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Over the weekend, the United States officially halted funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees through March 2025 after President Joe Biden signed the government funding bill into law. The UN agency has been under scrutiny in Israel for some time but has garnered international attention since Oct. 7, Al-Monitor’s State Department correspondent Elizabeth Hagedorn tells the Al-Monitor Brief.
Battles and bombardment rattled the Gaza Strip, Washington said Israel had agreed to reschedule talks and a State Department staffer resigned. Welcome to the Al-Monitor Brief, it's March 28.
Turkey's opposition emerges victorious from the municipal elections after voters send a clear message to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, mass protests rock Israel as calls for fresh elections intensify and in an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor, Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour says Palestine will bid for full UN membership this month.
The US-based charity World Central Kitchen has announced it's pausing operations after an Israeli strike killed seven of its staff unloading food brought to Gaza, a commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Syria and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was sworn in for his third term as leader of the Arab world's most populous nation.
A decade on, Washington has inked a plan to restore its diplomatic presence in Libya. Protests spread in Turkey after local election authorities in the country’s Kurdish-majority southeast region annulled a victory by the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, instead awarding the seat to the AKP candidate. President Joe Biden has downsized the traditional Ramadan event at the White House and the World Bank estimates the war in the Gaza Strip has caused damages of around $18.5 billion to the enclave's critical infrastructure.
As fears of national unrest spread, Turkey’s High Election Board reversed a decision to annul the victory of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party’s local candidate in the country’s Kurdish-majority southeast. Biden and Netanyahu will speak Thursday on the phone for the first time since an Israeli strike killed workers of a US-based aid organization, Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz called Wednesday evening for elections to be held as early as September and the White House says a planned delegation to Saudi Arabia to discuss normalization with Israel has been postponed.
Voting in Kuwait came to a close Thursday at midnight, handing opposition lawmakers a victory and a continued majority in the country’s parliament. The White House threatened to change its support for Israel if "specific, concrete and measurable steps" to limit further harm to civilians and aid workers in the war aren't implemented, Mcdonald's Israel operator has agreed to sell its business to the parent corporation and Turkey and Iran deepen energy cooperation.
Israel's military and political apparatuses remain convinced that Iran is planning a large attack. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is on a regional tour of Oman and Syria. Hamas said Tuesday it was considering a new truce framework proposed during the latest talks in Cairo. And Jordanian protests continue on Amman’s streets during Ramadan as a show of solidarity with Palestinians in war-stricken Gaza.
Palestinians gathered Wednesday for morning prayers on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday among the ruins of Gaza. President Joe Biden labeled Israel's approach to the war a "mistake,” while the US defense secretary said the Pentagon had no evidence Israel is committing genocide. Iran claimed Israel is expanding its presence in the UAE and Lebanon vowed to “get tough” on Syrians after the killing of a political official.
