Iraq PM Sudani’s gradual approach to powerful armed groups

“…little by little, as security and stability are restored, the need for weapons outside the control of the state and its institutions will disappear. We are working concertedly toward that end.”
foreignaffairs.com/iraq/iraq-need…

1/The Fog of War: Beheaded Babies.
Six months ago today, a series of reputable news outlets published reports that Hamas militants had beheaded babies at the Kfar Aza kibbutz on Oct. 7 in southern Israel. The The Wall Street Journal was not one of them.

Leaked financial docs expose $8B FRAUD at Lebanon's central bank, 15% of the GDP at the time, which was described to me as unprecedented by experts. How did it happen? 1/
thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2024…

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are investing billions of dollars in Iraq in a shift following decades of troubled relations.

Main focus is energy sector — a place of heavy Iranian influence — and real estate, where huge profits can be made.

W/ Andrew Mills
reuters.com/world/middle-e…

April 5 (Reuters) - Aid charity World Central Kitchen demanded on Friday an independent commission to investigate the killings of its staff in an Israeli air strike in Gaza, saying the Israeli military could not credibly investigate its own 'failure'.

'I met so many children who are malnourished.'

Tess Ingram, a Unicef Communication Specialist working in the Gaza Strip, tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy that a seven-year-old boy she met had 'been living on grass'.

The Israeli military has destroyed or damaged at least five of Gaza’s seven major universities.

“When you destroy those kinds of institutions, you're not fighting Hamas, you're fighting the existence of the Palestinians. You’re fighting their capability to have memory and to…

Israel doesn't want UNRWA to provide aid in Gaza. It bombed the NGO it had allowed and encouraged to deliver supplies. And for months Netanyahu has refused to order the army to do the job directly. So who's left? economist.com/middle-east-an…

The anti-corruption NGO Sherpa, which prompted a judicial probe into Riad Salameh in France, resulting in his arrest warrant and EU property seizure, has now lodged a money laundering complaint against Lebanon's Prime Minister Mikati and his family
thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2024…

April 3 (Reuters) - At least 32,975 Palestinians have been killed and 75,577 have been injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

A broader thought on the convoy attack. World Central Kitchen does remarkable, courageous work, in Gaza and elsewhere. But in Gaza it is part of a jerry-built and inadequate solution to a problem that only exists because powerful governments are uninterested in addressing its root cause.

In #Iraq , children cram into dilapidated classrooms in a converted farmhouse, a symptom of education neglect in the oil-rich but war-weary country.
8,000 new schools are needed- & through a Chinese partnership 1,000 schools should be constructed this year.
rb.gy/2xph31

The team was in a ‘deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle.’ They had shared their co-ordinates and route with the Israeli military and had just left the Deir al-Bala warehouse loaded with aid wck.org/news/gaza-team…

'The World Central Kitchen team was traveling in a deconflicted zone in 2 armored cars branded with the WCK logo. Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the warehouse, where the team had unloaded 100+ tons of food aid.' wck.org/news/gaza-team…

New satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies shows the destruction of Al-Shifa Hospital and its surroundings after nearly six months of war and multiple Israeli military raids, strikes and widespread demolition.

Left: June 1, 2022
Right: April 1, 2024

DAMASCUS, April 1 (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday, and a Lebanese security source told Reuters a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, had been killed in the attack.

🧵Sharing key points as I listen to IS leadership msg, with little or no insight at this point:

Recent US strikes in the Middle East seem to have ended hostilities with the axis of resistance. But these ceasefires never last. Here I argue that moving past cycles of conflict and towards lasting peace requires promoting accountability across the region foreignaffairs.com/iraq/why-ameri…

GAZA STRIP, March 26 (Reuters) - Twelve people have drowned trying to reach aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach, Palestinian health authorities said on Tuesday, amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel's military campaign.