Israel’s cabinet has secretly approved a record number of new settlements in the occupied West Bank, ratifying 34 new settlements in a single decision – more than half the total approved during the previous record-setting year of 2025, according to an Israeli media report.

‘In the world order that is forming in the ashes of American exceptionalism, Trump’s inchoate ramblings are seen as weakness. The US under Trump has lost all sense of the utility of force - and that is a big thing for the world’s strongest army to lose.’

An Israeli attack has killed Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Wishah in Gaza

Israel says it hit 100 targets in 10 minutes in Lebanon despite Iran ceasefire, its largest onslaught yet in the current offensive.

The 10-point plan that Trump has agreed to base negotiations on gives Iran far more than the nuclear deal ever did, outlining ‘a comprehensive restructuring of the regional order in Iran’s favour.’ If accepted, it would mark a major capitulation by the US.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council has confirmed the ceasefire deal announced by Trump, calling it a “victory for Iran”.

How US-Israeli war gave Iran all the cards in the Middle East: ‘Tehran has established control over the Strait of Hormuz, while uniting the Arab world behind it - and crushing Netanyahu’s dreams of regional domination.’

Iran’s internet blackout is now the longest nation-scale shutdown on record in any country, having entered its 37th consecutive day, according to NetBlocks. The general public remains cut off as connectivity flatlines at 1% of ordinary levels.

Trump’s repeated threat to target Iran’s electrical grid ‘means that the rules-based international system is dead and there is no longer a facade.’

‘As a default option for Palestinians under occupation, the death penalty will thus serve as a racist punishment based on national-ethnic background, fatally undermining the rights of Palestinians to life, dignity, due process and equality.’

Israel’s Knesset has passed a bill mandating the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of ‘terrorism’.

Three Lebanese journalists have been killed in an Israeli air strike on their clearly marked press vehicle in southern Lebanon.

‘To whom shall we turn when our future enemies apply the same rules of war to us as we have to them? To whom shall we turn when they assassinate our negotiators, our politicians, our journalists; when they bomb our hospitals and call them terrorist hideouts?’

The Pentagon is expected to send thousands of soldiers from the US Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division to the ‌Middle East, according to a Reuters report, even as Trump talks about a possible deal to end the Iran war.

‘The five-day window is not peace. It is the space between escalations. And if the pattern holds, what follows will not be diplomacy, but something far more costly - for the region, for the markets, and for the world.’

‘Trump is a modern Nero, with flames rising behind him and spectacle before him. And a world watching in horror.’

The war on Iran ‘has produced a striking strategic paradox. While the American-Zionist axis relies on brute technological force and indiscriminate fire, it remains blind to the historical and sociopolitical realities of the region … The central objectives of the aggression remain out of reach.’

‘The empty streets presage a new and darker chapter in the history of a city that has endured tumultuous events for many centuries. Israel is using the war as a pretext to empty Al-Aqsa of worshippers, and to impose a new reality of full control over the site.’

European allies have pushed back on a US request to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with Germany saying the conflict with Iran was "not Nato's war".

The Trump administration has warned that news outlets could have their broadcasting licences revoked over critical coverage of the Iran war, accusing the media of ‘distortions’.

‘The longer this war continues, the clearer the strategic paradox becomes. In attempting to serve Israel’s agenda, the US is weakening its own position in the very region that has long sustained its global influence.’

Civilians slaughtered, nations destroyed, oil fields ablaze: ‘This is the price the region is paying for one man’s ego, another man’s messianic vision, and the impotence of a Europe that just stands by and watches.’

New video footage geolocated by Bellingcat shows a US Tomahawk missile striking an IRGC facility next to the girls’ school in Minab, Iran, where dozens of children were killed on Feb 28. The video also shows smoke already rising from the vicinity of the school.

‘When Israeli women celebrate their inclusion in combat roles, the conversation stops at the point of equality. The political implications of that equality - the targets, the destruction, the civilians beneath the bombs - disappear from view.’

Qatar’s energy minister warns that all oil and gas exporters in the Gulf could stop production within days, amid a conflict that threatens to ‘bring down the economies of the world’ - with the price of oil potentially soaring to $150 a barrel.

As Israeli and US attacks on Iran continue, Iranian political and military leaders are preparing for the possibility of a civil war, according to sources within the IRGC.

‘Suez did not end the British Empire overnight. But it exposed something fatal: that military capability without political legitimacy and force without restraint accelerate decline rather than prevent it … Iran may yet prove to be Washington’s Suez.’

The girls’ school in Iran, where 165 people were killed by an apparent US-Israeli attack, was hit with two strikes, with the second missile killing sheltering survivors, two first responders and the parent of a slain child have told Middle East Eye.

In White House comments, Trump now suggests that he “forced Israel’s hand” in launching the war on Iran, when confronted with the contention that Netanyahu is in the driver’s seat.

The death toll from US-Israeli strikes on Iran over the past four days has risen to 787, according to the Iranian Red Crescent, as fresh strikes have reportedly hit the building of the assembly tasked with electing a new supreme leader.

Iran is vowing to set ablaze any ship that tries to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a move that threatens to choke a fifth of global oil flows.

Inside the plan to kill Ali Khamenei: ‘Israel spent years hacking Tehran’s traffic cameras and monitoring bodyguards ahead of the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader.’

“As the New York Times whines retroactively about Trump’s ‘reckless’ behaviour in Iran, western establishment media would do well to reflect on the role that years of preemptive journalistic strikes on the country have played in fuelling this bloody mess.”

Qatar says its air force has successfully shot down two Su24 fighter jets incoming from Iran, after earlier attacks forced LNG exporter QatarEnergy to halt production.

Huge plumes of smoke are rising into the skies of Beirut as Israel says it is striking Hezbollah targets across Lebanon.

‘Israeli society and the West more generally are on track to once again learn why the colonial era ended … The peoples of the Global South have long fought against colonialism - and they will continue to do so, refusing to live with a western boot stamping on their faces.’

Iran has killed nine Israelis and three US soldiers as Pezeshkian vows revenge in the wake of Khamenei’s assassination. There are also unconfirmed reports that former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been killed in Tehran.

Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies are now confirming the death of Khamenei.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is dead and his body has been found, a senior Israeli official tells Reuters.

US and Israeli attacks have hit 24 of Iran’s provinces, killing more than 200 people, according to the Red Crescent Society.

The US and Israel have launched a wave of bombing across Iran, in what Washington is calling ‘Operation Epic Fury’, pushing for regime change. Iran has launched retaliatory rocket attacks on Israel and US bases across the region, from Doha to Riyadh.

Pakistan says it is in ‘open war’ with Afghanistan, as explosions are reported in Kabul and fighting rages along the border.

‘Will Trump flinch at the last moment? Who knows. If he has any vestige of common sense, he should - for this could be the war that proves to be the nemesis of both Trump and Netanyahu, the ultimate bridge too far.’

We spent the past four years tracking and verifying incidents of civilian harm in Ukraine, as Russia’s onslaught systematically destroyed the threads tying communities together: homes, schools, playgrounds, fire stations, hospitals, churches, cultural centres, museums, businesses and farms.

Spending on AI is forecast to skyrocket to $2.5 trillion in 2026, dwarfing history’s largest scientific and infrastructure mega-projects.

The Trump administration is planning to build a 5,000-person military base in Gaza, sprawling more than 350 acres, according to Board of Peace contracting records reviewed by the Guardian.

‘With hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers spread across the occupied West Bank, and countless legal complications surrounding land ownership, the latest steps are designed to cement the fact that this is not temporary - and the state will not be able to reverse the measures already taken.’

Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinians in air strikes across the Gaza Strip this weekend, days ahead of the inaugural meeting of Trump’s ‘Board of Peace.’

An Israeli court has denied pleas to allow the urgent treatment of a five-year-old Palestinian cancer patient in Israel, on the grounds that his address was listed to be in Gaza. Judge Ram Winograd said the petition to get him medical treatment in Israel was an attack on the state.

Sweeping new measures that expand Israeli control in the occupied West Bank will cement de facto annexation and bring an end to the Oslo Accords, analysts say, dashing hopes for a Palestinian state.