United Airlines has been sending military hardware to Israel on passenger flights, right under your feet.
A new report from the People’s Embargo for Palestine, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and others documents 2,761 shipments of military cargo to Israeli weapons manufacturers and military institutions, including Elbit Systems, Lockheed Martin Israel, Nevatim Airbase, and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Belal Elsiesy, organizer with the PYM and the People’s Arms Embargo, joins Zoe Alexandra to break down the findings.
With cargo including F-35 bomb release units used to drop 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza, Merkava tank sights, and “hunter-killer” machine gunner sights destined for Elbit, Elsiesy argues civilian airports are a critical point of intervention. He also discusses what’s behind Elbit’s US rebrand as 26 Defense, how campaigns against Maersk and FedEx have targeted the weak links in Israel’s weapons supply chain, and why the airline’s silence on the #NoWeaponsOnUnited campaign is a good reason to act now.
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Two years after Israel’s pager attacks on Lebanon killed dozens and maimed thousands, Lebanese investigative journalist Radwan Mortada’s new two-part Al Jazeera documentary, The Trap (Al-Mesyada), goes inside the September 2024 Mossad operation more than a decade in the making.
Mortada joins Rania Khalek to trace the web of front companies stretching from Taiwan to Bulgaria that enabled Israel to infiltrate Gold Apollo, a supplier Hezbollah had trusted for decades.
As a new Israeli propaganda film Paging Hezbollah heads for US theaters, Mortada reveals that Israel’s goal to kill as many as 20,000 Hezbollah fighters with booby-trapped walkie-talkies, in fact, fell far short. He also breaks down Hezbollah’s own fatal mistakes, and the lasting psychological toll of a terrorist attack that, contrary to US and Israeli narratives, was far from “precise” or “targeted,” destroying the lives of children, families, and medical workers.
“Hezbollah’s biggest mistake was forgetting Israel’s capabilities – forgetting how bloody and cruel they can be.”
Watch The Trap Part 1: aljazeera360.com/video/1017661
Part 2: aljazeera360.com/video/1017626
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Rough transcript follows:
[Rana:] And joining me to discuss this two-part investigative deep dive into the pager attacks is the producer himself, Redwan Mortada. Redwan, welcome to Breakthrough News Live.
[Redwan Mortada:] Thank you, Rana. Thank you for having me.
[Rana:] Well, it’s a real pleasure, and I got a chance to watch the documentary. I encourage everybody to go check it out. It’s available online. It’s also available with English subtitles, and it’s really worth the watch. I mean, you expose so much new information we didn’t know before. But before we get into some of the specifics, Redwan, I want to ask you, you’ve called this one of the most complex cases that you’ve ever worked on as an investigative journalist. And we have all watched Israel commit so many atrocities across Lebanon that have killed far more people than the pager attacks did. Yet, in your film, you call this the most devastating blow that Hezbollah has taken since its founding. So, two years on from this attack, why does this operation still loom so large that you felt it warranted a two-part investigative series?
[Redwan Mortada:] You’re right, Rania. Israel killed tens of thousands of Lebanese over the years. But in fact, this operation is different—the pager attack. I mean, because it came from a place Hezbollah thought was secure for years and years, for decades, if you want. There has been an intelligence war between the resistance, mainly between Hezbollah and Israel, in Lebanon and in the region. Israel assassinated several senior commanders of Hezbollah, carried out several operations against it, killing Abbas al-Musawi, the ex-secretary-general, and at the same time, Hezbollah carried out several operations against Israel. But this pager operation was different because it was one of the biggest blows to Hezbollah—an attack that only Mossad could imagine. No one could imagine this kind of operation and this kind of killing, because it didn’t only affect Hezbollah fighters. It affected tons of children and women, and it breaches all international and humanitarian rules across the world.
[Rana:] Yeah. And just for everybody who’s watching Breakthrough News and your organization, Blue House Films, you produced a documentary on the pager attacks and how they impacted civilians specifically that came out last year. People who are probably watching this have seen that documentary, and it shows the toll specifically on children and other civilians caught up in it—their faces totally maimed, destroyed, and blinded for those who did survive. I mean, just a horrific attack. But your documentary, this two-part series, really dives deep into the timeline of Israel plotting this attack. I mean, Israel spent years on this; it started back in 2015. And in your documentary, you lay out how Mossad built these front companies spanning Taiwan, Hong Kong, Hungary, and Bulgaria. They infiltrated the pager company that Hezbollah had grown to trust, they manipulated the Hezbollah representative that was dealing with that company, and they rigged the devices with small amounts of this powerful explosive substance hidden in the batteries that was so hard to detect, and then they detonated them at a moment of their choosing. I mean, the way you lay it out, it plays like a movie thriller. So walk us through some of that Israeli timeline—how did they pull this off?
[Redwan Mortada:] It is a long story. You have to watch the film and go deep into the details, the exclusive information, the exclusive data, and the interviews, because it also presents the story of Hezbollah. We post in the film the email communications between the company called Gold Apollo and Hezbollah. But in fact, if I want to go back to how this started, after the 2006 war, Israel started looking for ways to penetrate Hezbollah, especially its network and communication, because you know the result of the war in 2006 was that Hezbollah beat Israel, and Israel wanted revenge. So they started trying to penetrate Hezbollah. They tried to recruit the sales representatives in Taiwan; they failed. They tried to sell pagers to Hezbollah through several front companies, but they failed. And the story they distributed in the media about a blonde girl that manipulated a representative to sell him the pagers was not true. The truth is that they penetrated a trusted company that had a relation with this company over 20 years, starting in the 2000s—Gold Apollo. So they penetrated Hezbollah through this company. They recruited Teresa, the employee in the company, and through recruiting Teresa, they penetrated Hezbollah, and they sent these pagers. And it was not just one plan for Mossad; there was a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A was to explode the walkie-talkies, and this operation started in 2014. I am not saying that Israeli officials declared that, but they succeeded in sending 15,000 walkie-talkies to Hezbollah. But these walkie-talkies were in storage, and Hezbollah did not decide to go into battle in full power, so they did not distribute all the walkie-talkies; they distributed around 800 walkie-talkies. So Mossad moved to the second plan, which is Plan B—detonating the pagers. This operation started in 2020, and they succeeded in sending 500 pagers to Hezbollah at the beginning, in 2023. Because of the necessity of the battle at the beginning, Hezbollah refused these pagers because this model—the new model—was different; he had ordered the old model. Gold Apollo sent Hezbollah the new model, and the representative of Hezbollah whose name was Mike said, “We don’t want to deal with you because we ordered the old version.” But because of the necessity of the battle and the urge of what was going on after October 7, it forced Hezbollah to receive 4,200 pagers, and they distributed around 3,000, of which only 1,850 exploded.
[Rana:] Yeah. And people really need to go watch this documentary, because you also lay out how the Israelis would find out that Hezbollah was on to them, and then they would stop scanners from Iran from coming to Lebanon that could have detected the substance by bombing a warehouse and another warehouse, and then claiming they were bombing this to kill somebody when it was really to stop Hezbollah from finding out about the pagers. I mean, it’s just really wild stuff. But I want to talk about Hezbollah’s mistakes here, because the attack did expose how deeply Hezbollah had been penetrated, which is what you’re talking about. And you mentioned 2006. After 2006, Hezbollah did build its own communications network, and you described in the documentary how this is precisely because Lebanon’s telecoms were so compromised by the Israelis. And then the war in Syria turned Hezbollah into a much larger and more exposed army that allowed for more penetration. At the same time, these failures come off as so shocking, because Hezbollah did have guardrails in place to try to detect if anything was messed with. What were some of Hezbollah’s mistakes? Again, people really should go watch the documentary because you go into deep detail on what those mistakes were. But if you had to give a brief explanation, what were Hezbollah’s mistakes, and could this have been prevented? And I guess I’d also add to that, has Hezbollah reckoned with this internally?
[Redwan Mortada:] I said it in the film, and I will repeat it: the biggest mistake was forgetting Israeli capabilities and forgetting how bloody and cruel they can be. This is one of the biggest mistakes Hezbollah committed. In fact, you’re right, the war in Syria exposed Hezbollah, and the capabilities and advanced technology Israel had also helped them to do this operation. But in addition to that, they used a new kind of technology, which is CL-20—a new kind of US explosive material manufactured by the United States of America. This kind of explosion is not detectable, and also when Hezbollah gave the pagers that did not explode to the Lebanese army, when they detected it… I put in the film that report that mentions this is an unknown material; it’s not listed in the explosive library. That’s why the airport scanners in Hong Kong, Turkey, and Lebanon couldn’t detect it.
[Rana:] That’s so scary. It’s so scary to think what else they’ve infiltrated.
[Redwan Mortada:] Especially, Rana, these pager devices are civilian devices; they are not military devices.
[Rana:] Yeah. Well, you also—I thought it was super interesting—mentioned in the documentary that Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyeh used to cut open screws when he would take apart devices to make sure the screw hadn’t been messed with. I mean, one of the biggest mistakes that was mentioned was that Hezbollah operatives were asking questions—there was something weird about these pagers and walkie-talkies, and they were taking them apart and looking at the different pieces to see what was wrong with them, but they never cut open the batteries because…
[Redwan Mortada:] Okay, that shows a lot, by the way. That shows a lot, because even us at the time, when this happened, our question was: where was Hezbollah? Where was the protocol for experimenting on all of these? In fact, I mentioned in the film that there was like a mind race between Hezbollah and the Mossad officer, and it was one step… I mentioned two names in the film, and Jibril Jibril is a nickname for Hussein Bazi, an engineer inside Hezbollah. He was an officer who had doubts, and when he started to remove these pagers from small groups, Israel knew about that and decided to start the operation instead of losing the element of surprise.
[Rana:] So that they could do at least some damage, even though they didn’t get to kill as many people as they wanted. I wanted to ask you, though, obviously this did not destroy Hezbollah because they were able to go on and fight the war in 2024, but it did do a lot of damage to the organization. So can you explain, in terms of manpower, command, morale, and trust in their own systems, what was the damage of this operation to Hezbollah?
[Redwan Mortada:] For me, I think the biggest impact was psychological. The Israelis started this war by exploding the pagers. The first day they exploded the pagers; the second day they exploded the walkie-talkies. Then they carried out over 1,400 airstrikes on Lebanon in one day. After that, they assassinated the special forces commanders—the Radwan Force in Hezbollah—until they assassinated Hassan Nasrallah. For around 10 days, Hezbollah and Lebanese society experienced and went through one of the hardest days in our history. The goal and target for Israel was to destroy Hezbollah. But in fact, Hezbollah survived, and you can tell that if you do a comparison between the war in 2024 and the war in 2026, the level of assassination and the level of penetration wasn’t the same at all.
[Rana:] I want to ask you also, Redwan, you talked about this in your documentary, and I covered it in the documentary that I did with Blue House: Israel and its supporters continue to celebrate this as a marvel of precision. They call it surgical, targeted, and clean. And actually, I don’t know if you’ve seen, but the Israelis also have a movie coming out called Paging Hezbollah.
[Redwan Mortada:] A propaganda film, you mean? The propaganda film where they started swimming and they are at the beach, and you will hear another voice: “We are in a special area, but in fact, we are in a hostile environment where everyone wants to destroy us”? They are justifying why they went into a major operation.
[Rana:] Yeah. So this is going to be in American theaters on October 30th. It’s called Paging Hezbollah, an Israeli propaganda film that celebrates this attack. I encourage people, instead of watching that, to go watch Redwan’s documentary, which we’ll include a link to in the description. But I wanted to ask you, what was the actual impact of what Israel did on civilians? Israel and the US celebrate the pager operation as a major achievement, calling it precise and targeted. But they are lying. They are liars, because really it was a terrorist attack, a war crime, because it also hit civilians. And you met tons of civilians, women and children, in your documentary. But in fact, this is not just my word; Human Rights Watch said it was a war crime. Booby-trapped pagers used by civilians on a daily basis—when they exploded, they didn’t target only Hezbollah fighters, because you know they are a part of Lebanese society, and they chose a peak time when families were gathered, when children came back from school. So when they exploded, they targeted, killed, and injured children, women, families, doctors, nurses. They are not all military; part of them are civilians.
[Redwan Mortada:] And the injuries—I mean, just so people understand the injuries from this explosion. It exploded in people’s faces, so it was destroyed eyeballs, destroyed facial structure and bones, missing fingers. Really, really horrific stuff. I think you experienced—my colleague told me that when you wanted to give a neck mic to one of the children to start the interview, he ran away a bit because it was similar to the pager.
[Rana:] No, they were scared. Yeah, the kids I spoke to were scared, of course. They have PTSD from this device because it looked similar. It’s just horrible. And the other thing, too, is people blinded. If you’re blind, you usually learn to read with your fingers, with Braille, but the pager—the way it exploded, people were holding it, so it also cut off people’s fingers in addition to taking away their sight, so they can’t even learn to read Braille. There are just so many layers of horror that this has impacted, and people are still getting surgeries two years later to fix their faces, if they can ever be fixed. It’s just horrifying and should not be celebrated. But you noted—and again, I encourage people to go watch the documentary because it goes into detail—Israel’s real aim was to have these exploding walkie-talkies kill as many as 20,000 fighters, and it didn’t manage to do that. So obviously they did a lot of damage to Hezbollah, but their ultimate operation failed. But connected to all this: yes, Hezbollah was able to demonstrate it survived, especially watching it fight in 2026. Like you mentioned, there weren’t major assassinations because Israel doesn’t even really know who’s in charge anymore, and they were able to fight the Israelis. However, Israel has managed to occupy a huge portion of Lebanon, and right now Hezbollah is not really responding to Israel’s daily attacks, killings, and bombings—it’s blown up like 60 villages at this point. So where does the battle stand today? Hezbollah has lost ground, Israel is expanding its occupation, and people are wondering why Hezbollah is not responding right now. What, in your opinion, is Hezbollah’s real capability as it stands today, and is there any deterrence left against Israeli aggression?
[Redwan Mortada:] This question should be addressed to Hezbollah, but I will tell you my evaluation of how I’m looking at what’s going on now. In fact, the war did not finish yet. The war is still going on, and the war is not only in Lebanon—the war is in the region, the war between the United States of America and Iran, between Iran and Israel, between Hezbollah and Israel. We are part of this big war in this region. Until now, there are rules of engagement, and the last agreement is still going on, because if you can see in Lebanon, Israel doesn’t dare to target Beirut, to target the Beqaa, to target the Dahieh, because there are rules of engagement between the United States of America and Iran. I think we have to wait and see. During the past 15 months, if you remember, everyone went out and said Hezbollah is done, Hezbollah is finished. But when the battle erupted, we saw another equation on the ground. So I think we are still in the middle of the war; we cannot expect what will go on, whether there will be another round—and that’s what we think, there will be another round, the third round. And we hope that we can survive, we hope that we can kick the Israelis out of our country, because you know that they believe in their myth of Greater Israel, and they believe that and declared that they can take part of Lebanon and part of Syria to fulfill their dream and their myth. So we are fighting with these psychopaths who are now destroying our houses, destroying our lands, killing anyone in that yellow zone in the south of Lebanon. And the United States of America, unfortunately, is backing them and covering them, and our government is involved in this betraying. So let’s wait and see how things will go on.
[Rana:] Well, Redwan, I want to thank you so much for this incredible two-part documentary that you put together. Again, we’ll include a link to it in the description for people to watch, and also for all of the incredible work you do. You really are one of the best journalists we have here in Lebanon. So thank you for all of the wonderful work you do, and hopefully we can have you on again soon.
[Redwan Mortada:] Thank you. Thank you so much.
In late September, Israeli media reported that Netanyahu’s government intends to adjust access to key routes in the central West Bank. It plans to reopen Route 463 to settler-only traffic in the governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh.
Yisrael Gantz, the leader of the Yesha Council (an umbrella organization representing Israeli municipal councils across Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley) confirmed that plans to reopen the road received preliminary approval and funding.
Preparations are also underway by the Israeli military to complete “the security, legal, and logistical” steps required to reopen the route (also known as Wallerstein Road).
The road was paved in 1994 under the directions of Pinchas Wallerstein, a founder of the settlement movement, to connect the illegal settlements of Beit El (north-east of Ramallah and Al-Bireh) and Dolev (north-west of Jerusalem).
However, following the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, the Israeli army barred Israeli people from using the road for security reasons. They also placed a locked iron gate on its end near Ein Qiniya village, northwest of Ramallah.
Experts argue that Israel’s move will impact not only the governorate itself, but the entire occupied West Bank because of its central location, major metropolitan status, and role as a commercial hub.
To understand the repercussions of the route reopening, BreakThrough News spoke with Jamal Jumaa, a Palestinian activist, expert on Israeli settlement and apartheid-related issues, and coordinator of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall).
Aside from dividing the governorate’s northern and southern halves, Jumaa noted that reopening the road is dangerous because it will block the center of Ramallah and Al-Bireh from two-thirds of its villages, which are situated to the west.
The prominent Palestinian activist added that when Israel builds such roads for settler traffic, it fences them off on both sides and prohibits the use of adjacent lands. The Israeli authorities consider those lands a buffer zone, citing the security of the settlers as their reason.
“This entails setting up military towers and checkpoints. The road will cut off continuously inhabited Palestinian villages north-west and south-west of Ramallah. Therefore, we are talking about the establishment of roughly four military checkpoints along the road,” he continued.
Jumaa pointed out that the road will complicate the life of Palestinians by restricting their access to vital healthcare and education facilities, including the Istishari Arab Hospital, Birzeit University, and the Arab American University.
He also noted that the intended reopening of the road “is part of dividing and dividing more Palestinians from each other.”
On the political level, Jumaa suggested that the road “hits the heart of the West Bank, which gives a clear signal to the Palestinian Authority that it has no sovereignty over anything.”
It is worth noting that since its establishment, the Palestinian Authority has designated Ramallah and Al-Bireh as a de facto administrative capital. Yet, this has not prevented the Israeli authorities from fragmenting and isolating the governorate by establishing illegal settlements, military outposts, checkpoints, and gates.
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The Ugandan army, which had offered to capture Iran’s capital within 72 hours for Israel earlier this year, is now readying a troop deployment to Gaza under US command.
Discussing the deployment, senior Ugandan military officers were at the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat on August 17. The town on the edge of the Negev desert – barely 25 km from the northern Gaza Strip – was established in 1955 after depopulating the Palestinian villages of al-Faluja and Iraq al-Manshiya during the Nakba.
Burundi’s military officials were also reportedly present at the meeting here, after which the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) gave them both a tour of the city of Rafa in southern Gaza as part of the “pre-deployment site survey.”
Burundi is yet to confirm the deployment of its troops. However, Uganda’s parliament, practically a rubber stamp with over 70% of the seats held by the ruling party, approved the deployment of its troops on August 6.
This made it the sixth country to join the International Stabilization Force (ISF) proposed by US President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace, envisioned as the 20,000-strong force led by US Major General Jasper Jeffers.
The remaining five contributors of troops hold relatively diverse positions on the Israel-Palestine question. Indonesia has been a vocal critic of Israel, backing South Africa’s genocide case against it at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It maintains no diplomatic ties with Israel. The largest contributor has reportedly put its 8,000 troop deployment on hold, although it hasn’t formally withdrawn from the ISF.
Kazakhstan, on the other hand, has maintained deep diplomatic ties with Israel since 1992. Morocco joined the Abraham Accords in 2020. Both have done so while mouthing the two-state solution for an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital as official state policy.
The remaining two European countries are staunchly pro-Israel. Albania has announced plans to open a commercial liaison office in Jerusalem. Kosovo has outdone Albania, following Trump’s lead by moving its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem.
The sixth country to come on board, Uganda, professes a commitment to Israel that dwarfs that of the European troop-contributors.
“Any talk of … defeating Israel will bring us into the war” against Iran on “the side of Israel,” Uganda’s military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, posted on X in late March. He is the son and heir apparent of Uganda’s 81-year-old president, Yoweri Museveni, ruling the country since 1986.
After 40 years of rule, Museveni was handed a seventh term by the Electoral Commission in January, following an election marred by “widespread repression and intimidation against the political opposition, human rights defenders, [and] journalists,” according to the UN.
Soon after the results, Kainerugaba began hunting down Museveni’s political opponents, forcing his main challenger in the election, Bobi Wine, into exile, bragging about killing 30 of his party’s members, and swearing to “get them all.”
Israeli military technology, from weapons to surveillance equipment, has long enabled Museveni’s domestic crackdown. Recalling that Israel has supported his regime for decades, “Why wouldn’t we defend her now?” asked Kainerugaba. He added in a subsequently deleted post that the Ugandan military had offered to join the US and Israel in their war efforts against Iran, claiming, “We could have captured Tehran in 72 hours.”
This bold claim of being able to defeat the world’s 16th largest military power, with a military ranked 107 out of 145 countries, was gently mocked, even in the Israeli media at the time.
Nevertheless, barely five months later, Ugandan soldiers began uploading posts on social media, captioned, “Gaza, here we come,” filming themselves loading equipment onto planes – taking off and landing in undisclosed locations.
These posts by Ugandan soldiers began circulating on social media after the Ugandan parliament approved the troop deployment on August 6.
Addressing the parliament ahead of the vote, Maj Gen David Gonyi, parliamentary representative of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), explained the rationale of the deployment to the legislators: “Uganda submitted the name of a Ugandan [veteran diplomat, Olara Otunnu] to become Secretary-General of the United Nations. It would be like shooting ourselves in the foot to say that Uganda should not participate in [the] deployment in Gaza.”
Military deployment has long been a central plank of Ugandan diplomacy, currying favor of the Western countries by sending its soldiers to missions in Somalia, South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Its Somalia deployment has been especially crucial for the Ugandan army to receive training and support from the US Marine Corps and US Africa Command (AFRICOM).
Last November, Johan Borgstam, the European Union (EU) Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region, met Kainerugaba to propose expanding Ugandan troop deployment in DRC, on behalf of Brussels. Borgstam brought this proposal, despite the UN confirming the validity of the DRC’s accusation that Uganda is supporting the M23 armed group, a proxy of Rwanda which, along with its army, has occupied large swathes of the region in a war for DRC’s minerals.
Presenting this Western demand for Ugandan troops as a diplomatic success, Major General Henry Masiko, another parliamentary representative of the UPDF and the Joint Staff Political Commissar, told the legislators: “The UPDF is viewed as the anchor of stability in a sea of turbulence, regionally and now globally.”
He went on to add in his remarks to the parliament that the “doctrine of the force is that we go out not to dance but to confront threats against society and humanity,” in a thinly veiled reference to Palestinian resistance.
Opposition politicians have raised concerns that deploying troops when the Ugandan government has done little to conceal its neutrality may have consequences.
“Some [troops will] return in coffins,” warned Jamal Ayagalaki. “We need answers on who will pay the UPDF, what the terms and conditions of service will be, and what support will be available to soldiers and their families.” He further warned that Uganda’s involvement in a conflict “that is not ours” could expose the country itself to new security threats.
A more thorough criticism of the deployment came not from an opposition leader but from retired General David Sejusa, who had served Museveni as a senior presidential adviser and intelligence coordinator from 2005 to 2013.
The “parliament passed a resolution for peacekeeping, [but] what peace is [there] is Gaza?” he questioned, pointing to the lack of agreement between Israel and Hamas.
“The permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups” – i.e. the Palestinian resistance – is one of the tasks the International Stabilization Force must carry out in coordination with Israel, according to the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council in November 2025, with abstentions from Russia and China.
Hamas has refused to hand over weapons to Israel or any foreign force. It has called for the creation of a Palestinian national committee, which will hold the weapons collected from Hamas and other resistance groups within Gaza.
This transfer of weapons, however, can only happen after Israel withdraws from Gaza, Hamas insists. Israel, on the other hand, has refused to withdraw from Gaza until the resistance is completely disarmed.
Therefore, in the absence of any “clear implementable political framework,” Uganda will be deploying troops in an “un-militarized active conflict area … where a belligerent state continues strikes on the occupied population,” Sejusa said. This, he warned, places Ugandan troops at the “risk of complicity in war crimes.”
Russian forces in occupied Oleshky are taking food parcels delivered by Ukrainian military drones from local residents and treating possession of the supplies as possible evidence of collaboration with Ukraine, according to Tetiana Hasanenko, head of the Oleshky City Military Administration.
Hasanenko said Ukrainian forces had delivered food to the Russian-controlled town by drone on several occasions, but that the latest operation was considerably larger, involving approximately four tonnes of supplies.
In comments published on 30 September, she said some residents managed to collect one or several packages, while others were unable to reach the supplies.
Russian personnel were subsequently taking some of the food from residents, she said.
According to Hasanenko, people found with goods that were not Russian-made were also questioned about where they had obtained them. Residents could then be accused of co-operating with the Armed Forces of Ukraine if Russian personnel concluded that the products had arrived through Ukrainian drone deliveries.
The allegations cannot be independently verified from inside Russian-controlled Oleshky. However, severe food shortages and restrictions on humanitarian access to the town have been independently documented by the United Nations.
The latest operation took place on 27 September and involved Ukrainian military units working with the Kherson regional authorities.
According to the regional administration, heavy drones transported approximately four tonnes of food and medicines to about 100 locations around Oleshky.
Instead of dropping the cargo directly from altitude, packages were lowered on cables to designated locations.
Units involved included the 30th Marine Corps, the 34th Separate Marine Brigade “Borysfen”, National Guard formations and Ukrainian border guards.
Ukrainian authorities say drone deliveries have become one of the few remaining ways of bringing supplies into the town. The Kherson administration said it had been sending food across the Dnipro by drone since March.
It estimates that around 2,000 civilians remain in Oleshky, including almost 50 children.
EU Today reported earlier this month that residents of Oleshky were facing increasingly severe food shortages as conventional supply routes became progressively more difficult to use.
The town lies on the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnipro, opposite Ukrainian-held territory around Kherson. The area is exposed to artillery fire, short-range drone operations and extensive mine contamination.
The humanitarian conditions described by Ukrainian officials are consistent with findings published by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
After interviewing more than 20 residents from Russian-occupied communities near the front line, including Oleshky and Hola Prystan, the mission reported in June that thousands of civilians were facing food shortages and inadequate access to medical assistance.
Residents told UN investigators that the security situation had deteriorated considerably during 2025 and 2026.
The last grocery shop in Oleshky had stopped regular operations in January because supplies had run out, according to testimony collected by the UN. For months, residents depended on preserved food and limited private deliveries.
As of 24 June, the UN said no food deliveries had reached the town since 26 May.
Drone attacks and mines have also made attempts to bring supplies into Oleshky dangerous. On 2 June, a civilian convoy carrying food and humanitarian assistance struck a landmine at the entrance to the town, killing one person and injuring three others.
Under international humanitarian law, an occupying power is required to ensure that food and medical supplies are available to the civilian population and to facilitate humanitarian relief when local resources are inadequate.
The deteriorating situation has prompted repeated Ukrainian appeals for international intervention.
The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations recently called on Pope Leo XIV and international humanitarian organisations to support efforts to reach civilians trapped in the town. EU Today reported on the appeal for humanitarian access and civilian evacuation, which was also directed towards the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN member states.
Hasanenko has also alleged that disappearances continue inside the occupied community.
She said one family had recently disappeared after being detained by Russian forces, adding that Ukrainian authorities did not know whether its members were still alive.
The individual case cannot presently be independently confirmed. The UN has, however, documented arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of civilians in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory during the war.
With independent humanitarian organisations unable to operate freely in Oleshky and conventional supply routes severely restricted, Ukrainian forces are increasingly using drones for a role far removed from their conventional battlefield purpose: carrying food and medicines across the Dnipro to civilians who remain behind Russian lines.
On Sunday, September 27, the Israeli occupation authorities announced a multi-day comprehensive closure of all crossings into and out of the West Bank, coinciding with the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
The closure will continue until at least Saturday, October 3, further exacerbating already stifling restrictions on movement across the occupied territories.
The move came days after the Israeli forces blocked the main entrances and exits to the central West Bank governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, which constitutes a major commercial hub and connects the territory’s northern governorates with those to the south.
In recent days, thousands of Palestinians were stranded at Israeli military checkpoints due to these restrictions that eventually culminated with the holiday-related closure. This includes vulnerable people such as patients, elderly people, pregnant women, and even preschoolers unaccompanied by their parents.
On Friday, September 25, media outlets reported that kindergarten students waited at the Atarah military checkpoint in northern Ramallah for nine hours the previous night, with their bus finally managing to bring them home after 10:30 PM.
Meanwhile, BreakThrough News documented the delay an ambulance of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) faced at the same checkpoint on Monday, September 28.
On Sunday, Israel announced a comprehensive closure of all crossings into and out of the West Bank for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. This has left Palestinians – workers, students, and even ambulances transporting patients – stranded at checkpoints for hours.
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) September 29, 2026
BT's Aseel Saleh… pic.twitter.com/XbI2o928QM
BreakThrough News also spoke to some Palestinian citizens at the checkpoint, who affirmed that they had to wait for many hours at each checkpoint inside the governorate on a daily basis.
A cargo driver from the southern governorate of Hebron, who travels to Ramallah every day, said that he sometimes has no other choice but to sleep in his car when facing extended delays.
Another Palestinian, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested that the Israeli measures in place aim to make the Palestinian people in the West Bank feel frustrated about their daily life, pushing them to leave their homeland permanently.
The provocative acts related to the current holiday were not limited to the comprehensive closure. On Tuesday, September 29, over 100 illegal Israeli colonists stormed the town of Beitunia and the nearby Ein Jaryout area, west of Ramallah, under protection of the Israeli forces.
Palestinian movement was heavily restricted and the entrances to the targeted areas were blocked by the Israeli military to clear the way for a large convoy of settler vehicles.
Moreover, the event involved the assault and detention of Palestinian residents and damage to property, alongside a religious march and prayers by settlers.
Journalists were also reportedly prevented from covering the events, under the direct threat of firearms.
On that same day, a group of settlers entered the Al-Tireh neighborhood and the adjacent town of Surda, situated just a short distance from Beitunia. During the incident, they raised Israeli flags at Al-Awda Square, obstructed traffic intersections, and hurled stones damaging vehicles.
The incursions in Ramallah were carried out one day after Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir led hundreds of Israelis in a raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque.
During the assault, they performed dances inside the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Sanctuary.
Referring to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as the Temple Mount (a biblical name), Ben-Gvir declared from there:
“October 7 was massive and enormous pain, great pain. But today, three years later, on the holiday of Sukkot. We can rejoice in many things.We are the masters of the Temple Mount. We are the masters of the prisons. We turned the lives of terrorists into hell.”
The statement of Ben-Gvir is seen by analysts as nothing but a blatant affirmation that Israel is an apartheid colonial state, which systematically seeks to ethnically cleanse Palestinians.
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Far-right Argentine President Javier Milei addressed the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, giving a speech which provoked strong reactions. The South American head of state also participated in a series of high-level meetings.
One of his most quoted lines from his New York City trip has been: “Argentina is the new promised land.”
This is not the first time Milei has used religious concepts and ideas from the Judeo-Christian tradition to explain his political stance, but it is the first time the Argentine president has equated his country, in economic and political terms, with the land of Abraham and his descendants.
This is even more telling when one considers Milei’s extremely close relationship with Israel and ardent defense of its policies of war and genocide across West Asia, as well as the admiration he professes for the Jewish religion.
Milei also emphatically underscored this during his address to the UN General Assembly: “We also made a geopolitical choice: we have unambiguously aligned ourselves with the West … We condemn the Iranian regime’s attacks on the State of Israel.”
And this is an indisputable fact. Since the beginning of his term, Milei has not only aligned himself with the geopolitical interests that the Trump administration has vigorously pursued, but has also become one of Israel’s staunchest allies in the region.
This is quite impressive, considering that President Noboa in Ecuador, De la Espriella in Colombia, and others have also expressed a kind of unwavering alliance with Tel Aviv.
That is why Milei has not limited himself to diplomatic rhetoric, but has pulled the strings of power to designate Iran’s main military force (currently in conflict with Israel and the United States) as a terrorist organization.
“We declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, just as we continue to seek justice for the two attacks we suffered on Argentine soil in 1992 and 1994,” Milei said at the UN, referring to two attacks in Argentina against the Israeli Embassy and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA). The Argentine justice system, advised by Israel and the United States, identified Hezbollah and Iranian citizens as the perpetrators.
Another topic Milei addressed during his appearance was his staunch defense of free-market capitalism in which the state plays a minimal role: “We do not want to lose again; that is why we embrace free-market capitalism.”
In this regard, Milei once again highlighted his government’s strong support for artificial intelligence companies and the tycoons behind them. It should not be forgotten that the Argentine government signed a working and information-sharing agreement with Palantir, whose co-founder, Peter Thiel, purchased a property on Argentine soil.
This is clearly part of Milei’s neoliberal agenda to attract investment from major foreign capitalists, among whom the owners of technology companies (who are so interested in resources such as lithium, copper, and others that abound in South America) currently stand out.
However, recent statements by former employees of these companies regarding the danger that the development of AI poses to humanity have created some unease around the world. But Milei says that this is precisely the time to move forward: “Prudence does not mean fear, and what’s more, fear should under no circumstances automatically lead to obedience … where many see a threat, we see a frontier.”
Probably one of the most important aspects highlighted in Milei’s speech was his harsh criticism of the UN and its role in current geopolitics: “Today, unfortunately, it is time to acknowledge that this sacred pact has, in fact, been broken.”
But not content with merely pointing out the shortcomings, Milei asserted (very much in line with Trump) that the UN has become a venue for certain people to amass wealth: “It has become a useless organization that serves only to feed a caste of fatally arrogant parasites disguised as well-meaning bureaucrats.”
Hence, he asserted that resolutions ultimately have no real effect on policy. He cited the example of the Malvinas Islands, a territory disputed with the United Kingdom: “What good is a resolution if, for decades, the other party can act contrary to it, and that resolution remains intact in the archives but is powerless in the face of reality?”
Milei’s statements, while applauded by his supporters, have drawn widespread criticism in Argentina. Much of the criticism has focused on the fact that Milei now seems to staunchly defend Argentina’s right to control the Malvinas Islands, whereas in the past he was cautious and even reluctant to adopt a patriotic stance against the United Kingdom – something both the Argentine left and right have done. “We’re surprised that Milei now remembers when he used to talk about self-determination,” said Axel Kicillof, governor of the province of Buenos Aires.
Likewise, critics pointed out the apparent contradiction in Milei’s rhetoric between extolling the right to self-determination and aligning himself with the interests of Washington and Tel Aviv: “Milei’s stance doesn’t surprise me. The truth is that this line of subservience—and I say this very clearly—is directed at Trump and Netanyahu. Even the terminology is consistent with what Trump proposed and his ideas on the deregulation of artificial intelligence, as well as his view that Argentina’s natural resources are available to anyone who wants to take them,” said Kicillof.
Regarding Milei’s economic rhetoric, Patria Grande leader Juan Grabois said: “Besides being an ignorant imbecile, besides being a lobotomized parrot who parrots Trump, besides plagiarizing Gramsci without knowing he’s “a filthy communist,” what Milei is saying is that we’re basically going to hand over our territory, critical minerals, energy, and national sovereignty to the technocracy.”
Footage flooded the internet on Saturday, September 19, showing Gaza Health Ministry Director General Dr. Munir al-Bursh asking young men to bring the rest of his son’s body as they carried his remains.
“Bring me his other half!” the grief-stricken father said. “We were supposed to go to heaven together today, but you got there before me, son.”
According to media reports, Dr. Munir’s son, Bashir (28), was struck by a drone shortly after leaving his family’s tent in the al-Zahra neighborhood, near the Civil Defense headquarters, west of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip.
Bashir was targeted while helping people fill their water containers, just meters away from his father. For many, the proximity of Dr. Munir implies that he, too, may have been a target of the attack.
The prominent Palestinian health official has been in the crosshairs of the Israeli forces since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza, due to his leading role in managing a crumbling health system that was severely devastated during the war.
Moreover, Dr. Al-Bursh is widely known for frequently reporting on Israeli assaults on the Gaza medical sector, and highlighting the dire conditions of medical facilities inside the besieged areas via international media outlets.
Al-Bursh and his family were previously targeted by Israeli warplanes at the very beginning of the war. In December 2023, his 13-year-old daughter, Jinan, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Jabalia. The aerial attack also resulted in the injury of Dr. Munir and the rest of his family.
The deaths of Bashir and Jinan al-Bursh echo the murder of 15-year-old Ibrahim Abu Safiya by an Israeli drone in October 2024. Ibrahim was the son of the former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.
The day Bashir al-Bursh was assassinated, and the days that followed, saw the killing of several people by the Israeli Army across different parts of the war-ravaged enclave.
This took place as world leaders addressed the UN General Assembly. For the third year in a row, these addresses and the deliberations have failed to stop Israel’s aggression against Gaza and its ongoing heinous crimes carried out across West Asia.
Iranian news outlet Press TV called the detention of its West Bank correspondent Naqaa Hamed by the Israeli forces an “aggressive terrorist operation” aimed at silencing the truth about its occupation and genocide of Palestinians. It demanded the immediate intervention of the international community for her release.
“The desperate attempt by the Zionist war and security machine to block the flow of free news and boycott structured crimes in the West Bank is clear evidence of the occupier’s fear of independent” reporters “who expose widespread human right violations,” the Press TV statement, published on Thursday, September 17, said.
Naqaa Hamed was abducted by the Israeli armed forces from a checkpoint at Tuqu, near Bethlehem, in the occupied Palestinian territory on September 15.
She, along with her cameraman, were returning after reporting about rising Israeli settler violence on Palestinians in Masafer Yatta.
One eyewitness, a TRT journalist accompanying Hamed in her car, claimed that they were detained at the checkpoint and made to sit on the ground for 45 minutes while Hamed was taken alone for interrogation.
After the interrogation, cameraman and TRT journalists were let go but Hamed was arrested and sent to an unknown location.
Later it was reported that her detention has been extended until September 23 by an Israeli court.
Though no official confirmation has come forward about the charges against Hamed, Israeli media quoted unidentified military sources claiming her arrest was linked to her alleged cooperation with “the enemy entity,” presumably Iran, and espionage.
Hamed (38), a Palestinian-American and mother of three children, has been subjected to repeated physical attacks by Israeli forces in the last few months. She has also been subjected to a smear campaign on social media.
According to Press TV, rubber bullets were fired at her when she was reporting near Qalandia camp in December 2025. She was injured again in August this year by an Israeli stun grenade and tear gas fire.
The intimidation and smear campaigns on social media, started by pages affiliated with the Israeli occupation regime, targeted Hamed by questioning her credibility and calling her a part of the “Iranian propaganda machine.”
Israel has one of the worst records when it comes to killing and arresting journalists. Hundreds of Palestinian journalists have been either killed or arrested by the Israeli occupation forces since the beginning of the war and genocide in Gaza.
According to various sources Israel has killed over 250 journalists and media workers in the West Bank and Gaza since October 2023.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, currently nearly 40 Palestinian journalists are in Israeli detention, including five women. Almost half of these journalists are kept in prison under the draconian provision of Administrative Detention, which allows the authorities to keep them in jail for an indefinite period without any formal charges or trial.
The Iranian media channel Press TV underlined that Hamed’s arrest by Israeli forces violates international laws about immunity to journalists in war zones. It demanded the UN, its High Commissioner for Human Rights, and other international human rights groups to come out of their “shell of inaction and meaningful silence” and take measures to end Israel’s impunity.
“As long as responsible institutions remain in the shell of silence and inaction, Naqaa Hamed will not be the first, nor the last journalist to be targeted by the illegal actions of the Zionist regime,” the Press TV statement said.
Latin America and the Caribbean countries are being re-colonized. This time it is not by Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, France, and Portugal, but by the United States.
At a period of time the United States had an anti-colonial position and had advocated for the ending of colonialism. That was one of the features of the Monroe Doctrine that has become somewhat obscured since the US became so bellicose.
Today, in a de facto way it has become a super colonial power. It is imposing its will on regions and countries. Those that stand up for their rights are sanctioned, destabilized and sometimes physically removed.
The fact that it used its military might to kidnap a sitting president, President Maduro of Venezuela, is a clear indication that the United States has decided to ignore international law and to get its own way.
Strikingly, only the President of Brazil protested vigorously. Our Caribbean leaders have generally been tight lipped.
The United States has gone even further. They have, using the guise of fighting drugs, established a strong military presence in the region. They have been murdering hundreds of persons traveling in small boats in the Caribbean. Without producing a scintilla of evidence, without attempting to board the boats and get evidence, the US just killed the occupants. We may never know if any were really involved in drug trafficking.
There has been a deafening silence from Latin America and the Caribbean leaders to those atrocities. As if these events were not enough, many of the governments in the region are, on the request/orders from the United States, acting against their countries’ best interests. The ending of the cooperation in health with Cuba which was in place for more than fifty years and which benefited millions of the region’s citizens, is a case in point.
That has left a massive gap in the health sector of the region. The US has not provided any assistance to help with the dislocation and shortage of technical personnel created by their insistence to remove Cubans.
The US is now also pressing regional governments to stop doing business with China. Many governments are beginning to comply with those orders as we see more big contracts going to US companies, despite some of those companies having poor performance records.
If some newspaper stories are to be believed, (and they have not been countered) in some cases Chinese contractors won bids for certain projects, but they were not given the jobs, they went to US firms instead.
The US and other Western countries have ignored us and kept us in a state of underdevelopment since independence. Now that we are getting assistance from China to build important and much needed infrastructure to facilitate socio-economic progress we are getting push back from the US.
It appears that they want to keep us in a state of perpetual underdevelopment and in poverty.
We see the open intention to super exploit our natural resources and labor for the benefit of big business in the US. They are mainly interested in our natural resources. They do not add value in the region nor establish any type of manufacturing. Those are reserved for the rich, developed countries.
The recent “deal” with Venezuela is worse than highway robbery. Venezuela has to provide oil and gas to US companies at cost for one hundred years. This is barefaced robbery and has demonstrated that Venezuela is now a de facto colony of the US. This will not benefit the poor in the US. It is designed to enrich the huge corporations.
Venezuela was forced to abandon its long and well-known principle of standing in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine. It is now forced to recognise the Fascist, Apartheid Israeli regime that continues to bomb defenseless civilians in makeshift camps in Gaza, the West Bank (where ethnic cleansing is taking place) and in East Jerusalem.
Today the sovereignty of our countries is already severely compromised. If we don’t stand up now it would be completely lost.
Donald Ramotar is a former President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana (2011-2015).
This article was produced by Globetrotter.
The lethal repercussions of Israel’s three-year genocidal aggression on Gaza continue to unfold. Aside from Israel’s ongoing military assaults after the nominal ceasefire deal, the humanitarian crisis inflicted by the genocide – affecting food, sanitation, medication, and shelter – has become another driver of persistent fatalities.
At least 21 Palestinians, including 12 children, died in the collapse of the Al-Saadah building in Gaza City on Wednesday, September 16, while 45 people were rescued from under the rubble.
According to media reports, the building, already damaged by Israeli airstrikes, was housing 100 displaced people, amid a deepening shelter crisis caused by Israel’s ongoing restrictions on reconstruction materials and humanitarian aid.
Hamas issued a statement, holding Israel “responsible for this disaster,” and affirming that “the building collapse represents a new chapter in the catastrophic humanitarian repercussions of the war.”
The Palestinian movement pointed out that the massive home and neighborhood destruction has forced thousands of displaced people to take refuge in ruined structures.
It further cautioned that the severe shortage in heavy machinery for clearing debris and conducting rescue operations endangers more lives.
Hamas also urged mediators, the US administration, and relevant international bodies to take immediate action to lift restrictions blocking the entry of necessary rescue equipment and vehicles, and to secure safe shelter for the displaced population.
Meanwhile, the Gaza-based Ministry of Public Works and Housing warned that roughly 3,000 buildings across the war-ravaged enclave are currently deemed dangerous or at risk of collapse, which in turn poses a significant threat to thousands of inhabitants.
In July, Saudi Arabia joined the US-Israeli war on the West Asia region with strikes on Yemen. The Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces retaliated by launching a maritime blockade alongside attacks targeting vital Saudi interests.
The renewed fighting between the two West Asian nations resulted in Ansar Allah’s takeover of the strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha last week and the liberation of all the group’s prisoners held by Saudi-backed forces on Yemen’s western coast.
Ansar Allah’s seizure of Mokha seaport is reshaping regional and global geopolitics, particularly because it serves as a primary gateway to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and coincides with developments in the Strait of Hormuz.
As these major shifts underscore, Yemen holds immense strategic geopolitical significance.
Situated on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula and overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait, Yemen represents a vital chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean
Consequently, internal political developments in Yemen can have global political and economic repercussions.
This fact, in turn, has put Yemen in the crosshairs of the US-led Western imperialist bloc and their allies in West Asia, which have endeavored to subjugate the country through a devastating decade-long war and blockade.
The origin of this war coincides with the emergence of Ansar Allah, beginning when the group managed to take control of large swathes of the country, including the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.
Ansar Allah was first established in the early 1990s in the northern Yemeni governorate of Saada as a cultural and educational organization called Al-Shabab al-Mumin (the Believing Youth).
Initially, the organization introduced itself as an unarmed theological movement aimed at reviving and preserving Zaydi Shia Islam and countering the threat of state-backed Sunni Salafism, which sought to uproot the Zaydi religious identity in its homeland of Saada.
From its inception, the movement opposed the government, led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, accusing it of corruption and criticizing its ties to the United States and its ally Saudi Arabia.
Tensions between the group and the government drastically escalated following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. It was at that time that the group adopted the slogan (Death to America, Death to Israel), during mass protests opposing the war on Iraq.
These slogans posed a political threat to Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was attempting to position his government as a key ally in the “US War on Terror” in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. As a result his government led a brutal crackdown on protesters.
Security forces and riot police suppressed protests using live ammunition, tear gas, and batons, and arbitrarily detained hundreds of political activists, students, and opposition organizers without trial.
In 2004, tension between the Al-Shabab al-Mumin and the Yemeni government boiled over, sparking a series of six internal conflicts known as the Saada Wars.
These clashes began with the government’s assassination of Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, the group’s founder, and triggered five subsequent rounds of fighting that lasted until 2010. The followers of the group became widely known as the Houthis ever since.
Saudi Arabia reportedly engaged in the Saada wars by providing immense financial, political, and material support to the Yemeni government. Saudi intervention in Yemen escalated in 2009 with a direct military incursion and unilateral airstrikes against positions held by the Houthi movement.
In 2011, the group joined nationwide demonstrations, calling for the overthrow of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. It was then that the Houthi movement formally adopted the name Ansar Allah (Supporters of God).
The ousting of Saleh weakened the central government and triggered a sweeping power vacuum, which allowed Ansar Allah to rapidly expand its territorial dominance. By 2012, the Yemeni movement consolidated firm control across the Saada governorate and large swathes of northern Yemen.
In early 2012, vice president to Saleh, Abed Rabbu Mansour, Hadi became the President of Yemen via a transition framework brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as he was considered as a quiet consensus figure. Hadi was also strongly backed by the Obama administration.
In late 2014, Ansar Allah allied with forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh against the transitional government headed by Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The fighting that followed led to Ansar Allah’s seizure of the capital Sanaa, forcing Hadi to flee the country.
From exile in 2015, Hadi requested the Saudi-led coalition to intervene in the conflict, opening the door to one of the bloodiest prolonged wars in West Asia. A conflict that, according to UN estimates, resulted in 377,000 deaths by 2022.
Saudi Arabia was the main pillar of the coalition, leading the military campaign dubbed “Operation Decisive Storm” with a massive force, including extensive warplanes and ground troops.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also played a key role by commanding ground and air operations particularly in southern Yemen and along the critical coastal strip.
Bahrain took part in the operation with 12 fighter jets (some sources say 15), and deployed ground troops in the southern Saudi borders to protect Saudi Arabia from Ansar Allah’s attacks. Meanwhile, Kuwait contributed with 15 warplanes.
At the beginning of the campaign, Qatar participated with roughly 1,000 ground troops, armored vehicles, a dozen fighter jets, and transport helicopters until it was expelled from the coalition in June 2017 over a diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt.
Jordan and Morocco contributed six fighter jets each, while Sudan under deposed president Omar Al-Bashir sent three aircrafts and thousands of ground troops. Furthermore, Senegal committed 2,100 troops.
Western countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France provided logistic and intelligence support, such as aerial refueling for coalition jets, technical assistance, military equipment, coordination support, and maritime surveillance.
In April 2022, the United Nations announced an official two-month nationwide truce agreement, which temporarily halted cross-border attacks, ground and air operations, and allowed fuel imports into ports held by Ansar Allah. It also reopened commercial flights from Sanaa International Airport after years of sea, land, and air blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia.
Rather than completely removing the blockade, the agreement only resulted in the partial easing of restrictions, while regions under the control of Ansar Allah have continued to face a near-total blockade.
The agreement was renewed in June and extended a second time in August 2022 for an additional two months before it lapsed in October.
In November 2023, Ansar Allah launched a ban on all Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in retaliation for Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza.
About one month later, the group significantly expanded the ban to include all ships heading to Israeli ports, regardless of their nationality or flag.
The ban continued until October 2025, despite waves of deadly airstrikes launched by the US, UK, and Israel on Yemen.
An Omani-mediated ceasefire deal between the US and Ansar Allah was reached in May 2025. The deal stipulated halting Ansar Allah’s attacks on US ships in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, and ending US aggression on Yemen, without preventing the Yemeni resistance movement from launching attacks or naval operations against Israel.
This same period saw a shift in the conflict between the Saudi-led coalition and Ansar Allah from active military engagement toward a tense, fragile diplomacy.
In early 2026, friction between the two major pillars in the anti-Ansar Allah coalition – namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE – surfaced as different Yemeni groups backed by the two countries clashed, apparently over territorial control in Yemen.
Although Ansar Allah was established as an independent Yemeni movement, it evolved into a key component of the Axis of Resistance over time. This alignment was driven by mutual ideological foundations, shared anti-imperialist ideology, and deep strategic and military cooperation with Iran and Hezbollah.
Despite its affiliation with the resistance alliance, Ansar Allah chose not to get involved in the recent regional war waged by the US and Israel against Iran, for ostensibly strategic considerations and military coordination tactics with its allies.
However, because the United States and its allies in the region seemingly view the current war as an ideal opportunity to dismantle the Axis of Resistance, Saudi Arabia decided to resume its aggression against Yemen by attacking Sanaa International Airport in July. The attack aimed to prevent an Iranian plane from landing.
Consequently, Ansar Allah launched retaliatory attacks on Saudi interests inside Saudi Arabia and on Yemeni soil. It further declared a maritime blockade against Saudi-linked commercial vessels passing through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, demanding Riyadh end its decade-long blockade on Yemen.
Concurrently, ground clashes over territorial dominance between Ansar Allah and Saudi-backed forces intensified, leading to key victories for the Yemeni group. Escalations have persisted up to the time of publication.
On Wednesday, September 16, Saudi Arabia accused Ansar Allah of attempting a drone attack against the city of Mecca, the holiest city for Muslims, located in western Saudi Arabia.
Ansar Allah dismissed Saudi accusations as false, saying that they reflect a “desperate attempt to mobilize public opinion.”
As the US-Israeli war on West Asia continues to reshape geopolitics, Ansar Allah’s emergence as a regional force has placed Yemen at the center of a struggle that may define the future of West Asia.
At the end of August, at the Silverbird Cinema in the Accra Mall in Ghana, two Israeli feature films were screened alongside Ghanaian student productions.
For the second year running, the seats for this Israeli film festival were empty. Ordinary Ghanaians declined the Israeli Embassy’s films, and a peaceful demonstration outside held placards for Palestine and against the continued killing of civilians in Gaza.
There is another screen Ghanaians must refuse to look away from, protestors asserted. The screens on which we have watched Gaza reduced to rubble, families displaced again and again, hospitals and schools destroyed, and children carried from the wreckage of a war that, despite the ceasefire announced in October 2025, has not stopped killing them.
However, something else walked through the doors of the film festival: schoolchildren. In uniform. On a Sunday.
Students from Achimota School and Accra Girls Senior High School, two of Ghana’s most prominent public secondary schools, were brought into an embassy-sponsored event at the center of a serious political controversy. Those of us who were there saw them. We have photographs and videos. The question Ghana must now answer is not about cinema. It is about who sent our children, and why.
Last year, the Embassy staged a week-long Israeli Film Festival at the same venue and called it an exercise in “dialogue and mutual understanding.” Nearly 400 Ghanaian organizations, student movements, trade unions, faith communities, civil-society groups, signed one statement calling for a boycott. Protesters gathered outside. Sponsors pulled out. The Embassy still declared the event a success.
The veteran editor Kwesi Pratt Jnr., who joined the picket, recalled what that “success” looked like a year ago for the “Alhaji and Alhaji” program:
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve seen 400 organizations come together to sign one statement calling for a boycott of the film festival. I joined the picket at the Silverbird Cinema, and a few, very, very few, prominent Ghanaians, including Afenyo-Markin, attended in spite of the protest. But it was a fiasco. The room was empty. Ghanaians rejected the film festival completely.”
So the Embassy returned smaller: two Israeli films on a single Sunday, free entry, free popcorn, raffle prizes, and an invitation aimed squarely at young people. When adults again refused to fill the room, uniformed students appeared. If Ghanaian adults will not lend legitimacy to this event, should Ghanaian children be made to supply it?
The timing makes it harder to dismiss as a routine outing.
President John Dramani Mahama has publicly described what is happening in Gaza as genocide. The Israeli Ambassador to Ghana has publicly rejected that position and defended his government’s conduct. He is entitled to make his case, but he is a guest of a sovereign state, not the author of its policy.
Against that backdrop, the presence of uniformed students inside an embassy program, days after this very public disagreement, demands an accounting. Pratt put the question bluntly:
“At the time that the ambassador was attacking our president, some authorities in our secondary schools decided to side with [the embassy]. What judgment was exercised by the school authorities when they agreed to bus their students to this film festival? What were they expecting? What checks did they do on the quality of the films?”
Those are the right questions, and they are not rhetorical. They have not yet been answered and there has been no investigation.
None of this is an accusation against the children. They may have had little understanding of the political purpose around the event. The responsibility belongs to the adults who placed them there.
Ghana rejected the Israeli film festival not because cinema or cultural exchange is evil. Not because Israeli artists have no right to make films. The rejection is not an attack on Jewish people. Antisemitism is hatred and must also be rejected.
The problem is that this festival is not an example of artists meeting freely across borders. It is an Israeli Embassy-backed initiative staged while the Palestinian people continue to pay with their lives. Amid the killing of civilians and the destruction of Palestinian life, the use of state diplomacy to manufacture an appearance of normality while those questions remain unresolved is nothing less than political soft power.
Ghanaian children are not diplomatic props, and Ghanaian schools must never become extensions of a foreign embassy. Teach them, yes. Teach them the Holocaust, the Nakba, occupation and international law, and give them the evidence to think critically. That is education. Busing uniformed children into a controversial embassy function, and letting their presence become evidence of Ghanaian acceptance, is the opposite.
That is why the demand is simple, and now directed at the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service: did you know? If yes, explain. If not, investigate. And if any official bypassed procedure or abused authority to place schoolchildren inside a foreign government’s public-relations exercise, hold them accountable.
There is a longer tradition at stake. Ghana is the country from which Kwame Nkrumah declared that our independence was meaningless unless linked with the total liberation of Africa. Africa understands what cultural normalization is for: domination has rarely arrived only with rifles. It seeks respectability, the reception, the festival, the partnership, until oppression becomes a disagreement to be discussed politely while business continues.
Palestine poses that old question to the African conscience once more. And a small part of the answer is being written by who walks into a cinema in Accra Mall, and who is made to walk in.
For the second year, the empty seats have spoken. Now Ghana’s own institutions must speak. Our children deserve education, not enlistment. And a sovereign state deserves to decide, in the light of its own conscience, what its schools lend themselves to.
Stay away. Let the empty seats speak, for the Palestinian child who will never again enter a classroom, and for the proposition that human life is worth more than diplomatic image-building.
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