Amazon said on Thursday that restoring cloud computing operations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which were damaged in the conflict in the Middle East, is expected to take several months.

Amazon’s data centres in the region were hit by Iranian retaliatory drone strikes in early March, amid the conflict, disrupting cloud services and making a recovery “prolonged”.

When asked if the latest update was related to a new incident, an Amazon spokesperson said that the latest update dated April 30 related to the previous operational issues in March.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s largest cloud computing provider, serving a global client base.

Its key customers include companies such as Netflix, BMW and Pfizer, as well as major financial institutions, media groups and public sector organisations.

It is also the company’s main driver of profits.

AWS recommended customers migrate all accessible resources to other regions and restore inaccessible resources from remote backups as soon as possible, according to the status update posted to its website on Thursday.

The AWS status page showed that 37 services in the UAE have been listed as disrupted as of the week of April 30.

Several of these services have been disrupted since early March, according to the status page.

The firm said that the damage suffered to its operations in the UAE has led to a suspension of billing operations in the region.

Last month, Amazon’s cloud region in Bahrain had been “disrupted” due to drone activity in the area.

Rice supply is expected to fall this year as farmers cut planting acreage across Asia because of fertiliser shortages and soaring fuel costs from the Iran war, with an emerging El Niño also set to squeeze output of the world’s most consumed staple.

Rice is central to global food security, and even modest supply disruptions can ripple through countries, lifting prices and straining household budgets, particularly among price-sensitive consumers in Asia and Africa.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in April forecast rice output would expand by 2 per cent to a record high in 2025/26.

The effects of the Iran war are impacting farmers in top exporters Thailand and Vietnam, as well as the import-reliant Philippines and Indonesia, growers and traders said. The war has cut fuel and fertiliser flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint that connects the Gulf to global markets.

Southeast Asia’s mainly smallholder farmers also face mounting stress as the El Niño weather phenomenon is set to usher in hotter, drier conditions for the region in the second half of the year.

“Farmers have already started planting rice in some countries and are using fewer inputs because prices have gone up,” said Maximo Torero, chief economist at the UN FAO.

“We are going to see a tighter global supply situation in the second half of the year and early next year.”

In 2008, export curbs by key suppliers more than doubled prices to about $1,000 a metric ton , triggering unrest in several countries. More recently, supply tightness in 2022 to 2023, exacerbated by India’s export restrictions, lifted prices and prompted panic buying.

Supply-chain disruption

Rice shipments are already facing supply-chain bottlenecks.

“Logistics have become a nightmare, especially in Asia as there is a shortage of polypropylene bags, limited truck availability to move rice to ports and shipping itself has been disrupted,” said a Singapore-based trader at a top global rice merchant, who asked to remain unidentified as they are not authorised to speak to the media.

While fertiliser shortages and dryness are already curbing yields of smaller crops being harvested in Southeast Asia, the next crop will likely face a bigger reduction.

India, Thailand and the Philippines plant their main crops in June and July, while Vietnam and Indonesia are now sowing their second-season crops.

Most Asian producers grow two or three rice crops a year.

Farmers cut planting

Sripai Kaew-Eam, a 60-year-old farmer in Thailand’s Chai Nat province about 151 km (94 miles) north of Bangkok, said high fertiliser and fuel prices have pushed production costs to about 6,000 baht ($183.99) per rai (0.4 acre), from around 4,500 to 5,000 baht for the previous crop, while the price she receives for the unhusked rice she harvests is about 6,200 baht per metric ton.

Fertiliser prices have risen to 1,000 to 1,200 baht per bag, from 850 baht, forcing her to cut her use by half.

“Fertiliser prices are high, fuel prices are high,” she said.

The Philippines, the world’s biggest rice importer, faces a similar situation.

“Some farmers are now saying they may not plant or will reduce fertiliser use, which would inevitably cut production,” said Arze Glipo, executive director of the Integrated Rural Development Foundation.

The country’s output could fall by as much as 6 million tonnes from its typical 19m to 20m.

“That would leave the Philippines in a precarious position, as imports are also uncertain due to export restrictions, making it extremely difficult to cover any production shortfall,” Glipo said.

In Indonesia, fertiliser supply is not a constraint, but the El Niño is expected to curb output.

Indonesia’s statistics bureau estimates the rice harvest area in the March to May period will shrink by 10.6pc to 3.85m hectares (9.5m acres), while unhusked rice production will drop 11.12pc to 20.68m tonnes.

Despite the supply worries, the world has ample rice inventories following years of bumper output, with India, the world’s biggest exporter, holding a record 42m tonnes or about one-fifth of global stockpiles, according to US Department of Agriculture data, cushioning any drop in global production.

Most rice grade prices are currently steady but will likely rise even if the Hormuz situation were resolved immediately, the FAO’s Torero said.

Opening the strait soon would avoid a major supply issue but “if we don’t reopen this in the next two to three weeks, the situation is going to get pretty serious”, he said.

European airlines are facing their biggest challenge ​since the Covid-19 pandemic as the US-Israel war on Iran pushes up jet fuel prices and buffets travel through the Middle East, casting a shadow ‌over the summer holiday season.

Carriers have been largely riding out the crisis with hedges that have tamed costs even as the price of jet fuel has risen nearly 84 per cent since the start of the conflict on February 28, but they could face shortages if the war does not end soon.

“There is a risk that we’ll see rationing of fuel supply, particularly in Asia and Europe,” ​Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), told Reuters on Tuesday, while adding that supply remained robust for now.

Walsh said, however, that the situation ​was not yet as bad as the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, which led to travel demand ⁠plummeting and hundreds of billions of dollars in losses for the aviation sector.

“I think Covid was on a completely different scale,” Walsh added.

“What we’re seeing here is, in ​effect, a cost issue for the airlines. The underlying demand for aviation remains robust, and that’s a positive.”

Jet fuel price hedges start to run out

The war has hit ​airline shares, with on-again-off-again peace talks to end the conflict and reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz to normalise global oil and gas flows in what is the worst energy crisis in decades.

Airlines are now warning about their hedges — which help lock in set prices — running out, with outlooks increasingly murky as people delay booking travel or make plans closer to home to ​avoid potential disruption and higher fares.

Sweden’s Energy Minister Ebba Busch on Tuesday fired an “early warning” about potential jet fuel shortages despite good current supply, cautioning Swedes to ​think through travel plans.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, however, played down concerns. “We think the risk of a supply disruption is receding,” he told Reuters, citing conversations with suppliers across Europe earlier in the ‌week.

European budget ⁠airline Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi said on Monday summer bookings were strong. However, easyJet and tour operator TU announced drops in forward bookings and issued profit warnings in recent weeks.

Varadi, meanwhile, cautioned that even an end to the conflict would not quickly resolve high fuel prices.

“Even if the war is stopped in Iran, I don’t think this is going to put the fuel price back to what it used to be two months ago,” he told reporters in London.

Air France-KLM, British Airways-owner IAG and Lufthansa ​are set to report first-quarter results ​starting this week. Between them, they ⁠have raised prices and cut flight capacity in response to the war.

Winners and losers

Gulf airlines have been the hardest hit, with data from Cirium Ascend showing that flights operated by Middle Eastern operators dropped 50pc year-on-year in March, while bookings for Q2 and ​Q3 connecting via the main Gulf hubs are down 42.5pc.

Global passenger capacity, however, remains up near 2pc so far in ​2026 versus 2025, it ⁠said, underscoring wider resilience.

The crisis has though dampened margins and sharpened the gap between weaker and stronger players.

Some have dodged the impact. Finland’s flag carrier Finnair said the crisis had so far had a net positive impact with more demand for its Asian flights. Budget airline Norwegian on Tuesday brushed off jet fuel supply risks.

Cirium Ascend’s head of valuations, George Dimitroff, ⁠said airlines ​have adapted and evolved through various crises and agreed Covid-19 had been “a much bigger hit”.

“They’re much, ​much more agile now than they were in the previous decade and let alone two or three decades prior when they were pretty hopeless at it,” Dimitroff said.

LONDON: British lawmakers voted on Tuesday against launching an inquiry into whether Prime Minister Keir Starmer misled parliament in statements about his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US.

Starmer appointed Mandelson in Dec 2024, and the ex-ambassador was sacked last September when his ties to the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were found to have been deeper than previously known. Police arrested Mandelson in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office, but did not charge him.

The prime minister has resisted pressure to quit over the matter, saying Mandelson lied about his relationship with Epstein. Starmer also said officials had kept information from him about the vetting process that would have stopped him making the appointment.

On Tuesday, lawmakers voted 335 to 223 against asking the Committee of Privileges to investigate whether Starmer had misled the House of Commons on several matters, including by saying “full due process” had been followed around the appointment.

If the committee had found Starmer deliberately misled parliament, he would have been expected to resign.

Starmer had criticised the attempt, led by the opposition Conservative Party chief Kemi Badenoch, to launch an investigation, calling it a political stunt timed to sway voters before local and regional elections.

He ordered lawmakers in his centre-left Labour Party to oppose an investigation, resulting in the overwhelming rejection. Badenoch said it was a sign of Starmer’s weakness that he had to use such an order.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2026

US intelligence agencies are studying how Iran would respond if President Donald Trump were to declare a unilateral victory in the two-month-old war that ​has killed thousands and become a political liability for the White House, two US officials and a person familiar with the matter said.

The intelligence community is ‌analysing the question along with others at the request of senior administration officials. The goal is to understand the implications of Trump potentially pulling back from a conflict that some officials and advisers worry could contribute to deep Republican losses at the midterm elections later this year, according to the sources.

While no decision has been made, and Trump could easily ramp back up military operations, a quick de-escalation could ease political pressure on the ​president, even as it could leave behind an emboldened Iran.

The sources spoke ​on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

It is not clear when the intelligence community would complete its work, ⁠but it has previously analysed the likely reaction of Iran’s leaders to a US declaration of victory.

In the days following US-Israeli strikes in Iran in late February, intelligence agencies assessed that if ​Trump were to declare victory and the US drew down its forces in the region, Iran would likely view it as a win, one of the sources said.

If Trump instead said the US ​had won but maintained a heavy troop presence, Iran would likely see it as a negotiating tactic, but not one that would necessarily lead to the end of the war, the source said.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the US is still engaging with the Iranians on negotiations and would “not be rushed into making a bad deal”.

“The president will ​only enter into an agreement that puts U.S. national security first, and he has been clear that Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon,” she said.

High political costs

Opinion polls show the ​war is overwhelmingly unpopular with Americans. Only 26 per cent of respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week said the military campaign has been worth the costs, and only 25pc said it has made the ‌US safer.

Three people ⁠familiar with White House discussions in recent days have described Trump as keenly aware of the political price being paid by him and his party.

Twenty days after Trump declared a ceasefire, a flurry of diplomacy has failed to fully open the economically vital Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran closed by attacking ships and laying mines in the narrow waterway.

Choking off the shipping that carries about 20pc of the world’s crude oil has driven up energy costs worldwide and the price at US gasoline pumps. Iran’s ability to disrupt commerce gives it powerful leverage against the United ​States and its allies.

A decision to scale ​back the US military presence in the ⁠region, paired with a mutual lifting of the blockade, would eventually bring down gasoline prices.

So far, however, the two sides appear far from any agreement.

Last weekend, Trump cancelled a trip by his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to meet Iranian officials in Pakistan, telling ​reporters on Saturday that it would take “too much time” and that if Iran wanted to talk “all they had to do was call.”

Military options remain on table

Various military ⁠options remain formally on the table, with renewed airstrikes on Iran’s military and political leaders among them, according to a separate person familiar with administration dynamics.

One of the US officials and another person familiar with the discussions said, however, that the most ambitious of those options, such as a ground invasion of the Iranian mainland, appear less likely than they did a few weeks ago.

A White House ⁠official described the ​domestic pressure on the president to wrap up the war as “enormous.”

SpaceX’s board approved a compensation plan for founder Elon Musk with goals as futuristic and celestial as the company’s ambitions: colonising Mars and running data centres in outer space.

The details of Musk’s sweeping pay package were revealed in the company’s confidential registration statement filed in recent weeks with the Securities and Exchange Commission and have been reviewed by Reuters.

The lofty rewards dangled for Musk by SpaceX show the challenge of holding the attention of the serial entrepreneur as he prepared to take the rocket maker public. They also potentially set up SpaceX investors for tensions with shareholders of Tesla, where Musk is chief executive officer (CEO), said corporate governance experts.

Connecting science-fiction visions with accounting commitments, the SpaceX board in January approved a pay package for the world’s richest man that would award 200 million in super-voting restricted shares if the company hit a market value of $7.5 trillion and established a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million people, according to excerpts from the company’s registration statement reviewed by Reuters.

His Mars-shot performance package also gave him as many as 60.4m in restricted shares awarded on March 23, if SpaceX met separate valuation goals and operated data centres in space that provided at least 100 terawatts of compute capacity — a colossal amount of power equal to 100,000 gigawatts — or about 100,000 one-gigawatt nuclear reactors running all at once.

Both awards came with super-voting Class B restricted stock, which carried 10 votes to every one Class A share, and vested in tranches as the company’s value rose.

Conditional rewards, stock options

However, he would not receive a single share if the company failed to reach the board’s lofty valuation targets, which were not tied to a specific timeline other than his continued employment.

He received a nominal salary from SpaceX of $54,080 per year since 2019. The value of the pay package could not be determined since SpaceX is privately held.

SpaceX is targeting an initial public offering around the time of Musk’s birthday on June 28, which could value the company at some $1.75 trillion.

As of December 31, he held 68.8m in previously awarded Class B stock options with a strike price of about $42 that expires in 2031, allowing Musk to pocket any profit above that amount if he exercises the options before that date.

Musk is already worth $776 billion by Forbes’ estimate. SpaceX aside, he could more than double that if he achieves separate, ambitious performance goals at Tesla — the EV automaker he also runs. He owned about 20 per cent of that company’s stock as of November, according to the registration statement.

SpaceX and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.

The Information and Reuters previously reported SpaceX paid targets for Musk linked to a Mars colony and to space data centres.

Executive compensation expert Eric Hoffmann, who is chief data officer for corporate governance consulting firm Farient Advisers, said he knew of nothing remotely comparable in compensation packages at other companies.

Space targets stand alone

“I am not a physicist or astronomer, and I wouldn’t know where to start,” he said.

“The measuring stick is: has it been done in human history? These haven’t. So that’s hard. Now, SpaceX and Tesla are effectively competing over Musk,” Hoffmann added.

He noted how just last autumn, Tesla’s board argued it needed to pay Musk generously to keep him focused on the automaker. Musk, in fact, threatened to leave Tesla if shareholders failed to approve the plan, Tesla previously disclosed.

“What’s interesting about this situation is now, SpaceX and Tesla — both effectively controlled by Elon Musk — are now bidding against each other for his attention,” Hoffmann said.

Equilar Director of Research Courtney Yu also said the goals of colonising Mars and building space data centres stood out because he could not remember any other company aside from Tesla using metrics beyond standard financial ones, like measures of earnings or revenue to set CEO pay.

It is up to the boards of the respective companies — SpaceX and Tesla — to determine how best to structure Musk’s time, Yu said.

While a $7.5 trillion market capitalisation for SpaceX may seem extraordinary, Yu said in a telephone interview, “it does help with setting expectations for investors as to what the goals of the company really are”.

The United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday it was quitting Opec, dealing a heavy blow to the oil producers’ group as an unprecedented energy crisis triggered by the Iran war exposes discord among Gulf nations.

The stunning loss of the UAE, a longstanding Opec member, could create disarray and weaken the group, which has usually sought to show a united front despite internal disagreements over a range of issues from geopolitics to production quotas.

UAE Energy Minister Suhail Mohamed al-Mazrouei told Reuters the decision was taken after a careful look at the regional power’s energy strategies.

Asked whether the UAE consulted with Saudi Arabia, he said the UAE did not raise the issue with any other country.

“This is a policy decision, it has been done after a careful look at current and future policies related to level of production,” said the energy minister.

Mazrouei said the UAE’s move, in which it will leave Opec and Opec+ as of May 1, would not have a huge impact on the market because of the constraints in the strait.

Opec Gulf producers have already been struggling to ship exports through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow chokepoint between Iran and Oman through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes, because of Iranian threats and attacks against vessels.

Mazrouei said the move would not have a huge impact on the market because of the situation in the strait.

But the UAE exit from OPEC represents a big win for US President Donald Trump, who has accused the organisation of “ripping off the rest of the world” by inflating oil prices.

Trump has also linked US military support for the Gulf with oil prices, saying that while the US defends Opec members, they “exploit this by imposing high oil prices”.

The move came after the UAE, a regional business hub and one of Washington’s most important allies, criticised fellow Arab states for not doing enough to protect it from numerous Iranian attacks during the war.

Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser for the UAE president, criticised the Arab and Gulf response to the Iranian attacks in a session at the Gulf Influencers Forum on Monday.

“The Gulf Cooperation Council countries supported each other logistically, but politically and militarily, I think their position has been the weakest historically,” Gargash said.

“I expect this weak stance from the Arab League and I am not surprised by it, but I haven’t expected it from the (Gulf) Cooperation Council and I am surprised by it,” he said.

Iran warned last week that submarine cables in the Strait of Hormuz were a vulnerable point for the region’s digital economy, raising concerns about potential attacks on critical infrastructure.

The narrow waterway, already a chokepoint for global oil shipments, is equally vital for the digital world.

Several fibre-optic cables snake across the seabed of the strait, connecting countries from Southeast Asia to Europe via the Gulf states and Egypt.

What makes undersea cables important?

Subsea cables are fibre-optic or electrical cables laid on the sea floor to transmit data and power.

They carry around 99 per cent of the world’s internet traffic, according to the ITU, the United Nations specialised agency for digital technologies.

They also carry telecommunications and electricity between countries, and are essential for cloud services and online communications.

“Damaged cables mean the internet slowing down or outages, e-commerce disruptions, delayed financial transactions … and economic fallout from all of these disruptions,” said geopolitical and energy analyst Masha Kotkin.

Gulf countries, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, have been investing billions of dollars in artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure to diversify their economies away from oil.

Both nations have established national AI companies serving customers across the region, all of which rely on undersea cables to move data at lightning speed.

Major cables through the Strait of Hormuz include the Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1), connecting Southeast Asia to Europe via Egypt, with landing points in the UAE, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia; the FALCON network, connecting India and Sri Lanka to Gulf countries, Sudan, and Egypt; and the Gulf Bridge International Cable System, linking all Gulf countries, including Iran. Additional networks are under construction, including a system led by Qatar’s Ooredoo.

What are the risks?

While the total length of submarine cables has grown considerably between 2014 and 2025, faults have remained stable at around 150200 incidents per year, according to the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC).

State-sponsored sabotage remains a risk, but 70-80pc of faults are caused by accidental human activities, primarily fishing and ship anchors, according to the ICPC and experts.

Other risks include undersea currents, earthquakes, subsea volcanoes, and typhoons, said Alan Mauldin, research director at telecom research firm TeleGeography. The industry addresses these by burying cables, armouring them, and selecting safe routes, he said.

The war on Iran, nearing the two-month mark, has brought unprecedented disruption to global energy supply and regional infrastructure, including hits to Amazon Web Services data centres in Bahrain and the UAE. Subsea cables have been spared so far.

However, an indirect risk exists from damaged vessels inadvertently hitting cables by dragging anchors.

“In a situation of active military operations, the risk of unintentional damage increases, and the longer this conflict lasts, the higher the likelihood of unintentional damage,” Kotkin said.

A similar incident occurred in 2024, when a commercial vessel attacked by Houthis drifted in the Red Sea and severed cables with its anchor.

The degree to which damage to the cables might impact connectivity in Gulf countries depends largely on how much individual network operators rely on them and what alternatives they have, according to TeleGeography.

No easy fix

Repairing damaged cables in conflict zones poses a separate challenge to securing them. While the physical repair itself is not overly complicated, decisions by repair vessel owners and insurers may also be impacted by the risk of damage from fighting or the presence of mines, experts say.

Permits to access territorial waters add another layer of difficulty.

“Often, one of the biggest problems with doing repairs is you have to get permits into the waters where the damage is. That can take a long time sometimes and can be the biggest source (of problems),” Mauldin said.

Once the conflict ends, industry players will also face the challenge of re-surveying the sea floor to determine safe cable positions and avoid ships or objects that may have sunk during hostilities, he said.

What alternatives are there if subsea cables falter?

While potential damage to subsea cables would not cause a complete connectivity loss due to land-based links, experts agree that satellite systems are not a feasible replacement, as they cannot handle the same volume of traffic and are more expensive.

“It’s not as though you could just switch to satellite. That’s not an alternative,” Mauldin said, noting that satellites rely on connections to land-based networks and are better suited for things in motion, like aeroplanes and ships.

Low-Earth-orbit networks such as Starlink are “a boutique solution, which is not scalable to millions of users, at this time,” Kotkin added.

• Operations delayed by hidden explosives, hazardous conditions beneath ruins
• UNDP says clearing rubble may take seven years in ideal conditions
• Palestinian labourers face daily danger from unstable sites, crossfire risks

GAZA: Palestinians are using war rubble to repave streets destroyed during Israel’s assault on Gaza, crushing concrete and metal into pavement under a UN-run project they hope will mark a first step toward rehabilitating their damaged cities.

The project run by the United Nations Development Programme comes as progress stalls in US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, meant to build on an October Israel-Hamas ceasefire by surging aid and rebuilding the enclave from scratch. It marks a bid by the UN and Palestinians to use locally available machinery to clear mountains of rubble that officials say is blocking access to water wells and hospitals and making it difficult to get the economy going again.

Crushing and reusing rubble

Alessandro Mrakic, head of UNDP’s Gaza office, said the territory faces one of the largest post-war clearance challenges in memory with an estimated 61 million tons of rubble.

“Beyond the collection [of rubble], we have started sorting, we have started crushing, and, as such, reusing it,” Mrakic said. “We have used almost the same amount that we have collected.” Mrakic said UNDP teams, staffed by Palestinian workers, were using the rubble “to rehabilitate roads and pave areas for shelter and community kitchens”.

In Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, Palestinians were operating heavy machinery to tear through mountains of destroyed concrete, sending plumes of dust into the air as workers picked through the twisted steel and rubble of damaged buildings.

Progress is being slowed by dangers hidden beneath the debris, officials say. Before rubble can be removed, sites must be checked for unexploded ordnance, in coordination with the UN’s mine service.

For Palestinian workers, the risks are tangible.

“I can’t find any other source of income, that is why I do this work. [You] could get hurt,” said Ibrahim al-Sarsawi, 32. He said the work site’s location near the Israel-Hamas armistice line meant he could be exposed to stray Israeli fire.

‘Tip of the iceberg’

Gaza rubble clearance could take seven years to complete, UNDP says, assuming accelerated, unimpeded access for heavy machinery and consistent fuel supplies, which are generally scarce in Gaza under Israeli restrictions.

Israel cites security concerns for its restrictions in Gaza, where it launched its assault following Hamas-led raid on October 7, 2023. The UNDP has so far removed about 287,000 tons of rubble — but that is just the “tip of the iceberg”, according to Mrakic.

Recovery and reconstruction in the tiny territory will require $71.4 billion over the next decade, according to a final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment released this month by the European Union, United Nations, and World Bank.

“The war is over, but [this] is the beginning of a new war,” said Sobhi Dawoud, 60, a displaced Palestinian living in a tent encampment in Khan Yunis.

This “new war”, he added, is one “of reconstruction, the beginning of removing the rubble, and [fixing] infrastructure”.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2026

Two of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top rivals announced they would join forces in an upcoming election to oust his coalition government, with a focus mainly on domestic issues such as military conscription for the ultra-Orthodox.

But on issues like Iran, Gaza and Lebanon, the joint party led by right-wing Naftali Bennett and centrist Yair Lapid is expected to pursue a security posture similar to that of Netanyahu — who heads the most right-wing government in Israel’s history — meaning Israel’s foreign policy would remain largely unchanged.

The new party, called “BeYachad” meaning “together” in Hebrew, has not released a formal policy platform. But below is what is known about their positions on regional conflicts, based on recent public comments.

Iran

Bennett, 54, and Lapid, 62, have staunchly backed Netanyahu’s decision to jointly attack Iran with the US, reflecting broad public support in Israel for the war.

At the start of Israel’s aerial bombardment in Iran, Lapid told Reuters in an interview that it was a “just war against evil.”

Both Bennett and Lapid have since criticised Netanyahu, 76, for what they describe as a failure to achieve Israel’s main objectives in the war, including toppling Iran’s government.

However, neither man has called for a resumption in fighting since the April 8 ceasefire.

A source close to their new party described Bennett and Lapid as “hawkish” and “tough on Iran”.

They are also “pragmatic and understand the need for diplomatic agreements and the work that happens after the military use of force to achieve strategic goals,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe their party’s priorities.

Lebanon

Bennett and Lapid have also both staunchly supported Israeli military operations in Lebanon while questioning an April 17 ceasefire that has failed to halt fighting between the Israeli military and Hezbollah.

Shortly before Israel’s military invaded southern Lebanon in March, Lapid said that Israel must take whatever steps were necessary to protect Israelis.

After the ceasefire with Hezbollah was announced in April, Lapid said the only solution was the permanent removal of the threat to northern Israel.

Bennett sharply criticised the ceasefire, saying in an April 17 Facebook post: “One can already count backwards towards the next round. Hezbollah began this morning to rebuild southern Lebanon and is becoming stronger with missiles ahead of the next round.”

Gaza

On the war in Gaza, where Israel continued to carry out deadly strikes despite a ceasefire last October, both Bennett and Lapid criticised Netanyahu for not fully destroying Hamas after the October 7, 2023 attack.

In January, Lapid said Netanyahu’s government had achieved the “worst possible outcome” in Gaza, saying that Hamas still has tens of thousands of armed fighters. Hamas retained control of a sliver of territory on Gaza’s coast under the ceasefire.

In a Facebook post this month, Bennett said Netanyahu’s policies — including allowing some aid into the enclave after restricting all humanitarian supplies for three months in 2025 — had helped Hamas regain control.

“This is with the help of hundreds of aid trucks that Netanyahu’s government brings them every day,” Bennett wrote.

Netanyahu has cast Israel’s devastating military assault that destroyed much of Gaza and killed more than 72,000 Palestinians as a success.

He has held out the possibility of resuming a full-scale war if Hamas fails to disarm under a US-backed process, something the group has thus far rejected.

Palestinian statehood

With public opinion polling showing that most Israelis oppose the formation of an independent Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, a Bennett-Lapid government would be unlikely to bring a major policy shift on the Palestinians.

Netanyahu opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state, and his government accelerated settlement building plans in the West Bank, in what ministers in his government said was part of a bid to destroy any future for Palestinian independence.

In 2022, Lapid, who like many in Israel’s political centre and left are not outright opposed to Palestinian sovereignty, said that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the right thing to do.

When asked by US broadcaster ABC during a 2024 interview why he opposed a two-state solution, Bennett said he believed it would lead to violence against Israelis.

On the West Bank, Netanyahu, Bennett and Lapid all spoke forcefully against settler violence toward Palestinians.

Such attacks escalated under Netanyahu, who critics accused of allowing settlers free rein to burn Palestinian villages and harm villagers. Netanyahu’s office denied this.

India named veteran politician Dinesh Trivedi as its next high commissioner to Bangladesh on Monday, in a rare appointment of a non-foreign service officer as New Delhi seeks to reset ties with its eastern neighbour.

Ties between the countries soured after a popular uprising forced Bangladesh’s long-serving Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee to New Delhi in 2024, where she remains.

Trivedi’s appointment highlights India’s push to rebuild trust with Bangladesh as it faces stiff competition from China for influence and business.

Trivedi, 75, a former railways and health minister, joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2021 from a regional party in West Bengal, a border state that plays a key role in India’s ties with Bangladesh and where Modi has been seeking to expand his party’s influence in ongoing local elections.

“He is expected to take up the assignment shortly,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement about Trivedi.

Relations between the two countries began improving only after an election in February brought Tarique Rahman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to power, replacing an interim government that had veered strongly towards China.

Bangladesh’s foreign minister visited Delhi this month seeking increased fuel and fertiliser supplies, closer energy cooperation and eased travel restrictions, but one of the biggest sticking points remains India’s refusal so far to extradite Hasina.

The man accused of shooting a US Secret Service agent as he tried to breach security at a Washington dinner attended by President Donald Trump is facing federal charges of attempting to assassinate the president, a judge said in court on Monday.

Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, also faces firearms charges in a three-count complaint.

Allen wore a blue prison jumpsuit at his first appearance in Washington federal court, two days after authorities said they foiled an attack at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, an annual black-tie gathering of journalists and politicians.

“He attempted to assassinate the president of the United States, Donald J Trump,” prosecutor Jocelyn Ballantine said in court.

Allen has not yet responded to the allegations. Seated at the defence table flanked by US Marshals, Allen said he would answer all questions truthfully and that he had a master’s degree in computer science.

US Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaughordered Allen detained while the case moves forward. Sharbaugh scheduled another hearing over Allen’s continued detention for Thursday.

‘Friendly federal assassin’

Allen left a manifesto with family members referring to himself as the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and discussing plans to target senior Trump administration officials, who were present in the hotel ballroom.

Blanche said his targets likely included Trump himself.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday described the Saturday night attack as the third major assassination attempt against Trump, after two attempts on his life in 2024. She compared the rhetoric in the manifesto to criticism of Trump by his political opponents.

“Much of the manifesto of the would-be assassin is indistinguishable from the words that we hear daily from so many,” Leavitt said. “The entire Democrat Party has made their pitch to voters across the country that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy, that he is a fascist.”

Prominent elected Democrats have condemned the shooting.

Allen booked a room at the Washington Hilton hotel, where the dinner took place, and travelled from California to Washington by train, officials said.

The shooting on Saturday rattled the press dinner, a prominent event on Washingtons social calendar, sending attendees scrambling under tables and prompting law enforcement to whisk senior officials out of the room. Trump, who was set to deliver remarks later in the evening, was rushed off the stage by security personnel after shots were fired.

Secret service agent struck

The suspect allegedly fired a shotgun at a Secret Service agent at a checkpoint inside the hotel before being tackled and arrested, according to authorities.

Video footage Trump posted online showed the suspect sprinting through a hallway outside the ballroom.

US officials have said the suspect was subdued just inside a security perimeter and have touted his takedown as a law enforcement success. But the incident has revived concerns about the safety of Trump, who survived two assassination attempts during his 2024 presidential campaign, and other US officials.

The Secret Service agent was struck but a tactical vest stopped the shot, and the agent was released from a hospital hours later.

Allen, who authorities said was armed with a handgun and multiple knives, in addition to the shotgun, was also taken to a local hospital to be evaluated following the shooting.