Beyond the Headlines

When Dr Mohamed Abdou joined Columbia University, he was thrilled to be in the company of renowned scholars of the Middle East. What he did not expect was that he would learn of what Columbia called his termination through a congressional hearing broadcast on live TV, only a few months later. Now, he is suing Columbia University and its former president – and his case is not isolated. Dr Abdou is...

Syria's Bashar Al Assad has fled the country after rebels took over Damascus. Prisoners who had been kept in the dark for decades were finally freed from notorious and brutal jails. People were reunited with loved ones who had disappeared years ago. Syrian embassies around the world raised what were once opposition flags. And officials close to Assad made their first public criticisms of his rule....

Renewed fighting in Syria has ended a period of relative calm in the country after rebel groups launched a surprise offensive last week and took over the country's second biggest city, Aleppo. Syrian government forces also said they had withdrawn on Thursday from Hama, a strategic city with supply lines to loyalist coastal strongholds. Led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, the rebels too...

Lebanon celebrated a rare moment of joy as displaced families began to return to their homes after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect on Wednesday. The people breathed a sigh of relief – for now. Almost 4.000 people have been killed in Israel’s war in Lebanon and about 1.2 million displaced. Entire villages have been wiped off the map. After Hamas launched its deadly October...

More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since last October, with Israel intensifying its attacks since September, launching a ground invasion into the country and an air strike campaign that has caused much destruction. Its bombings have become more unpredictable in scale and location, forcing masses to flee their homes.   More than 1.2 million people have been displaced since Israel es...

Donald Trump will return to the White House in January as the 47th American president, and the Middle East is waiting to see whether and how he can end the wars in the region. Many Palestinians in Gaza say they are not optimistic about the new US administration and worry the situation might take a turn for the worse after Mr Trump is inaugurated. Their concerns are rooted in decisions he made duri...

Israel continues to bombard Gaza and Lebanon. It is launching strikes in Syria. But between Tel Aviv and Tehran, there’s an eerie silence. The latest round of attacks between the two came from Israel late last month, hitting military sites linked to Iran’s ballistic missile programme. Four soldiers and a civilian were killed, Iran said. Analysts believe Tehran's ballistic missile capabilities, dro...

The Knesset has voted to ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, prompting much concern, even from Israel’s closest allies. Two bills were passed on Tuesday with overwhelming majorities: the first to halt the relief agency’s activities in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, and the second to ban the Israeli state from interacting with the organisation. The move would make it almost impo...

For weeks, the Israeli military has isolated the north of Gaza, conducting air strikes and ground attacks, including on residential areas and hospitals. In back-to-back attacks on Beit Lahia and the nearby Jabalia refugee camp last Friday and Saturday, more than 100 people were killed in a single day. Limited aid is entering the area and more eviction orders have been issued to families in the nor...

Over the past year of war in Gaza, several diplomatic and humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have repeatedly accused Israel of breaching rules of military conduct. These breaches have provoked regular condemnation by governments and high-ranking officials worldwide. But amid all the words, what has been missing is concrete action against Israel. If any authority has the power to influen...

Since the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah at the end of September, Israel has expanded its air strike campaign in Lebanon and launched a ground invasion. It has also struck Yemen and Syria in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has launched a series of rocket attacks towards Israel, which for the most part have been intercepted. At the same time, the war in Gaza is continuing as Israel...

Over the past year, reporters, photographers and even children have documented the atrocities in Gaza through their phones, using social media to show the world the horrors they endured. People all around the world erupted in protests against the war, demanding a ceasefire and later an arms embargo to Israel. But negotiations between the warring parties failed and failed again. UN Security Council...

The day after October 7, people in Gaza and all around the world woke up to a darker, more brutal reality as Israel began its military response. Within days, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced a total blockade of the strip, cutting off water, electricity, internet, food and aid. What happened next crossed the bounds of any of the four previous wars on Gaza.   Heavy, non-stop bombardme...

Around 6.30 on the morning of October 7, 2023 thousands of rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel. About an hour later, in daylight, Hamas’s armed wing and other armed groups broke through the wire fence along the northern border of the enclave, launching an attack that became the biggest security breach in Israel’s history. The scenes were violent, bloody, barbaric. People were running...

Thousands in Lebanon were injured and at least 32 people were killed this week in a double attack believed to have been conducted by Israel. On Tuesday, thousands of pagers in the possession of Hezbollah members simultaneously detonated across the country, causing serious injuries. At least two children were killed. What nobody expected is that it would happen again, the very next day. A second wa...

Ten years ago, on September 21, 2014, Yemen’s Houthi rebels took over the capital city of Sanaa from government rule. Months later, a Saudi-led coalition intervened to support the internationally recognised government and fight against the Houthis to restore territories taken over by the group.   In the years that followed, the country was essentially split into two: the Houthi-controlled north, a...

It is back to school for children all around the world, but not in Gaza. Eleven months of war in the strip have devastated lives, homes, hospitals and infrastructure. Education has been virtually erased for hundreds of thousands of pupils. The classrooms in which they once learnt and played are now being used as shelters for displaced families, turning them into spaces they fear. About 186 schools...

The cycle of Gaza ceasefire talks has started to become predictable. Headlines initially spark hope with announcements of progress, only for other regional incidents to derail negotiations, leading to yet another collapse. Last Sunday, Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched 320 drones and rockets towards Israel in response to the assassination of its commander Fouad Shukr. This was the group’s biggest escal...

Children’s lives in Gaza are riddled with uncertainty. They don’t know when the next bomb will fall, where their next meal will come from or even if their families and friends are still alive. Now, another variable poses a grave risk to Gaza’s children: polio. The first case was confirmed after a 10-month-old baby tested positive for the virus in mid-August. At least two others are suspected to ha...

In recent weeks, human rights organisations and media investigations have documented the worsening conditions in Israeli prisons over the past 10 months. They reveal beatings and other forms of brutal physical and psychological abuse of Palestinian detainees have become common practice since October 7. A UN report on the ill-treatment of detainees was published at the end of July, detailing patter...

Olympic fanfare has swept across Paris in recent weeks, but there is an elephant in the room that’s difficult to ignore – the glaring disparity between France hosting one of the most multicultural events in the world, while at the same time cracking down on diversity. Only weeks before the Games started, the far right gained huge momentum in a tense parliamentary election in France, reigniting xen...

On Tuesday, Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier in the skies over Lebanon, a stunt timed to coincide with Hassan Nasrallah’s speech amid a series of threats by Hezbollah towards Israel and vice versa. In his address, Nasrallah mocked the intimidation attempt and said an uncomfortable wait for Hezbollah's retaliation is part of the punishment the group is inflicting on Israel for the assassin...

The anxiety in the Middle East has been palpable since Tuesday night. The killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran happened only hours after Israel struck a south Beirut suburb, claiming to have killed Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr. Mr Haniyeh was on a trip to Iran for the inauguration of president Masoud Pezeshkian when he was killed, provoking vows of punishment against Israe...

Residents in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah woke up last Sunday to plumes of black smoke filling the skies. Israel had just struck the port, a main artery for the city, killing nine people and injuring more than 80 others after hitting a fuel depot. The attack came a day after a Houthi drone hit Tel Aviv, killing one person. For months the international community has been cautioning against further s...

In the first weeks of July, the Israeli army ordered about 80,000 residents of Gaza city, in the north of the strip, to evacuate towards the south. At the same time, residents in large areas of Khan Younis were told to leave. But where to?   For nine months, Palestinians in Gaza have had to uproot and seek shelter in increasingly dangerous so-called safe zones, where conditions are dire, services...