A banner depicting US President Donald Trump and bearing messages was displayed in front of the Zolfaghar and Zolghadr ballistic missiles exhibited at Azadi Square in Tehran, Iran’s capital, on August 2, 2026.
(Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
As it becomes clear that there is “no escalatory military path out of this war,” Iran is demanding an even steeper toll for Trump to pull out.
President Donald Trump is now quietly conceding that he’s willing to walk away from his Iran war without meeting all of his demands if they agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran won’t let him back out of the quagmire without a steep price.
Iran is in the process of negotiating a limited reopening of the critical waterway with Oman. But Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Saturday that “until America corrects its behavior, the Strait of Hormuz will not open.”
He outlined a list of demands on Saturday, even harsher than those Trump walked away from when he abandoned the “memorandum of understanding” negotiated in June.
Zolghadr said the US must permanently end its war and naval blockade against Iran, and withdraw military forces from the region. He also said the US must fully compensate Iran for damages from the war, lift sanctions, and unfreeze assets abroad.
This demand for an end to US “aggression” applies not just to Iran, but to its allies in the region: Zolghadr also demanded an end to Israel’s attacks on Palestinians and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, as well as an end to US and Israeli attacks against the Houthis in Yemen.
The Trump administration, which is not known to be in direct talks with Iran, has not yet responded to the demands. Trump told Axios on Sunday that “We are low-keying it” and “only semi-negotiating with Iran,” claiming that it was “in very bad shape” economically.
It’s clear, however, that the Iranians believe they have enough of an upper hand to make Trump grovel, especially as news emerges that the US has burned through nearly all its available stocks of long-range precision weapons, making the war increasingly costly, though the administration has denied this.
Domestic concerns are also weighing on Trump. Over the past month, as the war heated up again, average gas prices in the US have shot back up above $4 a gallon, a major liability for Republicans heading into a midterm election cycle in which many voters say the cost of living is a top concern.
Approval of Trump among Americans has fallen to a new all-time low of 34% according to a YouGov poll late last month. And just 28% of Americans say they approve of his handling of the war, according to an Associated Press/NORC poll.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, Trump has privately signaled a willingness to declare victory if Iran opens the strait, even without getting any sort of nuclear agreement, which was purportedly the reason he launched the war in the first place.
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Trump was “showing his desperation for a deal before it is completed, so Iran predictably demand[ed] major new concessions,” adding that it was a “masterclass in how not to negotiate.”
“As time passes, Tehran appears increasingly confident that the pressure is shifting onto Washington,” said the Israeli national security analyst Danny Citrinowicz. “Iranian leaders seem to believe that the United States is now more eager than Iran to bring the confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz to an end, and, crucially, that Washington has few attractive military options for changing that equation.”
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told CNN, “At this point, it is absolutely clear that there is no escalatory military path out of this war.”
“It’s been tried in several different variations, and it has not ended up particularly well,” Parsi said. “In fact, the US’s position has been weakened, in my view, by additional military action. And as a result, I think there needs to be a full dedication to the diplomatic pathway.”
He added that for the Iranians, “the promise and the credibility of sanctions relief will carry far more weight than threats of further bombings.”
What happened in the Nablus-area town of Tell lays bare a land war designed to make Palestinian permanence impossible.
Mohammad al-Ayoubi, The Cradle, AUG 4, 2026
Photo Credit: The Cradle
In the Palestinian town of Tell, southwest of Nablus, residents attempted to repel an armed settler assault. Their response was quickly used to justify collective punishment. The army sealed the roads while settlers attacked homes and property, each advancing the same campaign of dispossession. The assault on Tell exposed a campaign already underway across the occupied West Bank.
Abdullah Abu Rahma, director of popular action at the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, tells The Cradle that the violence belongs to a plan unfolding according to a set timetable:
“It is true that attacks have increased markedly in recent days in terms of the number of martyrs, the demolition of property, and restrictions on movement, but they fall within a broader plan drawn up years ago. The events in Tell gave [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu’s government the political and media pretext to accelerate what had already been planned, exploiting them as justification before its domestic audience to create the impression that its actions against the Palestinians are warranted.”
The figures bear out the scale of that campaign. The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission recorded 11,074 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers during the first half of 2026. Of these, 3,488 were carried out by settlers, including assaults on villages, arson, shootings, land seizures, and the establishment of settlement outposts. The commission says settler attacks killed 17 Palestinians during that period.
The occupied West Bank is also being broken into ever smaller enclaves. As of December 2025, OCHA had documented 925 movement obstacles, including 89 permanently staffed checkpoints, 218 partial checkpoints, and 232 road gates.
An Oxfam analysis of UN data found that 1,244 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces or settlers between 2023 and the end of 2025. Nearly 46,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced over the same three years, compared with just over 13,000 during the previous 14 years combined.
For Dr Mohammad Halsa, a specialist in Israeli affairs, the violence cannot be understood as a chain of isolated reactions:
“It is one element of a comprehensive ideological agenda governing the ruling right, which views all Palestinian land as the exclusive property of Jews and considers the present moment the most suitable opportunity to move from ‘managing the conflict’ to ‘resolving it’ once and for all, thereby correcting a ‘historic mistake’ committed by Ben-Gurion in 1948 when several thousand Palestinians were allowed to remain.”
Tell and the anatomy of a land grab
Suleiman Bisharat, director of the Yabous Center, and Abu Rahma both reject the idea that Tell represents a sudden turn. They place it within a pattern of settlement violence that has intensified across the occupied West Bank since 2024.
Community activist Ahmad Ayyash goes further, telling The Cradle:
“What is happening is not ‘settler attacks under army protection,’ as it is portrayed, but attacks carried out in partnership with the army, not under its protection. The partnership between the two operates in a state of extremely close coordination. The settlers and the Israeli army are not separate actors, but two arms of the same project.”
For Ayyash, Tell may nevertheless prove significant as “a turning point in resisting attacks by settlers and the army, or the beginning of the use of new means to confront the occupation,” particularly as Palestinians face forms of violence that many communities had not previously experienced at this intensity.
Regarding one recent incident, Abu Rahma is equally direct, asserting that “what happened was self-defense, the videos show the dead were killed by army fire or by the settlers themselves, and that seizing the weapon was a fleeting moment rather than a planned act.”
Reuters reported that the confrontation began after armed settlers approached the village and that footage appeared to show a Palestinian seizing a rifle before being shot.
Erasing the resistance model
The ferocity of the Israeli response, Ayyash argues, was intended to ensure that Tell would not become a precedent for other Palestinian towns facing settler terror. The occupation could not allow a community’s defense of itself to be seen as a model capable of deterring future attacks.
“Even before 7 October, the occupation was trying to destroy the Palestinian model and the model of the resistance fighter, as previously occurred in the Nour Shams, Tulkarem, and Jenin camps, where the geography was altered, the environment sustaining the resistance was blown apart, and even memorials to the martyrs were destroyed.”
The collective punishment imposed on Tell carried a warning to other Palestinian communities: resisting settler incursions would bring the full weight of the occupation down upon them. Such resistance threatens the conditions under which settlement expansion has been allowed to proceed largely unchallenged.
Making Palestinian life impossible
Ayyash describes this process as demographic engineering, but its methods differ between Gaza and the occupied West Bank. In Gaza, he argues, the occupation has reordered daily life by controlling not only how much enters the strip, but also which goods are admitted or withheld.
Reporting in January 2026 documented shortages of beef, poultry, hygiene products, and other basic supplies caused by Israeli import restrictions. The effect reaches beyond hunger, reshaping how families obtain food and the conditions under which everyday life can continue.
In the occupied West Bank, Ayyash says, the same logic is being applied through systematic displacement. He dates the acceleration of the campaign to 2024, eight months after the war on Gaza began, and recalls advertising and media messages along bypass roads declaring, “There is no future in Palestine.”
Their purpose, he argues, was to convince Palestinians that a dignified life on their land was no longer possible and that they must look elsewhere.
The pressure has fallen especially heavily on Bedouin and herding communities. OCHA reported that settler attacks and related access restrictions displaced 6,200 Palestinians across 119 communities between January 2023 and June 2026, including more than 3,600 people from 46 communities that were completely emptied.
Ayyash says these pressures are now driving internal migration from isolated areas and villages near settlements toward Area A and the main urban centers.
Movement restrictions are compounded by settler raids, the theft of livestock and crops, and the destruction of roads and other infrastructure. This daily attrition cuts communities off from the resources needed to remain on their land. As those conditions deteriorate, targeted areas are emptied and opened to seizure.
Poll What is driving Israel’s accelerated takeover of the West Bank? A long-planned annexation strategy Settler expansion backed by the army The absence of meaningful international pressure All of the above
19 votes, 1 days and 14 hours left
Two arms of the same project
Abu Rahma describes a division of labor between the state and the settler militias. The official apparatus supplies legislation, courts, police, and military force. Settlers receive funding, transport, and weapons, while their crimes are ignored or actively enabled.
A UN inquiry published in June found that Israeli authorities had facilitated settler violence through financial, military, and legal support, with security forces frequently accompanying or protecting settlers during attacks.
The state demolishes homes and chokes Palestinian movement with checkpoints. Settlers torch property and drive residents from their land. Resistance is met with arrest and fines. Step by step, the ground is cleared for annexation.
Halsa identifies two purposes behind this constant friction. The first is to terrorize Palestinians until they leave their land voluntarily. The second is to provoke them into defending themselves, allowing a far more violent response to be justified through an inverted account in which the attackers become the victims.
The commission’s 3,488 recorded settler attacks during the first half of 2026 amount to an average of more than 19 each day, although its methodology counts a wider range of violations than OCHA’s incident-based monitoring.
By 20 July, OCHA had recorded 18 Palestinian deaths linked to settler attacks, a figure that already exceeded the total for all of 2025. What was once treated as fringe violence has become a central method of territorial control.
Outposts without pretexts
Settlement expansion does not depend on Tell or any other single confrontation. Ayyash says the occupation uses every available opportunity to accelerate construction and seize land, but requires no particular pretext. Had the events in Tell not occurred, the outposts would have expanded for another stated reason, or without one.
In the wake of the confrontation, Netanyahu pledged to accelerate settlement construction in the area. Halsa warns that “every inch that is vacated creates room for a Zionist Talmudic foothold, and the hands of the clock do not move backward.”
Extremist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced plans for 763 housing units in Eli, a project expected to triple the settlement’s size. In July, Israel’s security cabinet also approved 1.3 billion shekels for 34 new West Bank settlements, including newly established sites and existing outposts slated for retroactive legalization.
An election fought over Palestinian blood
The escalation is also feeding an Israeli election campaign ahead of the vote scheduled for 27 October 2026. Halsa describes the political field as “wide open,” with ministers competing to adopt the most hardline position and turning Palestinian land and holy sites into campaign material.
Ayyash offers a more severe reading. He argues that extremism is embedded in the Israeli political mainstream and that Israeli society is aggressive and “enamored of killing and destruction,” invoking the racist maxim, “The only good Arab is a dead Arab.”
Political currents compete for votes at the expense of Palestinian lives, each seeking to appear more violent toward Palestinians and more committed to settlement expansion than the next.
That contest leaves little room for the familiar claim that a meaningful Israeli camp remains committed to peace. Bisharat cautions, however, that elections are an accelerant rather than the root cause.
The electoral contest operates within an ideological horizon reaching back to 1948, when Jewish armed groups were deployed to empty Palestinian villages through arson and the killing of civilians.
Today’s settler militias perform a comparable function for the state. Their violence may be presented as spontaneous or unauthorized, but it advances policies that the government later formalizes through military orders, planning decisions, and annexation measures.
Annexation at wartime speed
Abu Rahma says the project was already established before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, but the regional war gave Israel the space to execute it at an unprecedented pace. Plans once expected to take 10 years are now being carried out in three or four, aided by an international community that has normalized crimes against Palestinians through silence and inaction.
That rush has also alarmed parts of Israel’s own security establishment. Nearly 600 former military, intelligence, police, and diplomatic officials warned US President Donald Trump that settler violence could produce consequences “even more catastrophic” than those of 7 October.
Yet electoral and ideological calculations continue to outweigh even the national security concerns raised by figures who spent their careers defending the occupation state.
Across the occupied West Bank, supposedly temporary measures are hardening into facts on the ground. Roads remain closed long after the army arrives, while settler outposts spread across village grazing land under military protection. Cut off from their land and neighboring communities, families are pushed toward urban centers.
Holding the ground
Despite the overwhelming imbalance of force, Palestinians remain the principal obstacle to this project. In Gaza and during the intifadas of 1987 and 2000, they demonstrated an ability to frustrate displacement plans, even at an immense human cost.
Bisharat asks whether Palestinians can continue reshuffling the political deck long enough to benefit from the international shift now troubling Israel. Support for the occupation state has declined, while public backing for the Palestinian cause has risen amid the war of extermination in Gaza. The question is whether that change can be converted into pressure on the governments still arming and protecting Tel Aviv.
Halsa argues that the minimum response must combine organized, peaceful popular action, including guard groups and community gatherings, with a sustained media and diplomatic campaign capable of exposing Israel’s version of events. Tell, he says, should immediately have been followed by press conferences laying out how the confrontation unfolded and documenting the army’s role.
He also calls for Palestinian efforts to build on dissent inside Israel, including the letter signed by nearly 600 former security officials, while exploiting contradictions within the occupation state. That requires converting the shift in western public opinion into influence over international decision-making, an outcome he says Israel deeply fears.
Tell has exposed how military power, settler violence, and state policy are being used to dispossess Palestinians without a formal annexation decree.
International organizations may continue counting the dead, displaced, checkpoints, attacks, and outposts. But documentation without consequence leaves the map to be redrawn while the reports accumulate.
The outcome will be decided on the ground, where Palestinian refusal to leave remains the main barrier to Israel’s West Bank endgame.
US President Donald Trump’s government is pressuring African states to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to sources close to the Hague cited in an exclusive report released by Le Monde on 4 August.
The US “is using two forms of leverage in its campaign. First, disinformation. They claim that authorities in targeted countries are themselves at risk of prosecution by the Court,” the sources said.
“Recently criticized by NGOs for its support to [Sudan’s RSF] … Chad reportedly felt vulnerable. However, the opening of such prosecutions is deemed ‘unlikely,’” they added.
The report goes on to say that the second method being used by Washington is to threaten states with the cancellation of security deals with the US.
According to Le Monde, multiple African member states of the ICC are being targeted by Washington.
“At the end of July, other African member states of the ICC received phone calls, visits and letters from the US. Uganda, for instance, received a letter on 24 July with an ultimatum telling [it] to leave [the Court] or face consequences,” one of the sources said.
Le Monde says Uganda has so far refused to capitulate.
The sources went on to tell the outlet that the west African state of Benin was approached in the same manner.
“Beninese authorities have shown their determination to resist pressure: ICC Judge Reine Alapini-Gansou, from Benin, is one of three magistrates who dared to file a complaint in New York in June against [US Secretary of State Marco] Rubio and Donald Trump to challenge the sanctions imposed on them by Washington,” Le Monde’s anonymous sources revealed.
The outlet writes that Trump and his government have been “waging war” against the ICC since it issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former war chief Yoav Gallant – both responsible for genocide against Palestinians.
In July, heavy US-Israeli diplomatic pressure resulted in Colombia withdrawing its participation in South Africa’s genocide case against Tel Aviv at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Nicaragua had already withdrawn from the ICJ genocide case against Israel in April last year.
The new report describes US pressure on African states as being a part of Trump’s campaign to dismantle the ICC and the international rules-based order, as it is referred to.
“We will dismantle the ICC – brick by brick, if necessary,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month.
The US and Israel are not parties to the Rome Statute and are therefore not members of the ICC, whose jurisdiction extends to genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
The American Servicemembers’ Protection Act of 2002, nicknamed the “Hague Invasion Act,” authorizes a US president to use “all means necessary and appropriate” to free any US or allied personnel detained by the ICC.
Several ICC officials have been targeted by US sanctions.
Donald Trump, far right, and Pete Hegseth, second from right, attend the dignified transfer of four U.S. service members recently killed in the Middle East, on July 22, 2026, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. Photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
The Pentagon is using a new method of tallying the number of U.S. soldiers killed and wounded in the Iran war that a U.S. government official said was “designed to obscure the count.”
Since the start of the conflict, the Department of War has posted the official count of casualties on the website of the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, which tracks “deceased, wounded, ill or injured” service members for Congress and the president. This official total of dead and wounded personnel, as documented over months of reporting by The Intercept, has been a gross undercount, stemming from what that same official previously called a “casualty cover-up.”
But after a series of Iranian strikes on U.S. facilities in the Middle East in July, the Pentagon last week rolled out a new approach. Casualties since July 7 are now counted separately on a new webpage with a generic designation: “Overseas Operations.”
Two hundred and seventy-three U.S. troops were killed or wounded since July 7, according to the Monday total on the new Overseas Operations page.
When combined with the existing DCAS page for the Iran war, the official count stands at 704, an 83 percent increase in casualties since April 8, the day the first ceasefire deal was struck between the Trump administration and Iran. When counting known casualties overlooked by the DCAS page, the total exceeds 900 personnel.
For months, the Pentagon has failed to comment on DCAS anomalies reported by The Intercept nor the reason for the change in the way it now counts casualties, which was first reported by the New York Times. Last week, the Pentagon told the newspaper that “since Operation Epic Fury has concluded, the department classifies casualties as overseas operations in the CENTCOM area of responsibility.” Central Command oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East.
“This is certainly designed to conceal the count of the wounded,” the official said, while noting that “incompetence” has also caused confusion in the casualty count.
The change comes after a July 20 rant by Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell who claimed reports of a Pentagon effort to withhold news of dozens of U.S. casualties were “baseless and malicious” and a U.S. official’s disclosure to The Intercept that same day that recent attacks on U.S. bases by Iran had wounded “far more” personnel than the Pentagon had acknowledged.
The casualty spike resulted from Iranian attacks on at least nine U.S. outposts across the Middle East since July 9, according to a second U.S. official who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press.
Iran’s military managed to overwhelm U.S. air defense systems using a mix of attack drones and advanced ballistic missiles, despite months of claims by President Donald Trump and self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth that Iran’s military was annihilated.
Last month, the tally of wounded personnel fluctuated by the day in the wake of increased Iranian attacks. On July 21, the casualty count on DCAS for Operation Epic Fury, the military’s official designation for the Iran war, stood at 500. Now, it has shrunk to 431.
For months, The Intercept found anomalies with the counts offered on the DCAS website. On April 21, for example, the number of wounded-in-action troops declined by 15 without public acknowledgment by the War Department. Despite repeated questions for months, the Pentagon has not commented on the disparities in its casualty count.
Prior reporting by The Intercept also found DCAS is missing hundreds of dead and wounded personnel from Epic Fury. The Pentagon list of the names of the dead is still missing Maj. Sorffly Davius, a signals and communication officer with the New York Army National Guard who was assigned to the headquarters of the 42nd Infantry Division and reportedly died of sudden illness while on duty in Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on March 6. Davius’s death was widely acknowledged even as it was excluded from the the official count: Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., spoke about him during a memorial service that month, and Gen. Dan Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recognized Davius while “honoring our fallen.”
While DCAS provides a running tally of “non-hostile” deaths — meaning those who died from accidents or by illness — it doesn’t include “non-hostile” injuries. The DCAS figures for Epic Fury show that 65 Navy personnel were wounded in action. Missing, however, are the more than 200 sailors treated for smoke inhalation or lacerations due to a March 12 fire that raged aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford. The aircraft carrier had been conducting round-the-clock flight operations to, Caine said, “project combat power” in the Middle East.
Recent reporting by the War Horse, using Pentagon records obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, found more than 400 casualties were recorded between February 28 and April 8. Seventy occurred on March 18 alone, but this huge single-day toll was never reported by the Pentagon.
The records provide more granular detail than DCAS, revealing that at least 17 troops sustained life-threatening injuries. They show that U.S. troops suffered shrapnel wounds, broken bones, smoke inhalation, and other injuries. The most common injury recorded, however, was head trauma — which affected at least 170 troops, according to the data.
President Donald Trump has long dismissed brain injuries as “headaches” and “not serious.”
The U.S. government continues to demonstrate its knack for pursuing remarkably foolish foreign policies that have terrible consequences.
Many thought that President Trump was going to rectify this problem, at least somewhat. After all, he promised to shut down the Ukraine War as soon as he moved into the White House, if not before he did! Moreover, he said no more forever wars, no more wars in pursuit of regime change.
But Trump has failed. Not only did he fail to end the fighting in Ukraine, but he has also twice gone to war against Iran – the 12-Day War in June 2025 and the disastrous war that he and Benjamin Netanyahu started on February 28, 2026, which could be the greatest strategic blunder In U.S. history. Furthermore, he kidnapped Venezuela’s president and, by his own account, is running that country as if it is an American colony, not a sovereign state. And like his predecessor in the White House, President Joe Biden, he is complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its endless pogroms in the West Bank.
How did we end up in this dreadful situation? And how can we rectify it?
There is no guaranteed way to avoid foreign policy errors. But one way to minimize the chance of getting into serious trouble is to debate the issues of the day openly, so that critics of conventional wisdom or particular government policies can have their say. Media institutions are hugely important in fostering this kind of debate, which is why freedom of the press is protected in the United States. It allows critics to make their views known to large numbers of people and it provides legitimacy. Critics of existing policy are not always right, but sometimes they speak truth to power and help us avoid or correct big mistakes.
As almost every reader of Antiwar.com knows, the mainstream media in the United States have become much less willing to provide dissenters with a platform since the Cold War ended. Mainstream media outlets often seem to speak with one voice on the big foreign policy issues of the day and that voice usually backs U.S. government policy. This situation is not healthy, and it helps explains why America’s standing in the world has declined in recent decades.
Antiwar.com plays an enormously important role in filling this dangerous void in our public discourse. It provides an indispensable platform for critics to challenge the reigning views of the foreign policy establishment. This is essential for increasing the likelihood that the United States will pursue wiser policies. For this reason, I urge readers to generously support Antiwar.com. In these troubled times, a flourishing Antiwar.com is very much in the U.S. national interest.
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John J. Mearsheimer, PhD, is an American professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. More recently Mearsheimer has attracted attention for co-authoring and publishing the article The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which was subsequently published as a book.
Israeli forces killed at least 26 people in Gaza over the weekend, striking apartment blocks, tent camps and the medicine warehouses of a hospital, in the territory’s deadliest days in weeks. The killings came as US President Donald Trump threatened Iran with “decapitation” after a week of American strikes across the regio
Israel killed at least seven people on Saturday and destroyed two of the four medicine warehouses of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Al Jazeera reported. Gaza Health Ministry Director-General Munir al-Bursh said the destruction “turns medicine and illness itself into a tool of war.”
Palestinians try to extinguish a burning car after an Israeli military strike in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. [AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi]
The Associated Press reported that the Israeli military killed at least 17 more people, children among them, from Saturday night through Sunday, according to local hospitals. Al Jazeera counted 19 dead Sunday and put the weekend toll at 26. Among the dead were Abdullah Abu al-Teif, 33, his pregnant wife Abeer Anan, 29, and their five-year-old son Azzam, killed at the Al-Sousi Tower in western Gaza City. The Israeli military said the strikes had targeted militant operatives.
The bloodshed unfolded behind an official propaganda barrage of peace. On Thursday Trump announced a “HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas”; on Saturday he claimed the “perimeters of a deal” to reopen the Strait of Hormuz had been agreed. As he spoke, Israeli bombs fell on Gaza City, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, and US bombers massed for what Trump said Sunday “would have been the biggest attack since World War II.”
Israel has attacked Gaza on 270 of the 297 days since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025, an Al Jazeera analysis reported as of Monday. Gaza’s Health Ministry counts at least 1,250 Palestinians killed since the truce began; five Israeli soldiers have died in the same period, per the Associated Press.
The “ceasefires” are merely the framework for the permanent annexation of Gaza and the expansion of the war. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that the Israeli-held zone had reached 60 to 70 percent of Gaza, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Doron Spielman told the AP: “Disarming means physically giving up the weapons. Nothing less.”
The AP reported that Israel’s demands, according to a person with knowledge of the deal, include the freedom to keep conducting military operations in Gaza. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote in the Telegram on July 31 that “assassinations in Gaza must continue.”
The Israeli army is meanwhile in the second week of a “wide-scale military operation” Netanyahu ordered across the West Bank after settlers from the Havat Gilad outpost attacked the village of Tal on July 24. Four Palestinians of the Ramadan family and two Israelis died.
The army deployed 26 battalions and raided towns from Jenin to Hebron, Al Jazeera reported on July 28; Army Radio counted 30 settler attacks the following weekend, including two mosques set on fire and a family home in Urif that more than 150 settlers set alight—an infant survived because her grandfather pulled her from her crib.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on July 24 that Palestinian villages should “look like the refugee camps in Nablus and Tulkarem.” According to UN figures, 1,122 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 2023, at least 246 of them children.
The assault on Gaza comes as Trump threatens to destroy the Iranian government. “Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous!” he wrote Monday on Truth Social. In the Oval Office later that day he said, “This is the last chance for them to sign a good document,” adding that he wanted to give “every last chance before decapitation.”
The threats followed a week of American bombardment. After Trump said July 27 that US strikes were paused for mediation, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard fired ballistic missiles on July 28 at a base housing US troops in Jordan, and the next day the US military announced a “heavy wave of strikes” on dozens of sites across Iran—command centers, missile and drone facilities and coastal defense sites.
Iranian state media reported that a missile struck a house on Qeshm Island, killing Qeisar Jafari, a taxi driver, his wife Zahra and their two-year-old son Sina. The same day, US and Saudi warplanes struck militia sites across seven Iraqi provinces; the Popular Mobilization Forces said 20 of its fighters were killed, and two Iraqi militia officials told the AP that six Iranian advisers died.
CBS News reported Friday that the US and Israel were preparing a bombing campaign against Iranian power plants and refineries. In a Truth Social post late Saturday, Trump announced he had canceled the attack, writing that “Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries” had asked him to hold off.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wrote Sunday on X: “The @DeptofWar was ready to go—and remains ready—at levels not seen since World War 2. Locked and loaded.”
These realities render all the talk of “ceasefire” by Trump and Netanyahu moot: There is an ongoing regional war throughout the Middle East, in which people are being killed every day.
Houthi missiles and drones have struck Saudi tankers and Aramco facilities since the group declared an embargo on Saudi shipping July 20; a drone set two gas vessels ablaze at Egypt’s port of Damietta July 29. Kuwait said Saturday it destroyed hostile drones over its territory and blamed Iran; Israel killed Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon Saturday and shelled southern Syria on July 30.
Trump’s claims of peace negotiations met a flat denial from Tehran. “We are not negotiating with the United States at this time,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Monday; Iran says its only talks are with Oman, over a temporary shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz.
No ceasefire is in effect with Iran—the June memorandum collapsed in early July, and TheGuardian wrote Monday that the weekend reversal was thought to be Trump’s 12th cancellation of threatened strikes.
On CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona attacked the war as mismanaged: “Here’s a guy who got us into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline.” His remedy was to win it: “put some people in here that know how to do this, how to talk to the Iranians.” He did not call for an end to the war and said nothing about Gaza.
At a Senate hearing on July 21, Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan demanded that the administration win the war, telling Hegseth: “You don’t have a long-term plan to actually win this war. Win the war.”
The war is deeply unpopular: 64 percent of Americans told an AP-NORC poll published July 30 that it has not been worth fighting, and 60 percent told Quinnipiac July 29 they oppose US military action against Iran. But in Washington, the argument is over how the war should be fought, not how to end it.
As first light reaches the scattered tents and animal pens of Ras al-Ahmar in the northern Jordan Valley, the silence is broken only by the cries of thirsty livestock waiting for water that no longer comes.
Days after Israeli forces destroyed three of the Palestinian community’s main water wells, residents are scrambling to secure enough water for their families, crops and animals in one of the occupied West Bank’s driest regions.
For 60-year-old Ali Bani Odeh, the destruction of the wells was more than merely the loss of infrastructure. A father of four and grandfather of 14, he has spent decades farming and raising livestock to support his family in Ras al-Ahmar.
Now, like dozens of other families, he is uncertain how long they can continue living on the land without a reliable water supply.
“Water is everything for us,” Ali told Middle East Eye.
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“Without water, we cannot live. We need it for our families, our sheep and our crops. Since the wells were destroyed, we have been forced to bring water from town at a much higher cost, and even then, we’re not always allowed to pass.”
Families must now haul water from distant towns at far greater expense, while military checkpoints and movement restrictions frequently delay or prevent tankers from reaching the village.
‘The wells were the lifeline of this community’
– Abdullah Bisharat, head of the village council
According to Ras al-Ahmar village council head Abdullah Bisharat, the three destroyed wells supplied more than 47 Palestinian families, serving over 600 people and irrigating around 7,500 dunams of farmland.
The wells also sustained thousands of sheep and goats, the main source of income for many families.
“The wells were the lifeline of this community,” Bisharat said.
“Their destruction has affected every aspect of daily life, from drinking water and agriculture to livestock, leaving dozens of families struggling to meet their most basic needs.”
Settler attacks
Residents say the destruction marked the worst escalation in a months-long water crisis caused by Israeli settler attacks.
They say settlers repeatedly cut the pipelines supplying the community, forcing families to rely on costly water tankers. This time, however, the wells themselves were destroyed, eliminating the community’s main source of water.
Ali’s son, Obeida Bani Odeh, fears the loss of the wells threatens not only his family’s livelihood but also their future in Ras al-Ahmar.
How Israeli settler terrorism threatens the basics of Palestinian survival
“We cannot survive here without water,” Obeida said.
“For months, the pipelines supplying our community were repeatedly cut, and we had to bring water from nearby towns, often at three times the usual cost.
“Now the wells have been destroyed, and there is no reliable source of water left for our families or our livestock.”
He said the challenges extend beyond water shortages. Settler attacks and movement restrictions have made it increasingly difficult to bring in water, animal feed and other essential supplies.
“The settlers attack everyone, from the young to the old,” Obeida said.
“They want to make people afraid and force them to leave. But we have been living on this land for generations.”
The three destroyed wells supplied more than 47 Palestinian families, around 600 people (Mojahid Nawahda/MEE)
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem across roughly 300 settlements and outposts. The settlements are regarded as illegal under international law, according to the International Court of Justice.
Settler attacks on Palestinian herding communities have increased sharply in recent years. Between January 2023 and April 2026, at least 5,910 Palestinians were internally displaced due to settler violence in the West Bank, according to UN data.
‘A silent war’
Aref Daraghmeh, a human rights activist, says the destruction of water infrastructure in Ras al-Ahmar reflects a broader struggle over control of natural resources in the Jordan Valley.
“Water has become a silent war against Palestinians in the Jordan Valley,” Daraghmeh told MEE.
“The occupation has taken control of many Palestinian water sources, while the water available to Palestinian communities is insufficient for agriculture and sustaining life on the land.”
‘Policy to displace us’: How settler attacks are drying up the West Bank
Daraghmeh said restrictions on water access have contributed to the decline of Palestinian agriculture, making it increasingly difficult for farmers and herders to sustain their livelihoods. As water becomes harder to access, he argues, communities face growing pressure to leave their land while settlement agriculture continues to expand across the Jordan Valley.
He added that movement restrictions have compounded those challenges.
“The Jordan Valley is effectively under closure,” Daraghmeh said. “Military checkpoints control movement, roads are restricted, and residents often have to wait for hours before they can enter or leave their communities.”
For farmers and herders, those restrictions make it harder to reach grazing land and transport livestock, produce and agricultural supplies, adding to the pressures already created by limited access to water.
But for Ali Bani Odeh, leaving Ras al-Ahmar is not an option. Displaced from his home as a child, he says he will not leave again.
“I have left before, but I will not leave this place,” Ali said.
“If we leave, they will take over the land. We are staying because this is where our lives and our history are.”
A bridge that was hit and heavily damaged by a US strike is pictured along the road connecting Roudan and Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on July 18, 2026.
(Photo by Amir Hossein KHORGOOEI/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images)
“It’s a narrative designed to give the impression that Trump is in the driving seat in this conflict. It’s been clear for some time now: He isn’t.”
Trita Parsi, an expert on US-Iranian relations, cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s Saturday claims that he halted planned strikes on Iran due to progress in negotiations to end the illegal conflict, launched by the Republican and Israel in February.
“The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at 10:05 pm Eastern time.
“This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat,” Trump declared—despite repeated conclusions from US intelligence agencies that the Iranian government was not aiming to build a nuclear weapon when the United States and Israel began bombing Iran five months ago.
“Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,” Trump added. “The Country of Israel joins me in this commitment. Get to work, everybody, and get it DONE.”
Sharing the post on the platform X, Parsi said, “Trump ‘cancels’ ‘planned’ ‘attack’ on Iran…” The expert struck a similarly skeptical tone during a Saturday on-air interview with CNN about the president’s announcement.
Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said that “I don’t believe there was an imminent attack. We’ve gone through this several times, in which Trump issues these threats, and then he backs off because the other side calls his bluff.”
“Trump does not have an escalatory way out of this conflict, but what he is trying to do is to give the impression that he is in control—that he is in the driving seat,” Parsi suggested. “And I think it’s been quite clear for quite some time now he is not.”
During Trump’s first term, he tore up the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal, and so far, he has been unable to negotiate a replacement. Since launching this war, without authorization from Congress and in violation of the United Nations Charter, the ceasefire agreement reached in April and a June memorandum of understanding ultimately have not stopped the bloodshed.
Earlier this week, most US SenateRepublicans and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) blocked yet another war powers resolution intended to prevent the Trump administration from launching further attacks on Iran without congressional approval—a vote that came as polling showed 64% of Americans disapprove of continuing the war, including 37% of Republicans.
The Iran War has killed thousands of Iranians and Lebanese civilians—the latter mostly from Israeli attacks purportedly targeting Hezbollah—as well as hundreds of people in other nations across the Middle East and at least 18 US service members.
In the hours before Trump’s Saturday Truth Social post, Axios revealed that “Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Trump spoke on Saturday, with MBS expressing concern over the strike plans,” and “other regional powers, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Pakistan, have also pressed the US and Iran to de-escalate.”
CBS chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan reported on social media about Saturday’s “flurry of phone calls by Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi to regional leaders, which suggests an effort underway to avoid military strikes.”
“Earlier today, the State Department advised Americans throughout the Mideast to leave the region,” Brennan noted.
Araghchi said Saturday that “any hostile action by the US or Israel—or participation or cooperation by regional countries in such actions—would be met with a decisive and proportionate response from Iran’s powerful armed forces.”
As global public opinion turns against Tel Aviv, the Netanyahu regime is ramping up its electoral meddling, from Europe to South America
Presidential hopeful Flavio Bolsonaro appears with his wife, Fernanda, during the launch of his candidacy in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on 25 July 2026 (Nelson Almeida/AFP)
I have spent more than a decade investigating the Israeli arms and surveillance industries, and have always understood that the Israeli state is far more involved than it publicly admits.
The revolving door between the public and private sector is well-known, but how exactly did some of the biggest Israeli companies achieve such incredible access to governments around the world, from Saudi Arabia to Ethiopia?
Beyond Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spyware diplomacy – a highly effective way to make friends, by offering sophisticated tools to spy on perceived enemies, journalists, human rights workers and even friends – there were always gaps in our knowledge.
But a recent revelation provides a window into how it happened. In 2013, Shalev Hulio – one of the founders of NSO Group, which developed the phone spyware Pegasus – travelled to Panama on an Israeli diplomatic passport and stayed at the Israeli embassy.
The vital reporting by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and two other media outlets found that Hulio was central to NSO Group’s sale of Pegasus to Panama in 2012, and that he signed the contract with the Panamanian government.
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“Panamanian migration records obtained by reporters show Hulio arrived at Tocumen airport in Panama City from the U.S. on a Copa Airlines flight on December 3, 2013, and used a diplomatic passport to enter the country. The records state Hulio’s visit was for ‘recreation’ and list his profession as ‘diplomat,’” the report notes.
This piece of the puzzle confirms part of a story that has been hard to pin down with documents, and not just conjecture: NSO Group and many other Israeli arms and surveillance firms operate as an arm of the Israeli state, advancing its interests, biases and agendas – and operating with its full protection.
Political leverage
The vast treasure trove of information that has been gathered by NSO Group and other like-minded firms is incalculable, as they are the ones extracting data from mobile phones (as opposed to the paying clients).
It’s thus inevitable that NSO Group, and by extension the Israeli government, have gathered information and secrets that could be used for political leverage on any number of countries. This is one way that Israel maintains such significant diplomatic leverage.
The story about spyware and hacking battles over the last decade, and Israel’s central place within them, has not gone away. Israeli spying tools continue to be used against unsuspecting politicians, journalists and activists.
A rampaging Israeli government wants to make friends in the international community, as public opinion turns against it in an unprecedented way
From the European Parliament to Russia, the lack of regulation in the industry has allowed it to metastasize without restraint. But the threat of cyber-tools like Pegasus seems relatively minor when compared with the explosion of Israeli election interference around the globe.
From Scotland to France, and Colombia to Honduras, Israeli companies are deploying the dark arts to push for pro-Israel candidates to win. This includes massive bot farms, spreading disinformation about pro-Palestinian candidates, and manipulating social media. As with the spyware industry, the world responds with paralysis and fear.
This is an issue that goes to the heart of democracy and the viability of its existence. Israeli electoral manipulation services are for sale to the highest bidder, and they’re already twisting what we know and understand about the very essence of free and fair elections.
Destabilisation campaigns
Take Latin America, a region that’s experiencing a wave of Israeli-led disruption campaigns. Earlier this year, a story surfaced about alleged collaboration among the Trump administration, the Netanyahu regime, and former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was sentenced in the US in 2024 on massive drug-related charges – and pardoned the following year.
The plan? Destabilise “unfriendly” governments and aim to install pro-Israel and pro-US elements to undermine left-wingers, from Colombia to Mexico (the former campaign has already been successful, with the recent win of president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella).
Brazil may be next, with presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro – son of the previous president, Jair Bolsonaro – launching his campaign with an endorsement from Netanyahu.
It’s fair to presume that Israeli electoral hackers will be working night and day to assist the Bolsonaro campaign and sabotage Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the run-up to the October general election.
Honduras once again appears to be a central point around which Israeli and American far-right pressures are being applied; the country is reportedly willing to give control of military bases and special economic zones to Israel and the US.
All of this is occurring while Israel is experiencing its biggest collapse in support in its history. This is a historic change – one that could well impact western politics in the coming years. But right now, Palestine is being trampled and erased, from Gaza to the occupied West Bank.
It’s hard to convey the scale of the displacement, violence and fear among Palestinians. This is the Israeli state on steroids, sensing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to remove as many Palestinians from their land as possible, making way for a truly Jewish supremacist and rabbinical state.
In this context, it makes sense that a rampaging Israeli government wants to make friends in the international community, as public opinion turns against it in an unprecedented way. Electoral manipulation might seem like a desperate move from a nation on the edge, but in reality it represents an acceleration of Israel as a reliable, autocratic ally – one that proudly discriminates against minorities and Palestinians, and inspires the surging far right in the process.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist, best–selling author, filmmaker and co–founder of Declassified Australia. He’s written for the Guardian, the New York Times, the New York Review of Books and many others. His latest book is The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. His other books include Pills, Powder and Smoke, Disaster Capitalism and My Israel Question. His documentary films include Disaster Capitalism and the Al Jazeera English films West Africa’s Opioid Crisis and Under the Cover of Covid. He was based in East Jerusalem from 2016 to 2020.
Some 60,000 people crossed into Ceuta from Morocco this week, including around 8,000 children
A Spanish soldier escorts a group of migrants on their way back towards the Moroccan border, following their illegal crossing into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, on 1 August 2026 (AFP)
A Spanish minister has suggested Israel was stirring problems over 60,000 migrants crossing from Morocco into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, posted on X on Friday: “Spain, which never misses an opportunity to lecture Israel, has declared a state of emergency in Ceuta following the crisis over its immigration policy.
“Maybe before it continues lecturing us, it’s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa,” he added.
Sharing Danon’s post, Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente remarked: “Well, it all seems to be becoming quite clear.”
This comes as numerous Spanish politicians and commentators have alleged that Israel and the United States have sought to cause trouble for Spain in retaliation for the Spanish government’s opposition to the US-Israeli war on Iran and Israel’s war on Gaza.
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Gabriel Rufian, the parliamentary spokesperson for the Republican Left of Catalonia, a left-wing party, argued that the crisis served American and Israeli interests.
Spanish journalist Jose Vizner, meanwhile, shared a 2019 social media post by Yair Netanyahu, the son of Israel’s prime minister, discussing alleged Israeli support for separatism in Ceuta.
Prominent Spanish actor Javier Bardem shared a video accusing Israel of being behind the crossings.
Former Portuguese minister and commentator Bruno Macaes said that “whether or not the US and Israel were involved before the fact, they were deeply involved and intensely active after the fact, especially trying to use it against the current Spanish government”.
Ceuta, a Spanish territory on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, and Melilla, another Spanish autonomous city on the country’s northern coast, share the only land borders between the European Union and Africa.
Some 60,000 people crossed into Ceuta from Morocco this week, including around 8,000 children, according to the Spanish government.
Footage posted online showed people swimming into the enclave around the border barrier, with some wearing swimsuits and using flotation rings to make the dangerous journey.
Diplomatic spats over migrant crossings
France said it was increasing checks along its border with Spain, while Italy threatened to suspend Spain from the EU’s internal open-border scheme.
But on Saturday, Spain said most migrants, around 48,000, had already returned to Morocco, ushered by Spanish soldiers.
Videos online showed migrants hiding in tunnels and walking around on the streets of Ceuta.
At least 67 people are believed to have died while attempting to reach the enclave.
It is unclear what prompted the wave of attempted crossings, but there have previously been similar incidents.
In May 2021, 8,000 Moroccans entered the enclave amid a diplomatic dispute between Spain and Morocco over Western Sahara. At the time, Spain accused Morocco of using migrants as leverage, and a Moroccan minister said Morocco was justified in relaxing its border control as a response to the diplomatic dispute.
Thousands make dramatic sea crossing into Ceuta from Morocco
Some commentators have accused Morocco of facilitating this week’s crossings, pointing to the Moroccan government’s anger at Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s recent visit to Algeria, Spain’s biggest gas supplier.
Lorenzo Gabrielli, a senior researcher at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona who researches migration in Ceuta, told the New York Times: “It is impossible for nearly 50,000 people to cross the border between Morocco and Spain in a single day without Morocco having a hand in it.”
Ceuta President Juan Jesus Vivas condemned the migration as a “violation of Spain’s territorial integrity”.
Morocco’s ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich, said: “We have always prioritised legal, orderly and safe migration for all.”
She insisted the crossings had been against the wishes of the Moroccan government.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump called the situation a “catastrophe” and added that “if we’re not in office our country will be invaded at levels that will make Spain look small time”.
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(Photo credit: AP)
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