After announcing they would disarm, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) destroyed their weapons in northern Iraq.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the country has begun a new era as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) began to disarm after a four-decade armed conflict that killed more than 40,000 people.
In an address to his party, Justice and Development (AKP), Erdogan said on Saturday that the “scourge of terrorism has entered the process of ending”.
“Decades of sorrow, tears and distress came to an end. Turkiye turned that page as of yesterday,” Erdogan said.
“Today is a new day; a new page has opened in history. Today, the doors of a great, powerful Turkiye have been flung wide open,” the president added.
In a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, 30 PKK members burned their weapons, marking a hugely symbolic step towards ending their armed campaign against Turkiye.
During Friday’s ceremony, senior PKK figure Bese Hozat read out a statement at the Jasana cave in the town of Dukan, 60 km (37 miles) northwest of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdish of Iraq’s north, announcing the group’s decision to disarm.
“We voluntarily destroy our weapons, in your presence, as a step of goodwill and determination,” she said.
Since 1984, the PKK has been locked in armed conflict with the Turkish state and decided in May to disarm and disband after a public call from the group’s long-imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
Ocalan said in a video earlier this week, which was recorded in June by the groups affiliated with Firat News Agency, that the move to disarm was a “ voluntary transition from the phase of armed conflict to the phase of democratic politics and law” calling it a “historic gain”.
Further disarmament is expected to take place at a designated locations, which involves the coordination between Turkiye, Iraq and the Kurdish regional government in Iraq.
Israeli settlers have beaten to death a United States citizen in the occupied West Bank, the victim’s family members and rights groups have said.
Settlers attacked and killed Sayfollah Musallet – who was in his early 20s – in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, on Friday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Musallet, also known as Saif al-Din Musalat, had travelled from his home in Florida to visit family in Palestine, his cousin Fatmah Muhammad said in a social media post.
Another Palestinian, identified by the Health Ministry as Mohammed Shalabi, was fatally shot by settlers during the attack.
Rights advocates have documented repeated instances where Israeli settlers in the West Bank ransack Palestinian neighbourhoods and towns, burning homes and vehicles in attacks sometimes described as pogroms.
The Israeli military often protects the settlers during their rampages and has shot Palestinians who show any resistance.
The United Nations and other prominent human rights organisations consider the Israeli settlements in the West Bank violations of international law, as part of a broader strategy to displace Palestinians.
While some Western countries like France and Australia have imposed sanctions on violent settlers, attacks have increased since the outbreak of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.
When Donald Trump took office earlier this year, his administration revoked sanctions on settlers imposed by his predecessor, Joe Biden.
Israeli forces have killed at least nine US citizens since 2022, including veteran Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.
But none of the incidents have resulted in criminal charges.
The US provides billions of dollars to Israel every year. Advocates have accused successive US administrations of failing to protect American citizens from Israeli violence in the Middle East.
On Friday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on Washington to ensure accountability for the killing of Musallet.
“Every other murder of an American citizen has gone unpunished by the American government, which is why the Israeli government keeps wantonly killing American Palestinians and, of course, other Palestinians,” CAIR deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement.
He then pointed out that Trump has repeatedly promised to prioritise American interests, as typified by his campaign slogan “America First”.
“If President Trump will not even put America first when Israel murders American citizens, then this is truly an Israel First administration,” Mitchell said.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) also called for action from the US administration, noting that settlers are “lynching Palestinians more frequently – with full support from Israel’s army and government”.
“The US government has a legal and moral obligation to stop Israel’s racist violence against Palestinians. Instead, it’s still backing and funding it,” the group said in a statement.
The US Department of State did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment about the killing of Musallet.
The Palestinian group Hamas condemned the murder of Musallet, describing it as “barbaric”, and called on Palestinians across the West Bank to rise up to “confront the settlers and their terrorist attacks”.
Israel said it was “investigating” what happened in Sinjil, claiming that the violence started when Palestinians threw rocks at an Israeli vehicle.
“Shortly thereafter, violent clashes developed in the area between Palestinians and Israeli civilians, which included the destruction of Palestinian property, arson, physical confrontations, and stone-throwing,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Israeli investigations often lead to no charges or meaningful accountability for the abuses of Israeli officers and settlers.
As settler and military violence intensifies in the West Bank, Israel has killed at least 57,762 Palestinians in Gaza in a campaign that rights groups have described as a genocide.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun says his country seeks peace with Israel, but is not ready to normalise ties.
Lebanon’s president says his country wants peace but not normalisation with Israel, as health authorities said an Israeli air strike killed one person in the south of the country.
As well as causing one death on Friday, the drone attack on a car in Nabatieh district wounded five other people, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.
It comes as Israel continues to launch regular strikes against sites in Lebanon, particularly in the south, despite a November 27 ceasefire agreement between it and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Under the terms of the truce, Hezbollah had to retreat to the north of the Litani River, which is about 30km (20 miles) from the Israeli border, while Israel had to fully withdraw its troops, leaving only the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers in the area.
However, Israel still occupies five strategic locations in southern Lebanon.
Speaking on Friday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun expressed a desire for peaceful relations with his country’s neighbour. But he stressed that Beirut was not currently interested in normalising ties with Israel, something mentioned as a possibility by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar last week.
“Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of normalisation, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy,” said Aoun, who urged Israel to withdraw completely from Lebanon.
Smoke billows from the Nabatieh district, following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjayoun, in southern Lebanon, on June 27, 2025 [File: Karamallah Daher/Reuters]
In a reference to the US’s ongoing call for Lebanon to fully disarm Hezbollah, the Lebanese president also expressed Beirut’s desire to “hold the monopoly over weapons in the country”, but he did not give further details.
Hezbollah, which is considerably weakened after more than a year of hostilities with Israel, has dismissed questions about disarmament.
“We cannot be asked to soften our stance or lay down arms while [Israeli] aggression continues,” its leader Naim Qassem told crowds in southern Beirut on Sunday.
The following day, a man was killed by an Israeli drone strike on a motorbike in the village of al-Mansouri near Tyre, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said. Two others were injured in the attack, it added.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, says sanctions by the Trump administration aim to silence her for exposing genocide and calling out those who profit from it. She urges people to “stand united, denounce, and push back”.
On July 9, United States President Donald Trump opened a three-day mini summit at the White House with the leaders of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal – by subjecting his distinguished guests to a carefully staged public humiliation.
This was not the plan – or at least, not the part the public was meant to see.
A White House official claimed on July 3 that “President Trump believes that African countries offer incredible commercial opportunities which benefit both the American people and our African partners.”
Whether by coincidence or calculated design, the meeting took place on the same day the Trump administration escalated its trade war, slapping new tariffs on eight countries, including the North African nations of Libya and Algeria. It was a telling contrast: Even as Trump claimed to be “strengthening ties with Africa”, his administration was penalising African nations. The optics revealed the incoherence – or perhaps the honesty – of Trump’s Africa policy, where partnership is conditional and often indistinguishable from punishment.
Trump opened the summit with a four-minute speech in which he claimed the five invited leaders were representing the entire African continent. Never mind that their countries barely register in US-Africa trade figures; what mattered was the gold, oil, and minerals buried beneath their soil. He thanked “these great leaders… all from very vibrant places with very valuable land, great minerals, great oil deposits, and wonderful people”.
He then announced that the US was “shifting from AID to trade” because “this will be far more effective and sustainable and beneficial than anything else that we could be doing together.”
At that moment, the illusion of diplomacy collapsed, and the true nature of the meeting was revealed. Trump shifted from statesman to showman, no longer merely hosting but asserting control. The summit quickly descended into a cringe-inducing display, where Africa was presented not as a continent of sovereign nations but as a rich expanse of resources, fronted by compliant leaders performing for the cameras. This was not a dialogue but a display of domination: A stage-managed production in which Trump scripted the scene and African heads of state were cast in subordinate roles.
Trump was in his element, orchestrating the event like a puppet master, directing each African guest to play his part and respond favourably. He “invited” (in effect, instructed) them to make “a few comments to the media” in what became a choreographed show of deference.
President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani of Mauritania led the way, both physically and symbolically, by praising Trump’s “commitment” to Africa. The claim was as misleading as it was surreal, given Washington’s recent aid cuts, punitive tariffs, and tightened visa restrictions on African nations.
In one especially embarrassing moment, Ghazouani described Trump as the world’s top peacemaker – crediting him, among other things, with stopping “the war between Iran and Israel”. This praise came with no mention of the US’s continued military and diplomatic support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which the African Union has firmly condemned. The silence amounted to complicity, a calculated erasure of Palestinian suffering for the sake of American favour.
Perhaps mindful of the tariffs looming over his own country, Ghazouani, who served as AU Chair in 2024, slipped into the role of a willing supplicant. He all but invited Trump to exploit Mauritania’s rare minerals, praised him and declared him a peacemaker while ignoring the massacres of tens of thousands of innocents in Gaza made possible by the very weapons Trump provides.
This tone would define the entire sit-down. One by one, the African leaders offered Trump glowing praise and access to their countries’ natural resources – a disturbing reminder of how easily power can script compliance.
Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye even asked Trump to build a golf course in his country. Trump declined, opting instead to compliment Faye’s youthful appearance. Gabon’s President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema talked of “win-win partnerships” with the US, but received only a lukewarm response.
What did capture Trump’s attention was the English fluency of Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai. Ignoring the content of Boakai’s remarks, Trump marvelled at his “beautiful” English and asked, “Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where were you educated? Where? In Liberia?”
That Trump seemed unaware English is Liberia’s official language, and has been since its founding in 1822 as a haven for freed American slaves, was perhaps less shocking than the colonial tone of his question. His astonishment that an African president could speak English well betrayed a deeply racist, imperial mindset.
It was not an isolated slip. At a White House peace ceremony on June 29 involving the DRC and Rwanda, Trump publicly commented on the appearance of Angolan journalist and White House correspondent Hariana Veras, telling her, “You are beautiful – and you are beautiful inside.”
Whether or not Veras is “beautiful” is entirely beside the point. Trump’s behaviour was inappropriate and unprofessional, reducing a respected journalist to her looks in the middle of a diplomatic milestone. The sexualisation of Black women – treating them as vessels of white male desire rather than intellectual equals – was central to both the transatlantic slave trade and European colonisation. Trump’s comment extended that legacy into the present.
Likewise, his surprise at Boakai’s English fits a long imperial pattern. Africans who “master” the coloniser’s language are often seen not as complex, multilingual intellectuals, but as subordinates who’ve absorbed the dominant culture. They are rewarded for proximity to whiteness, not for intellect or independence.
Trump’s remarks revealed his belief that articulate and visually appealing Africans are an anomaly, a novelty deserving momentary admiration. By reducing both Boakai and Veras to aesthetic curiosities, he erased their agency, dismissed their achievements, and gratified his colonial ego.
More than anything, Trump’s comments on Boakai reflected his deeper indifference to Africa. They stripped away any illusion that this summit was about genuine partnership.
Contrast this with the US-Africa Leaders Summit held by President Joe Biden in December 2022. That event welcomed more than 40 African heads of state, as well as the African Union, civil society, and private sector leaders. It prioritised peer-to-peer dialogue and the AU’s Agenda 2063 – a far cry from Trump’s choreographed spectacle.
How the Trump administration concluded that five men could represent the entire continent remains baffling, unless, of course, this wasn’t about representation at all, but control. Trump didn’t want engagement; he wanted performance. And sadly, his guests obliged.
In contrast to the tightly managed meeting Trump held with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 8, the lunch with African leaders resembled a chaotic, tone-deaf sideshow.
Faye was especially disappointing. He came to power on the back of an anti-imperialist platform, pledging to break with neocolonial politics and restore African dignity. Yet at the White House, he bent the knee to the most brazen imperialist of them all. Like the others, he failed to challenge Trump, to assert equality, or to defend the sovereignty he so publicly champions at home.
In a moment when African leaders had the chance to push back against a resurgent colonial mindset, they instead bowed – giving Trump space to revive a 16th-century fantasy of Western mastery.
For this, he offered a reward: He might not impose new tariffs on their countries, he said, “because they are friends of mine now”.
Trump, the “master”, triumphed.
All the Africans had to do was bow at his feet.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has begun the first steps towards disarmament, closing a chapter on a four-decade armed campaign against the Turkish state in a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people.
A small ceremony was being held on Friday in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, where 20 to 30 PKK fighters were destroying their weapons rather than surrendering them to any government or authority. The symbolic process is being conducted under tight security and is expected to unfold throughout the summer.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has welcomed the development, declaring it as “totally ripping off and throwing away the bloody shackles that were put on our country’s legs”. Erdogan also said the move would benefit the entire region.
The move follows an announcement in May by the PKK that it would abandon its armed struggle.
For most of its history, the PKK has been labelled a “terrorist” group by Turkiye, the European Union and the United States.
More than 40,000 people were killed between 1984 and 2024, with thousands of Kurds fleeing the violence in southeastern Turkiye into cities further north.
In a video aired earlier this week but recorded in June by the PKK-linked Firat News Agency, the group’s imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan described the moment as “a voluntary transition from the phase of armed conflict to the phase of democratic politics and law”, calling it a “historic gain”.
Ocalan has been held in solitary confinement on Imrali Island in Turkiye since his capture in 1999. Despite his imprisonment, he remains a symbolic figure for the group and broader PKK offshoots across the region.
The disarmament is being closely monitored by members of Turkiye’s Kurdish DEM party, as well as Turkish media. Further phases will take place at designated locations involving coordination between Turkiye, Iraq and the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq.
The effect of the conflict has been deeply felt not only in Turkiye but across neighbouring countries, particularly Iraq, Syria and Iran, where the PKK and its affiliates have maintained a presence.
‘There’s a long way to go’
Reporting from Sulaimaniyah, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed described the event as “highly symbolic”, with senior figures from both the federal Iraqi government and the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government in attendance.
Abdelwahed noted that while this marks a significant moment, the road ahead remains uncertain. “This is just the beginning and it seems there’s a long way to go,” he explained. “The PKK also have demands, including the release of their leader Abdullah Ocalan. They want him to come here to northern Iraq and lead, as they say, the democratic process.”
Abdelwahed added that the development signals a major shift for Iraq, where the PKK was officially designated a banned organisation in April last year, following a high-level security meeting between Iraqi and Turkish officials.
Speaking from Istanbul, Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu said Ankara views developments in Sulaimaniyah as a major step forward in ending the conflict that has dragged on for decades. “What is happening in Sulaimaniyah is being seen by Ankara as a critical breakthrough in the decade-long conflict that cost tens of thousands of lives, both from the Turkish side and the Kurdish side,” she said.
The move follows months of direct talks between Turkish officials and Ocalan.
Koseoglu highlighted the political significance of this moment within Turkiye. “This is an important step that Turkish President Erdogan approved this process,” she said, noting that even traditionally hardline groups have shifted position.
“The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which once denounced peace efforts as ‘treason’, now supports the process.”
The pro-Kurdish DEM Party is playing a key facilitation role, and the main opposition CHP – once highly critical of earlier peace attempts – now says it supports efforts to achieve peace, noted Koseoglu.
‘If the PKK leaves, there won’t be any shelling’
In northern Iraq, where the fighting has often spilled over, civilians are cautiously hopeful.
Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed visited communities in the mountainous district of Amedi, near the Turkish border, where villages have been caught in the crossfire.
“Here in northern Iraq, the PKK controls hundreds of villages spread across the semi-autonomous Kurdish region,” said Abdelwahed. “Some have been turned into battlefields, severely limiting access to farmland and making life even more difficult for displaced families who are desperate to return home.”
Shirwan Sirkli, a local farmer, told Al Jazeera that the conflict destroyed his family’s livelihood. “My farm was burned down by shelling as Turkish forces and the PKK brought their conflict to our lands. My brother also lost his $300,000 worth of sheep ranches. Many of our neighbours have left the village – only 35 out of about 100 families remain.”
Turkish military operations in the area have intensified in recent years, with Ankara establishing outposts across the border and frequently attacking PKK positions.
“The presence of PKK fighters in the area has only brought disaster to us,” said Ahmad Saadullah, a local community leader, speaking to Al Jazeera. “If they leave, there won’t be any shelling. We would like to see the peace deal implemented on the ground so we can reclaim our land and live in peace.”
‘Positive trend’ in US-Russia ties remains despite Washington’s ‘zigzag’ policy, Moscow says.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio have met again at the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur, according to Russia’s state-run TASS agency, with the war in Ukraine the key focus.
The conversation followed a longer 50-minute meeting between the two top diplomats the previous day.
While no details have yet emerged from Friday’s exchange, Rubio told reporters after Thursday’s talks that the two sides had discussed a possible “new and different approach” to reviving peace efforts over Ukraine.
“I wouldn’t characterise it as something that guarantees peace,” he said, “but it’s a concept that I’ll take back to the president.”
Lavrov said on Friday that he set out the Kremlin’s position on settling the war. “We discussed Ukraine. We confirmed the position that President [Vladimir] Putin had outlined, including in his July 3 conversation with President [Donald] Trump,” Lavrov told Russian media on the sidelines of the ASEAN gathering.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the diplomats held a “substantive and frank exchange” of views on Ukraine, as well as on Iran, Syria and broader global issues.
The meeting marked a rare moment of direct engagement between Washington and Moscow as bilateral relations remain fraught. However, Russian officials downplayed suggestions that ties were deteriorating.
A group photo at the 58th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers’ meetings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on July 10, 2025 [Hasnoor Hussain/EPA].
“I do not agree that the positive trend in relations between Moscow and Washington is fading,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told the RIA news agency. “I think that the current US administration acts in a zigzag manner. We don’t dramatise over this.”
Ryabkov said a new round of US-Russia talks on unresolved bilateral issues could be held before the end of the summer.
Despite the strain, both Moscow and Washington appeared to leave the door open to further dialogue, though with caution. “We are talking, and that is a start,” Rubio said. “But much depends on what comes next.”
Top US, Chinese diplomats set to meet
Rubio, on his first official trip to Asia since assuming office, is also set to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Kuala Lumpur on Friday. The in-person meeting is their first and comes as the US aims to reassert its presence in the Asia Pacific.
The US secretary of state is attending the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum, which brings together key players including Japan, China, Russia, Australia, India and the European Union.
The flurry of diplomatic meetings comes amid worsening US-China trade relations. Beijing has warned Washington against reintroducing sweeping tariffs next month, after being slapped with duties exceeding 100 percent during earlier tit-for-tat exchanges.
China has also warned of retaliation against countries that support efforts to exclude Beijing from critical global supply chains.
While Rubio’s trip signals a renewed US focus on Asia, tensions stemming from Trump’s global tariff strategy continue to cast a long shadow.
From August 1, steep import tariffs targeting eight ASEAN nations, including Malaysia, as well as close allies Japan and South Korea, are due to take effect.
Washington has said the move is part of its effort to “rebalance trade,” but critics warn the policy could undermine the very partnerships the US is seeking to strengthen.
ASEAN’s foreign ministers noted their concern on Friday over rising global tensions and underscored how critical a “predictable, transparent, inclusive, free, fair, sustainable and rules-based multilateral trading system” was in a joint communique.
“We reaffirmed our commitment to work constructively with all partners to this end,” the regional bloc’s foreign ministers said.
The Hague court’s Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan warns civil war ‘has reached an intolerable state’.
A senior International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has concluded that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity” are being committed in war-ravaged Sudan’s western Darfur region.
ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan presented her assessment before the United Nations Security Council on Thursday of the devastating conflict, which has raged since 2023, killing more than 40,000 people and displacing 13 million others.
Khan said the depth of suffering and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur “has reached an intolerable state”, with famine escalating and hospitals, humanitarian convoys and other civilian infrastructure being targeted.
She said it was “difficult to find appropriate words to describe the depth of suffering in Darfur”.
“On the basis of our independent investigations, the position of our office is clear. We have reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been and are continuing to be committed in Darfur,” she said.
The prosecutor’s office focused its probe on crimes committed in West Darfur, Khan said, interviewing victims who fled to neighbouring Chad.
She detailed an “intolerable” humanitarian situation, with apparent targeting of hospitals and humanitarian convoys, while warning that “famine is escalating” as aid is unable to reach “those in dire need”.
“People are being deprived of water and food. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponised,” Khan said, adding that abductions for ransom had become “common practice”.
In June, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan warned that both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had escalated the use of heavy weaponry in populated areas and weaponised humanitarian relief, amid the devastating consequences of the civil war.
ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan had told the Security Council in January that there were grounds to believe both parties may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in the region, while the administration of then-US President Joe Biden determined that the RSF and its proxies were committing genocide.
The Security Council had previously referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, with some 300,000 people killed during conflict in the region in the 2000s.
In 2023, the ICC opened a new probe into war crimes in Darfur after a new conflict erupted between the SAF and RSF.
The RSF’s predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide two decades ago in the vast western region.
ICC judges are expected to deliver their first decision on crimes committed in Darfur two decades ago in the case of Ali Mohamed Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, known as Ali Kosheib, after the trial ended in 2024.
“I wish to be clear to those on the ground in Darfur now, to those who are inflicting unimaginable atrocities on its population – they may feel a sense of impunity at this moment, as Ali Kosheib may have felt in the past,” said Khan.
“But we are working intensively to ensure that the Ali Kosheib trial represents only the first of many in relation to this situation at the International Criminal Court,” added Khan.
Made in Palestine is a documentary short set inside the Hirbawi textile factory, the last remaining producer of the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank.
Run by three brothers, the sons of founder Hajj Yasser Hirbawi, the family business has preserved this craft since 1961. But the brothers say the factory is more than just a workplace.
It’s a living symbol of resistance, memory and pride, woven deep into Palestinian heritage and identity.
UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese tells Al Jazeera Washington’s move is retaliation for ‘pursuit of justice’ in Israel’s war on Gaza.
United Nations expert Francesca Albanese has slammed the decision by the United States to sanction her as “obscene”, saying she is being targeted for calling out Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on Thursday, Albanese, who serves as the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, said she would not be cowed into silence by the US move against her on Wednesday.
Albanese stressed that the penalties imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration would not stop her “quest for [the] respect of justice and international law”.
The special rapporteur said Washington’s tactics reminded her of “Mafia intimidation techniques” before suggesting that “sanctions will only work if people are scared and stop engaging”.
“I want to remind everyone [that] the reason why these sanctions are being imposed is the pursuit of justice,” Albanese said.
“Of course I’ve been critical of Israel. It has been committing genocide and crimes against humanity and war crimes,” she added.
While announcing the sanctions on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio charged Albanese with waging a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel”.
The UN rapporteur hit back on Thursday, noting that the atrocities being committed in Gaza were not just down to “the unrelinquished territorial ambitions of Israel” and the backing of its supporters but also “companies who are profiting from it”.
Last week, she released a report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza in breach of international law.
Albanese told Al Jazeera that she was still evaluating the effects the US sanctions would have on her.
However, she said her problems are nothing compared with what Palestinians face in Gaza during Israel’s ongoing bombardments, ground operations and blockade of the territory.
Albanese also took aim at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), calling it a “death trap”. The Israeli- and US-backed group runs the aid distribution sites where hundreds of Palestinians have been shot and killed since late May while queueing for food.
Smoke rises from an Israeli strike on Gaza on July 10, 2025 [Jack Guez/AFP]
Move against Albanese ‘a dangerous precedent’
The UN expert also defended the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) investigation into Israeli actions in Gaza and its decision to call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest on charges of war crimes.
Rubio has described Albanese’s push for the prosecution of Israeli officials at the ICC as the legal basis for the sanctions.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman was among those to criticise the US sanctions on Albanese.
While highlighting that Albanese reports to the UN Human Rights Council rather than the secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric called the decision “a dangerous precedent”.
“The use of unilateral sanctions against special rapporteurs or any other UN expert or official is unacceptable,” he said.
UN Human Rights Council Ambassador Jurg Lauber also lamented the move against Albanese.
“I call on all UN member states to fully cooperate with the special rapporteurs and mandate holders of the council and to refrain from any acts of intimidation or reprisal against them,” Lauber said.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has destroyed most of the territory and killed more than 57,575 Palestinians over the past 21 months, according to local health officials.
The UN says that despite being permitted to deliver the first fuel shipment to Gaza in 130 days, it was not enough to cover even a single day’s needs, leaving hospitals and other critical facilities on the brink of shutdown.
A Palestinian man trapped under rubble in a burning building spoke to his cousin by phone, pleading for help after an Israeli airstrike flattened their home in Gaza City. Rescue teams later found Ibrahim al-Daly dead from severe burns. (Warning: Distressing Content)
Israeli soldiers bound Mohamed Yousef’s hands behind his back as they dragged him to a military camp near the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta, a collection of Palestinian villages in Hebron governorate, in late June.
With him were his mother, his wife and two sisters, arrested on their land for confronting armed Israeli settlers.
Settlers often graze their animals on Palestinian land to assert control, signal unrestricted access and lay the groundwork for establishing illegal outposts, cutting Palestinians off from their farms and livestock.
Yousef knew this, so he went out to defend his farm when he saw the armed settlers.
But as is often the case, it was Mohamed, a Palestinian, who was punished. At the military camp, he was left with his family in the scorching sun for hours.
While Mohamed and his family were released the next day, they fear they will not have the means to defend themselves for much longer.
“The police, the [Israeli] army and settlers often attack us all at once. What are we supposed to do?” Yousef said.
The Israeli military did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on the incident.
Useful pretext
Things might be about to get worse for Yousef and his family, who, along with about 1,200 other Palestinians, could soon be expelled from their lands.
On June 17, during the zenith of Israel’s war on Iran, the Israeli government submitted a letter, a copy of which has been seen by Al Jazeera, to the Israeli High Court of Justice that included a request by the army to demolish at least 12 villages in Masafer Yatta and expel the inhabitants.
The Israeli army argued that it has to demolish the villages to convert the area into a military “firing” or training zone, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups.
However, a 2015 study by Kerem Novat, an Israeli civil society organisation, found that such justifications are a ruse to seize Palestinian land. From the time Israel occupied swaths of the West Bank in the 1967 war, it has converted about one-third of the West Bank into a “closed military zone”, according to the study.
And yet, military drills have never been carried out in 80 percent of these zones after Palestinians were dispossessed of their homes.
Palestinians carry their belongings as they are forced to leave their homes after Israel issues demolition orders for 104 buildings in Tulkarem, occupied West Bank on July 3, 2025 [Faruk Hanedar/Anadolu]
The study concluded that the military confiscates Palestinian land as a strategy to “reduce the Palestinian population’s ability to use the land and to transfer as much of it as possible to Israeli settlers”.
Yousef fears his village could suffer a similar fate following the state’s petition to the High Court.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen to us,” Mohamed told Al Jazeera. “Even if we are forced to leave, then where are we supposed to go? Where will we live?”
Rigged system
Many fear the Israeli High Court will side with the army and evict all Palestinians from “Firing Zone 918”, a battle that has been ongoing for decades.
Israeli courts have played a central role in rubber-stamping Israel’s policies in the occupied West Bank, described as apartheid by many, by approving the demolition of entire Palestinian communities, according to Amnesty International.
The communities currently at risk were first handed an eviction notice and expelled in 1999, and told that their villages had been declared a military training zone, which the army dubbed “Firing Zone 918”.
The army claimed that the herding communities living in this “zone” were not “permanent residents”, despite the communities saying they lived there long before the state of Israel was formed by ethnically cleansing Palestinians in 1948, an event known as the Nakba.
With little recourse other than navigating an unfriendly Israeli legal system to resist their dispossession, the communities and human rights lawyers representing them initiated a legal battle to stop the evictions in Israeli district courts and the High Court.
In 2000, a judge ordered the army to allow the communities to return to their villages until a final ruling was issued.
Human rights lawyers have since filed countless petitions and appeals to delay and hinder the army’s attempt to expel the villagers.
“The [Israelis]…have been trying to expel us for decades,” said 63-year-old Nidal Younis, the head of the Masafer Yatta Council.
Then, in May 2022, the High Court ordered the expulsion of eight Masafer Yatta villages. The court ruled that the inhabitants were not “permanent residents”, ignoring evidence that the defence provided.
“We brought [the court] artefacts, photo analyses and ancient tools, used by the families for decades, that were representative of permanent residence,” said Netta Amar-Shiff, one of the lawyers representing the villagers.
“But the court dismissed all the evidence we brought as irrelevant.”
Expediting demolitions
Amar-Shiff and her colleagues filed another case in early 2023 to argue that military drills must, at the very least, not result in the demolition of Palestinian villages or the expulsion of inhabitants in the area.
The legal battle, and others, is now being upended by the Israeli army and government’s request to evict and demolish all the villages in the desired military zone, said Amar-Shiff.
In an attempt to fast-track that request, the Civil Planning Bureau, an Israeli military body responsible for building permits, issued a decree on June 18 to reject all pending Palestinian building requests in “Firing Zone 918”. The United Nations and Israeli human rights groups have been notified of the new decree, although it has not been published on any government website.
Across Israel and the occupied West Bank, Palestinians and Israelis need to obtain building permits from Israeli authorities to build and live in any structure.
An Israeli policeman stands by as a bulldozer demolishes the house of Fakhri Abu Diab, in Silwan, occupied East Jerusalem, February 14, 2024 [Ammar Awad/Reuters]
According to the Israeli human rights group Bimkom, Palestinians in Area C, the largest of three zones in the occupied West Bank that were created out of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, are practically always denied permits, while permits for Israeli settlers are almost always approved.
Palestinians in Masafer Yatta still submitted many building requests, hoping the administrative process would delay the demolition of their homes.
However, the Central Planning Bureau’s recent decree, issued to align with the army’s prior announcement, supersedes all these pending requests and paves the way for an outright rejection of all of them, facilitating more ethnic cleansing, according to activists, lawyers and human rights groups.
Once the decree is published, lawyers representing Palestinians from “Firing Zone 918” will have to go to the High Court for a final and definitive ruling, which is expected within a few months.
“There are many judges in the High Court who will either dismiss this case on its face or not order the army to stop demolitions until they rule,” Amar-Shiff told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, settlers and Israeli troops are escalating attacks against Palestinians living in the area.
Sami Hourani, a researcher from Masafer Yatta for Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, said the Israeli army has confiscated dozens of cars since declaring its intent to ethnically cleanse the villages.
He added that the army is arresting solidarity activists trying to visit the area, as well as helping settlers to attack and expel Palestinians.
“We are in an isolation stage now,” Hourani told Al Jazeera, adding that the villages in Masafer Yatta are under siege and cut off from the outside world.
“We are expecting the army to carry out massive demolitions at any moment.”
Rubio and Lavrov ‘confirmed their mutual desire to find peaceful solutions to conflicts’, Russian Foreign Ministry says.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have held rare face-to-face talks on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting in Malaysia, discussing the war in Ukraine, as well as developments in Iran and Syria.
“A substantive and frank exchange of views took place on the settlement of the situation around Ukraine, the situation around Iran and Syria, as well as a number of other international issues,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement following the meeting on Thursday in Kuala Lumpur.
Both sides reportedly expressed interest in easing tensions and resuming dialogue in areas beyond the battlefield.
Lavrov and Rubio “confirmed their mutual desire to find peaceful solutions to conflicts, restore Russian-American economic and humanitarian cooperation, and facilitate unimpeded contacts between the societies of the two countries”, the ministry added.
The Russian side described the meeting as constructive, saying dialogue between Moscow and Washington would continue.
Rubio, speaking to reporters after the 50-minute meeting, said he had delivered a clear message about the need for progress on the war in Ukraine.
“I had a frank and important conversation with Minister Lavrov,” Rubio said. “We need to see a roadmap moving forward about how this conflict can conclude.”
He said US President Donald Trump remained disappointed with what Washington, DC views as a lack of flexibility from Moscow.
Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian leader was throwing a lot of “b*******” at US efforts to end the war that started with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Rubio also signalled that a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi may take place during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathering. “I think we’re working on that – maybe, maybe we’ll meet,” he said at a press conference.
The meeting between the top Russian and US diplomats comes at a time of heightened global polarisation, with ASEAN serving as one of the few venues where dialogue among rival powers still takes place.
Doctors in Gaza have been forced to operate in darkness as hospitals face a power crisis due to Israel’s war on the enclave. Two of Gaza’s largest hospitals have issued desperate pleas for help, warning without power the medical centres will be turned into ‘graveyards’.
Four sailors from Eternity C dead, 10 found alive, 11 still missing – six believed to be in Houthi hands.
Houthi rebels in Yemen attempted to strike Israel’s Ben Gurion airport after sinking two vessels in the Red Sea this week, as the group ramps up its military pressure in support of Palestinians under Israeli fire in its bid to bring the war in Gaza to an end.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Thursday that the group had carried out a “qualitative military operation” with a ballistic missile after the Israeli military reported the strike had been intercepted.
Meanwhile, maritime security sources told the Reuters news agency that the Houthis were holding six crew members from the Greek-operated, Liberia-flagged Eternity C vessel, which the rebel group attacked on Monday, killing at least four sailors.
A total of 25 people were on board the Eternity C, according to Aspides, the European Union’s naval task force patrolling the Red Sea. Ten crew members were reportedly pulled out of the sea alive after the vessel sank on Tuesday, while 11 are still missing – with six believed to be in Houthi hands.
Saree said on Wednesday that the Houthis had “moved to rescue a number of the ship’s crew, provide them with medical care and transport them to a safe location”.
The United States embassy in Yemen countered that on X, accusing the rebels of kidnapping the crew members after “killing their shipmates, sinking their ship and hampering rescue efforts”.
The attack on the Eternity C came one day after the Houthis struck and sunk the Magic Seas, reviving a campaign launched in November 2023 that has seen more than 100 ships attacked. All the crew from the Magic Seas were rescued.
After Sunday’s attack, the Houthis declared that ships owned by companies with ties to Israel were a “legitimate target” and pledged to “prevent Israeli navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas … until the aggression against Gaza stops and the blockade is lifted”.
Late on Sunday, Israel’s military attacked Yemen, bombing the ports of Hodeidah, Ras Isa and as-Salif, as well as the Ras Qantib power plant on the coast. The Houthis had fired missiles towards Israeli territory in retaliation.
Israel said its attacks also hit a ship, the Galaxy Leader, which was seized by the Houthis in late 2023 and held in Ras Isa port.
The Houthis held 25 crew members from the Galaxy for 430 days before releasing them in January this year.
![A group photo at the 58th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers' Meetings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 10 July 2025. [Hasnoor Hussain/EPA]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/13184061-1752215666.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C495&quality=80)
