Middle Orient

Analysis: Syria has already witnessed surging violence this year, but Israel’s war on Gaza is threatening to bring further instability to the country. On 31 October, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen warned that the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip had already spilt over to Syria. Pedersen justified …

After a month of Israel’s indiscriminate war on besieged Gaza, Ahmed Saleh asks why Palestinians are stripped of their humanity, reflects on seven decades of colonisation and occupation, and mourns his friends taken too soon. This is a scathing elegy for Gaza. One where there is no room left to …

As war rages in Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to escalate, causing grievous harm to civilians and threatening stability across the Middle East. Crisis Group experts offer a 360-degree view of how various capitals in the region view this crisis and their own interests therein. The 7 October attack by …

As the conflict in the territory continues, getting to know more about likely trajectories has become a necessity. A day after the horrific attacks of October 7, I was not only shocked but also profoundly unsure about what would happen next. Some things were already clear. Immediately, the political actors …

Michael Rose, an assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, calls for the U.S. to deploy one or both U.S. Navy hospital ships to the coast of Gaza to treat Palestinian children ages 15 and under. I always welcome any attempt at a constructive …

On November 11, 2023, Lebanon’s Shi’ite Amal Movement announced that one of its operatives, ‘Ali Jamil Al-Hajj Dawoud, had been targeted in an act of “direct aggression by the oppressive Israeli enemy” in the Rab El Thalathine village of southern Lebanon, leading to his “martyrdom” and the injury of two …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s close relations with Hamas, the public record of which goes back nearly 20 years, appear to have been largely unaffected by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. While there are rumors that Isma’il Haniyeh, who has since 2017 been chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, …

The party may escalate on the southern border with Israel, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will reach the level of bombing cities. The speech last week of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah left many in Lebanon and beyond relieved, as he defended his organization’s limited engagement in the Gaza …

La «liberté», la «démocratie» et un «ordre fondé sur des règles» sont les principes que prétendent guider les gouvernements occidentaux autoproclamés «civilisés». Le soi-disant «leader du monde libre» affirme que son administration respecte le droit international humanitaire et s’oppose à toutes les formes de racisme et de discrimination. Cette rhétorique …

In war, territory is the arena, not the fight. For those who have followed my commentary on this war for any length of time, I beg you to excuse me for yet again returning to a topic that has been a recurring theme for me. I feel compelled to do …