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A photograph of a large group of Palestinian children, seated and lying amid the rubble and ruin in Gaza, watching the ‘Lion King’ projected on a screen, has gone viral on ‘X’. Shot by freelance photojournalist Omar Ashtawy, the image is a stark commentary on how the fast pace of the global news cycle, focused largely on self-absorbed world leaders and their erratic actions, has a way of obscuring some of the biggest stories of our time.

Nearly three years into Israel’s war on Gaza — now widely acknowledged as a genocide — claiming over 70,000 lives so far, this is the everyday reality of children in Gaza.

The violence simply does not let up. The killings have not ceased. On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinians, including a three-year-old child, in the central Gaza Strip. Israel is now threatening to expel them for flying kites. Reports also tell us that the killing of Palestinian children and teens by Israel has surged in West Bank. The children watch Uncle Scar’s power-hungry schemes, that place little value on life, perhaps unaware of how his human counterparts in the real world have upended own lives.

If we were to turn the spotlight on India, New Delhi’s stance is hardly inspiring hope. Speaking to The Hindu, Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin said India needs to be more vocal about violations of international law and use its global weight to push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. New Delhi must also examine arms transfers to Israel seriously, she told Stanly Johny in this interview. “They need to be vocal about what is right and what is wrong, and they need to be vocal about violations of international law. This is what is expected of India,” she said. You could also watch it here.

As the United States and President Donald Trump, who have been steadfastly backing Israel’s war on Gaza, get more confrontational with Iran yet again, the news cycle is focussed on that. Iran’s attacks on American warships outside the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S.’s retaliatory strikes on three Iranian oil tankers in the Gulf waters recently pointed to another escalation in a war that has already persisted six-months. The Hindu editorial today weighed in on the development and contended: “As both sides seek escalation dominance, the war risks spiralling out of control. America is visibly under pressure. Mr. Trump has to accept the cold fact that he has lost this war and return to reviving the MoU before it is too late.”

The other recent event that hogged headlines was the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from August 31 to September 1, 2026. Notably, PM Modi joined the statement slamming the US and Israel for the war in Iran. Is India shifting its position, or just making friends ahead of the upcoming BRICS summit in New Delhi and Pakistan’s Presidency of the SCO next year?

Do read Kallol Bhattacherjee’s profile of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, or the house of multilaterals, and watch Worldview with Suhasini Haidar for a breakdown of what transpired.

Region in focus

Closer to home, we are tracking Nepal’s painful recovery from the recent devastating floods. The disaster posed an unprecedented challenge, Australian rescue expert Arnold Dix said on Monday (September 7, 2026), with multiple search operations underway in Himalayan hydropower tunnels. The August 26 glacial and mountain collapse on the China-Nepal border killed at least 1,385 people, with more than 5,500 missing across the two countries.

However, fresh concerns triggered by the glacial collapse are unlikely to sway Beijing’s plans to go ahead with the construction of a mega dam on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo, or the Brahmaputra River, in a seismically active region in Tibet near the border with India, our China Correspondent Ananth Krishnan reported. “ Of concern to India is how much water is likely to be stored in the reservoir and how the tunnel will affect downstream flows, as well as possible broader ecological impacts. The lack of information has posed an obstacle in assessing the possible impact.”

Our Notebook column this week was a reflection on the major climate shocks witnessed in the region in quick succession. The floods in Pakistan in 2022, floods in different parts of India over the last few years, the cyclone in Sri Lanka in 2025, and now, Nepal’s staggering floods. A Pakistani friend recently shared a 2009 piece from Himal Southasian on her social media. Authored by former diplomat Shyam Saran, it contended that South Asia is an ecologically interconnected system and called for a collaborative response to the climate crisis. Journalists in the region, however, have had more stories about natural disasters than collective strategies to tell.

Another exclusive we bring to you this week is Suhasini Haidar’s interview with Bangladesh’s ousted, former PM Sheikh Hasina. “How can a press conference damage India-Bangladesh relations? I did not know that I was so powerful that one press conference of mine could damage Bangladesh’s foreign policy,” she said.

Published – September 07, 2026 01:56 pm IST

(1) Madagascar military coup

The military has seized power in a coup in the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar and ousted President Andry Rajoelina, who has fled the country.

Col. Michael Randrianirina, who seized power in a military coup, was sworn in as Madagascar’s new leader on Friday (October 17, 2025) in a lightning-fast power grab that ousted the President.

Randrianirina, the commander of an elite army unit, took the oath of office to become the new President at a ceremony in the main chamber of the nation’s High Constitutional Court and in front of its nine red-robed judges.

The military takeover — which came after three weeks of anti-government protests by mainly young people — has been condemned by the United Nations and led to Madagascar being suspended from the African Union.

President Andry Rajoelina’s whereabouts are unknown after he left the country, claiming his life was in danger following the rebellion by soldiers loyal to Col. Randrianirina. He reportedly escaped on a French military plane.

Madagascar has high rates of poverty, which affect around 75% of the population, according to the World Bank. It also has a tumultuous history of political instability that has included several coups and attempted coups. Mr. Rajoelina himself came to power as a transitional leader in 2009 after a military-backed coup.

(2) US-China tit-for-tat tariffs

The United States and China on Tuesday (October 14, 2025) began charging port fees on ocean shipping firms that move everything from holiday toys to crude oil, making the high seas a key front in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Early this year, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration announced plans to levy the fees on China-linked ships to loosen that country’s grip on the global maritime industry and bolster U.S. shipbuilding.

An investigation during former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration concluded China uses unfair policies and practices to dominate the global maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors, clearing the way for those penalties.

Analysts expect China-owned container carrier COSCO to be most affected, shouldering nearly half of that segment’s expected $3.2 billion cost from those fees in 2026.

China hit back last week, saying it would impose its own port fees on U.S.-linked vessels, also starting Tuesday (October 14, 2025). Jefferies analyst Omar Nokta noted that 13% of crude tankers and 11% of container ships in the global fleet would be affected.

“This tit-for-tat symmetry locks both economies into a spiral of maritime taxation that risks distorting global freight flows,” Athens-based Xclusiv Shipbrokers Inc said in a research note.

(3) Pakistan and Afghanistan agree to ceasefire

Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday (October 19, 2025). This follows more than a week of fighting that has killed dozens of people and injured hundreds.

The two sides agreed to establish mechanisms to consolidate lasting peace and stability, as well as holding follow-up talks in the coming days to ensure the ceasefire’s sustainability, the Qatari statement said.

Delegations from Afghanistan and Pakistan were in Doha for talks to resolve the deadliest crisis between them in several years, after more than a week of fighting killed dozens of people and injured hundreds on both sides.

The talks were mediated by Qatar and Turkiye. A 48-hour ceasefire intended to pause hostilities expired on Friday (Oct. 17, 2025) evening. Hours later, Pakistan struck across the border.

(4) Bihar Assembly election: NDA names all 243 candidates

The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Thursday (October 16, 2025) completed the announcement of its candidates for all 243 constituencies ahead of the Bihar Assembly election.

On Thursday, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) announced its second and final list of 44 candidates while the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) also announced nominees for their remaining seats.

The JD(U) has fielded turncoats Chetan Anand and Vibha Devi from Nabinagar and Nawada respectively. Both Mr. Chetan Anand, son of strongman Anand Mohan, and Ms. Vibha Devi were earlier associated with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Besides, the JD(U) has nominated Kaladhar Mandal from Rupauli.

The JD(U) and the BJP are contesting from 101 seats each. The BJP has already announced its 101 candidates and its third and final list was released on October 15. Chirag Paswan’s LJP(RV) and RLM are contesting from 29 and six seats respectively. Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) had released its list of all six candidates on Tuesday (October 14).

(5) Palestinian death toll in Gaza tops 68,000

The Palestinian embassy in Egypt says the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will reopen on Monday (October 20, 2025) for people returning to Gaza. The embassy announced the development in a statement on Saturday (October 18).

“The number of people registering to return to Gaza is very big,” Naji al-Naji, cultural counsellor at the embassy, told The Associated Press without saying how many.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

The crossing is Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world that wasn’t controlled by Israel before the war. It has been closed since May 2024, when Israel took control of the Gaza side.

Gaza’s ruins were being scoured for the dead on Saturday (October 18), over a week into a ceasefire as newly recovered bodies brought the Palestinian toll above 68,000.

Israel said the remains of a tenth hostage that Hamas handed over the day before were identified as Eliyahu Margalit.

The handover of hostages’ remains, called for under the ceasefire agreement, is among key points — along with aid deliveries into Gaza and the devastated territory’s future — in a process backed by much of the international community to help end two years of war.

Published – October 23, 2025 11:14 am IST

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced on Sunday (August 31, 2025) that a spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, Abu Obeida, was killed in Gaza over the weekend.

Obeida’s last statement was on Friday as Israel began the initial stages of a new military offensive in Gaza City, declaring the area a combat zone. Hamas has not commented on Israel’s claim.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said Israel had attacked Obeida, the longtime spokesperson for Hamas’ Qassam Brigades, but did not know whether he had been killed.

“I do notice there is no one addressing this question on the Hamas side,” Mr. Netanyahu told Ministers at a weekly Cabinet meeting.

Obeida is the latest Hamas representative targeted and killed by Israel as it attempts to dismantle the group’s military capacity and prevent an attack like October 7, 2023, when militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Israel has assassinated many of Hamas’ top military and political leadership.

‘A death trap’

At least 43 Palestinians were killed since Saturday, most of them in Gaza City, according to local hospitals. Shifa Hospital — the territory’s largest — said 29 bodies had been brought to its morgue, including 10 people killed while seeking aid and others struck across the city.

On Sunday morning, hospital officials reported 11 more fatalities from strikes and gunfire. Al-Awda Hospital said seven of them were civilians trying to reach aid.

Witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire on crowds in the Netzarim Corridor, an Israeli military zone that bisects Gaza.

“We were trying to get food, but we were met with the occupation’s bullets,” said Ragheb Abu Lebda, from Nuseirat, who saw at least three people bleeding from gunshot wounds. “It’s a death trap.” The corridor has become increasingly perilous, with civilians killed while approaching UN convoys overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds, or shot on their way to sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed US contractor. Neither the foundation nor the Israeli military responded to questions about Sunday’s casualties.

Malnutrition and displacement Israel has for weeks been operating on the outskirts of Gaza City as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp to prepare for the initial stages of its offensive, which it announced on Friday. Its military has since intensified its air attacks in coastal areas of the city, including Rimal.

Its Arabic-language army spokersperson has urged the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still in Gaza City to flee south, but only tens of thousands have done so. Many say they are too exhausted after repeated displacements or unconvinced that anywhere is safer.

The United Nations says roughly 65,000 Palestinians have fled their homes since August 1, including 23,199 in the past week. Many are living in temporary shelters after multiple displacements. More than 90 per cent of the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced at least once during the war, and many multiple times, according to the UN.

Israel has announced new infrastructure projects in southern Gaza and signalled that aid to Gaza City could be cut — steps Palestinians say amount to forced displacement.

Israel has for weeks been operating on the outskirts of Gaza City as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp. It also intensified its air attacks in the coastal areas of the city.

Seven Palestinian adults died of causes related to malnutrition and starvation in the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry reported Sunday.

That has brought the death toll from malnutrition-related causes to 215 since late June when the ministry started to count fatalities among this age category, it said.

Another 124 children died of malnutrition-related causes since the start of the war in October 2023, the ministry said.

At least 63,371 Palestinians have died in Gaza during the war, said the ministry, which does not say how many are fighters or civilians but says around half have been women and children.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes the figures but has not provided its own.

Published – August 31, 2025 10:16 pm IST

Jana Ayad, a malnourished Palestinian girl, during treatment at the International Medical Corps field hospital, in Deir Al-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip, June 2024. (File photo)
| Photo Credit: Mohammed Salem

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Palestinians pray over the bodies of journalists, including Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qreiqeh, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, during their funeral outside Gaza City’s Shifa hospital complex, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Jehad Alshrafi/AP

As world leaders gathered in Munich, Germany, for Europe’s top annual security conference, placating, pleasing, and managing US President Donald Trump stood as a top agenda. Trump’s phone call to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, US Vice-President J.D. Vance’s disruptive speech challenging Europe, and, by association, the very nature of trans-Atlantic alliances, and demands to end the Ukraine conflict, has led to a mad rush to host such a process, in the Gulf. The question that perhaps comes immediately to mind, even though the conflict in Gaza remains a major global flashpoint, is, why?

The Meeting Between Rubio And Lavrov

Russia and the US are preparing to start initial consultations on Ukraine following an ice-breaking meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh. For Saudi Arabia and its powerful heir-apparent, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, this is a moment of both regional and global reckoning. Gulf powers in the Middle East have now been for a while re-positioning and re-posturing their geopolitics. This process started much before Trump’s return to the White House—arguably, prior to even the Russian war against Ukraine. The roots of this shift lie in two main realities. First, a change in the construct of global power contestation, that is, a bi-polar competition between the US and China and a demand for multipolarity by a host of middle powers looking to secure their own interests and not get caught in the Washington-Beijing dynamics. The second reality relates to a general idea of the US becoming increasingly unwilling to mobilise militarily power to protect its allies.

Reconsidering America’s Role

Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are evaluating the very fundamentals of the decades-long American hegemony, which has provided security blankets in the region. This also provides them with an opportunity to build their own geopolitical repertoire as middle powers with their own agency, instead of being viewed as client states, a tag that has plagued many of them for decades. The UAE as well has thrown its hat into the ring, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy landed in Abu Dhabi, mere hours after both Russia and the US eluded to excluding Kyiv from talks regarding Ukraine’s own future (Zelenskyy later cancelled a planned visit to Saudi). While this position by the Trump administration delivered tremors across European capitals, it has also played into an increasingly constrained space between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi for regional influence. And peace diplomacy, or mediation, is the flavour of the day.

However, the proverbial gold-rush to host Ukraine talks has more solid foundations in regional competition than an international one. For long, Oman has been the state that has consistently pitched itself as the main mediator, playing the role of ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’, where Muscat seemingly prioritises neutrality and offers a common ground for warring parties, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi militia, or even the US and Iran, to talk.

The Qatar Question

Saudi Arabia and the UAE installed a blockade against Qatar between 2017 and 2021 for what they saw as Doha not aligning and punching above its weight, and, more specifically, for its support for Political Islam. But the Qatari leadership had another trick up its sleeve to ratchet its power quotient. In February 2020, under Trump’s first tenure, the Taliban in Afghanistan and the US signed a historic agreement for the latter’s exit from a two-decade long war in the country. Doha hosted the political office for the Taliban, and managed Kabul, to deliver this outcome to a president who, more than anything else, adores deals. This “success” gained Qatar the title of becoming America’s first and preferred ‘major non-NATO ally’ in the region. Today, Qatar also hosts America’s largest military base in the Middle East. For others, such as the UAE, the meteoric rise of Qatar’s influence in Washington was seen as a challenge. Within Abu Dhabi, questions were raised with Emirati diplomats in the US on why the Taliban’s office was not hosted in either Abu Dhabi or Dubai.

Saudi And UAE Have Bigger Goals

For Saudi Arabia, despite its functional relations with Russia and China alike, a security relationship with the US remains paramount. The same strategic aim is consistent for the UAE as well, one of the few Arab states that normalised relations with Israel as part of the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords and which continues to have functional relations with Iran. Despite continuing pressures on Saudi Arabia and the UAE to help deliver lasting solutions to the Israel-Palestine crisis and the Israel-Hamas war, both have broader, long-term aims with regard to their positions as poles-of-power within a multipolar framework. Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi share this world view with the likes of India, but American power projection is infinitely more critical to political structures in the Middle East. This is truer today after the experience of the Arab Spring, and, more recently, the collapse of the Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria at the hands of a self-styled ‘lapsed’ jihadist group, the Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham (HTS).

Is This The Future Of Mediation?

The Saudis are not stopping just at giving space to the US and Russia to debate Ukraine. As per reports, Riyadh is also open to hosting talks between Iran and the US over the former’s nuclear programme. The Saudi-Iran détente was achieved in March 2023 with the help of China, the main competitor to the US, and a state that has unreservedly supported Arab positions in Gaza. Beijing, meanwhile, also remains open to mediating and helping to bridge political gaps across the region. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visits to the region have been welcomed with gusto by Saudi Arabia and the UAE alike, both as a function of being the world’s second-largest economic power and using this position to hedge risk with Western partners. The future of mediation between the Riyadh-Abu Dhabi-Doha trifecta is a cat and mouse game within the Arab construct. External powers such as the US, Russia, and China, are part of the utility kit. This push for one-upmanship will have a tremendous impact on regional politics where in the coming years economic and political competition is only expected to increase.

(Kabir Taneja is Deputy Director and Fellow, Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

Jerusalem:

Israel is set to release 183 prisoners on Saturday in the fourth hostage-prisoner exchange under the Gaza ceasefire deal, a Palestinian advocacy group said, more than doubling the previous reported figure.

“The updated number of prisoners to be released tomorrow is 183,” said Palestinian Prisoners’ Club spokeswoman Amani Sarahneh on Friday, after previously announcing that 90 prisoners would be released from Israeli jails.

The advocacy group published two separate lists of names due for release on Saturday. The first comprised 72 prisoners arrested before Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

A second list of inmates to be freed contained 111 names of Gazans detained after the attack that sparked the war in the Palestinian territory.

Since the truce took effect on January 19, Gaza militants have released 15 hostages after holding them in captivity for over 15 months.

The three hostages to be freed Saturday are Yarden Bibas, Keith Siegel, who also holds US citizenship, and Ofer Kalderon, who also has French nationality, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group.

Since the ceasefire began, Israel has freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them women and minors.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)