NEWS

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is warning that an Israel-Palestinian two-state solution is “farther than ever”. Speaking at a high-level UN conference to promote a two-state solution, he said the destruction of Gaza and the illegal annexation of the West Bank must come to an end.

Thailand and Cambodia agreed to an immediate, unconditional ceasefire after five days of deadly border clashes. At least 35 people were killed and 270,000 displaced on both sides. The Malaysia-brokered truce follows talks involving US and Chinese diplomats.

A humanitarian aid convoy has reached Syria’s Druze-majority Suwayda province as the United Nations warns that the humanitarian situation remains critical after last week’s deadly clashes displaced thousands and left essential services in ruins.

Clashes in Druze-majority Suwayda province, which began on July 13 and ended with a ceasefire a week later, initially involved Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes, who have been fighting for decades. Later, government forces joined the fighting on the side of the Bedouin armed groups.

State television reported on Monday that a Syrian Red Crescent convoy had entered Suwayda, showing images of trucks crossing into the region.

State news agency SANA said the 27-truck convoy “contains 200 tonnes of flour, 2,000 shelter kits, 1,000 food baskets” as well as medical and other food supplies.

The effort was a cooperation between “international organisations, the Syrian government and the local community”.

UN warns of critical situation

Although the ceasefire has largely held, the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, said that the humanitarian situation in Suwayda province “remains critical amid ongoing instability and intermittent hostilities”.

“Humanitarian access, due to roadblocks, insecurity and other impediments … remains constrained, hampering the ability of humanitarians to assess need thoroughly and to provide critical life-saving assistance on a large scale,” OCHA said in a statement.

It stated that the violence resulted in power and water outages, as well as shortages of food, medicine, and fuel.

Local news outlet Suwayda24 reported that “the humanitarian needs in Suwayda are dire”, saying many more aid convoys were needed for the province.

It said demonstrations demanding more humanitarian aid were held in several locations on Monday.

On Sunday, Suwayda24 published a warning from local civil and humanitarian groups of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Suwayda, adding that the province “is under a suffocating, escalating siege imposed by the authorities” that has led to a severe lack of basic supplies.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that government forces were deployed in parts of the province, but goods were unable to enter due to the ongoing closure of the Suwayda-Damascus highway, as government-affiliated armed groups were obstructing traffic.

SANA quoted Suwayda’s provincial Governor Mustafa al-Bakkur on Sunday as saying that aid convoys were entering Suwayda province normally and that “the roads are unobstructed for the entry of relief organisations to the province”.

Deadly clashes displaced thousands

The clashes killed more than 250 people and threatened to unravel Syria’s post-war transition.

The violence also displaced 128,571 people, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.

During the clashes, government forces intervened on the side of the Bedouin, according to witnesses, experts and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

Israel intervened and launched air attacks on Syria’s Ministry of Defence buildings in the heart of Damascus.

Israeli forces also hit Syrian government forces in Suwayda province, claiming it was protecting the Druze, whom it calls its “brothers”.

Russia, Turkiye call for respect of Syria’s territorial integrity

Following the Israeli attacks, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin stressed the importance of Syria’s territorial integrity in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Putin, an ally of former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, also said that political stability in the country must be achieved through respect for “all ethnic and religious groups’ interests”, a Kremlin statement said.

A senior Turkish official also called for sustained de-escalation and an end to Israeli military attacks in Syria, stressing the need to support Damascus’s efforts to stabilise the war-torn country.

“From now on, it is important to ensure continued de-escalation and Israeli non-aggression, support for the Syrian government’s efforts to restore calm in Suwayda and to prevent civilian casualties,” Deputy Foreign Minister Nuh Yilmaz told the UN Security Council during a meeting on Syria.

“Israel’s disregard for law, order, and state sovereignty reached new heights with its recent attacks on the presidential complex and the Defence Ministry,” Yilmaz said. “The situation has partially improved as a result of our collective efforts with the US and some other countries.”

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‘Gut-wrenching and sickening’

Israeli-Palestinian human rights group B’Tselem has declared Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide in its latest report, titled Our Genocide.

The report, released on Monday, carries strong condemnation of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed at least 59,733 people and wounded 144,477.

“An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip,” the report reads.

“In other words: Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

An estimated 1,139 people died during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, and some 200 were taken captive.

‘Our Genocide’

The report delves into Israeli violations against Palestinians, going back to the 1948 foundation of the Israeli state, which “had a clear objective from the outset: to cement the supremacy of the Jewish group across the entire territory under Israeli control”.

As such, the state of Israel exhibits “settler-colonial patterns, including widespread settlement involving displacement and dispossession, demographic engineering, ethnic cleansing and the imposition of military rule on Palestinians”, the report continues.

And while it looks back at Israel’s efforts to “uphold Jewish supremacy, relying on a false pretense of the rule of law while, in reality, the rights of the Palestinian subjects are left unprotected”, the report notes that this was accelerated after October 7.

The “broad, coordinated onslaught against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip” that the report points to has “enjoyed support, legitimization, and normalization from the majority of Jewish-Israelis, as well as from the Israeli legal system”.

The report also speaks about the intensified efforts since October 2024 to displace Palestinians in Gaza.

“Israel’s actions in northern Gaza were described by many experts … as an attempt to carry out ethnic cleansing. In practice, by November 2024, some 100,000 people who had lived in northern Gaza had been displaced from their homes,” the document reads.

The report goes beyond Gaza to say that Israel has intensified its violent operations in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem since October 7, “on a scale not seen since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967”.

B’Tselem first used the word “apartheid” in 2021 to describe the two-tier reality for Israelis and Palestinians in historic Palestine.

Genocide in words and actions

B’tselem’s report follows an op-ed in the New York Times by Holocaust scholar Amos Goldberg, where he described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, as well as growing demonstrations by protesters in Israel calling for an end to the war.

However, opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza is still widely controversial in Israeli society. Only around 16 percent of Jewish Israelis believe peaceful coexistence with Palestinians is possible, according to a June poll by the Pew Research Center.

Meanwhile, 64 percent of Jewish Israelis believe Israel should temporarily occupy the Gaza Strip, according to a survey by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA).

Critics of stereotypical Israeli views include Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg, a former university professor and national security consultant, who called these views “vile” on the social media platform X.

I was overcome yesterday. The vileness pouring out of Israeli society shut my mouth for 24 hours. It was an immediate reaction, not anger or sadness. I couldn’t speak. I broke out in hives for the first time since I was diagnosed. I think I tried to reject reality. I’m back.…

— Ori Goldberg (@ori_goldberg) July 27, 2025

“I can only conclude that the pressures from within Israeli society are truly as great as Ori Goldberg recently noted,” Elia Ayoub, a writer, researcher, and the founder of the podcast The Fire These Times, told Al Jazeera.

“Israeli society has normalised a genocide for nearly two years, and this speaks to a deep moral rot at the core of their political culture,” he continued.

Meanwhile, Israeli government officials have continued their violent calls against the people of Gaza.

“The government is rushing to erase Gaza, and thank God we are erasing this evil. All of Gaza will be Jewish,” Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said on Israeli radio last week.

Welcomed news, even if late

B’Tselem’s report runs 79 pages and documents interviews with numerous Palestinians in Gaza who have lived through the last 22 months of attacks.

That one of Israel’s most prominent human rights organisations described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide is bound to draw criticism of the group in Israeli society. Many Israeli critics of their own country’s actions in Gaza have faced brutal denunciations from their compatriots.

That makes B’Tselem using the weight of the word “genocide” all the more powerful, even if some believe it could have been done sooner.

“I welcome this news even though it comes very late into the genocide,” Ayoub said.

In December 2023, South Africa brought a case that Israel was committing genocide against Gaza to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Several other countries, including Brazil, Spain, Turkiye and the Republic of Ireland, have joined South Africa in its ICJ case.

In Kenya, as in many countries across the world, street protests are often framed as the unfortunate result of political failure. As the logic goes, the inability of state institutions to translate popular sentiment into political, legislative and regulatory action to address grievances undermines trust and leaves the streets vulnerable to eruptions of popular discontent.

In this telling, protests are viewed as a political problem with grievances expected to be legitimately addressed using the mechanisms – coercive or consensual – of the formal political system.

Like its predecessors, the increasingly paranoid regime of Kenyan President William Ruto has also adopted this view. While generally acknowledging the constitutional right of protest, it has sought to paint the largely peaceful and sustained Generation Z demonstrations and agitation of the past 16 months, which have questioned its rule and policies, as a threat to public order and safety and to delegitimise the street as an avenue for addressing public issues.

“What is going on in these streets, people think is fashionable,” Ruto declared a month ago. “They take selfies and post on social media. But I want to tell you, if we continue this way, … we will not have a country.”

The killing and abductions of protesters as well as the move to charge them with “terrorism” offences, borrowing a leaf from Western governments that have similarly criminalised pro-Palestinian and antigenocide sentiments, are clear examples of the state’s preferred response. At the same time, there have been repeated calls for the protesters to enter into talks with the regime and, more recently, for an “intergenerational national conclave” to address their concerns.

But framing protests as a dangerous response to political dissatisfaction is flawed. Demonstrations are an expression of democracy, not the result of its failures. The Generation Z movement has shown that transparency, mutual aid and political consciousness can thrive outside formal institutions. Activists have made the streets and online forums sites of grievance, rigorous debate, civic education, and policy engagement.

They have raised funds, provided medical and legal aid, and supported bereaved families, all without help from the state or international donors. In doing so, they have reminded the country that citizenship is not just about casting ballots every five years. It is about showing up – together, creatively and courageously – to shape the future.

The Generation Z movement is in many respects a reincarnation of the reform movement of the 1990s when Kenyans waged a decadelong street-based struggle against the brutal dictatorship of President Daniel arap Moi. Today’s defiant chants of “Ruto must go” and “Wantam” – the demand that Ruto be denied a second term in the 2027 election – echo the rallying cries from 30 years ago: “Moi must go” and “Yote yawezekana bila Moi (All is possible without Moi).”

Centring the struggle on Moi was a potent political strategy. It united a broad coalition, drew international attention and forced critical concessions – from the reintroduction of multiparty politics and term limits to the expansion of civil liberties and, crucially, the rights of assembly and expression.

By the time Moi left office at the end of 2002, Kenya was arguably at its freest, its spirit immortalised in the Gidi Gidi Maji Maji hit I Am Unbwogable! (I Am Unshakable and Indomitable!)” But that moment of triumph also masked a deeper danger: the illusion that removing a leader was the same as transforming the system.

Moi’s successor, Mwai Kibaki, hailed then as a reformist and gentleman of Kenyan politics, quickly set about reversing hard-won gains. His government blocked (then tried to subvert) constitutional reform, raided newsrooms and eventually presided over a stolen election that brought Kenya to the brink of civil war.

One of his closest ministers, the late John Michuki, had in 2003 revealed the true mindset of the political class: Constitutional change to devolve the power of the presidency, he claimed, was necessary only so “one of our own could share power with Moi”. Once Moi was gone, he averred, there was no longer need for it.

Due to the obstruction from the political class, it took Kenyans close to a decade after Moi’s departure to finally promulgate a new constitution.

Generation Z must avoid the trap of the transition of the 2000s. Power, in the Kenyan political imagination, has often been the prize, not the problem. But real change requires more than a reshuffling of names atop the state. It demands a refusal to treat state power as the destination and a commitment to reshaping the terrain on which that power operates. And this is where the youth should beware the machinations of a political class that is more interested in power than in change.

Today’s calls for national talks and intergenerational conclaves emanating from this class should be treated with suspicion. Kenyans have seen this play out before. From the 1997 Inter-Parties Parliamentary Group talks and the negotiations brokered by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan after the 2007-2008 postelection violence to the infamous “handshake” between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his rival Raila Odinga and the failed Building Bridges Initiative, each of these elite pacts was presented as a way to translate popular anger into meaningful reform. Yet time and again, they only served to defuse movements, sideline dissenters and protect entrenched power.

Worse still, Kenya has a long history of elevating reformers – from opposition leaders and journalists to civil society activists – into positions of state power, only for them to abandon their principles once at the top. Radical rhetoric gives way to political compromise. The goal becomes to rule and extract, not transform. Many end up defending the very systems they once opposed.

“Ruto must go” is a powerful tactic for mobilisation and pressure. But it should not be seen as the end goal. That was my generation’s mistake. We forgot that we did not achieve the freedoms we enjoy – and that Ruto seeks to roll back – through engaging in the formal system’s rituals of elections and elite agreements but by imposing change on it from the outside. We allowed the politicians to hijack the street movements and reframe power and elite consensus as the solution, not the problem.

Generation Z must learn from that failure. Its focus must relentlessly be on undoing the system that enables and sustains oppression, not feeding reformers into it. And the streets must remain a legitimate space of powerful political participation, not one to be pacified or criminalised. For its challenge to formal state power is not a threat to democracy. It is democracy.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

The leaders of Cambodia and Thailand have agreed to an “unconditional” ceasefire, effective on Monday at midnight, in a bid to bring an end to their deadliest border conflict in more than a decade.

Thailand’s acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai and Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet agreed to put down their arms after five days of fierce fighting that killed at least 36 people.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who hosted the talks in Malaysia’s administrative capital, Putrajaya, said that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed to an “immediate and unconditional” ceasefire.

“This is a vital first step towards de-escalation and the restoration of peace and security,” Anwar declared. A meeting between the military commanders of both nations will follow on Tuesday, he added.

The ceasefire will come into force at midnight (17:00 GMT) as Monday becomes Tuesday.

Thailand and Cambodia have blamed each other for the border conflict that erupted on Thursday, July 24. The latest conflict, which dates back to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has displaced more than 270,000 from both sides of the Thailand-Cambodia 817-km (508-mile) land border.

What did rival leaders say?

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet said: “Today we have a very good meeting and very good results … that hope to stop immediately the fighting that has caused many lives lost, injuries and also caused displacement of people.”

“We hope that the solutions that Prime Minister Anwar just announced will set a condition for moving forward for our bilateral discussion to return to normalcy of the relationship, and as a foundation for future de-escalation of forces,” he added.

Meanwhile, Thailand’s acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, who had expressed doubts about Cambodia’s sincerity ahead of negotiations in Malaysia, said Thailand had agreed to a ceasefire that would “be carried out successfully in good faith by both sides”.

In a joint statement issued after the talks had finished, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia said their respective defence ministers “have been instructed to develop a detailed mechanism for the implementation, verification, and reporting of the ceasefire”.

The sides also agreed to move ahead with a meeting of their so-called “General Border Committee” on August 4, in Cambodia.

Why were the two countries fighting?

The Southeast Asian neighbours have accused each other of starting hostilities last week, before escalating the conflict with heavy artillery bombardments.

Fighting began between the South Asian neighbours on July 24, following weeks of tensions which had been brewing since May, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in an armed confrontation on the border.

In February, a dispute over Prasat Ta Moan Thom, a Khmer temple close to the border in Thailand, intensified when Thai police stopped Cambodian tourists from singing their national anthem near the holy site.

Since the start of the year, Thailand’s Interior Ministry says more than 138,000 people have been evacuated from regions bordering Cambodia. On the other side, more than 20,000 Cambodians have been evacuated, according to local media.

Reporting from Thailand’s border province of Surin on Monday, Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng said the ceasefire announcement is welcome news for many people, especially those living along the border who have been displaced.

“There are so many people who have been affected by this, and they just want to go home so badly,” he said on Monday.

But Cheng also reported that clashes were still occurring on both sides of the border, even as the talks in Malaysia had concluded.

What role did the US and China play?

Diplomats from the United States and China were also present at the meeting in Malaysia.

Hun Manet, Cambodia’s PM, said on Monday that the meeting had been “co-organised by the United States and with participation of China”.

China has strong economic links to Thailand and Cambodia, and is a close political ally of the latter.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday welcomed the ceasefire. “The United States applauds the ceasefire declaration between Cambodia and Thailand announced today in Kuala Lumpur,” Rubio said in a statement.

“We urge all parties to follow through on their commitments.”

In separate calls with Phumtham and Hun Manet on Saturday, Trump had threatened that Washington would not reach trade deals with either country as long as fighting continued.

“We’re not going to make a trade deal unless you settle the war,” Trump said on Sunday, adding that both leaders expressed willingness to negotiate after speaking with him directly.

Both Thailand and Cambodia face the prospect of a 36 percent US tariff from August 1.

In their remarks after the meeting, both Phumtham and Hun Manet thanked Anwar and Trump, as well as China, for helping reach the ceasefire.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened on Monday to unleash “the gates of hell” on the Gaza Strip if the Palestinian group Hamas fails to release Israeli hostages, Anadolu reports.

“If Hamas does not release the hostages, the gates of hell will open in Gaza,” Katz said in a ceremony marking the demolitions of buildings damaged in Israeli missile strikes last month in the city of Holon near Tel Aviv.

“This is a complex war, it goes beyond what was done in the past. We are approaching stages where decisions need to be made. This is leadership and we are responsible, not the prosecutor and not anyone else.”

Hamas has repeatedly offered to release all Israeli captives in exchange for ending the war, Israeli troop withdrawal, and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted such terms, instead calling for the disarmament of the Palestinian resistance factions and signaling plans to reoccupy Gaza.

READ: Israeli defence minister threatens to assassinate Iran’s supreme leader, attacks Tehran

Israel estimates that 58 hostages remain in Gaza, including 20 believed to be alive. Meanwhile, over 10,100 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons under harsh conditions, including reports of torture, starvation, and medical neglect, according to Palestinian and Israeli rights groups.

The Israeli opposition and hostages’ families have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war to appease his far-right coalition partners and maintain power.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing nearly 60,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The relentless bombardment has destroyed the enclave and led to food shortages.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ: Hamas official says Israel’s truce “claim” aims to deceive international public

Indian media reports claim the men were linked to the April 22 Pahalgam attack, but there is no official confirmation.

Indian security forces have killed three suspected rebels in India-administered Kashmir during fighting in a national park, the military says.

The incident occurred on Monday in the mountains of Dachigam, about 30km (18 miles) east of the disputed region’s main city of Srinagar.

“Three terrorists have been neutralised in an intense firefight,” the Indian army said in a statement on social media. “Operation continues.”

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and the South Asian nuclear powers, which both claim Kashmir in full, have fought three wars over its control.

Since 1989, Kashmiri rebels have been fighting against Indian rule, demanding independence or the region’s merger with Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of backing the rebellion, but Islamabad says it only provides diplomatic support to the Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination.

Indian media reports said the three men killed on Monday were suspected to be behind the April 22 attack in India-administered Kashmir’s resort town of Pahalgam, which killed 26 people.

Al Jazeera could not immediately verify the involvement of the men in the April attack, which sparked a four-day military conflict with Pakistan that killed more than 70 people on both sides.

The Indian military did not immediately identify those killed on Monday, but a police officer told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity that they were all “foreigners”.

This month, the United States designated The Resistance Front (TRF), the group accused of being behind the Pahalgam attack, as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.

Monday’s incident took place near the Hindu shrine of Amarnath, to which more than 350,000 people from across India have travelled as part of an annual pilgrimage that began on July 3.

Fighting between rebels and Indian government forces in India-administered Kashmir has drastically declined during the past five years, but many local fighters have been killed since the Pahalgam attack, according to officials.

India denies US claims

In a related development, India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said New Delhi had ended its military conflict with Pakistan in May as it had met all its objectives and had not responded to any outside pressure.

Singh’s remarks during a discussion in parliament on the April 22 attack effectively rejected US President Donald Trump’s claim that he brokered the truce between the two neighbours.

“India halted its operation because all the political and military objectives studied before and during the conflict had been fully achieved,” Singh said. “To suggest that the operation was called off under pressure is baseless and entirely incorrect.”

New Delhi has said Pakistani nationals were involved in the Pahalgam killings. Pakistan denied involvement and sought an independent investigation.

In their military conflict in May, the two sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and other munitions, killing dozens of people, before Trump announced they had agreed to a ceasefire.

Pakistan thanked Trump for brokering the agreement, but India said the US had no hand in it and that New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed between themselves to end the fighting.

Indian opposition groups have questioned what they say is the intelligence failure behind the Pahalgam attack and the government’s inability to capture the assailants – issues they are expected to raise during the parliament discussion.

They have also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for coming under pressure from Trump and agreeing to end the fighting, along with reports that Indian jets were shot down during the fighting.

Pakistan claimed it downed five Indian planes in combat, and India’s highest ranking general admitted suffering “initial losses in the air,” but declined to give details.

The United States and the European Union have reached a wide-ranging trade agreement, ending a months-long standoff and averting a full-blown trade war just days before President Donald Trump’s deadline to impose steep tariffs.

The EU will pay 15 percent tariffs on most goods, including cars. The tariff rate is half the 30 percent Trump had threatened to implement starting on Friday. Brussels also agreed on Sunday to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on US weaponry and energy products on top of existing expenditures.

Speaking to reporters at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, Trump hailed the agreement as the “biggest deal ever made”. “I think it’s going to be great for both parties. It’s going to bring us closer together,” he added.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the agreement would “bring stability” and “bring predictability that’s very important for our businesses on both sides of the Atlantic”.

Von der Leyen defended the deal, saying the aim was to rebalance a trade surplus with the US. Trump has made no secret of using tariffs to try to trim US trade deficits.

Sunday’s agreement capped off months of often tense shuttle diplomacy between Brussels and Washington although neither side disclosed the full details of the pact or released any written materials.

It follows preliminary trade pacts the US signed with Japan, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines and a 90-day trade truce with China.

So how will the deal impact the two sides, which account for almost a third of global trade, and will it end the threats of a tariff war?

What was agreed?

At a news event at Trump’s golf resort, von der Leyen said a 15 percent tariff would apply to European cars, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors – all important products for Europe’s economy.

For his part, Trump said US levies on steel and aluminium, which he has set at 50 percent on many countries, would not be cut for EU products, dashing the hopes of industry in the bloc. Elsewhere, aerospace tariffs will remain at zero for now.

In exchange for the 15 percent tariff rate on EU goods, Trump said the bloc would be “opening up their countries at zero tariff” for American exports.

In addition, he said the EU would spend an extra $750bn on US energy products, invest $600bn in the US and buy military equipment worth “hundreds of billions of dollars”.

Von der Leyen confirmed that the EU would seek to buy an extra $250bn of US energy products each year from now until 2027.

“With this deal, we are securing access to our largest export market,” she said.

At the same time, she acknowledged that the 15 percent tariffs would be “a challenge for some” European industries.

The EU is the US’s largest trading partner with two-way trade in goods and services last year reaching nearly $2 trillion.

How have European leaders responded?

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed the agreement, saying it avoids “an unnecessary escalation in transatlantic trade relations”.

He said a trade war “would have hit Germany’s export-oriented economy hard”, pointing out that the German car industry would see US tariffs lowered from 27.5 percent to 15 percent.

But French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou called the deal a “dark day” for Europe, saying the bloc had caved in to the US president with an unbalanced deal that spares US imports from any immediate European retaliation.

“It is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, brought together to affirm their common values and to defend their common interests, resigns itself to submission,” Bayrou wrote on X of what he called the “von der Leyen-Trump deal”.

Wolfgang Niedermark, a board member of the Federation of German Industries trade body, called the deal “an inadequate compromise” with the EU “accepting painful tariffs”.

A 15 percent tariff rate “will have a huge negative impact on Germany’s export-oriented industry”, he said.

Earlier, Benjamin Haddad, France’s European affairs minister, said: “The trade agreement … will bring temporary stability to economic actors threatened by the escalation of American tariffs, but it is unbalanced.”

Echoing that sentiment, Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Hanneke Boerma said the deal was “not ideal” and called on the commission to continue negotiations with Washington.

The European Commission is responsible for negotiating trade deals for the entire bloc.

EU ambassadors will be discussing the agreement with the commission this week.

How was trade conducted before the deal?

On July 12, Trump threatened to impose 30 percent tariffs on EU goods if the two sides couldn’t reach a deal before this Friday, the day a suspension expires on the implementation of what Trump calls his “reciprocal tariffs”, which he placed on nearly all countries in the world.

Those “reciprocal tariffs” are due to come into effect in addition to the 25 percent tariffs on cars and car parts and the 50 percent levy on steel and aluminium products Trump already put in place.

On the European side, it is understood that Brussels would have pushed ahead with a retaliatory tariffs package on 90 billion euros ($109bn) of US goods, including car parts and bourbon, if talks had broken down.

The EU had been a frequent target of escalating trade rhetoric by Trump, who accused the bloc of “ripping off” the US.

In 2024, the US ran a $235.6bn goods deficit with the EU. Pharmaceuticals, car parts and industrial chemicals were among Europe’s largest exports to the US, according to EU data.

How will the deal impact the US and EU?

Bloomberg Economics estimated that a no-deal outcome would have raised the effective US tariff rate on European goods to nearly 18 percent on Friday.

The new deal brings that number down to 16 percent, offering a small reprieve to European exporting firms. Still, current trade barriers are much higher than before Trump took office in 2025.

According to Bruegel, a research group, the average US tariff rate on EU exports was just 1.5 percent at the end of 2024.

William Lee, chief economist at the Milken Institute, told Al Jazeera: “I think the [Trump] strategy has been clear from the very beginning. … It’s brinkmanship. … Either partner with the US or face high tariffs.”

Meanwhile, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said: “President Trump just unlocked one of the biggest economies in the world. The European Union is going to open its $20 trillion market and completely accept our auto and industrial standards for the first time ever.”

A zoo has announced the birth of red panda twins after introducing the parents in 2024.

The cubs were delivered at Amazon World, Isle of Wight, on 17 June.

Their mother Xiao, 10, was paired with 10-month-old male Flint after he was imported from Belfast Zoo with a view to breeding “in the next couple of years”, the zoo previously said.

The species, which lives in the eastern Himalayas and China, is endangered and on the decline, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In a Facebook post, the zoo, near Arreton, said it was “over the moon” at its success.

It added: “The cubs are still young and there is always a risk but Xiao has done such a fantastic job so far.

“The cubs will remain hidden in the nest boxes until at least three months old.

“Senior staff have been and will continue to monitor the enclosure, nest boxes and cubs via CCTV installed to make sure all is well.”

Red pandas are poached for fur, get caught in hunters’ wild pig and deer traps and are also under threat from forest clearance, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.

Huge fires around Bursa, Turkiye’s fourth-largest city, broke out over the weekend, leading to more than 3,500 people fleeing their homes. On Monday morning, fog-like smoke from fires and smouldering foliage hung over the city.

Unseasonably high temperatures, dry conditions, and strong winds have been fuelling the wildfires, with Turkiye and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean experiencing record-breaking heatwaves.

The death toll from wildfires outside the city of Bursa in northwest Turkiye rose to four late on Sunday after two volunteer firefighters died.

The pair died in hospital after they were pulled from a water tanker that rolled while heading to a forest fire, news agency IHA reported. Another worker died earlier at the scene of the accident, and a firefighter died on Sunday after suffering a heart attack.

Their deaths raised Turkiye’s wildfire death toll to 17 since late June, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed on Wednesday in a fire in the northwestern city of Eskisehir.

The fires around Bursa were among hundreds to have hit the country over the past month. While firefighting teams have contained the damage to a limited number of homes, vast tracts of forest have been turned to ash.

Turkiye battled at least 44 separate fires on Sunday, said Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli. He identified two fires in Bursa province, as well as blazes in Karabuk in the northwest, and Kahramanmaras in the south, as the most serious.

The government declared disaster areas in two western provinces, Izmir and Bilecik. Prosecutions have been launched against 97 people in 33 of Turkiye’s 81 provinces in relation to the fires, Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said.

Acting Thai Premier Phumtham Wechayachai accuses Cambodia of ‘not acting in good faith’ ahead of crucial talks.

A meeting to secure a ceasefire following days of a deadly border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia is under way in Malaysia, says a Malaysian official.

Thailand’s acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai and Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet are holding ceasefire talks on Monday in Malaysia’s administrative capital of Putrajaya at the official residence of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the chair of the regional bloc ASEAN.

The talks between the leaders of the two warring Southeast Asian countries are aimed to halt fighting that has killed at least 35 people and displaced more than 270,000 from both sides of the Thailand-Cambodia border.

The ambassadors of the United States and China were also present at the meeting, the Malaysian official said on Monday, according to a report by the Reuters news agency.

Meanwhile, clashes continue in several areas along Thailand’s disputed border with Cambodia for a fifth day.

In a post on X earlier on Monday, Hun said the purpose of the talks is to achieve an immediate ceasefire in the conflict with Thailand.

However, Phumtham, before departing Bangkok on Monday, told reporters: “We do not believe Cambodia is acting in good faith, based on their actions in addressing the issue. They need to demonstrate genuine intent, and we will assess that during the meeting.”

Thai army spokesperson Colonel Richa Suksuwanon told reporters earlier on Monday that fighting continues along the border, as gunfire could be heard at dawn in Samrong in Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province, The Associated Press news agency reported.

On Sunday, Thailand said one person was killed and another injured after Cambodia fired a rocket in Sisaket province.

Thailand’s military also reported that Cambodian snipers were camping in one of the contested temples, and accused Phnom Penh of surging troops along the border and hammering Thai territory with rockets.

Cambodia’s Ministry of National Defence spokeswoman Maly Socheata on Monday accused Thailand of deploying “a lot of troops” and firing “heavy weapons” into the Cambodian territory.

Socheata claimed that before dawn on Monday, the Thai military targeted areas near the ancient Ta Muen Thom and the Ta Kwai temples, which Cambodia claims are its territory but are being disputed by Thailand.

She also accused the Thai military of firing smoke bombs from aircraft over Cambodian territory and heavy weapons at its soldiers, adding that Cambodian troops “were able to successfully repel the attacks”.

Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from Thailand’s border province of Surin, said the mediators have been “very reluctant” to acknowledge the holding of talks in the Malaysian capital.

“The Malaysian Foreign Ministry was incredibly nervous. Last week, they had said that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had brokered a peace deal only to be shot down very quickly by the Thai Foreign Ministry,” Cheng said.

Still, Cheng said a mounting death toll and the number of displaced people could give the two leaders the “motivation” to resolve the crisis peacefully.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said US officials “are on the ground in Malaysia to assist these peace efforts”, while Anwar told domestic media he would focus on securing an “immediate ceasefire”.

Downing Street has no plans for a bank holiday to mark the Lionesses’ Euro 2025 win, the BBC understands.

England made history on Sunday as they retained their title against World Champions Spain after a dramatic penalty shootout in Basel.

A homecoming parade will be held in central London on Tuesday, with an open-top bus tour culminating in a ceremony outside Buckingham Palace.

But the government appears set to confirm there will be no bank holiday to mark the occasion, in line with what happened when England won the same tournament three years ago.

Calls for a bank holiday after a major football success are not new, but none were held when England’s men’s team won the World Cup in 1966, nor when the Lionesses won the Euros in 2022.

Sir Keir has previously suggested he would be open to giving people a day off work to celebrate an England win, saying at the time that the 2022 victory should be “marked with a proper day of celebration”.

When the Lionesses reached the World Cup final against Spain in 2023, Sir Keir said “there should be a celebratory bank holiday if the Lionesses bring it home”.

Downing Street will likely have an eye on the economic cost of announcing an extra bank holiday.

Government modelling has previously put the cost at £1.36bn, while accountancy firm PwC estimated the figure would be closer to £831m.

Sir Keir watched on from the stands as England clinched a win on penalties, after the two sides held each other at 1-1 after 90 minutes and extra time.

Spot kicks from Alex Greenwood, Niamh Charles and Chloe Kelly, as well as two huge saves from goalkeeper Hannah Hampton, were enough to see England emerge from the tense match victorious.

The prime minister described the team as “history makers” after the full-time whistle, adding: “You dug deep when it mattered most and you’ve made the nation proud.”

A lunatic. An idiot. A person of unsound mind. 

These three phrases were used in The Nigerian Lunacy Ordinance of 1916, later modified into The Lunacy Act of 1958, to describe people battling mental disorders. Beyond these descriptors, the act stated that individuals with mental illness could be confined in asylums based on the judgment of a magistrate, medical officer, or family member, regardless of their consent to such confinement.

The legislation was inherited law from the colonial masters, copying the cultural norms of the United Kingdom’s mental health affairs of the 1900s. However, with criticisms from institutions like Cambridge, which argued that the act “hampered the progress of the mental health movement for nearly 70 years”, the UK came up with the 1959 Mental Health Act, officially repealing the old law. They described their new act as “a fresh provision with respect to the treatment and care of mentally disordered persons”. Among other changes, stigmatising words such as “lunatic” and “asylum” were replaced with terms like “mental disorder” and “patient”, giving mentally afflicted people the choice to seek help for themselves. 

Nigeria, however, had other ideas.

While the UK took this step in a new direction, Nigeria steadfastly held on to the 1958 Lunacy Act, and for decades, the country would show no signs of amending it. 

The urge for change went on for years, with judicial officers like the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Olufunmilayo Atilade, asking for a reform of the Lunacy Act at a Bench and Bar Forum in 2016. She criticised the state of the Lunacy Act, explaining that the laws remained grossly inadequate and hopeless in dealing with the situation in Nigeria.

The Lancet Global Health journal also regarded the act in 2020 as “reflective of a period in human history not only when mental health was severely misunderstood but also when the treatment of people with mental health care needs was both inhumane and ineffective.”

Even mental health advocacy groups lent their voice to the fight. In 2021, the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) hosted an X space, speaking out against the act and urging the legislative arm to repeal and replace it with something more humanising. Some Nigerian psychiatrists also lent their voice to the matter, with the President of the Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria, Taiwo Lateef, explaining in 2019 that the Lunacy Act was inadequate, failed to define a mental disorder, and that it stemmed from a time when there were no treatments for mental illnesses.

For a long time, there was a desperate call for change, and after 65 years, Nigerian leaders finally listened to these pleas. In 2021, the National Mental Health Act was introduced, and it was officially signed into law on January 5, 2023. After years of waiting for reform, people began to see the changes in national mental health they had long requested. The Act was lauded, with people praising the government for enacting it. Mental health practitioners like Alabede Surajdeen also termed it “a cheering and good development”.

With five parts and 56 actionable sections, the long-awaited 2021 Mental Health Act swore to bring a monumental number of changes that, when implemented, would leave the mental health landscape in Nigeria forever altered. 

The Act promised a Department of Mental Health Services to truly focus on mentally disordered persons and a Mental Health Fund to ensure frequent financing. It guaranteed patients the freedom to consent to whatever was done to them and ordered mental health to be integrated into everyday clinics. It also proposed the formation of an independent Mental Health Assessment Committee to prevent abuses.

Despite its promises, most of the 56 sections of the act have not been implemented. The most glaring absence is the lack of a Department of Mental Health Services, as every other law governing mental health care in Nigeria is meant to flow through this system. 

The National Library of Medicine, a scientific medical journal, analysed the Act in 2024. It explained that the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) was supposed to establish a Department of Mental Health Services. However, as of 2025, the FMoH has not provided any updates on when this department will be created, and there is no mention of such a department on their website. Basic rights promised, like legal protection from discrimination and the choice to deny treatment, remain unenforced.

While the Act mandated affordable and accessible mental health care, the price and accessibility of therapy seems too high and limited for the average Nigerian. It also promised the integration of mental health services into primary healthcare, but most mental health units remain buried within public health departments.

This has led to many state leaders lacking the needed direction to implement the Act on a state level.  As a result, out of Nigeria’s 36 states, only three have recognised the Act, and only two states – Lagos and Ekiti – have successfully adopted it into their local legislation. Inadequate budgetary allocation for mental health, among other factors, explains why this lack of implementation persists.

In 2021, a study showed that Nigeria did not have a mental health budget. All the funding received for mental health situations was pegged at between three and four per cent of the total health budget, with 90 per cent of that limited funding allocated to Federal psychiatric hospitals. The promised Mental Health Fund remains a concept within the law, and the capital given to the mental health sector remains unnoticeable.

Another issue halting the implementation of the Act is the severe shortage of trained personnel. In 2022, media reports showed that only 250 psychiatrists were recognised to help over 200 million Nigerians. In 2024, months after the act went into effect, the Medical Report Foundation found that these statistics had not changed. 

At a ratio of about one psychiatrist to  80,000 Nigerians, experts say the strain on those meant to enact the Act is steep, making them move outside the country with their expertise. Just like psychiatrists, facilities are also greatly limited in the country.  The Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has reported ten federal neuropsychiatric hospitals in Nigeria, each one dating back to before the existence of the Mental Health Act. 

While the existence of 10 federal neuropsychiatric hospitals may inspire hope in some, others have no faith in them due to mistrust of the government. Modupe Olagunju*, a final year student who has struggled with her mental health on and off for over 6 years, seemed disgusted by the prospect of attending a government-owned mental health facility.

“I would not attend a federal hospital for anything, especially not for my already fragile mental health. From my experience, almost everything that involves government-provided facilities in Nigeria involves three things: Crowds, bribery, and competition. Every regular healthcare facility I’ve been to that is owned by the government was poorly managed and overflowing with patients. I don’t believe a government mental health facility would be well-equipped to handle mental health matters professionally.”

Modupe’s concern for a lack of proper government-owned mental health facilities seems well-founded. While the Federal Government ordered 16 new infrastructure projects for the neuropsychiatric hospital in Kware, Sokoto State, in 2025, their efforts to improve mental health facilities after the Act’s existence seem to have ended there. No information about the projects’ implementation has come out since May, and no new neuropsychiatric hospitals have been opened since 2022. 

The crawl towards implementation can be attributed to the masses as well, as deep-rooted cultural stigma continues to influence the public understanding of mental health and therefore dampens the government’s push to do something about it, experts said.

A study by the African Polling Institute revealed that 54 per cent of Nigerians attribute mental illness to possession by evil spirits, and 23 per cent understand it as a punishment from God. Many Nigerians are more concerned with religious institutions than seeking out psychiatric care, which may discourage the government from taking action to better mental health facilities.

When Modupe was asked if there were any hindrances towards her seeking therapy, both before and after the Act’s implementation, she said, “It took me a while to convince my family to allow me.  My dad and my brother don’t really believe in mental health matters and believe Africans can’t go through such  a Western phenomenon (even though my dad has been diagnosed with a mental health issue himself). It was my mum who finally relented and took me in 2020, but even now, they are sceptical. ”

With a lack of significant effort from the government, many are worried that the Act does far more showing than telling. Paul Agboola, the Provost and Medical Director of the Neuropsychiatric Hospital of Abeokuta, notably told journalists in 2025 that “Togo, Ghana and Benin Republic are already implementing this law, but we who pride ourselves as the giants of Africa can’t implement our [mental health] laws that have been passed for two years now.”

The effects can be felt on a personal level. Modupe expressed her confusion about the Mental Health Act when asked if she was aware it existed.

“No, I am not aware [it exists].  I didn’t even know we had a Lunacy Act, and now we have another one? I am very surprised that such an Act exists because it feels like Nigeria has too many problems to pay much attention to mental health.”

As someone who has struggled with thoughts of ending her life since 2019, years before the Mental Health Act came to be, Modupe laughs at the idea that a positive change has occurred from when her struggles began till now. 

“In Nigeria, the [mental health]  law is just a suggestion.” She mused, “It isn’t something that needs to be implemented. Unless you have the right connections or adequate knowledge, the policy is useless.” 

Tomiwa Oladapo*, an autistic sexual assault survivor, also expressed his disbelief that the Act was a thing, saying, “I didn’t know… I think I didn’t know because coverage of stuff like that sucks in our country, and I’ve become really apathetic to this country. If something good had come out of the Act, I’m sure I would have known about it, but since 2021, please, what has changed?”

At best, it seems the Act has done little other than halt the degradation of mental health in the country, as no reports show a significant dip in the state of mental health nationwide since the its existence. In fact, some believe, on a private level, that mental health in Nigeria is ticking upward.

“At the end of the day, these discussions and changes about mental health in Nigeria are often had in privileged spaces. I do think people are more aware (of mental health) in Nigeria in recent days, but I’m not sure the nation itself is bringing about any significant change,” Tomiwa told HumAngle.

His views reflected those of Bernice Ezeani*, a 21-year-old NYSC corper who simply stated, “I haven’t seen anything significant from the government or state (concerning mental health) but from private entities? Yes. I also don’t know about the Act, but I know that private entities have been championing mental health activities even since before the Act.”

Still, for many in Nigeria, private efforts towards mental health improvement are not enough. “We have an Act,” Bernice states, “And so we should use it.”

Properly implementing the Act not only favours mentally ill Nigerians calling for change but also strengthens the country’s economic stability, benefiting all inhabitants.

This view is echoed by the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a global health organisation, which showed the steep cost of underinvesting in mental health nationwide. 

The study explains that brain health, which is how optimally the brain works,  and brain skills, such as analytical thinking and creativity, are linked. Together, they are necessary for the sort of productivity that drives the modern workforce and therefore builds the economy. 

Mental illness is described as a major roadblock for brain health, and in a country where an estimated 20 – 30 per cent of inhabitants are estimated to suffer a mental illness, according to ReasearchGate, a monumental portion of Nigerians, if they has access to proper mental health care, could have a positive impact on Nigeria’s struggling economy.

Until the Mental Health Act brings significant action to back up the written law, its 56 sections will remain mainly symbolic. For the millions who need the promises it offers, the law without proper implementation will continue to foster confusion and hopelessness, with some continuing to share the same sentiment as an X user did in 2025, stating, “Mental health Act signed 2022 yet implementation is poor. Funding is also very poor, we still have a long way to go (in regards to ) mental healthcare in Nigeria.”

As Israel’s killing of Palestinians continues fast and slow, through air strikes and starvation, the foreign ministers of 28 countries have signed a statement calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.

As these countries deploy words months after the United Nations and other groups warned of an oncoming famine, there has been little action on other fronts.

Some of these countries have recognised the Palestinian state while France last week angered Israeli officials by announcing it would do the same in September.

Still, many critics have pointed out that as countries make these statements, many of them continue to benefit from trade with Israel and have not imposed sanctions or taken any other action that could push Israel to end its genocidal war on Gaza.

The war has killed at least 59,821 people in Gaza and wounded 144,477.

Here’s all you need to know about the countries profiting from Israel while condemning its military action:

How much do the signatories of the statement trade with Israel?

Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom all have more than $1bn in imports, exports or both with Israel, according to 2023 figures from the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

What do these countries trade with Israel?

Among the top items being traded are cars and other motor vehicles, integrated circuits, vaccines and perfumes.

About $3.58bn in integrated circuits is the largest individual product going to Ireland, making up the overwhelming majority of Ireland’s imports from Israel.

Meanwhile, Italy exports to Israel more than any other country that signed the statement. Its $3.49bn of exports included $116m in cars in 2023.

Do these countries recognise Palestine?

Of those countries that issued the statement, Ireland and Spain recognised Palestine in 2024 and have spoken strongly against Israel’s actions in Gaza. Still, that hasn’t stopped them from continuing trade with Israel.

Seven other countries that signed the statement also recognise the State of Palestine, including Cyprus, Malta and Poland, all of which recognised Palestine in 1988, shortly after the Palestinian Declaration of Independence.

Iceland (2011), Sweden (2014), Norway (2024) and Slovenia (2024) also recognise the State of Palestine while France said it will do so in September at the United Nations General Assembly.

Who signed the statement?

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

All of them are still trading with Israel.

What was Israel’s reaction to the statement?

As expected.

Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on X that Israel rejects the statement, saying “it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas.”

What else are countries trading with Israel doing?

France, Germany and the UK called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and “unconditional release of all hostages” after they held an emergency call to discuss the war and the hunger crisis created by Israel’s siege and aid blockade on the enclave.

Has any of this made Israel change its behaviour?

Attention has turned heavily towards the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, leading even longtime Israeli stalwart supporters like former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to address the issue.

Aid organizations report that thousands of children in Gaza are at risk of starvation while trucks full of food sit waiting across the border.

The full flow of humanitarian assistance must be restored immediately.https://t.co/dt3Z9h6KXd

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 24, 2025

This pressure has led Israel to announce “tactical pauses” for “humanitarian purposes” from 10am to 8pm (07:00 to 17:00 GMT) in al-Mawasi, Deir el-Balah and Gaza City. They started on Sunday.

Despite the pauses, Israeli forces killed at least 43 Palestinians early on Sunday.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Sunday that it had recorded six more deaths over 24 hours due to famine and malnutrition, including two children.

This brings the total number of starvation deaths to 133, including 87 children.