As workers around the world are hit with the ever-worsening consequences of the US war on Iran—crippling rises in petrol and gas prices, food price hikes and the growing threat of food shortages in poorer countries—major corporations and banks are raking in increased profits to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
First in line to benefit from the profit bonanza, as could be expected, are the oil companies. But the flow of increased money extends across the board.
The price of diesel is advertised at a gas station Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Hyattsville, Md. [AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough]
According to an investigation by the Guardian, the results of which were published on Wednesday, with oil at around $100 per barrel the major oil conglomerates in Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States, Britain and Europe will collect an additional $234 billion in profit for 2026, an extra inflow of $30 million an hour for the rest of the year.
The biggest winner is Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, which is expected to make a war profit of $25.5 billion, with the Russian petro-giants set to make an additional $23.9 billion.
The US firm ExxonMobil will take in an additional $11 billion. Shell’s revenue will rise by $6.8 billion, and Chevron stands to make an additional $9.2 billion.
The additional profits are on top of the $1 trillion the oil industry takes in every year while receiving explicit subsidies which totalled $1.3 trillion in 2022, according to calculations by the International Monetary Fund.
There are other benefits as well flowing from the rise in share prices. The market value of ExxonMobil has increased by $118 billion, while that of Shell is up $34 billion.
Apart from the oil producers, trading firms which deal in oil, food, metals and other necessary commodities, largely dominating global markets, are already cashing in. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Swiss commodities trader Gunvor said it had already made as much money in the first quarter of this year as it did in all of 2025 when it made a profit of $1.6 billion. Others will be experiencing a similar boost.
Also not surprisingly, US arms manufacturers have been cashing in. On the first day of the US attack on Iran major firms recorded a rise in their total market value of up to $30 billion.
The profit and price gouging extends across the US economy under conditions where, according to a recent article in the New York Times, corporate profits “have reached a record share of the US economy.” Corporate America intends to keep it that way.
Sonu Varghese, the global macro strategist at the Carson group, a financial firm, told the Times that many companies viewed inflation from “outside shocks,” such as war, “as an opportunity to raise prices and boost margins” and that there was going to be some “margin expansion.”
This points to a repeat of the experience of the inflation surge of 2022 when, as the Times reported, data from the US Producer Price Index “showed that wholesalers and retailers generally expanded the margin between their sales prices and their cost of acquiring goods.”
Major US banks have also been cashing in on the opportunities generated by the war. The six major US banks reported collective profits of $47.6 billion for the first quarter, much of it generated because market volatility provided conditions for significantly profitable trading.
Reporting on the profit hike, the Financial Times noted that the first quarter was marked by geopolitical shocks—the military operation in Venezuela and the Iran war—triggering volatility, which is “good for investment banks which make money from financing and facilitating client trades.”
JPMorgan led the way in absolute terms with a 13 percent increase in profits, over the same period last year, to $16.5 billion, with market jitters being characterised as a “gift to trading desks.” Goldman Sachs reported a 19 percent increase in profits to $5.6 billion. Citigroup reported a 42 percent profit surge and Morgan Stanley’s profits rose 29 percent.
The combined increase in the profits from the trading desks of the major banks is estimated to be the highest in 12 years.
Much of this money is being used to finance share buybacks to boost the portfolios of the banks’ senior executives and big investors. The largest US banks spent a record $33 billion on buybacks in the first quarter, with JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup making their largest ever repurchases.
The banks have benefited from the relaxation of regulations under Trump. Bank of America chief financial officer Alastair Borthwick said the bank was “encouraged by the work the administration is doing,” as it bought back $7.2 billion of its own stock in the quarter, the highest level in four years. The Trump regime is moving to reduce the amount of capital the banks must hold as a reserve, freeing up money for trading and buybacks.
The overall sentiment on Wall Street is that the profit bonanza will continue, at least for now, with the S&P 500 passing the 7,000 mark for the first time on Wednesday. Inflation profiteering fuelled by the war is one factor. Another is the wave of mass layoffs, hitting tens of thousands of workers in many cases, especially in the high-tech industries.
Commenting on what it called a new era of mega-layoffs, the Wall Street Journal noted that “employers are seizing on the potential financial upsides of severing swaths of their workforces at once.”
In the past, mass layoffs by a company may have signalled troubles or mismanagement. “Now, such a company is more likely to get a big stock bump and praise from investors for acting boldly.”
Giant corporations and banks are feeding on death, destruction and the impoverishment of the working class the world over. This makes it urgently necessary for workers and youth to draw the sharpest political conclusions.
The war on Iran itself is not the product of the individual Donald Trump, but is driven by the historic crisis of imperialism, of which he is the most grotesque personification.
Likewise, the obscenity expressed in the present day economic and financial system is not the product of the individual greed of the ruling oligarchs, though that exists in abundance. It is a product of the capitalist system itself, the objective logic of which, as Marx explained 150 years ago, is the creation of fabulous wealth at one pole of society and poverty, misery and degradation at the other.
Today the necessity for its overthrow and the establishment of socialism is not confined to the pages of Das Kapital but is being written large in the language of daily life.
Direct talks in Washington for the first time in 30 years continue a long history of overtures that predate resistance and persist despite repeated Israeli attacks on civilians
Lebanese protesters gather in Martyrs’ Square in Beirut to reject direct negotiations with Israel, expressing opposition to normalisation and diplomatic engagement, on 13 April 2026 (Abdul Kader Al Bay/ZUMA Press Wire)
Since Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam assumed office in early 2025, mere weeks after the November 2024 ceasefire between the Lebanese resistance and the genocidal state of Israel, the new leadership, under strong US and Saudi advice, moved urgently to offer friendship and full cooperation to Israel.
Not only did they fail to protest the more than 10,000 ceasefire violations that Israel committed over the 15 months leading up to the US-Israeli aggression on Iran in late February 2026 – including thousands of air strikes, drone attacks and ground incursions that killed more than 500 people, most of them civilians – but they went as far as offering, even pleading, for direct negotiations to achieve permanent peace with the Jewish settler-colony.
Rather than blaming Israel for its ongoing crimes against the Lebanese people, the two leaders blamed Hezbollah, as if Israeli attacks were a response to the resistance, when in fact the resistance has been retaliating against unceasing Israeli aggression and occupation of Lebanese land.
Such magnanimous offers were last made by the Phalangist president of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, who collaborated with Israeli invaders of his country in 1982, and his brother Amin, but they were scrapped afterwards due to much opposition.
The Israeli government initially rebuffed these recent overtures, which Salam repeatedly extended until it finally agreed last week. Facing pressure from the Trump administration, Israel met with Lebanese officials in Washington this week for their first direct talks in more than 30 years, even as it continues to bomb Lebanon, including the capital, Beirut, killing upwards of 2,000 people in the past six weeks alone.
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Israel has justified its multiple invasions and incursions into Lebanon since the late 1960s, which have killed tens of thousands of civilians, as efforts to defeat Palestinian resistance fighters who moved there after 1969, and who were forced to withdraw in 1982. It has since invoked the same justification to confront post-1982 Lebanese resistance to its illegal occupation of Lebanese territory, especially Hezbollah.
Yet present claims that resistance movements provoke Israeli aggression, and that Lebanese leaders must therefore normalise relations with Israel to achieve stability, obscure the historical record: Israeli relations with Lebanese political and religious figures eager to offer it friendship and cooperation date back to the 1920s, long before the settler-colony was even established, let alone the arrival of the Palestinian resistance in Lebanon or the emergence of Hezbollah.
Indeed, Aoun and Salam are part of a long chain of Lebanese politicians eager to please Israel.
Sectarian myths
In Lebanon, a common claim is that right-wing sectarian Maronite leaders only sought to befriend Israel after 1948, in response to the arrival of more than 100,000 Palestinian refugees expelled during the 1948 Zionist conquest of Palestine by Jewish colonists – the majority of them Muslim – and the resulting demographic shift.
This, however, proves to be a fabrication. Sectarian Maronite hostility towards Lebanese Muslims precedes the arrival of the Palestinians by nearly three decades.
In March 1920, Jewish Agency representative Yehoshua Hankin and Lebanese Maronite representatives signed a treaty of cooperation that also included “prominent Muslim families”, many of whom were absentee landlords who sold land in Palestine to Zionist settlers.
In March 1920, Jewish Agency representative Yehoshua Hankin and Lebanese Maronite representatives signed a treaty of cooperation that also included ‘prominent Muslim families’
Contacts between Lebanese Maronite leader Emile Edde and Zionist representatives began in the early 1930s. During this period, Edde expressed his support for establishing friendly relations with Jewish colonists and “even of a Zionist-Maronite alliance”.
Edde was elected president of Lebanon in 1936 and remained in contact with the Jewish Agency for the next two years.
Edde’s prime minister, Khayr al-Din al-Ahdab, the first Sunni Muslim to hold the position in Lebanon’s history, offered his country’s guarantees of order and security to the Jewish colonial-settlements along the Lebanese border. After leaving office and seeking to regain power, Edde resumed his contacts with the Israelis in 1948 while vacationing in France.
This was followed by the signing of the infamous political treaty between the Jewish Agency and the Maronite Patriarch Antoine Arida, on behalf of the Maronite Church, on 30 May 1946.
The treaty established guidelines for close ties between the Maronites and the Jewish colonists, based on mutual recognition of rights and nationalist aspirations, including the Jewish Agency’s recognition of Lebanon’s “Christian character” and its assurance that the Jewish colonists had no territorial ambitions in Lebanon.
In return, the Maronite Church supported Jewish immigration and the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Deepening collaboration
Edde, al-Ahdab, and the Maronite Church were not the only parties in Lebanon offering love and friendship to Israel. The Phalangists were next. Israel established relations with them at the end of 1948 in the United States, through the mediation of the Maronite priest Yusuf ‘Awad, who had contacts with representatives of the US Zionist Federation.
The main Phalangist contact was Elias Rababi, who, along with other Phalangists, held several meetings with the Zionist representatives in Europe.
Rababi informed the Israelis that if the Phalangists took over the government, they would establish diplomatic relations with Israel. In exchange, he requested funding to support Phalangist political activity and procure weapons.
While the Israelis were unconvinced of the movement’s strength, the foreign ministry nevertheless paid him $2,000.
In February 1949, three envoys of the Maronite Archbishop of Beirut, Ignatius Mubarak, arrived in Israel and met with a foreign ministry official. The three claimed that Mubarak “wished to know the position of the Israeli Government on plans for a coup in Lebanon” against President Bechara Khoury due to the latter’s support of integrating Lebanon in the Arab world.
Emile Edde and Pierre Gemayel were said to be parties to the plan. The Israelis responded by welcoming any attempt on the part of Lebanon’s Christians to “liberate themselves from the yoke of pan-Arab leaders”, but requested a detailed plan of how the coup would be staged, what forces they had backing them and the level of assistance required from Israel. The plan ultimately came to naught.
But the plan to install a pro-Israel government in Lebanon through a coup was an idea Zionists had entertained since the 1920s.
In response to former prime minister David Ben-Gurion’s 1954 proposal that Israel encourage a military coup in Lebanon to establish a Christian regime allied with Israel, then prime minister Moshe Sharett dismissed it as “nonsense“, writing in his diaries that no movement was strong enough to establish an exclusively Maronite state.
Given the proposal’s unfeasibility, Moshe Dayan, who was the army chief of staff at the time, proposed in 1955 that Israel annex Lebanon south of the Litani River.
Before resistance
Just as there is a long history of Lebanese politicians offering a loving friendship to Israel, Israeli atrocities against the Lebanese people between 1948 and 1969 were also the order of the day, long before the existence of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or Hezbollah.
During the 1948 war, even though the Lebanese army did not engage in battle with the Israelis, Zionist forces conquered southern Lebanon in what they dubbed “Operation Hiram”, occupying 15 Lebanese villages as far as the Litani River.
Zionist commander General Mordechai Makleff asked Ben-Gurion for permission to occupy Beirut, which he said could be done in 12 hours, but the latter refused, fearing international condemnation given Lebanon’s neutrality.
During their occupation of southern Lebanon, Zionist forces committed one of the worst massacres of the 1948 war in the Lebanese village of al-Hula, where they slaughtered 85 civilians on 31 October. When the Israelis invaded it again in 2024, soldiers defaced the monument to the massacre, listing the names of those killed.
Ceasefire not included: Lebanon begins ‘exploratory’ talks with Israel
In early 1949, Lebanese and Israeli officials began formal armistice negotiations at Ras al-Naqura, which proceeded “more smoothly” than with all other Arab states. Rather than express horror at Israeli atrocities committed against Lebanese civilians a few weeks earlier, Lebanese delegates privately informed the Israelis that they “were not really Arabs”. They also discussed the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.
The Israelis withdrew from Lebanese territory in March 1949.
This week’s meeting in Washington DC was a repeat performance by the Lebanese ambassador to the US, who did not condemn Israel’s recent massacres of Lebanese civilians but reportedly shook hands with the Israelis in a two-hour private meeting away from the cameras.
None of this will halt continued Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians, any more than the extra-friendly 1949 talks halted subsequent aggression.
In the 1950s and 1960s, long before the PLO guerrillas arrived in Lebanon, Israel attacked the country close to 200 times – including raids and shootings, stealing Lebanese cattle, burning crops in border villages and towns, destroying homes and property and kidnapping Lebanese civilians – resulting in at least 23 killed, 39 injured and 81 abducted.
In 1965, Israel bombed a dam under construction intended to divert the Banyas, Hasbani and Litani rivers in Lebanon and Syria, in response to Israeli theft of water belonging to Arab states, which it sought to divert to the Naqab desert in violation of international law. It destroyed the project.
Atrocities continue
Perhaps Israel’s most daring crime during this period was the machine-gunning of a Lebanese civilian plane in July 1950 by one of its air force fighters inside Lebanese airspace.
The attack on the plane, en route from East Jerusalem’s Qalandya airport to Beirut, killed two people and injured seven Jordanian passengers, including a five-year-old girl whose leg had to be amputated. Among those killed were Lebanese radio operator Antoine Wazir and Arab Jewish student Musa Fuad Dweik, whose head was blown off by one of the bullets.
In 1967, Israel occupied the Shib’a Farms, even though Lebanon was not a party to the war. It continues to occupy them today.
The following year, in December 1968, two days after two Palestinian refugees from Lebanon machine-gunned an Israeli passenger plane parked at Athens airport, killing a marine engineer, Israel bombed Beirut International Airport, destroying 13 civilian passenger planes worth almost $44m at the time, as well as hangars and other airport installations.
The Lebanese government is offering Israel extensive support to neutralise Hezbollah, including criminalising the only Lebanese resistance movement that ever liberated Lebanese territory from occupation
All these atrocities were committed before Palestinian guerrillas in Lebanon began to launch resistance operations against the settler-colony. Likewise, Lebanese politicians who offered cooperation with Israel did so long before these developments were later invoked to justify Israeli aggression.
Neither Aoun nor Salam is proposing anything new to the Israelis that previous Lebanese allies had not offered.
The Lebanese government is offering Israel extensive support to neutralise Hezbollah, including criminalising the only Lebanese resistance movement that ever liberated Lebanese territory from occupation and disseminating anti-Iranian propaganda.
Lebanese Justice Minister Adel Nassar posted on X this week the complete fabrication that Iran abandoned its condition for a comprehensive ceasefire that includes Lebanon in return for the Americans releasing its funds in western banks.
Yet despite all this help, nothing will sway Israel from committing more atrocities in Lebanon, and no one – not the Americans, the Saudis or the Israel-friendly Lebanese government – will be able to stop the Lebanese resistance from fighting back against this genocidal, predatory state.
Ultimately, Israel did not need to orchestrate a coup in Lebanon to secure a regime allied with it. The United States and Saudi Arabia did the job on its behalf and then some – as Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, who participated in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, affirmed when he emerged from this week’s talks declaring: “We are on the same side.”
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Joseph Massad is professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, New York. He is the author of many books and academic and journalistic articles. His books include Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan; Desiring Arabs; The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians, and most recently Islam in Liberalism. His books and articles have been translated into a dozen languages.
The US-Israeli war on Iran has given Gulf monarchies fresh cover to deepen repression, criminalize dissent, and tighten their grip over every version of reality that falls outside the state line.
Since 28 February, the US and Israel have been waging war on Iran, with consequences that reach far beyond the battlefield. Across the Persian Gulf, governments have seized on the conflict to expand repression at home.
Under the pretext of combating “disinformation” and “rumors” on social media, Gulf states have launched sweeping arrest campaigns against hundreds of citizens and residents, making clear that any expression outside the official narrative can now be treated as a “security threat” or even the “voice of the enemy.”
Calls not to photograph or publish footage did not arrive as casual advice. Interior ministries across the Gulf issued them as official warnings. At first glance, the arguments appeared plausible: avoid panic, protect national security, deny useful information to the enemy. Within days, however, these directives became the basis for a much broader campaign of repression, one that moved quickly from warnings to prosecutions.
The Gulf states have imposed a near-total blackout on the flow of information, claiming that independent content could spread fear, aid the enemy militarily, or amount to treason. In practice, the war on Iran has become a ready-made excuse to criminalize speech.
Bahrain: From emergency measures to mass arrests
Manama justified its tightening security measures through a series of official statements. The Interior Ministry’s Civil Defense Council announced a ban on gatherings “in order to maintain compliance with public safety responsibilities in light of the blatant Iranian aggression against Bahrain.” What appeared to be a response to regional escalation quickly turned into cover for a far broader crackdown.
Authorities arrested more than 260 citizens on charges including “misuse of platforms” and “sympathy for Iranian aggression.” According to human rights sources, three of those detained were women. Authorities also published photographs of detainees in an effort to shame them publicly.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the arrests went far beyond any legal framework. On 4 March, dozens of men stormed the home of Munir Mirza Ahmed Mushaima. Some wore black uniforms and white helmets, while others were in civilian clothing. They arrested him without presenting a warrant, accusing him of running a social media account that contained “illegal content.”
The crackdown has not been limited to Bahraini citizens. Residents of various nationalities have also been arrested for filming, posting, or reposting videos related to attacks on the country. Bahrain’s Public Prosecution has even asked courts to impose the death penalty on people accused of “spying with the enemy.”
The campaign has also turned deadly. Mohammad Mohsen Mousavi, who was arrested in mid-March, reportedly showed signs of torture on his body during funeral preparations. The Interior Ministry responded by defending his detention and accusing him of links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The UAE and Saudi Arabia move to monopolize the narrative
Abu Dhabi has followed Bahrain’s path closely. Since the outbreak of the war on Iran, restrictions on the movements of citizens and residents, as well as on what they can post online, have sharply increased.
The Public Prosecution warned X users against circulating images or videos from attack sites. These measures followed months of tighter digital censorship linked to tensions with Saudi Arabia over Yemen.
Authorities in Abu Dhabi alone have reportedly arrested more than 100 people, including foreigners, on charges of filming, publishing videos, or spreading “inaccurate information.” The State Security Agency also announced that it had dismantled a network allegedly “funded and managed” by Hezbollah and Iran. Officials claimed the network was planning to destabilize the country’s financial system.
Content creators have also come under pressure. Authorities now require prior approval before influencers or public figures can post, even when discussing routine issues such as hotel overcrowding or the effects of the war on daily life.
According to UAE sources, prosecutors circulated lists of accounts accused of publishing “illegal content offensive to the state and its leadership.” Dozens of accounts were blocked on X, including “Elon Trades,” after it posted a video showing a fire at Dubai’s Fairmont Hotel that drew more than one million views.
Outside of the UAE, several prominent accounts reported receiving notices from X informing them that their profiles had been blocked inside the Gulf state following requests linked to Emirati authorities.
Among them were Yemeni lawyer Mohammad al-Maswari who insisted that his posts were “based on rejecting the division of Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya, and any support for terrorist militias”; Egyptian presenter Osama Gaweesh; Al Jazeera‘s Yemeni affairs editor Ahmed al-Shalafi, who received a message from the UAE Public Prosecution, “with charges of insulting state institutions, inciting hatred and sedition, and other charges”; and Doha-based academic Marc Owen Jones, whose work focuses on digital repression and authoritarianism in the Gulf. Their cases suggest that the crackdown is no longer limited to those inside the country, but is increasingly targeting critics abroad as well.
Saudi Arabia has taken a similar route. In early March, state agencies launched a media campaign under the hashtag “#التصوير_يخدم_العدو” – “filming serves the enemy” – to frame any attempt to document strikes as a threat to national security.
Riyadh crafted a campaign designed to portray cameras and mobile phones as weapons in enemy hands. The government also circulated memos banning what it called “infringing content,” “anonymous videos,” and “rumors,” while urging the public to rely exclusively on official sources.
The result was a tightly controlled media environment in which the state monopolized the narrative and criminalized any attempt to challenge it.
Saudi authorities have not publicly announced arrests linked to the war, but Saudi sources tell The Cradle that several citizens and residents have been detained. Those arrested reportedly include Sheikh Hassan Al-Mutawa, the preacher of Al-Khader Mosque in Al-Rabiiya on Tarut Island in Qatif governorate.
Kuwait and Qatar widen the dragnet
As the war escalated, Kuwait issued Law No. 47 on “Counter-Terrorism” on 15 March 2026. The text of the law includes broad and vague language that can easily be used to restrict freedoms.
Article 1 defines a “terrorist act” as any act aimed at spreading fear among the population or endangering public safety. Such wording leaves the law open to broad interpretation and allows authorities to treat almost any form of dissent as a security offense.
Kuwaiti authorities later announced the arrest of dozens of alleged Hezbollah members, including Kuwaiti and Lebanese nationals, accusing them of plotting attacks and threatening the country’s sovereignty. At the same time, the Interior Ministry warned against publishing any photos or information related to strikes, claiming they could destabilize public opinion.
Authorities also detained several Kuwaitis and foreigners, including content creator Badr al-Husseinan. He was charged with broadcasting false news, harming national interests, and misusing a phone after posting a satirical video about the hardship people faced during the war.
On 14 April, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called for the release of US-Kuwaiti journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who had been detained for more than six weeks over social media posts linked to the war.
Authorities accused him of spreading false information, harming national security, and misusing a mobile phone after he shared footage of a US fighter jet crash near a military base in Kuwait. CPJ said the material was already public and verified, describing his detention as part of a wider campaign to silence scrutiny and tighten control over the narrative.
Qatar has adopted many of the same measures. Since the beginning of the war, the Interior Ministry has banned the publication of photos and videos related to attacks inside the country, describing them as threats to national security.
The Department of Combating Cyber Economic Crimes announced the arrest of more than 300 people of different nationalities over the circulation of what it described as “misleading” videos and information.
One of those detained was Egyptian teacher Mohamed Tawhid, who lived in Doha. Tawhid commented on the breaking news broadcast by Al Jazeera in March about a drone attack on Al-Udeid Air Base. Quoting the Qatari Defense Ministry, the report said the attack had been intercepted.
Tawhid replied: “You are idiots who protect those who do not protect you.” He deleted the comment soon after posting it, but was arrested shortly afterward.
Screenshot of Egyptian teacher Mohamed Tawhid’s now-deleted X post, which was one of the main reasons behind his arrest by Qatari authorities.
Rumors also circulated that Jordanian researcher Fatima al-Samadi had been arrested. A source later denied the reports, but confirmed that she had come under pressure and temporarily deactivated her accounts before returning online.
Israeli spyware and the Gulf security state
At the time of writing, there is still no conclusive evidence linking spyware such as Pegasus, developed by Israel’s NSO Group, or Graphite, developed by Paragon Solutions, to the latest arrest campaigns across the Gulf.
Still, the possibility cannot be dismissed. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain have all previously been linked to Pegasus use against dissidents under the banner of “national security.”
In February, a Paragon Solutions employee briefly posted an image on LinkedIn that appeared to show details from the Graphite spyware interface. Before it was deleted, the image reportedly revealed operating logs, encrypted messaging data, and other technical details.
The Paragon employee’s now-deleted LinkedIn image that showed the Graphite control panel on the screen in the background.
There is no documented use of Graphite in the Gulf so far. Yet the history of Gulf states purchasing Israeli spyware and using it against dissidents means the possibility remains very real. Graphite can reportedly exploit security vulnerabilities without requiring the target to click a malicious link or interact with the device in any way. The absence of official confirmation does not mean such tools are not being used.
The Gulf states have shifted from claiming to defend national security to building systems of permanent repression. They have exploited the war on Iran to expand prosecutions under labels such as “combating disinformation,” “preventing rumors,” “treason,” and “sympathy with the enemy.”
What is taking shape is not a temporary wartime response, but a deeper transformation in the meaning of security itself. Across the Gulf, governments are imposing the official narrative by force and treating any alternative version of events as a punishable offense.
The repression machine continues in war as in peace.
Has the war on Iran given Gulf governments a new pretext to suppress dissent?Yes, the war is being used to justify a major expansion of repressionGulf states are reacting to real security threats, not targeting dissentThe crackdown began long before the war, but the conflict accelerated itRepression varies from one Gulf state to another
The carefully planned destruction of Iran’s healthcare infrastructure fits into a long history of deliberate U.S. attacks on hospitals, writes Alan Macleod.
The aftermath of the attack by the United States and Israel on Tehran’s Gandhi Hotel Hospital. (Hossein Zohrevand / Tasnim News Agency / CC BY 4.0)
The United States and Israel are systematically targeting hospitals in Iran. In one month of bombing, the two countries have hit at least 307 health centers across the country, according to reports from the Iranian Red Crescent.
The carefully planned destruction of the Islamic Republic’s medical infrastructure fits into a long history of deliberate U.S. attacks on hospitals. Since the end of World War Two, Washington has targeted medical centers in at least 16 countries, and the 307 Iranian sites hit does not even come close to the record for the number of hospitals in any country destroyed by American bombs and missiles.
There was no warning. U.S. and Israeli airstrikes hit Gandhi Hotel Hospital in northern Tehran on March 1, and again on March 2.
Locals were fasting for Ramadan as missiles tore into the building, shattering glass and wrecking its neo-natal unit and ICU. Completed in 2009 and described as “beacon” of Iranian medicine and one of the most advanced medical centers in West Asia, the 17-storey building was among the country’s most important hospitals.
Gandhi Hospital in Tehran on March 2, after U.S.-Israeli strikes. (Tasnim News Agency / Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
Images of the aftermath show a once proud building in ruins, with floor after floor devastated. Gandhi Hotel Hospital is one of more than 300 medical centers that have been hit by U.S. and Israeli strikes. Nine days afterward, on March 11, the Persian Gulf Martyrs Educational and Medical Center in Bushehr on Iran’s southern coast was targeted and severely damaged.
Missile explosions destroyed much of the hospital’s medical equipment. Even as the glass was still falling, authorities made the decision to rush patients to the nearby Nuclear Scientists Martyrs Hospital, despite the fear of a double-tap strike, like the ones often seen in Israeli attacks on Palestine.
On March 21, the Imam Ali Hospital in Andimeshk, Khuzestan Province, was targeted. Video footage from the aftermath of the attack shows wards, waiting rooms, and corridors completely devastated, with both walls and roofs collapsing under the strain of U.S./Israeli bombardment.
The Imam Ali is Andimeshk’s only hospital, and patients were forced to be bussed to healthcare facilities in other cities, according to Hossein Kermanpour, head of public relations for the Iranian Ministry of Health. “I wish [Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu] understood that this is a crime against humanity,” he said.
Other medical infrastructure, including a first responders’ center, an Iranian Red Crescent office, and the Pasteur Institute, a medical research laboratory, have also been hit. “What message does attacking hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and the Pasteur Institute as a medical research center in Iran convey?” asked Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian;
“As a specialist physician, I urge WHO, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and physicians worldwide to respond to this crime against humanity.”
The attacks have been largely ignored by Western media. Few newspapers or TV news reports have even mentioned the damage to the country’s healthcare system, let alone centered it as a major news story.
Long US History of Bombing Hospitals
President Trump has a history of targeting medical facilities. Last year, U.S. forces carried out 14 separate airstrikes on the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Saada, Yemen, the centerpiece of the country’s healthcare network.
For a full investigation into the attack, and the U.S.’ long history of targeting civilian medical infrastructure around the world, see the MintPress News report: “With Yemen Attack, U.S. Continues Long History of Deliberately Bombing Hospitals.”
Repeated attacks against hospitals is more of a pattern than an aberration for Trump. In 2017, the U.S. carried out 20 strikes against a hospital in Raqqa, Syria, using white phosphorous munitions to do so, killing at least 30 civilians in the process.
Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, was not less fond of targeting healthcare facilities. In 2015, his administration ordered a bombing campaign against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.
The building was one of the largest and most recognizable in the city, and an internal inquiry found that the airmen aboard the gunship pushed back against the order, citing its illegality. They were overruled and forced to carry out the strike, killing at least 42 people.
Obama speaking on the military intervention in Libya at the National Defense University, March 28, 2011. (National Defense University, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Obama’s attack on Doctors Without Borders marked the only time in history that one Nobel Peace Prize winner has attacked another one. During his time in office, Obama bombed seven countries, including Libya, where U.S. planes struck a hospital in Zliten, leveling it completely. At least 11 people were killed in the operation.
Perhaps no nation on Earth has felt the impact of American power in the 21st century as badly as Iraq. Successive administrations attacked critical infrastructure there, including in 2003, when President Bush bombed the Red Crescent Maternity Hospital in Baghdad.
While many were killed in the strike, the real death toll, as UNICEF noted, was far higher, as with no medical care, maternal mortality spiked after the attack.
The 1990s is often remembered in the West as a time of peace. Yet President Clinton used the period to target medical infrastructure in three separate countries. In Yugoslavia, U.S. planes bombed a number of hospitals, including dropping now-banned cluster munitions on a facility in Niš, killing at least 15 people.
In Somalia in 1993, U.S. soldiers carried out a mortar attack against the Digfer Hospital in Mogadishu, destroying the building’s main reception area. They then proceeded to bomb the journalists attempting to cover the incident. Meanwhile, in Sudan, Clinton ordered a hit on the Al-Shifa medicine factory in Sudan.
Fourteen cruise missiles pounded the plant, turning what had been the largest producer of medicine in the country into a pile of twisted metal. The German Ambassador to Sudan estimated that, without the antibiotics, antimalarials, and other drugs it produced, the true death toll of the strike was in the “tens of thousands.” Few Americans know about this incident.
The 1980s were a dangerous time to be a doctor in a country designated for regime change.
The U.S. invaded Grenada in 1983, in order to put an end to the socialist revolution on the Caribbean island. In the process, it bombed the Richmond Hill Mental Hospital, killing dozens.
In El Salvador, U.S.-backed death squads flying in American aircraft stormed a hospital in San Ildefonso, killing five people. Paratroopers also kidnapped, raped, and tortured the staff, including French nurse Madeleine Lagadec, causing a major diplomatic incident.
Between 1981 and 1984, at least 63 health centers in Nicaragua were forced to close, due to attacks from U.S.-backed and trained “Contra” death squads, whom President Reagan labeled “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.”
The most well-documented case of U.S. attacks on Vietnamese medical infrastructure occurred in December 1972, when American planes dropped over 100 bombs on the giant Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, killing at least 28 staff and an unconfirmed number of patients.
During a Congressional hearing on clandestine activities in Laos and Cambodia, lawmakers were told that bombing of hospitals in those countries was “routine.”
To this day, Laos remains the most bombed country in history. North Korea, however, suffered the brunt of American attacks. In the course of the Korean War, the U.S. military destroyed an estimated 1,000 hospitals through bombing, as entire cities were leveled.
Professor Bruce Cummings, America’s foremost expert on Korea, estimates that the U.S. killed around 25 percent of the entire North Korean population between 1950 and 1953.
Israeli Crimes & American Dreams
Special surgery building at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, after being bombed by Israel on March 21, 2024. (Jaber Jehad Badwan/ Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
Israel, of course, is no stranger to bombing hospitals, either. Virtually every health center in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. Israeli Defense Forces snipers have targeted healthcare workers inside hospitals, and have kidnapped, and tortured doctors.
A particularly noteworthy example is that of Adnan Al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Hospital. In December 2023, al-Bursh was arrested and detained for months, and was likely raped to death by IDF troops.
Israel is now systematically targeting Lebanon’s health system, as it did with Palestine, shelling hospitals deep inside the country. As a result, at least 57 Lebanese healthcare workers have died. The U.S. attacks on Iranian infrastructure are part of a wider regime change operation aimed at overthrowing the Islamic Republic and installing a U.S.-compliant administration.
In recent times, Washington has assassinated the country’s supreme leader, carried out protracted economic warfare that has seriously harmed Iran, and fomented protests aimed at destabilizing and dislodging the government.
Trump also confirmed that his administration smuggled arms to Kurdish groups and to protestors leading the recent anti-government demonstrations — a key factor in the violence that erupted. Thus, while systematic U.S./Israeli attacks on Iranian hospitals are shocking acts, they fit into a clear pattern stretching back over 80 years.
As cataloged here, the United States has bombed healthcare infrastructure in at least 16 countries since the end of World War Two. Hitting hospitals may be a war crime, but it is as American as apple pie.
The US is sending thousands of additional troops to the Middle East and is considering restarting the bombing campaign against Iran or launching ground operations in the country, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed US officials.
The report said that the forces include 6,000 troops aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush and its accompanying warships. Notably, the Bush traveled around southern Africa on its way to the region instead of going through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, the typical route of US warships, signaling the US is concerned the Houthis in Yemen could close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
About 4,200 other US troops, including thousands of Marines, are heading to the region from the Pacific aboard the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group. The Post said they are expected to reach the Middle East by the end of April. Once both forces arrive, the US will have more than 60,000 troops in the region.
Marines aboard the USS Portland, part of the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, conducting weapons functions check during a drill in the Pacific Ocean on April 9, 2026 (US Marines Corps photo)
The buildup and the US blockade of Iranian ports are framed as an effort to get Iran to agree to US demands for a diplomatic deal. But according to President Trump, the US is continuing to demand that Iran make a commitment to never again enrich uranium for civilian purposes, a condition that’s seen as a non-starter and will likely lead to a renewal of the bombing campaign if the US sticks to it.
The current ceasefire between the US and Iran will expire on April 22 if it’s not extended. Other reports have said that President Trump has considered launching “limited” strikes in Iran to get Tehran to capitulate, but any renewed bombing campaign would mean a return to full-blown war.
Concerning possible ground operations, the Post report said that Trump administration officials have “discussed everything from launching a complex Special Operations mission to extract Iranian nuclear material, to landing Marines on coastal areas and islands to protect the strait, to seizing Kharg Island, an Iranian export facility in the Persian Gulf.”
Palestinian testimonies reveal how sexual violence, including rape using objects and dogs, is approved by ‘highest levels’ of Israeli leadership
Soldiers lock a gate at Sde Teiman detention facility after Israeli military police arrived as part of an investigation into the suspected abuse of a Palestinian detainee on 29 July 2025 (Reuters)
Published date: 11 April 2026 11:53 BST | Last update:1 day 21 hours ago
Sexual torture of Palestinian detainees from Gaza in Israeli prisons is an “organised state policy”, endorsed by the “highest, political, military, and judicial authorities”, a new report has revealed.
The report, seen exclusively by Middle East Eye, is based on testimonies from Palestinian former prisoners gathered by the rights watchdog Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
It reveals how the scope of sexual violence of Palestinian prisoners, including rape using objects and trained military dogs, constitutes an “organised state policy”, aided and abetted by Israeli institutions and leadership.
One former detainee, a 42-year-old woman from north Gaza who was held in the notorious Sde Teiman detention centre, said she was bound naked to a metal table and repeatedly raped by two masked soldiers over the course of two days.
She recalled that she was left shackled, naked and bleeding throughout the night before the soldiers returned the next day to continue raping her.
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She said she wished for death and likened her experience to “another genocide behind walls”.
Throughout her ordeal, she was filmed. Soldiers later showed her the footage while she was hung by her wrists under interrogation, threatening to publish the videos if she did not “cooperate”.
Amir, a 35-year-old Palestinian man also held at Sde Teiman, recounted how soldiers forced him to strip naked, before their dogs urinated on him and raped him.
He described how the dog “penetrated my anus in a trained manner while I was being beaten”.
“This continued for several minutes. I felt profoundly humiliated and violated.”
Khaled Mahajna, an attorney with the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, described how a soldier in Sde Teiman inserted a fire extinguisher nozzle into a Palestinian prisoner’s anus and then discharged its contents into his body, resulting in severe internal injuries and intense pain.
‘Etched into their memory’
Another former prisoner, 43-year-old Wajdi, recounted being shackled to a metal bed and repeatedly raped by soldiers and a trained dog.
“I felt severe pain in my anus and screamed, but every time I screamed, I was beaten. This continued for several minutes, while soldiers filmed and mocked me, Wajdi said.
“The soldier left after ejaculating inside me. I was left in a humiliating position. I wished for death. I was bleeding.”
He said he was then untied and raped by the dog. Later, another soldier forced his penis into the victim’s mouth and urinated on him. Over the following days, the abuse continued, with repeated rapes carried out by multiple soldiers.
“This case is particularly devastating because it reflects an accumulation of almost every form of torture, physical, psychological, and moral, layered with systematic humiliation,” Khaled Ahmed, a Euro-Med field researcher, told MEE.
“It also includes the deliberate use of multiple perpetrators and trained dogs as instruments of sexual violence. The result is not a single act of abuse, but an extended pattern of cruelty designed to destroy dignity, bodily integrity, and any sense of safety. These are acts that defy comprehension.”
Victims said the attacks were filmed and often conducted in “well-equipped institutional logistical settings… intentionally designed to enable torture and sexual violence”. The report said this evidenced the institutionalised nature of the violence.
Ahmed, who conducted some of the interviews with the victims, said the process was “by no means an easy task”.
“The soldier left after ejaculating inside me. I was left in a humiliating position. I wished for death. I was bleeding”
-Wajdi, former prisoner
“The details the survivors described and the way they relived the emotions and events were overwhelming,” Ahmed told MEE.
He described how some interviewees broke down in crying fits while recounting their stories, noting that the participants’ fear of reprisals and social stigmas around sexual abuse stopped some of them from speaking altogether.
“But what we noticed was that all of them spoke about what happened as if they were seeing it in front of them,” Ahmed told MEE.
“They remembered every detail, as though the scene had been etched into their memory and could never leave it.”
Ahmed said that most of the victims he spoke to were men, as women who experience sexual violence face a much deeper and more complex stigma in Palestinian society, “making it nearly impossible for a woman or her family to disclose that she has been assaulted”.
He noted that, while the sexual violence used against men and women is largely similar, women’s bodies in particular were used as a means to blackmail men.
“We documented several cases of sexual assault against women due to their familial ties to wanted individuals,” Ahmed said.
‘A complex crime’
Euro-Med monitor concluded that the testimonies are not isolated incidents but stand as evidence “of a policy supported by senior civilian and military leaders, either through direct orders or by tacit approval and a climate of impunity”.
It said that the scale of the abuse was made possible by legislation, military directives and emergency regulations, such as the “Unlawful Combatants Law”, which vastly expanded detention powers without judicial oversight and stripped detainees of any legal protections.
These legal mechanisms turbocharged enforced disappearances of Palestinian detainees and transformed Israeli detention centres into unaccountable “black holes” in the aftermath of 7 October 2023. Notable among them is Sde Teiman prison, where multiple reports have found torture, rape and murder to be rife, while the Red Cross and lawyers are denied access.
The report insists that responsibility for the abuse does not stop with its perpetrators; it is facilitated by the collusion of medical and legal personnel and the Israeli judicial system.
Euro-Med reported that doctors have helped to obscure incidents of torture by hiding the perpetrators’ identities, burying the victims’ injuries in medical records and issuing them “fit for interrogation” certificates.
Meanwhile, the Israeli justice system has shielded perpetrators by restricting evidence given by victims and witnesses, and reclassifying serious incidents as minor offences, resulting in the dismissal of charges.
In Israel, raping Palestinian prisoners is justified. Leaking the footage is betrayal
In March, the Israeli military announced it was dropping charges against five soldiers accused of gang-raping a Palestinian detainee at Sde Teiman, despite leaked CCTV footage showing soldiers surrounding the detainee as he was pinned against a wall.
The report said that these abuses breach the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, as they have caused serious harm to group members and are aimed at preventing births within the group – “all within a larger objective of partially or fully destroying the Palestinian community in the Gaza Strip”.
It emphasised that responsibility for these crimes extends “beyond the direct perpetrators, encompassing leadership and institutions that shelter them”.
Numerous reports by rights groups and investigations by news sites, including MEE, have extensively documented the widespread use of sexual violence and rape of Palestinian detainees across the Israeli prison system.
A United Nations inquiry accused Israel of using sexualised torture and rape as “a method of war… to destabilize, dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people”.
Ahmed emphasised that the proliferation of sexual violence in Israeli prisons serves a specific purpose, “because it encompasses almost all types of torture”.
“It keeps the victim trapped in a cycle of violence, unable to escape it, even after the violence has practically stopped,” Ahmed said.
“It continues to accompany the victim throughout their life. The survivor keeps experiencing both physical and psychological pain, and in many cases feelings of shame, humiliation, self-blame, inferiority, loss of dignity, and a lack of safety.”
He noted that the trauma does not stop with the victim, but spreads to their family and community.
“Especially in a conservative society where anything related to sexual assault is seen as an attack on the dignity of the entire family. It is a complex crime that deeply impacts and fractures the very fabric of society.”
Israel denies withholding supplies for Gaza’s more than 2 million residents
MADRID, April 12 (Reuters) – A second flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza was due to set sail on Sunday from the Spanish port of Barcelona to try to break the Israeli blockade.
About 30 boats planned to leave the Mediterranean port city laden with medical aid and other supplies on the Global Sumud Flotilla, and more vessels are expected to join along the route towards Palestine.
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The Israeli military halted the roughly 40 boats assembled by the same organisation last October as they attempted to reach blockaded Gaza, arresting Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and more than 450 other participants.
MISSION TO ‘OPEN HUMANITARIAN CORRIDOR’
Israel, which controls all access to the Gaza Strip, denies withholding supplies for its more than 2 million residents. Yet Palestinians and international aid bodies say supplies reaching the territory are still insufficient, despite a ceasefire reached in October which included guarantees of increased aid.
Liam Cunningham, an actor who starred in the Game of Thrones television series who is supporting the flotilla but not taking part, told Reuters: “Every kilogram of aid that is on these ships is a failure because all these people on these ships giving up their time to help their fellow human beings are doing what their governments are legally obliged to do.”
The World Health Organization has said that even during armed conflicts, states are obligated under international humanitarian law to ensure that people are able to reach medical care in safety.
“This is a mission that aims to open a humanitarian corridor so the aid delivery organisations can arrive,” Saif Abukeshak, a Palestinian activist and member of the flotilla’s organising committee, told Reuters.
Swiss and Spanish activists on last year’s flotilla said they were subjected to inhumane conditions during their detention by Israeli forces – an allegation that was rejected by an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson.
Reporting by Graham Keeley; Additional reporting by Silvio Castellanos, Horaci Garcia, Nacho Doce, Albert Gea, Michele Spatari and Amy McConaghy; Editing by David Holmes
Residents gather near charred cars and buildings, at the site of Wednesday’s Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 10, 2026. [AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti]
On Friday, during a phone interview with the New York Post, President Trump said US warships were being reloaded with weapons to be used against Iran in anticipation of a failure of the ceasefire talks taking place in Pakistan.
When asked if he thought the negotiations would be successful, he said, “We’re going to find out in about 24 hours. We’re going to know soon.” Trump’s remarks are an unmistakable indication that the two-week pause in the US air assault on Iran he announced on Tuesday has resolved nothing and is being used to prepare the next stage of the war.
Trump made clear that the Pentagon is replenishing its weaponry during the pause in the air assault. He said, “We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made—even better than what we did previously, and we blew them apart.”
Emphasizing that a return to warfare was on the agenda, Trump repeated himself, “But we’re loading up the ships. We’re loading up the ships with the best weapons ever made, even at a higher level than we used to do a complete decimation. And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively.”
Reports from multiple outlets since Tuesday show that Iran retains control over the passage through the Strait of Hormuz, with shipping still restricted and, in some accounts, subject to Iranian oversight or tolling arrangements. Disturbed by Iran’s control of the strait and the fact that this is being reported widely by the corporate media, Trump posted on Truth Social at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, “The Iranians are better at handling the Fake News Media, and ‘Public Relations,’ than they are at fighting!”
A report by CBS News said data compiled by MarineTraffic shows that only 22 ships have passed through the strait since Tuesday. Estimates of shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf indicate a significant bottleneck of over 600 total commercial vessels at a standstill, approximately 400 of which are oil tankers, and not moving through the strait.
A few minutes later, Trump escalated his threats against Iran, writing, “The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”
There are major conflicts within the US ruling establishment over whether the talks will produce any results because of Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon. Iranian officials have warned that time is running out, while US officials are trying to preserve the ceasefire before it expires on April 22.
However, based on Trump’s comments to the New York Post, it is likely the Israeli attacks on Lebanon are being used to deliberately sabotage talks that function as a cover for preparations to restart the war on a far higher level.
The truce discussions are taking place in Islamabad, with Pakistan mediating and a large US delegation involved, including Vice President JD Vance, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Marco Rubio and Adm. Brad Cooper, alongside officials from the National Security Council, State Department and Pentagon.
On the Iranian side, reports say the delegation arrived in Islamabad and is headed by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other senior officials also included. Reuters described the meeting as “make-or-break,” and other reports say the two sides remain far apart on core issues.
The official line is that the talks are meant to translate the ceasefire into a longer standing arrangement, but there is no agreement over whether Lebanon is covered. Pakistan and Iran have said that the ceasefire framework includes Lebanon, while the White House and Israel have denied it.
Iran’s position is tied to Israel’s continued expansion of the war in Lebanon. Iranian state-linked comments reported in the press have framed the Lebanese front as inseparable from Iran’s own security, with Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Seyed Majid Mousavi warning that “Aggression towards Lebanon is aggression towards Iran,” and promising a “heavy response.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who previously said there is “no cease-fire in Lebanon,” agreed on Thursday to start direct negotiations with Lebanon after Trump urged restraint by Israel, and the European imperialist leaders warned that the attacks on Lebanon threatened to collapse the ceasefire with Iran.
Recent reporting says that more than 1.2 million people have been displaced since the beginning of the conflict, with the UN citing evacuation orders covering 14 percent of the country. On Wednesday, Israeli strikes killed at least 303 people and injured more than 1,000, the deadliest day so far in the war that began on March 2.
The scale of destruction is also being measured in infrastructure collapse. Reports cite strikes on roads, bridges, hospitals and commercial districts, with aid delivery badly disrupted and parts of the south rendered non-functional. Like the Gaza genocide, this is not a limited border operation; It is a systematic campaign to make areas of Lebanon uninhabitable.Available from Mehring BooksThe struggle against imperialism and for workers’ power in IranA pamphlet by Keith Jones
The correspondence of interests between Washington and Tel Aviv were expressed when Trump said on Wednesday that he had spoken with Netanyahu and that Israel would “tone it down” in Lebanon. Knowing full well the Iranian position on the Lebanon, Trump added, “I just think we need to be a bit more low-key,” and claimed Netanyahu would “ease up” and be “totally fine” on the Lebanon issue.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s latest statements make clear that Israel’s objective is not a pause but a political-military restructuring of Lebanon. He has said the talks with Lebanon will focus on “disarming Hezbollah” and establishing “peaceful relations” on Israeli terms, while also insisting that Israel will keep striking until its security conditions are met.
These remarks should be understood alongside the fact that the bombing of Lebanon continues. Israel is using negotiations as a cover to press its military campaign, not as a genuine path to de-escalation. Israeli strikes continued Thursday killing dozens more, with between 17 and 24 killed in specific strikes by Israel.
This is in fact the same modus operandi of the Trump administration itself. The “talks” in Islamabad are but a respite as the White House considers its next move to militarily impose the requirements of US imperialism onto the Iranian people.
The WSWS has consistently maintained that this war is part of the imperialist effort by Washington to subordinate the region to American interests. The US is pursuing “the obliteration of Iran as a state and a campaign of terror against the population,” and that the assault on Iran is tied to control over energy resources and preparation for wider a conflict, including against China and Russia.
As an anonymous senior defense official told Politico in March, “Iran is not the end. It’s the first test of a broader geopolitical reorientation. We’re rebuilding the capacity to project power simultaneously in multiple theaters—Eurasia, the Pacific, and the Middle East.”
This analysis identifies the present war as a warning of what is coming next. The aim of US imperialism is the domination of Iran as a major opening act in a broader global escalation. The Middle East war is the sharpest expression of the world crisis of capitalism.
The ceasefire talks in Islamabad cannot resolve a conflict rooted in imperialist strategy, Israeli expansionism and the drive of the US ruling class to redivide the region by force. With these objectives intact, the present truce will be unstable, and the threat of a far broader war will continue to hang over the region and the world.
Published date: 10 April 2026 13:35 BST | Last update:39 mins 32 secs ago
Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, called Israel “evil” and a “curse for humanity” in an X post on Thursday, just hours before US and Iranian delegations were due to arrive in Islamabad for peace talks mediated by Pakistan.
In the post, which has since been deleted, Asif wrote: “While peace talks are underway in Islamabad, genocide is being committed in Lebanon. Innocent citizens are being killed by Israel, first Gaza, then Iran and now Lebanon, bloodletting continues unabated. I hope and pray people who created this cancerous state on Palestinians land to get rid of European jews burn in hell.”
The statement followed a wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday that killed over 200 people and wounded over 1,000 in the heaviest day of bombing on the Lebanese capital in decades.
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The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office called Asif’s comments “outrageous” in a post on X.
“This is not a statement that can be tolerated from any government, especially not from one that claims to be a neutral arbiter for peace,” it said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in a post on X that Israel “views very gravely these blatant antisemitic blood libels from a government claiming to mediate peace”.
“Calling the Jewish state ‘cancerous’ is effectively calling for its annihilation,” he added.
A screenshot of the deleted tweet on 9 April by Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif describing Israel as ‘cancerous’ and ‘evil’
Islamabad is set to host delegations from the US and Iran from Friday, with talks scheduled to begin on Saturday. They are aimed at ending the US-Israeli war on Iran, which reached a tentative ceasefire agreement on Wednesday.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said on Friday that Iranian delegates would not attend peace talks unless the ceasefire agreement is extended to Lebanon.
One Pakistani official involved in the mediation talks told The Guardian on Friday: “Our priority is that the talks go smoothly.”
“We don’t want to be seen as a spoiler. Our role is as a facilitator and mediator. We will leave it to both parties, Iran and the US, to share any developments with the media if they want.”
Pakistan, which has positioned itself at the centre of global conflict mediation during the war, has also been mired in its own conflict with Afghanistan since declaring “open war” on 27 February.
Hundreds have been killed and nearly 100,000 displaced by cross-border shelling and air strikes during the conflict, which China is simultaneously mediating.
Asif, a veteran member of the conservative Pakistan Muslim League party that has governed Pakistan since 2024 and during several previous administrations, has long been vocal in his criticism of Israel.
On 3 March, he described Zionism as “a threat to humanity” in a post on X.
“From the establishment of Israel on the land of Palestine until today, every catastrophe that has befallen the Islamic world, every war imposed upon it, will show the direct or indirect hand of Zionist ideology and the state,” he wrote.
US officials were aware that a statement from Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the US-Iran ceasefire that was issued on Tuesday included a truce in Lebanon as part of the deal, according to media reports.
The New York Times reported that the US had already seen and signed off on Sharif’s statement before he posted it. The initial post included a header that said “Draft – Pakistan’s PM Message on X,” causing speculation that the statement was actually written by the US, though a White House official denied that President Trump drafted it.
A diplomatic source familiar with the negotiations leading up to the ceasefire announcement told ITV News that Iranian and Pakistani officials ended the talks with the understanding that the US was aware that the truce also applied to Lebanon, contradicting claims from Trump and Vice President JD Vance that it did not.
Vance claimed it was a “misunderstanding” on the part of the Iranians that the ceasefire included Lebanon and said it would be “dumb” for Tehran to allow the negotiations to collapse over the issue, though he also insisted the deal includes a halt to Iranian attacks on Israel and the US’s Gulf allies in the region.
Israel not only continued its attacks on Lebanon, but it also dramatically escalated the bombardment, launching a new military operation dubbed “Operation Eternal Darkness” and killing hundreds of people across the country. According to NBC News, Trump asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale down the attack, but heavy Israeli strikes continued on Thursday.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Thursday that he instructed his government to open negotiations with the Lebanese government, though there’s no sign he plans to halt the bombing campaign.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed in a statement on Wednesday that the ceasefire must include Lebanon or the deal will be off. “The Iran-US Ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the US must choose—ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both,” Araghchi wrote on X. “The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the US court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”
Photo Credit: The Cradle
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