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Writings and correspondence from jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti will be collected in a new book due out later this year, with his family expressing hope yesterday that it would give a new audience insight into his mindset.”Unbroken: In Pursuit of Freedom for Palestine” will be published in November and feature “private letters to his family, letters to public figures, press interviews, public statements, important historical documents” and personal photos, according to publisher Penguin Random House’s Vintage division.It will also include excerpts from his previous book, 2011’s “1000 Days in Solitary Confinement”, which was previously only available in Arabic, Vintage said.Sometimes called the “Mandela of Palestine” by his supporters, Marwan Barghouti, 66, was one of the leaders of the second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s, and is often cited as a possible successor to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.In June 2004, an Israeli court sentenced him to five life sentences after finding him guilty of involvement in four attacks.”We just want to raise the awareness about who he is, why is he important for the Palestinian cause,” Arab Barghouti, who lives in the occupied West Bank, told AFP. “These are his writings so everyone can have access to them.”He added that his mother Fadwa, who has campaigned for her husband’s release over the years and wrote the book’s introduction, also hoped the publication would broaden the reach of Marwan Barghouti’s thoughts.”She really wishes that people can hear from him and see what he thinks and see his writings, especially his grandchildren,” Arab said.The book’s publication will come roughly a year after his family and supporters launched a new campaign to secure Barghouti’s release, after his imprisonment caught US President Donald Trump’s attention.In an interview with Time magazine in October 2025 — shortly after a US-brokered ceasefire went into effect in Gaza — Trump was asked if he thought Barghouti, as a potentially unifying Palestinian leader, should be released from prison.Trump responded that he had previously been approached with that question and would be “making a decision” on the matter, but did not elaborate.Though Arab Barghouti has not been allowed to speak to his father in three years, he said the elder Barghouti represents Palestinian unity and the best chance for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. Source link
File photo shows displaced Sudanese people who left El-Fasher after its fall, sitting in the shade in Tawila amid the remains of a fire that broke…
he African Union (AU) holds its annual summit in Ethiopia this weekend at a time of genocide, myriad insurgencies and coups stretching from one end of the continent to the other, for which it has few answers.The AU, formed in 2002, has 55 member states who are often on opposing sides of conflicts. They have routinely blocked attempts to hand real enforcement power to the AU that could constrain their action, leaving it under-funded and under-equipped.It has missed successive deadlines to make itself self-funding — in 2020 and 2025. Today, it still relies for 64% of its annual budget on the US and European Union, who are cutting back support.Its chairman, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, is reduced to expressing “deep concern” over the continent’s endless crises — from wars in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo to insurgencies across the Sahel — but with limited scope to act.”At a time when the AU is needed the most, it is arguably at its weakest since it was inaugurated,” said the International Crisis Group (ICG) in a recent report.With 10 military coups in Africa since 2020, the AU has been forced to ignore the rule in its charter that coup-leaders must not stand for elections. Gabon and Guinea, suspended after their coups, were reinstated this past year despite breaking that rule.Meanwhile, there has been no “deep concern” over a string of elections marred by rigging and extreme violence.Youssouf was quick to congratulate Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan after she won 98% in a vote in October in which all leading opponents were barred or jailed and thousands of protesters were killed by security forces.The AU praised the “openness” of an election in Burundi in June described by Human Rights Watch as “dominated by repression (and) censorship”.The problem, said Benjamin Auge, of the French Institute of International Relations, is that few African leaders care about how they are viewed abroad as they did in the early days after independence.”There are no longer many presidents with pan-African ambitions,” he saidP.”Most of the continent’s leaders are only interested in their internal problems. They certainly don’t want the AU to interfere in domestic matters,” he added.AU representatives point out that its work stretches far beyond conflict, with bodies doing valuable work on health, development, trade and much more.Spokesman Nuur Mohamud Sheekh told AFP that its peace efforts went unnoticed because they were measured in conflicts that were prevented.”The AU has helped de-escalate political tensions and support dialogue before situations descend into violence,” he said, citing the work done to prevent war between Sudan and South Sudan over the flashpoint region of Abyei.But African states show little interest in building up an organisation that might constrain them.Power remains instead with the AU Assembly, made up of individual heads of state, including the three longest-ruling non-royals in the world: Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea (46 years), Paul Biya of Cameroon (44) and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (40).”The African Union is weak because its members want it that way,” wrote two academics for The Conversation last year.This weekend, the rotating presidency of the AU assembly passes to Burundi’s President Evariste Ndayishimiye, fresh from his party’s 97% election victory.Coups, conflicts and rights abuses may get discussed, but the main theme is water sanitation. Source link
Escalating settler attacks have forced seven Palestinian families to dismantle their homes and leave the Al Mitah community in the northern Jordan Valley.According to Mahdi Daraghmeh, head of the al-Malih Village Council, the families began evacuating after a recent surge in harassment and violence. The previous night, settlers reportedly burned uninhabited tents belonging to families who had already been displaced from the same area. The northern Jordan Valley has witnessed increasing daily attacks by settlers, including assaults on homes, intimidation of residents, and attacks on shepherds and their livestock. The Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission reported that 1,872 attacks were carried out in January, including 1,404 by Israeli forces and 468 by settlers. The highest number of incidents occurred in Hebron, followed by Ramallah and al-Bireh, Nablus, and Jerusalem. Source link
Three Palestinians were injured Wednesday in a settler attack east of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, according to WAFA citing security sources. A group of settlers stormed the Al Malha area and assaulted residents. Israeli forces also entered Za’tara, east of Bethlehem, deploying in different neighborhoods without reported arrests. In southern Nablus, Israeli forces stormed Aqraba, triggering clashes during which tear gas was fired at residents. Cities, towns, and camps across the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem continue to witness daily raids, confrontations, arrests, and the use of live ammunition, rubber bullets, and tear gas against Palestinians. Source link
The death toll from the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has risen to 72,049 martyrs in addition to 171,691 wounded since the start of the offensive on October 7, 2023.Medical sources reported today that four martyrs, whose bodies were recovered, and five wounded individuals arrived at Gaza Strip hospitals in the past 24 hours, while multiple victims remain trapped under rubble and in the streets, as rescue and ambulance crews have been unable to reach them.The same sources indicated that the total number of martyrs since the ceasefire on October 11 has risen to 591, and the total number of wounded to 1,583, while 724 bodies have been recovered. Source link
Chairman of the Jordanian Joint Chiefs of Staff, Major General Yousef Ahmed Al Huneiti, on Wednesday held talks with a delegation from the US National Defense University, headed by retired Admiral Kurt Tidd, who is visiting the capital, Amman.The discussions explored ways to enhance cooperation in training and strategic education, in addition to a number of issues of mutual interest.During the meeting, the Jordanian Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff underscored the importance of exchanging expertise and knowledge in military and academic fields. He highlighted the Jordan Armed Forces’ commitment to drawing on leading international experiences in strategic planning, crisis management, and national security, in a manner that strengthens the capabilities of its personnel and their ability to address various challenges. Related Story Source link
Iran’s Secretary of the National Security Council, Ali Larijani meets with Sultan of Oman, Haitham bin Tariq al-Said, in Muscat, Tuesday. Iran’s top security official met the Sultan of Oman in Muscat Tuesday, days after a first round of talks there between officials from Washington and Tehran last Friday. Ali Larijani, who heads the Supreme National Security Council, and Sultan Haitham bin Tariq “discussed the latest developments in the Iranian-American negotiations”, the official Oman News Agency said. Larijani also met Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who mediated Friday’s indirect talks between US and Iranian officials, according to photos shared on Larijani’s official Telegram channel. Larijani and Sultan Haitham also explored “ways to reach a balanced and just agreement between the two sides, and emphasised the importance of returning to the table of dialogue and negotiation”. While in Muscat, Larijani warned against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intervening in the talks, according to a post on X. He urged the US to “remain alert” to what he described as Israel’s destructive role ahead of Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, it said. During his trip to Muscat, Larijani also met Mohammed Abdulsalam, the spokesperson for Yemen’s Houthi fighters. Larijani will head to Qatar next, according to Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei. The trip comes after Iran and the US resumed negotiations in Oman on Friday for the first time since the 12-day Iran-Israel war last June, which was briefly joined by the US military. Related Story Source link
Lebanese truck drivers block the road on the Lebanese side of the Masnaa border crossing in protest against Syria’s decision to ban non-Syrian trucks from entering…
Palestinians displaced during the two-year Israeli offensive, shelter at a tent camp in Gaza City, February 9, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa Israeli forces killed four fighters in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday after they emerged from an underground tunnel and opened fire on troops, Israel’s military said. It described the attack on Israeli troops as a violation of the US-brokered ceasefire with the Palestinian Hamas group that went into force in Gaza last October and said it views it with the “utmost gravity.” Israel has responded to similar incidents in recent months by carrying out air strikes across the enclave in which dozens of people have been killed.There was no immediate comment from Hamas, but some sources close to the group identified one of those killed as Anas Annashar, the son of a former senior Hamas politician. Dozens of Hamas fighters have been trapped in tunnels under Rafah since the ceasefire, and some have since been killed in clashes with Israeli forces.In a separate incident, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian farmer in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, according to local health authorities. Israel did not immediately comment on the incident. Violence has repeatedly shaken the ceasefire and the two sides have traded blame over truce violations as Washington presses them to proceed to the next phases of the ceasefire deal, meant to end the conflict for good. The next phase of President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan calls for resolving complex issues such as Hamas disarmament, which the group has long rejected, a further Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the deployment of an international peacekeeping force. The Gaza health ministry said at least 580 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire since the October ceasefire deal was agreed. Israel says four soldiers had been killed by fighters in Gaza over the same period. The Gaza war started with the October 2023 Hamas storming of southern Israel. The death toll in Gaza now stands at over 71,000, according to Palestinian health ministry data. Source link