Middle East Press On: Israel's Conversion becoming an Aliyah Crisis, Qatar's Latest Influence, West Bank, Jordan, Global Sports Platforms, US, Attack Iran, 16 February 2026
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
16 February 2026
Israel’s conversion crisis is becoming an aliyah crisis
Exposing Qatar’s latest influence efforts in US higher education
Israel is trying to rewrite history – and British institutions risk helping them do it
Why West Bank annexation is a direct threat to Jordan
Spike Lee and Guardiola Use Global Sports Platforms to Back Gaza, Palestine
Portraits from Gaza: A Painter, a Father, a Runner
The Hidden Map: US and Israel May Use Unexpected Neighbours to Attack Iran
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Israel’s conversion crisis is becoming an aliyah crisis
By SETH FARBER
FEBRUARY 15, 2026
This week, the Knesset’s Committee on Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs reported that the number of immigrants from the former Soviet Union in 2025 is the lowest since 2020. MK Ze’ev Elkin warned of an additional projected 50% drop in aliyah from those countries. These are not just statistics. They are warning signs.
Israel was founded on aliyah. The Zionist dream was not merely about sovereignty but about ingathering – creating a home for every Jew and every person tied to the Jewish people who seeks to build their future here. When aliyah declines so sharply, especially from regions that have historically sustained Israel demographically, economically, and culturally, we must ask why.
Geopolitics and war play a role. So do economic conditions. But there is a deeper and more uncomfortable truth: Hundreds of thousands of aliyah-eligible individuals from the former Soviet Union know that if they come to Israel, their Jewish status will be questioned, their ability to marry will be constrained, and their children’s identity may be cast into doubt.
More than 580,000 Israeli citizens today are not recognized as Jewish according to Halacha by the Chief Rabbinate, despite being part of Israeli society – serving in the army, speaking Hebrew, paying taxes, and tying their destiny to the Jewish state. For them, and for their relatives abroad, Israel offers citizenship but not full belonging. This is not merely a bureaucratic challenge. It is a crisis of identity.
Conversion and aliyah as political weapons
Instead of addressing this challenge with courage, radicals on both the Right and the Left have turned conversion and aliyah into political weapons.
On the Right, resistance to meaningful conversion reform has effectively closed the gates before those who seek to join the Jewish people in good faith. Conversion is treated as a threat rather than as a historic opportunity. The result is paralysis and alienation.
On parts of the Left, recent public discourse has suggested that aliyah itself can be engineered for demographic or political ends. Such rhetoric, including troubling remarks attributed to former prime minister Ehud Barak about shaping aliyah to rebalance Israeli society, reduces the sacred enterprise of ingathering to social manipulation.
Both approaches betray Zionism.
Foundational pillars of Judaism and Zionism
Aliyah and conversion are not tools for electoral strategy. They are foundational pillars of Jewish continuity and Israeli sovereignty.
Israel must recommit to being a home for all those eligible under the Law of Return. At the same time, we must open wide the doors of conversion – particularly for those already living among us – with seriousness, compassion, and halachic integrity.
Jewish law has always contained the mechanisms to welcome sincere converts. What is lacking is not tradition but political will. That is what I am trying to do in the ITIM – Giyur K’Halacha initiative that has already converted thousands of Israeli citizens.
Return, renewal, and responsiblity
If we fail, the consequences will not only be fewer immigrants. We will see the growing rift within Israeli society itself fester.
The Zionist dream was never about exclusion. It was about return, renewal, and responsibility for one another.
The gates of aliyah and the gates of conversion were meant to stand side by side. It is time to open them both.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-886670
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Exposing Qatar’s latest influence efforts in US higher education
ByJORDAN COPE
FEBRUARY 15, 2026
Following the October 7 attacks, Qatar has faced heightened scrutiny for sustaining Hamas, which invaded Israel and massacred 1,200 people in 2023. Despite demands from some US officials, Doha refuses to expel Hamas officials, who have enjoyed safe haven in the West Asian country since 2012.
Between 2017 and 2021, four Arab countries (the “Quartet”) blockaded Qatar due to its support of and billions of dollars in contributions to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the US Treasury has partially designated as a terrorist group.
As Qatar cultivates terrorism, it pumps billions of dollars into efforts to convince the West that it is a dependable business partner, cultural patron, and friend. These include efforts to sponsor sports, Western universities, media initiatives, tourism campaigns, airplane and weapon acquisitions, lobbying, and America’s Al Udeid base. In reality, such generosity is motivated by Doha’s greater desire for influence and political survival in a region hostile to its leadership (see Operation Abu Ali, for example).
Qatar’s impact on the West has been effective. Recently, it became a non-NATO major ally of the US, which helped Doha overcome the Quartet-led boycott. The country largely escaped accountability post-October 7 for its role in sponsoring Hamas. Many Americans forget that Qatar, in the 1990s, hosted Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, who later masterminded the 9/11 attacks. During the Wars on Terrorism, Qatar’s Al Jazeera Network hailed attacks on US troops as “paradise operations” while also manning booby traps where US soldiers were ambushed.
Qatari influence on US higher education
As reports now allege that Qatar’s influence footprint in US higher education might be billions of dollars greater than once thought, exposing Doha’s partnerships with American institutions remains crucial for national security, especially as Qatar continues to influence America’s youth and future.
Previously, American universities were believed to have received $6.25 billion from Qatar, largely to fund their satellite campuses in Qatar’s Education City. The Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy (ISGAP) now reports that Qatar has invested upwards of $20 billion, almost three times the previously thought of amount, into US universities such as Cornell, Georgetown, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Commonwealth, and Brown.
Another study by ISGAP documents a correlation between increased anti-Semitism on campuses and the presence of funding from Qatar. A recent Harvard poll also suggests that nearly half of all Americans aged 18-24 support Hamas over Israel. Whether or not Qatari funding has fuelled such sentiment is a question that should be analyzed.
Recent disclosures reveal that Qatar and its campuses have forged memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with American institutions, many of which have escaped spotlight and scrutiny.
Memorandums of understanding with Doha
In 2025, Qatar University and Microsoft signed an MOU to formalize collaboration on “AI-driven learning solutions, leading research tools, and foundational digital infrastructure.” This agreement might not be simply academic or civilian in nature. As the agreement notes, it is meant to support Qatar’s “national priorities for nurturing advanced digital capabilities.”
This abstract language could range in meaning to be anything from suggesting that Qatari-state affiliated education institutions will now be equipped with basic Microsoft programs to suggesting that Microsoft could be providing resources to universities to help aid Qatari-state interests (e.g. public relations and disinformation campaigns, intelligence gathering, etc.). In 2025, the Qatar Debate Centre and Indiana University’s Hamilton-Lugar School of Global and International Studies also signed an MOU “aimed at strengthening academic and cultural cooperation.”
In 2024, at least four US universities signed MOUs with Qatari entities: Idaho State University (partnering with the University of Doha for Science and Technology to boost cooperation in “engineering, energy research and disaster response”); Bridgewater State University (partnering with the Community College of Qatar to leverage resources and strengthen “academic and educational collaboration”); the University of Houston-Clear Lake (partnering with the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs to exchange “programs, information, and activities” pertinent to “diplomatic capacity-building”); and Arkansas State University (partnering with the Global Studies Institute, a private institution, to offer degree programs in Doha).
Other US universities that have signed MOUs with Qatari entities include the University of Michigan (agreeing in 2008 to help Qatar University develop a center for research), the University of Wisconsin – Madison (agreeing in 2009 to “establish a framework” with Qatar University to “explore future collaboration”), the University of Maine (agreeing in 2018 to help prepare students from the Academic Bridge Program in Qatar for academic study), the University of South Carolina (agreeing in 2018 to promote collaboration and investment opportunities with the Qatar Investment Authority), and Harvard University (agreeing in 2019 to partner with the Qatar Foundation’s Al Shafallah Center on efforts to improve intellectual disability services).
Additional schools include the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy (agreeing in 2021 to a five-year partnership designed to promote cooperation on projects with Hamad bin Khalifa University), the University of Utah’s College of Humanities (agreeing in 2023 to join the Qatar Debate Center’s Arabic Debate program), the Medical College of Wisconsin (agreeing in 2023 to promote informational exchanges and to jointly organize conferences and trainings with Qatar University), and Xavier University (partnering with the Qatar University).
A national security threat
As evidenced above, “academic partnerships” often function as partnerships with state institutions that serve Qatari state interests, such as security, a key component of Doha’s influence efforts. In 2018, the University of Southern Mississippi signed a training pact with Interpol and Qatar, which has trained Hamas officers at its Al Rayyan Police College. In 2025, the Qatari Interior Ministry partnered with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to “strengthen security cooperation.” And in 2021, West Virginia’s National Guard partnered with the State of Qatar on security collaboration.
In summary, American higher education is being inundated by influence operations from Qatar, which constitute a possible national security threat. Now more than ever, Americans must reclaim and audit their institutions and demand that their universities distance themselves from Qatar, its ongoing sponsorship of terrorist groups like Hamas, and its promotion of hatred toward our country.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-886226
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Israel is trying to rewrite history – and British institutions risk helping them do it
February 15, 2026
By Dr Marchella Ward
Israel is trying to rewrite ancient history. In Palestine, Israel has systematically destroyed ancient heritage and made colonial land grabs of archaeological sites like the ancient Palestinian town of Sebastia, near Nablus. Beyond Palestine, global institutions – including museums and universities – are at risk of aiding and abetting them in this rewriting project. Yesterday UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) announced that they had written to the British Museum to encourage them to remove references to ‘Palestine’ in the gallery panels and labels of their collections. I recognised UKLFI’s ideological mission immediately: they were trying to recruit the British Museum to their political project of erasing Palestinian history.
The reason I could identify UKLFI’s project so quickly was that a few short weeks earlier my own university had been the target of their political campaign to manufacture a pro-Israel narrative of history.
Their letter made a series of ill-informed arguments dripping with thinly veiled Zionism, including that the term ‘ancient Palestine’ is historically inaccurate to describe the region associated with the Virgin Mary (the context in which the term was being used in The Open University’s learning materials). UKLFI suggested that the use of the term ‘ancient Palestine’ might erase Jewish historical identity and create a hostile environment for Jewish students. None of this could be further from the truth.
The term ‘ancient Palestine’ is simply the most accurate term for this region in antiquity. It was used in the 5th century BCE by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, and remains widely used in academic research including my own and that of the vast majority of scholars of the ancient world that I know.
It is circulated by pro-Israel organisations not because it adds anything to historical discussions of this region, but because it supports Israel’s claim that Palestinians are illegitimate and presents Jewish supremacy in the region as ancient history rather than modern invention. And it is a lie that is complicit in Israel’s genocidal project of erasing not just contemporary Palestinian life, but historical traces of the Palestinians too.
The rewriting of ancient history has always played an important role in occupation and genocide. European colonisers have often manufactured stories about ancient history to support their projects of settler colonialism. When the British coloniser Cecil Rhodes wanted to occupy Zimbabwe (which he would call Rhodesia), he sent archaeologists to the ruins of the ancient city of Great Zimbabwe. These archaeologists were responsible for manufacturing the fairytale that it was not ancient Africans who built this site, but the ancient Phoenicians. This narrative was useful to the British, who would subsequently argue that the Phoenicians were ancient Europeans whose colonial presence legitimated their own. And when France wanted to colonise Algeria it told a similar colonial story: that the French were the true legitimate occupiers of Algeria, because they were – so they said – descended from the ancient Romans who had occupied Algeria centuries earlier.
It is not surprising that Zionism, itself a project of European colonialism, should tell similar colonial fairytales about ancient history. European colonialism systemically rewrote history to justify the dehumanisation of colonised populations – especially when those colonised populations were in the majority Muslim, because of the fact that Islam began in the 7th century, after the end of the so-called ‘classical’ world. The destruction of archaeological sites in Palestine is a clear attempt to rewrite ancient history in this same vein, in order to justify Israeli occupation. But these acts of violence and destruction alone are not enough to manufacture the historical narrative required for genocide. Historians, museums and universities all function as necessary accomplices to the political project that Israel is engaging in. And they are recruited to this ideological project by organisations like UKLFI.
Legal protections of academic freedom and freedom of speech ought to ensure the right of academics to use accurate terminology. They ought to ensure the protection of this right even in the face of political pressure coming from those for whom the facts of history are inconvenient. Israel’s attempt to rewrite history is therefore also a dangerous attack on academic freedom.
And this rewriting of history risks not only impeding academic freedom, but also stoking both islamophobia and anti-Semitism. UKLFI’s deliberate conflation of Jewishness and Zionism, evident in their claim that the use of the term ‘ancient Palestine’ might create a hostile environment for Jewish students, is dangerous for Jewish students in particular. Ancient Palestine is widely recognised as having been a multicultural, multiethnic and multireligious place. Ancient Jewish identities were part of a rich cultural network of other ancient identities and ought to be studied as such. Erasing the term ‘ancient Palestine’ or replacing the term with names like ‘Judea’ or ‘Samaria’ serves pro-Israel narratives of history, because it suggests that the idea of a solely Jewish state has existed since antiquity. But it exceptionalises ancient Jewish history and removes it from its context as an important part of the multicultural and multireligious ancient world.
The notion that a land belongs to a single racialised group – an idea known as ethnonationalism – is a key part of Israel’s ideology. But it would have been wholly alien to the inhabitants of ancient Palestine. Accurately representing this multicultural history of Palestine is not antisemitic. On the contrary, it serves as a reminder of the dangers of contemporary ethnonationalism. Denying the multiculturalism of the ancient world and rewriting the ancient world in support of ethno nationalism has been a technique frequently employed for antisemitic purposes. Nazi historians, for example, famously claimed an affinity with ancient Rome, and invented a myth of racial purity by denying Rome’s multiculturalism.
In her report in July 2025, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, warned that archaeology was functioning as the “ideological scaffolding” of apartheid and Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. Institutions responsible for the public understanding of history – like universities or museums – risk contributing to this ideological scaffolding if they do not equip themselves to defend academic freedom and avoid falling victim to pressure by pro-Israel organisations. To do this, they will need to understand how Zionism is trying to rewrite ancient history to suit its own ends, just as other European colonial projects have always done. If they do not wish to be complicit in the genocide of the Palestinians, they will need to refuse to erase Palestinian history.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260215-israel-is-trying-to-rewrite-history-and-british-institutions-risk-helping-them-do-it/
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Why West Bank annexation is a direct threat to Jordan
OSAMA AL-SHARIF
February 15, 2026
When Israel’s security Cabinet voted last week to extend Israeli control over areas under Palestinian administration, Amman heard more than a policy announcement — it heard an existential threat. For Jordan’s King Abdullah, the move crossed what he has called his “red lines”: no displacement of Palestinians, no alternative homeland, no liquidation of the Palestinian cause. All three are now in jeopardy, and with them, Jordan’s stability.
Jordan was quick to condemn the decision, describing the measures as “illegal” and “aimed at entrenching settlements and imposing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.” The Palestinian Authority, Arab and Muslim countries, as well as the EU and UN, joined in the condemnation.
In a lukewarm reaction, US President Donald Trump reiterated his objection to Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, but stopped short of denouncing the measures or calling on Israel to rescind them. To underscore the unambiguous meaning of the measures, Israel’s Energy Minister Eli Cohen told Israeli radio that the steps amounted to implementing “de facto sovereignty,” adding that they “actually establish a fact on the ground that there will not be a Palestinian state.”
“We will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
But aside from the terminal blow that the PA has received, effectively annulling the Oslo Accords and all the agreements that followed with Israel, the Israeli decision reverberated in Amman, raising fears that King Abdullah’s “red lines” concerning the Palestinian issue have been crossed.
As recently as February last year, the Jordanian monarch repeated what has been dubbed the three royal nonnegotiable nos. The three red lines are interconnected. While the current Israeli far-right government has been implementing measures to speed up the colonization of West Bank territory, this latest decision is now seen as the most critical Israeli claim to the West Bank since the 1967 war.
Among the most serious steps that Israel has taken is to make land records in the West Bank public and to allow non-Arab individuals to directly buy land from Palestinian owners. The measures include widening the Israeli civil administration’s mandate to extend to areas directly under the sole control of the PA, especially the so-called Area A — the urban Palestinian centers that were supposed to remain under full Palestinian civil and security control under the Oslo Accords.
These measures are viewed in Jordan as accelerating the elimination of any Palestinian state by sealing the fate of the Oslo Accords, bringing down the PA, and extending Israeli law to the occupied West Bank — that is, sovereignty through annexation.
By doing so, Israel appears to have achieved a major geopolitical goal: to have legal control over the land, from its point of view. Its measures delink the territory, which is slated for the establishment of a future Palestinian state, from the people. That leaves the demographic issue: the fate of 3 million stateless Palestinians who will soon be living on Israeli land.
The recent Israeli measures come as the culmination of a series of radical steps that Israel has taken in the past two years. These include demolishing major parts of Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and rendering over 40,000 Palestinians homeless, extending its full control over Area C, which comprises 60 percent of the West Bank, and removing its Palestinian inhabitants. Israel has also set up over 1,000 barricades all over the West Bank, cutting off towns and villages, in addition to sanctioning tens of so-called illegal outposts as full-fledged settlements.
Daily Israeli army raids of most West Bank villages and cities have crippled the Palestinian economy. The PA is almost bankrupt. Israel has looked the other way as armed Israeli settlers waged a wave of terror against Palestinians in their villages and fields. These collective measures aim at pushing Palestinians to despair so that they choose to leave, and the only destination available to them is Jordan.
In Amman, the Israeli scheme is being read loud and clear. The collapse of the two-state solution awakens existential fears of the Likud’s decades-old claim that Jordan is Palestine.
There are at least tens of thousands of West Bankers who hold Jordanian nationality or have temporary Jordanian passports. Since the fall of the West Bank, which was part of Jordan, Amman kept the bridges over the River Jordan open. Jordan maintained a claim to the West Bank until 1974, when the Arab League recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. It was only in 1988 that King Hussein decided to disengage legally and administratively from the West Bank, though that decision was never ratified by parliament.
One strategic reason for Jordan to sign a peace treaty with Israel was to demarcate the borders with Israel and the Palestinian territories and bury any notion of the so-called “alternative homeland.” King Abdullah has hinted on a number of occasions that Jordan may suspend that treaty if Israel annexes the West Bank, especially the Jordan Valley.
By separating land rights from the people who inhabit it, Israel’s far-right aims to expel Palestinians from the West Bank through a combination of economic strangulation, terror campaigns, home demolitions, and mass land confiscation or purchase. Israel has demonized UNRWA and finally banned it from providing its essential services in the occupied territories as it sought to cancel refugee status and, through it, the right of return under UN resolutions.
Jordan is home to the largest number of Palestinian refugees outside the occupied territories, and it has campaigned to keep the UN agency alive and funded. The possible collapse of UNRWA represents another step in Israel’s effort to erase the Palestinian national identity and force host countries to resettle Palestinian refugees.
During Trump’s first term of office, the State Department replaced references to the occupied Palestinian territory with the disputed territory. Now Israel has taken that extra step of claiming full sovereignty over the West Bank. That is de facto annexation, even if it is not declared through an official announcement.
There have been some outrageous Israeli suggestions regarding the fate of West Bank Palestinians. Katz has historically supported the idea that Jordan is the appropriate national home for Palestinians, a view often termed the “Jordanian option” in Israeli right-wing discourse, aiming to relieve Israel of responsibility for the Palestinian population.
Another interim proposal suggests that Jordan reclaims its administrative role over Palestinian population centers in the West Bank until a more permanent solution is found. Such a role suggests that Jordan would replace a defunct PA.
King Abdullah and the Jordanians are united in rejecting such proposals. The king’s red lines should be taken seriously by Israel. Unlike in any other country, the annexation of the West Bank poses a major national security threat to Jordan — one that King Abdullah is prepared to escalate tensions to prevent.
The stakes could not be higher. If Israel proceeds with full annexation, Jordan may find itself, at a future stage, forced to choose between accepting millions of displaced Palestinians or suspending its peace treaty with Israel — a move that would fundamentally reshape the regional order. For now, Amman is watching, waiting, and warning that its patience has limits.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2633135
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Spike Lee and Guardiola Use Global Sports Platforms to Back Gaza, Palestine
February 16, 2026
Spike Lee at NBA All-Star Weekend
Oscar-winning American filmmaker Spike Lee drew widespread attention during NBA All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles after appearing courtside carrying a bag featuring the Palestinian flag and a traditional keffiyeh, while also wearing a hoodie marking US Black History Month, according to widely circulated broadcast footage.
The appearance occurred during one of basketball’s most-watched annual events, ensuring the imagery circulated rapidly across social media platforms and sports broadcasts.
Lee — known for films such as Malcolm X and Da 5 Bloods — has repeatedly spoken about social justice issues throughout his career, and his attire was widely interpreted as a symbolic expression of solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
Online reactions largely praised the gesture, with many users describing it as a powerful show of solidarity.
“Spike Lee with the Palestine flag on All Star weekend that’s that legendary sh*t in a weekend where the league is trying they’re hardest to push Israel,” one user wrote on X.
Lee has regularly used his public platforms to highlight Palestinian suffering since the war began in 2023, sharing images of the Palestinian flag and commentary about Gaza.
He also served as executive producer on the Oscar-nominated film The Voice of Hind Rajab, centered on the killing of five-year-old Gaza resident Hind Rajab in 2024.
Pep Guardiola and Gaza’s Amputee Team
Just days earlier, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola made a separate symbolic gesture toward Gaza by signing Palestinian national team jerseys intended for the Gaza al-Irada FC amputee football team.
The team announced the moment on Instagram, describing it as a connection between local athletes and the global football community.
“From the heart of Gaza to the top of the football world,” the team wrote, adding that players received “a special message and a signature from the ‘philosopher’ Pep Guardiola.”
Players emphasized the emotional significance of the act.
“This shirt is not just a piece of cloth, but a medal of pride held by every player who challenged injury and ran after his dream,” the statement said. “Thank you Guardiola for seeing in us what we see in ourselves: heroes who don’t know the impossible.”
Images released by the club showed amputee players posing with a photo of Guardiola holding a Palestinian keffiyeh. The team has previously shared footage of its members training and playing football among destroyed buildings in Gaza.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/spike-lee-and-guardiola-use-global-sports-platforms-to-back-gaza-palestine/
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Portraits from Gaza: A Painter, a Father, a Runner
February 15, 2026
A Shoreline of Color
Farah Ajjour chose the sea because it was the only place left that did not feel closed.
On a narrow stretch of beach west of Gaza City, she sat cross-legged with a sheet of paper resting on her knees. Around her, girls unpacked small boxes of paint — bright colors that contrasted sharply with the gray skyline behind them. Most nearby buildings were damaged or abandoned, and the open horizon felt larger than any room they had entered in two years.
Farah Ajjour explained in an interview with the Anadolu news agency that the gathering was less an art activity than a release:
“This workshop gave us a chance to release what we were holding inside.”
For two years she had lived between displacement shelters and temporary housing, where daily life revolved around queues for water and food. Cultural centers where she once practiced drawing were destroyed during the war, leaving the shoreline as the only open space available.
She painted a sun rising above water.
Other girls drew women in traditional dress, Palestinian flags, and wide landscapes without walls. None drew aircraft or explosions. The absence itself was deliberate — not denial, but refusal to let violence define imagination.
Workshop organizer Noura Al-Qassasiya described art as a second language after catastrophe — a way to communicate trauma without repeating it in images of blood and rubble.
Farah looked toward the horizon before adding, “I want my voice to be heard through my art. There is no place where I can do that except the seashore.”
For a few hours, the beach became the only place where the future could be imagined before it was rebuilt.
The Father Who Cannot Finish Mourning
Every morning, Mahmoud Hammad walks to a mound of sand and broken concrete that used to be his home.
He carries a shovel and a metal sieve. Nothing else.
The six-story building in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood collapsed after a massive bomb struck it while his family was inside. He survived with fractured ribs, shoulder, and pelvic injuries. His wife and six children did not.
Months later, he returned — not to rebuild, but to search.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, he lifted the small sieve in his hand and said: “In the absence of machinery, this is what we have.”
Neighbors helped him recover the remains of his brother’s family early on, but his own children remain beneath hardened layers of debris compacted by time and winter rain. Each handful of sand is both hope and dread.
He pauses often, brushing dust from fragments he recognizes — a tile piece, a small object from the kitchen — proofs that the house once held daily life.
His wife had been pregnant.
“She and our unborn child died together,” he said.
Across Gaza, thousands remain buried beneath destroyed buildings because heavy equipment has not entered at the scale required for recovery. Families perform the work themselves.
For Hammad, burial is not closure but duty: “They deserve to be buried with dignity.”
He returns every day. Not because he expects to finish, but because stopping would mean leaving them behind.
The Athlete Who Cannot Jump
Before the war, Mohammed Ziyad moved across Gaza’s rooftops faster than most people could run on the streets.
He trained children in parkour — teaching them how to leap across obstacles and navigate the city with confidence. He planned to open a gym dedicated to mentoring young athletes.
An airstrike in Khan Yunis ended that future.
In testimony broadcast by Al Jazeera Mubasher, the 31-year-old described how the blast shattered his jaw, knocked out teeth, caused internal bleeding, and severely damaged one eye, leaving him blind on that side.
His cousin died beside him despite attempts to reach medical care.
He spent days trapped inside a hospital amid fighting before evacuating through devastated streets toward Rafah. Doctors later confirmed his injuries would prevent physical exertion.
He cannot run. He cannot jump.
What pains him most is interruption, not injury.
“I used to train children, and we were trying to open a place where we could teach parkour and support young talent, but the war destroyed everything,” he said in the interview.
Parkour had been about overcoming obstacles — transforming walls into pathways. Now the environment controls his movement, forcing every step to be measured.
He still instructs children verbally when he can, correcting posture and technique. The training continues through memory even if his body cannot demonstrate it.
Across Gaza, reconstruction is discussed in billions of dollars and years of engineering. But in the present, recovery is measured differently: a painting made where buildings once stood, a burial attempted by hand, a sport remembered through instruction.
These lives do not mark the end of war.
They mark what remains when survival itself becomes the only possible future.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/portraits-from-gaza-a-painter-a-father-a-runner/
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The Hidden Map: US and Israel May Use Unexpected Neighbors to Attack Iran
February 15, 2026
By Robert Inlakesh
Amidst heightened tensions between the US-Israeli alliance and Iran, an enormous amount of focus has been placed in the media on Iran’s missile program and how this will impact any upcoming war. What is often ignored are the origins of the regional threats to Tehran and its stability.
While covering each and every threat to the Islamic Republic of Iran would be beyond the scope of such an article, there are a number of hostile nations surrounding the country that can be used to destabilize the nation. While the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and, to a lesser extent, Azerbaijan, are often cited as pro-Israeli, there is another nation that flies under the corporate media’s radar.
Iran shares its second-largest land border with the nation of Turkmenistan, a country that often flies under the radar and is rarely mentioned as a regional player. What many don’t know is that the nation, long characterized as a neutral player, has strong ties with both the US and Israel.
Turkmenistan: Neutral State or Strategic Corridor?
Unlike many Muslim-majority nations, Turkmenistan has long recognized and maintained ties with the Israelis, their relationship beginning in 1993. Then, in April of 2023, these ties were further cemented with the inauguration of a permanent Israeli embassy in Ashgabat for the first time.
It should therefore be no surprise that Tel Aviv and Ashbagat’s relationship is closest in the intelligence sharing and security cooperation spheres. Afterall, the Israeli embassy – opened back in 2023 – was strategically placed only 17 kilometers away from Iran’s border, marking a major symbolic achievement for Israel, especially as it operates through what are suspected to be thousands of Mossad recruited agents inside the Islamic Republic.
Although Israel has no official military bases inside Turkmenistan, there have been a number of reports indicating that it has set up attack drone bases inside the country. This would make sense, considering that Ashbagat has been purchasing Israeli drone technology since the 2010s, more recently acquiring the SkyStriker tactical loiter munition (suicide drone), developed by Elbit Systems.
Ashgabat has long been in alignment with the West. In May of 1994, it became the first country to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. However, the following year, the UN approved granting Turkmenistan the status of a neutral country, meaning it would not join military blocs.
In 2001, following the September 11 attacks, this neutral stance suddenly began to change. While other Central Asian nations – Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – all immediately offered their military bases to the United States, due in large part to their concerns over the advancements of the Taliban, Turkmenistan only publicly admitted to allowing the US to use its airspace for military cargo aircraft to travel in transit.
In reality, the US airforce was operating a team on the ground in Ashgabat in order to coordinate refuelling operations. In 2004, the Russian State protested the growing US-Turkmenistan military relationship, after reports emerged stating that American forces had “gained access to use almost all the military airfields of Turkmenistan, including the airport in Nebit-Dag near the Iranian border.”
Reports, which are not possible to independently verify but nonetheless have appeared consistent throughout the years, indicate that the US military has even established remote desert bases throughout different locations inside Turkmenistan.
Clinging to its neutral status on the public stage, Ashgabat rejects any mention of cooperation of this kind, including the denial of a 2015 statement by then US Central Command chief Lloyd Austin that the Turkmens had expressed their interest in acquiring US military equipment.
Signals of Military Activity
Perhaps the most concerning developments are the more recent revelations, revealed through OSINIT channels and Turkmen media, citing flight trackers to monitor the movement of US aircraft in the region. These reports indicate the confirmation that US Air Force transport aircraft C-17A Globemaster III and MC-130 Super Hercules have landed at undisclosed locations in Turkmenistan.
The significance of this, opposed to the rest of the military buildup that has been occurring in potential preparation for an attack on Iran, is that of the MC-130 Super Hercules, which is used specifically for transporting special forces teams, running night operations, as well as performing unconventional takeoffs and landings.
Paired with a recent report issued by the New York Times, indicating that the US’ options not only include an air campaign against Iranian nuclear and missile sites, but ground raids using special forces, it could be concluded that Turkmenistan is the location from which the US may seek to inject special forces units into Iran.
The Wider Ring around Iran
The Turkmenistan factor clearly cannot be ignored here, despite it often being dismissed as a neutral power that maintains friendly relations with both Russia and China. In fact, because of these relationships, with Moscow in particular, Tehran has refrained from attempting to expand its reach into the Central Asian country.
To Iran’s benefit is that Chinese and, to a lesser extent, Russian influence can reduce the extent to which the US and Israel can use Iran’s neighbors to threaten it. In Pakistan, for example, it is clear that both Islamabad’s joint security concerns – largely over Balochi militant groups – along its border, in addition to Beijing’s influence, make it highly unlikely that Pakistan would remain neutral and is instead inclined to help support Iran; within its limits, it should be added.
Azerbaijan is another potential threat to the stability of the Islamic Republic, due in large part to the large Azeri population in Iran’s own Azerbaijan Province. However, the vast majority of Azeri citizens are in fact loyal to the State and no major separatist movement exists at this time. Both the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Ayatollah Khamenei himself are both ethnically part Azeri.
For example, many supporters of the Israeli puppet Reza Pahlavi openly express their intention to crack down on the Azeri ethnic minority inside Iran. During the reign of the CIA-MI6-installed Shah of Iran, minority groups suffered immensely, due to a clear tradition of ethno-nationalism that exists amongst the current supporters of the deposed monarchy.
Baku, for its part, is the top gas supplier to Israel, maintaining close military, diplomatic and intelligence ties with them. Azerbaijan even made Hebrew media headlines for its use of Israeli suicide drones and other military equipment during its war with Armenia.
On the other hand, Iran is militarily superior to Azerbaijan and has a considerable base of support amongst the nation’s population, of which the majority belong to the Shia branch of the Islamic faith. Therefore, Tehran has major leverage and could not only paralyze its oil and gas infrastructure, but perhaps has the potential of organic movements forming within Azerbaijan that will owe allegiance to Iran.
There is also the threat that the Israelis, in particular, will attempt to use Kurdish militant groups in Iraqi Kurdistan in order to carry out attacks on the Islamic Republic. Israel does not publicly acknowledge its presence in northern Iraq, yet Iran has directly struck its bases housing Mossad operatives in the past, while Kurdish separatist groups have been utilized countless times in attempts to destabilize the country. During the June 12-day-war last year, Israel also weaponized these proxies.
For those also concerned about Afghanistan’s role in threatening Iranian security, this has always historically been a precarious situation, yet Tehran has not only been improving its ties with Kabul, but it officially recognized the Islamic Emirate during the past week. Again, this does not mean there is no potential threat there, but an alliance that holds with the Taliban government may prove important.
Gulf States, Jordan and the Regional Balance
Then there are the more obvious players, the UAE and Bahrain, which are not only partners of the Israelis as part of the so-called “Abraham Accords” but are overtly aligned with Tel Aviv’s regional agenda.
The Emiratis are speculated to hold some cards regarding trade, but their leverage is negligible. Both the Bahraini and Emirati leaderships are clearly anxious, because Iran’s responses to the use of their territory to attack the Islamic Republic could quickly collapse their regimes.
Jordan, meanwhile, is where the US appears to be focusing much of its military buildup, even withdrawing forces previously stationed in Syria’s al-Tanf region into the Hashemite Kingdom’s territory.
The Jordanian leadership is evidently permitting its territory to become a key battleground, which will likely be subjected to attacks if the US chooses to use it to aid the Israeli-US offensive, but it is simply powerless in such a scenario.
Jordan has become a Western-Israeli intelligence and military hub in the region, meaning that if King Abdullah II objects to the demands of its allies, he understands well that his rule could be ended in a matter of hours. Therefore, he must risk his country being caught in the crossfire and just hope that an internal uprising doesn’t take shape, which is one of the reasons why he has been so hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood, fearing they could end up leading any revolt as the organization did in Egypt.
Turkiye, on the other hand, which is also a major regional player, is likely to play both sides behind the scenes, attempting to stay out of such a fight. If it takes either side, it will suffer the repercussions. Perhaps the most important role it could play is to prevent its bases or airspace from being used by the US.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar both maintain cordial relations with Iran, clearly favoring a scenario where no war occurs at all, because they are home to US bases. As we saw last June, the US used its CENTCOM headquarters in Doha to direct its attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, and as a result, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) struck US facilities there.
Riyadh and Doha do not want to get dragged into such a scenario. It is also of note that they have a vested interest in neither side winning the war conclusively, because it is in their interests for there to be a multi-polar West Asia, not an Israeli-dominated region that will inevitably consume them.
A Conflict with Wider Consequences
Some have also speculated about Syria’s role in any war. Damascus is clearly in the US-Israeli sphere of influence, but it will have a negligible impact in its current form. If Syria’s military forces assault Lebanon or Iraq, they will suffer enormous blows and fail tremendously. The only wildcard with Syria is whether armed groups there will choose to use the opportunity to attack Israel, although as a military power, the Syrians are a relative non-factor at the current time.
For now, the US-Israeli plot to stir civil war inside Iran and to follow through with an air campaign that aids their proxies has failed. Given the readiness of Iran’s allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and even Palestine, perhaps beyond, the US would be entering a point of no return scenario if it were to attempt a regime change operation.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-hidden-map-us-and-israel-may-use-unexpected-neighbors-to-attack-iran/
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