Türkiye and the Levant

The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen stated she would push to sanction "extremist" Israeli ministers and curb trade ties over Gaza, as she warned famine should not be used as a "weapon of war". Addressing the European Parliament on 10 September in the annual State of the Union, von der Leyen lamented that divisions among member states were holding back a European response but insisted the European Commission "will do all that it can on its own". "What is happening in Gaza has shaken the conscience of the world. People killed while begging for food. Mothers holding lifeless babies. These images are simply catastrophic," von der Leyen said. The German politician said the Commission would put its bilateral support to Israel on hold, stopping all payments, but without affecting work with civil society groups and Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab made history at the Venice Film Festival, continuing the rise of Palestinian cinema on the world stage, writes William Mullally, Arts & Culture Editor of the UAE newspaper, The National. The Oscar-nominated Tunisian director's latest effort received a record-setting 24-minute standing ovation on Wednesday (3 September), before winning the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize on Saturday (8 September). The film, which The National's review said “will break you”, reconstructs the death of five-year-old Palestinian Hind Rajab, who was killed in Gaza city last January alongside four cousins, her aunt and uncle, and two paramedics who attempted to rescue her after the family's car came under fire from Israeli forces. Hind was trapped for hours in the vehicle while on the phone with the Palestinian Red Cross. When paramedics finally reached her, both she and the rescuers were dead. Reports later concluded an Israeli tank had likely fired more than 300 bullets into the vehicle. Hind's voice recording from the call is used in the film. Shooting the project over three weeks in Tunisia last November with Palestinian performers, Ben Hania first went to Hind's mother to seek permission to use the voice recording rather than dramatise it, she tells The National. “Hind’s mother told me something about the voice of her daughter: 'It should be heard, and not be forgotten,'” she recalls. While critics have questioned the ethics of using the girl’s plight for dramatic purposes, with Variety accusing Ben Hania of “tear-jerker tactics”, the filmmaker makes no apologies for using Hind’s own voice, rather than that of an actress. “The voice of this little girl can make people uncomfortable. I can totally understand it, and that’s why I’m doing this movie. I’m not doing this movie to make people comfortable because Gazans are not having a comfortable life,” she says. The movie has garnered international attention to a level that few productions reach, with major Hollywood figures getting behind the project to amplify its message.   Both Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, who signed on to the film as producers after the fact to help boost its reach, along with several other major names, walked the red carpet with the filmmaking team, holding up a photo of Hind as cameras flashed. As Ben Hania said in her acceptance speech on Saturday: “We all believe in the force of cinema. It is what gathers us here tonight, and what gives us the courage to tell stories that might otherwise be buried.” The film is not the only Palestinian effort to garner international attention of late, as Israel's aggression in Gaza continues to turn the eyes of the world to Palestinian stories. this week, as 1,300 major names in the film community worldwide, including Mark Ruffalo, Olivia Colman and Josh O'Connor, are making permanent pledges to boycott working with Israeli film institutions that are “complicit in genocide”. Palestinian cinema has reached one major milestone after another, and as support grows, that streak should continue long into the future.

The Trump administration will no longer grant visas to Palestinian passport holders wishing to visit the United States, according to a report in The New York Times citing multiple sources within the administration. While there has been no official confirmation yet, if true, this decision represents a significant extension of an earlier announcement to bar a group of Palestinians, including the President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, from attending the UN General Assembly in New York.

The Latin and Greek Orthodox Patriarchs of Jerusalem released a joint appeal for peace in Gaza on Tuesday, August 26, after their visit to the territory, saying there is no reason to justify “the deliberate and forcible mass displacement of civilians.” On Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV joined his voice to theirs : “Today I renew a strong appeal both to the parties involved and to the international community, that an end be put to the conflict in the Holy Land, which has caused so much terror, destruction, and death,” said the Pope. He also called for the safe entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the protection of civilians. “I appeal for all hostages to be freed, a permanent ceasefire to be reached, the safe entry of humanitarian aid to be facilitated, and humanitarian law to be fully respected—especially the obligation to protect civilians and the prohibitions against collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations,” he added. After the Israeli government announced its security cabinet approved a plan to take control of Gaza City, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem have issued a joint statement, with the first line taken from Proverbs 12:28: “In the path of righteousness there is life, and in its pathway there is no death.”

For decades, Russia has stood at the centre of the South Caucasus’ security order. No peace deal, no war settlement, no major infrastructure project could be imagined without Moscow’s involvement. Yet this year, for the first time in Azerbaijan’s modern history, that assumption has been openly challenged. A series of diplomatic clashes between Baku and Moscow, followed last week by the U.S.-mediated summit in Washington, show that Azerbaijan is willing to confront Russia more directly than ever before, and that the South Caucasus may now be shifting away from Moscow at an accelerated pace.

Israel’s far-right finance minister announced approval of contentious new settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday 14 August, which Palestinians and rights groups worry will scuttle plans for a future Palestinian state by effectively cutting the West Bank into two separate parts. The announcement, reported by international agencies, comes as many countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, said they would recognise a Palestinian state in September. “This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich during a ceremony on Thursday.