions operate. Attacks surface under disposable labels while the parent organizations issue denials, distributing deniability by design. In that framework, the absence of a claim is not evidence of an outside hand; it is the system working as intended.
Which leaves open a possibility that neither the proxy-signal nor the internal-defiance reading captures: that the strikes serve simply to manufacture instability in a region whose neutrality makes it a soft and symbolically useful target. When drones are intercepted over the cities, their debris cleared and their intended target never confirmed, even the object of the attack becomes a matter of inference.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan, which helped broker an interim deal last month in the war between Washington and Tehran, signed a mutual defence agreement with Saudi Arabia last year and thousands of Pakistani soldiers have been deployed to the kingdom, alongside a squadron of fighter jets.
Pakistan had already voiced anger about Iranian strikes on Saudi Arabia earlier this year, but regional analysts and officials said the attacks this week had pushed Islamabad‘s frustration with Iran to a new level as they raised the prospect of a new Saudi-Houthi conflict.
RAMALLAH, July 4, 2026 (WAFA) – Presidential Spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh affirmed that the organized terrorism carried out by colonist gangs against Palestinian villages and towns in Jenin, Nablus, Jerusalem, and Hebron in the occupied West Bank is a dangerous escalation of violence.
In a statement, Abu Rudeineh said the attacks have included assaults on homes and residents, the burning of agricultural land, the uprooting and destruction of olive trees, damage to private property, and the seizure of water sources.
He said the escalation, carried out with the direct protection and support of the Israeli army, which continues its daily policy of killing in the Gaza Strip, necessitates immediate international intervention to provide international protection for the Palestinian people before the situation spirals out of control.
During nearly three years of brutal conflict, civilians in North Darfur have been unlawfully detained, tortured and killed on a massive scale. Women and girls have been raped and forced into sexual slavery. Children have not just been the collateral damage of this violence: very often, they are deliberate targets.
This report documents the Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF’s) slow and violent takeover of North Darfur and its capital, El Fasher, after it began fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in April 2023. The abuses, which amount to crimes against humanity under international law, displaced hundreds of thousands of children, exposing them to death and injury during attacks or while fleeing. Countless children have been orphaned.
Sudan’s current crisis erupted against the backdrop of decades of armed conflict. When major violence escalated in April 2023 between the SAF and the RSF (a former government force), fighting was first concentrated in the capital, Khartoum. But it soon spread to other parts of the country, including Darfur, a region on the western border with Chad that has been wracked by cycles of conflict since the early 2000s. By November 2023, the RSF controlled four of the five state capitals in Darfur.
El Fasher was the lone holdout and last major stronghold in Darfur for the SAF and the allied Joint Forces (a coalition of local armed groups that draws heavily from the Zaghawa ethnic group). The area is of particular strategic importance due to its sizeable gold reserves and its position as a geographical hub linking Darfur to Libya and Chad along trans-Saharan trade routes. It became a prize the RSF seemed willing to take at any price – something made possible by the steady flow of weapons and other equipment from its foreign backers, most notably the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
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TO THE AFRICAN UNION PEACE AND SECURITY COUNCIL
– Apply sustained political pressure on the RSF, SAF and all other parties to the conflict in Sudan to immediately agree to and implement a nationwide ceasefire accompanied by a sustainable framework for longer-term security and stability, human rights protection, justice and accountability. Regardless of progress towards a ceasefire, use all available leverage to urge all parties to immediately end attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, ensure safe and unfettered humanitarian access into North Darfur, and urgently facilitate the scaling up of humanitarian funding and response commensurate with the scale of civilian need.
– In line with the recommendation of the ACHPR’s Joint Fact-Finding Mission on the Human Rights Situation in the Republic of the Sudan, and given the ongoing risk to civilians, urgently establish and deploy a protection force to Sudan with a mandate to protect and deter attacks against civilians, prevent atrocities, create the security conditions conducive to the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and monitor and publicly report on attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure. Ensure the protection force is adequately resourced, equipped and supported to operate effectively, including through predictable and sustainable financing.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during its campaign to seize El Fasher in North Darfur state in Sudan, Amnesty International concluded in a major new report. The organization is now calling for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan, and for the urgent deployment of an international force to protect civilians.