Middle Orient

Rapid geopolitical change is curtailing Russian power in the South Caucasus, boosting the influence of Middle Eastern countries and bookending the region’s “post-Soviet” history. The South Caucasus is undergoing a geopolitical transformation. The war in Ukraine and the effective resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan mean that …

On May 14, 1948, the state of Israel was established, and with it, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes. Out of this exorbitant refugee crisis, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was born. Beginning operations in 1950, today UNRWA provides humanitarian …

A wave of protests is currently sweeping through Germany: Hundreds of thousands of people have been taking to the streets for the past few weeks in opposition to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. The protests were triggered by the recent revelation by investigative news website Correctiv that a …

Humanitarian aid operations in Gaza are once again in the spotlight following the momentous International Court of Justice (ICJ) provisional rulings against Israel on 26 January. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – the leading aid entity for Palestinians in Gaza and across the Middle East – is …

Only a few months ago many Western, Israeli, and Arab policymakers and analysts had incorrectly concluded that the Arab world had moved past the issue of Palestine. Some commentators saw the Arab trend toward normalisation with Israel as the future. These voices were convinced that it was only a matter …

A U.S. strike in Baghdad that killed a commander of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah paramilitary group this week highlighted the ambiguous status of the country’s Iran-allied armed factions. Some operate simultaneously as a part of the official security forces and outside of state control. That has put the government of …

The commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces warned Thursday there’s been a “spike” in ISIS activity in Syria recently, as ISIS tries to take advantage of tensions in the Middle East. Gen. Mazloum Abdi Kobane, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, told reporters in a Zoom briefing Thursday that …

A New Pan-Islamic Front May Be America’s Biggest Challenge The war in the Gaza Strip is clearly no longer limited to Israel and Hamas. On December 25, an Israeli airstrike killed a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard official, Sayyed Razi Mousavi, in the Shiite-controlled Sayyida Zaynab neighborhood of Damascus. On January …

On 18 January, Israel presented to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) allegations that twelve of its roughly 13,000 employees in the Gaza Strip had participated in the 7 October 2023 attack on Israeli towns led by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. …

Latest Developments An Israeli drone strike in Lebanon on February 8 seriously wounded a Hezbollah commander identified as Abbas al-Debes. A second senior member, identified as Ali Karaki, escaped before Israel struck the vehicle, according to a Sky News Arabic report. The Israeli strike came in response to an anti-tank …