IndustryStandard

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) have agreed to integrate their military forces into the army of the new Syrian government.

The agreement is also believed to involve the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, commonly known as "Rojava", which is the civil authority that rules SDF-held areas of Syria.

The fighters are believed to be those affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which waged a decades-long insurgency against key Syrian ally Turkey, and which has many forces in neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Syrian Democratic Union (PYD), which is the main component force of the SDF, is essentially the Syrian wing of the PKK, meaning that this move will bring an end to fighting between the SDF and Turkish-backed forces that have blighted post-Assad Syria.

The SDF held around 25 percent of Syrian territory, including many of the richest areas in terms of oil, natural gas and minerals, with many of these areas being Arab-majority areas prior to the war and their conquest by the Kurdish force.

There has not yet been any comment from the US, which materially and physically supports the SDF, including the use of several American bases in the areas under their control.

Israel has sparked global outrage after dropping leaflets over the besieged Gaza Strip, warning Palestinians to either cooperate with its forces or face forced displacement or eradication. The messages, written in Arabic, carried explicit threats, including the chilling statement: "The world map will not change if all the people of Gaza cease to exist."

The move, condemned as a psychological warfare tactic, has intensified concerns over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, with many seeing the leaflets as an open admission of ethnic cleansing.

The threats also reference a so-called "Trump plan", aligning with recent remarks by US President Donald Trump. who suggested the mass expulsion of Gaza's population to neighbouring countries. The posters featured images of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity and wanted by the IC

The Associated Press sued three Trump administration officials Friday over access to presidential events, citing freedom of speech in asking a federal judge to stop the blocking of its journalists.

The lawsuit was filed Friday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., 10 days after the White House began restricting access to the news agency.

The AP says its case is about an unconstitutional effort by the White House to control speech — in this case not changing its style from the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” as President Donald Trump did last month with an executive order.

The BBC has pulled its documentary about children in Gaza from iPlayer after mounting pressure over a featured child being the son of a Palestinian minister, in a move some commentators have slammed as "cowardly".

Outrage over Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone reached its highest point on Wednesday and Thursday, with the Israeli ambassador in London complaining to Britain's public broadcaster, and culture secretary Lisa Nandy saying she will "be discussing" the issue with the BBC.

Most criticism has focused on the fact, first reported by researcher David Collier, that the documentary's 13-year-old narrator Abdullah Alyazouri is the son of a minister in Gaza's Hamas-run government.

Middle East Eye found on Thursday that Dr Ayman Alyazouri, Gaza's deputy agriculture minister, appears to be a technocrat with a scientific background who previously worked for the United Arab Emirates government and studied at British universities.

Earlier this week a group of 45 prominent Jewish journalists and members of the media, including former BBC governor Ruth Deech, piled on pressure by sending a letter to the broadcaster demanding the film be removed from the iPlayer.

Two Israelis were arrested overnight into Friday on suspicion of involvement in the explosions that took place on empty buses in two Tel Aviv suburbs.

The two suspects have been transferred to the Shin Bet security agency for interrogation, though a court has issued a gag order on further details of the affair.

On Thursday night, three explosive devices were set off on buses in Bat Yam and an additional device was found before it detonated in the nearby city of Holon. No casualties were reported. The Israeli army announced that three battalions will be transferred to the West Bank as reinforcements.

The office’s “major staff turnover,” as one team Fetterman veteran put it, comes amid a tough hiring environment for Democratic staffers in Washington.

“I don’t find this as a surprise,” said the former Fetterman campaign staffer, who requested anonymity to protect their livelihood. “I think the staff is probably frustrated that working in the Fetterman office means you’re just working on Israel all the time.”

Since the October 7 attack, Fetterman’s office has ignored most of the issues he campaigned on, instead turning almost all his focus toward the Israel–Palestine conflict, according to people familiar with his office. At the same time, Fetterman has added a number of Republican donors to his roster, The Intercept reported.

Since Trump took office last month, Fetterman has become a sometime Republican ally. He was one of 12 Democrats in the Senate to support the GOP’s draconian new immigration law. At times, Fetterman has been Trump’s sole ally across the aisle. He was the only Democrat to vote to confirm Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general who helped spread the lie that Trump won the 2020 presidential election.

Princeton University receives millions of dollars worth of contracts from the US Department of Defence as well as weapons manufacturers, tying it to several sites of conflict around the world, including Gaza and Sudan, a new report released by an anti-war group has revealed.

Several sources told Middle East Eye this week that the report is one of the first to showcase how modern American academia thrives as a US war machine service provider.

The report, published in early February and produced by a new anti-war group made up of independent researchers, comes on the heels of a student movement around the country that has called for universities to disclose and divest from companies purportedly profiting from the Israeli occupation and war on Gaza, which has been called a "genocide" by legal experts, human rights bodies and political leaders.

The United States plans to stop supporting the Palestinian Authority’s security forces as part of a broader freeze on foreign aid.

According to a report by The Washington Post, the funding cut by the Trump’s administration comes as the Palestinian Authority struggles to maintain security in the occupied West Bank and prepare for a potential role in governing the Gaza Strip.

Brigadier-General Anwar Rajab, spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority forces, told the Post the US was a key donor supporting security training programmes.

A conference in Berlin addressing issues surrounding Palestine and the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza was forcibly relocated by German police.

The “Reclaiming the Discourse: Palestine, Justice, and Truth” event – featuring UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and prominent human rights figures – was moved after the original venue “faced coercion from German politicians and Berlin police”, Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) said in a statement.

Albanese, who has faced repeated cancellations of her events in Germany, was again targeted by authorities, raising concerns over the country’s treatment of dissenting voices. “This is an outright attack on democracy and free speech,” DiEM25 said.

UN envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and the UNIFIL peacekeeping force have said in a joint statement that at “the end of the period set” for Israel’s withdrawal and the Lebanese army’s deployment, any further “delay in this process is not what we hoped would happen” and a violation of a 2006 Security Council resolution that ended a past Israel-Hezbollah war.

As we have reported earlier, Israeli forces pulled out from Yaroun, Maroun al-Ras, Blida, Meiss el-Jabal, Hula, Markaba, Odaisseh, Kfar Kila, and Wazzani, but remain at five hilltops along the Israel-Lebanon border.

European imports of seaborne gas shipments fell by a fifth last year to their lowest level since the pandemic, according to a new report, while the UK’s plunged by nearly a half, but governments are continuing to spend billions on new import terminals.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found that Europe’s imports of liquefied natural gas, known as LNG, fell by 19% last year to lows not seen since 2021 as governments worked to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.

However, a wave of fresh investments in new LNG import infrastructure after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has moved ahead, which could mean that infrastructure worth billions will sit idle in the years to come, the institute warned.