Lebanon’s Environmental Defenders Say Israel Is Deliberately Targeting Them

Israel has decimated Lebanon’s land — and is also slaughtering the people who protect it.

By Alessandra Bergamin , 

Truthout

September 29, 2026

Green Southerners volunteer and environmental defender Oussama Farhat was killed in an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon on May 1, 2025. In the months leading to his death, he had helped document and verify Israeli white phosphorus strikes on his home region.

Oussama Farhat / Green Southerners


In late April 2025, after 41-year-old farmer Oussama Farhat was discharged from the hospital, two pieces of shrapnel still lodged in his body, he hurried to check on an injured red fox. In his southern Lebanon village of Meiss el-Jabal, Farhat, a volunteer with the environmental organization Green Southerners, had helped rescue the cub from beneath the rubble of ongoing Israeli air strikes — the same kind that has decimated southern Lebanon and its people for the past three years. Now, the young fox was curled atop a starry blanket, its outstretched leg wrapped in a blue bandage.

In a message to Hisham Younes, the founder and president of Green Southerners, Farhat wrote that the fox cub would soon be ready for release.

Concerned, Younes replied: “Oussama, where are you?”

A member of the Lebanese Civil Defense, Farhat had been injured on April 25, 2025, after he and a fellow volunteer went to check for casualties unknowingly halfway through an Israeli double-tap strike — a tactic where an attack is followed by a second in the same location. In the days following October 7, 2023, Hezbollah, an armed group and political party formed in response to Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, launched rockets and artillery into occupied Shebaa Farms as an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Since then, Israel has continued to attack southern Lebanon near-daily, making Farhat’s village — just 700 yards from the UN-demarcated “Blue Line” that separates the two states — a hotspot.

After Farhat was discharged from the hospital, Younes implored him to go to Nabatieh, about an hour north, and rest with his family, including his elderly mother. But, says Younes, steadfast in his commitment to the south, Farhat explained that he needed to stay in Meiss el-Jabal.


Construction Companies May Be Aiding and Abetting Israel’s War Crimes in Lebanon
“This trail of destruction across southern Lebanon has rendered entire areas uninhabitable,” said an Amnesty director. 

By Shireen Akram-Boshar ,  Truthout  June 17, 2026

“Please Oussama, you need to leave,” Younes replied.

The next day, Farhat was killed.

In addition to volunteering with Green Southerners, Oussama Farhat was a member of the Lebanese Civil Defense. About a week before he was killed, Farhat was injured while checking for casualties halfway through an Israeli double-tap strike.Oussama Farhat / Green Southerners

For the past three years and over two ceasefire agreements, Israel has systematically and violently erased life from southern Lebanon, committing what many, including Lebanon’s environment minister, have deemed an ecocide. An agricultural borderland in the heart of the historic fertile crescent, Israel has transformed southern Lebanon from small-scale and subsistence farms of tobacco, olives, and goats to a landscape set ablaze by white phosphorus munitions, littered with unexploded ordnance, and poisoned by the pesticide glyphosate. In a region where around 70 percent of families rely on farming, explained Ghassan Makarem, an organizer with the Lebanese food sovereignty organization AgriMovement, Israel has used airstrikes, shelling, and the steady roar of bulldozers to destroy around a quarter of the country’s cultivated land, burning olive groves to ash, slaughtering flocks of livestock, and flattening entire villages.


“Nothing that lives has been spared … It’s all part of the genocide that’s occurring.”

“Nothing that lives has been spared,” said Makarem. “It’s all part of the genocide that’s occurring.”

Since 2023, that genocidal violence, as described by multiple outlets, has displaced more than 1 million people, killing nearly 9,000 and injuring more than 30,500, mostly in the south. Included within that figure, alongside a high number of emergency services workers, are southern Lebanon’s land and environmental defenders — displaced, disappeared, injured, and killed, because of their commitment to steward and protect the land.

As Julia Choucair Vizoso, a senior fellow at the Arab Reform Initiative and researcher for The Public Source who has written about environmental struggle and food sovereignty in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), explained, Israel has long had a policy, stretching from occupied Palestine to southern Lebanon, of attacking those who resist occupation by refusing to leave. Because of that, farmers, shepherds, fishers, and beekeepers have not only suffered as Israel destroys their livelihoods and land, but have been marked as a threat because of their very connection to it in the first place.

Among those environmental defenders is Farhat.

Six years ago, explained Younes, the farmer reached out to Green Southerners asking how best he could help local animals, especially those that were injured or sick. Farhat soon became part of the all-volunteer team, helping map bird habitats in the eastern Mediterranean flyway, documenting illegal logging, and photographing the region’s flora and fauna, including the iridescent Palestine sunbird. But shortly after Israel started bombing southern Lebanon, Farhat’s role changed.

Oussama Farhat often photographed southern Lebanon’s flora and fauna, including red foxes, golden jackals, and, as pictured, the iridescent Palestine sunbird.Oussama Farhat / Green Southerners

As a field coordinator with Green Southerners, he began documenting the frequency and impact of Israeli white phosphorus strikes, some of which have since been deemed potential war crimes. Alongside two other volunteers, Farhat photographed the white, tentacled clouds caused by the munitions, geolocated and dated the strikes, and, whenever possible, helped quell the phosphorus fires that burned hot and long — often sustaining injuries that landed him in the hospital. From October 2023 to November 2024, volunteers with Green Southerners verified some 285 attacks, many in residential areas and above agricultural land.

While Farhat’s story, much like that of slain sea turtle conservationist Mona Khalil and former Green Southerner volunteer Mohammad Skaff, who was killed in the residential town of Abbasiya in May 2026, fits a more Western idea of activism, those who tend the land of southern Lebanon without an “activist” title, said Younes, are no less environmental defenders — and no less impacted

.

Former Green Southerners volunteer Mohammad Skaff was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Abbassiyeh, Lebanon, in May 2026. Skaff has been remembered for his passion for nature, hiking, and protecting the environment — and encouraging others to do the same.Green Southerners

“In every village, the community has environmental defenders for whom it is their culture to take care of livestock, wild animals, pets, and abundant beehives,” said Younes. “It’s not just Mona or Oussama — there are thousands of casualties that go unseen.”

On July 2, 2024, farmer Muhyiddin Abu Dalla was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home in Zalloutieh shortly after he finished harvesting wheat. “The land was more important than his life,” Dalla’s brother told journalist Amal Khalil, who herself was later killed in an Israeli strike in 2026.

On November 25, 2024, 91-year-old Ali Kdouh, known locally as Abou Hussein, was killed after remaining with his herd and enduring two months of attacks on the region. He was considered the last shepherd of Nabatieh.

On February 2, 2025, fisher Mohammad Juhair was abducted by Israeli soldiers while fishing with his cousin near the southern Lebanese port of Naqoura. According to the most recent reporting, he has not been seen since.

On June 17, 2025, Mohamed Abdel Salam Nasrallah, a dedicated beekeeper, was killed in an airstrike while in the fields of his home in Houla. “I am the type of person who gives from his heart to what he loves,” Nasrallah told Reuters in 2022.


“In Lebanon, a lot of the people who are on the front lines of genocidal violence are just trying to stay on the land and keep living off the land.”

“In Lebanon, a lot of the people who are on the front lines of genocidal violence are just trying to stay on the land and keep living off the land,” Vizoso said. “These are communities at large that are threatened but kind of invisibilized globally.”

Because of this, the term environmental defender can often be an imperfect one. With origins that are more institutional and individualistic, explained Vizoso, it fails to capture the collective struggle of communities operating outside of international, nongovernmental organizations. But patterns of violence and repression against those protecting the environment, the land, and the sea are often repeated around the world, from one government, one corporation, and one paramilitary to the next.

The attacks in southern Lebanon are part of that global context.

From 2012 to 2025, some 2,375 land and environmental defenders were killed or disappeared, according to data from the human rights organization Global Witness. This figure includes well-known defenders such as Indigenous Lenca leader Berta Cáceres, who was killed in her home in Honduras, to farmers, community activists, peasants, and Indigenous peoples targeted for protecting the land from extraction and development projects including mining, logging, agribusiness, renewable energy, and even tourism.

Over the years, both Israel’s public and private sectors have played a role in these attacks, too.


Both Israel’s public and private sectors have played a role in these attacks.

In 2014, private security guards from Israel’s Golan Group were hired to “protect” a Canadian mine in Guatemala. During a demonstration against the mine, the guards shot at Indigenous protesters, injuring seven people. In Indonesia, including in occupied West Papua, the country’s police and military forces use a cellphone hacking system sold by Cellebrite, an Israeli digital intelligence company. Since 2018, seven environmental defenders, including four Indigenous West Papuans, have likely been killed by state forces.

In 2018, as former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte faced a preliminary examination into war crimes from the International Criminal Court, he publicly committed to solely purchasing weapons from Israel, given the country’s complete lack of human rights restrictions. An investigation I conducted in 2024 found evidence that between 2014 and 2024, the Philippine state was potentially involved in 109 out of 210 killings of environmental defenders recorded in the country.

But while killings and repression by governments, corporations, and paramilitary groups have been consistently documented globally for more than a decade, violence leveled against environmental and land defenders in the Middle East and North Africa is often underreported, in part because of ongoing conflict. Global Witness noted in its 2024 report that a lack of capacity and the challenges of research amid conflict have meant that many victims, including Farhat, are omitted from official tallies. The organization acknowledged, however, that this doesn’t diminish the importance of the victims’ work, the extent of violence and repression they face, or the fact that, in many instances, they have more than likely been targeted for their work.

“I believe the targeting is not secondary — it’s deliberate,” said Ghassan, with a reference to the killing of Khalil. “[The Israelis] say they have information about everyone which means they are saying they know who they’re targeting — they have already admitted it.”

Younes, too, believes Khalil, Skaff, and Farhat were targeted.

In the months before Farhat was injured while volunteering with the Civil Defense, he told Younes that he had appeared in a documentary. While Green Southerners volunteers regularly in coordinated interviews with journalists, the extent and destruction of Israeli aggression had made Younes more cautious. Since 2023, he has preferred that volunteers don’t show their faces on camera as he feared they might become targets. Then, on May 1, 2025, as Farhat drove in his pickup truck through Meiss el-Jabal, he narrowly escaped an Israeli airstrike, according to Younes. Within half an hour, as the farmer and environmental defender neared his home, a drone struck again. This time, before Farhat was even out of the car or in the house, he was killed.


“I think this is part of the policy to push the people out — threaten them, kill them. This is the easiest way, and the Israelis are professionals.”

“I think this is part of the policy to push the people out — threaten them, kill them,” said Younes. “This is the easiest way, and the Israelis are professionals.”

In a video from July 2018, Farhat filmed a golden jackal close to the village of Bint Jbeil. As it wanders through long, yellowed grass, the wolf-like animal notices Farhat and pauses, watching him as he watches back. Farhat’s caring relationship with wild animals is among his qualities Younes remembers best. In particular, he says, the time a female golden jackal, normally extremely protective, allowed Farhat to approach her pups.

“This was something really rare,” said Younes. “It was extraordinary.”

Since Farhat was killed, few Green Southerners volunteers have remained in the south and, for now, Younes has continued to encourage everyone to leave. But as the destruction continues, so, too, does the documentation. This year alone, the organization has recorded Israeli airstrikes near UNESCO World Heritage sites, nature reserves set ablaze, and multiple white phosphorus strikes, including several across the densely populated town of Nabatieh in June. While Younes acknowledges that, for now, Israel — supported by the U.S. — operates with impunity, he is optimistic that one day there may be a path for justice and accountability.

“The documents are there, the images are there, the faces of those who were killed — Mona, Mohammad, Oussama — are there, looking at you,” he said. “We hope that through documentation we are keeping the truth alive, we are keeping the collective memory of our land alive.”

“And we hope, one day, this world will wake up.”


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Alessandra Bergamin

Alessandra Bergamin is a freelance investigative journalist whose work focuses on environmental violence and human rights around the world. She most recently investigated how U.S. security assistance fuels violence against environmental defenders. She can be found on Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.

1 in 5 Children in Lebanon Facing Daily Hunger Due to Israeli Assault: UNICEF

After more than six months, 329,000 people in Lebanon remain displaced from their homes by Israel’s occupation, one-third of whom are children.


Four-year-old Ahmad looks at a phone while sitting at a table inside a one-room apartment at a makeshift refugee center at the Lebanese-German University in Tyre, Lebanon, on September 23, 2026.
(Photo by Nadezda Tavodova Tezgor/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Sep 30, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Israel’s latest assault on Lebanon is inflicting widespread hunger, death, and injury on children across the country, according to a report out Wednesday from the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Children go to bed hungry in at least one in five households, according to a survey conducted by UNICEF in July, while nearly a third are going without needed healthcare because their families are unable to afford it. Four in five households, the report says, have found it harder to afford basic necessities.


‘There Is No Ceasefire’: Israel Kills 12 More in Lebanon, Including Children

Nearly 17,000 people have been killed or injured since March. Among them are 261 children who’ve been killed and 1,056 who’ve been injured—and 12% of those injured now live with a disability.

Around 100,000 children are at risk of losing access to education. At least 436 schools have been damaged across the country, including 37 that were completely destroyed.

“Children and young people in Lebanon are being asked to bear a burden no child should have to carry,” said UNICEF Lebanon Representative Marcoluigi Corsi, who noted the report’s finding that 770,000 children have suffered psychological distress over the past six months due to repeated exposure to violence, loss, and displacement.



Lebanon was already in the midst of an economic crisis that left many families poor. But the situation has grown markedly more severe since March, when Israel launched an ongoing occupation of southern Lebanon that has displaced more than 1.1 million people and unleashed punishing airstrikes across the country, including in densely populated civilian areas.

More than 329,000 of those displaced have yet to go home, and around one-third are children. Despite a ceasefire announced in April, Israeli officials have said that those ordered to leave their homes will not be allowed to return until they deem northern Israel “safe” from attacks by the militant group Hezbollah.

Israeli forces have systematically razed dozens of villages and farms in southern Lebanon, destroying tens of thousands of homes. As Al Jazeera reported earlier this week, Israel has predominantly demolished Shia villages while telling Christian villages they’ll be spared so long as they stay neutral.

According to a June report by Amnesty International, about 6% of Lebanese territory is effectively under a “don’t come back” order from Israel with residents barred indefinitely from returning home. Amnesty said the forced displacement and prevention of return in parts of southern Lebanon constitute unlawful transfer, a war crime.

Some Israeli leaders have discussed annexing the occupied portion of Lebanon and moving in Israeli settlers.

Earlier this week, Bezalel Smotrich—the Israeli finance minister who has overseen a historic surge of violent settlement expansion in the West Bank—said that he would “very much like to annex at least… up to the Litani [River] in Lebanon,” extending the country’s border into southern Lebanon.

France to send military to protect Saudi Arabia on Red Sea oil route

France will send troops and defence systems to Saudi Arabia to help protect the Red Sea port city of Yanbu, which is key for energy transport, French President Emmanuel Macron has said in a TV interview. He also denied a report by Spanish newspaper El Mundo that the US Central Intelligence Agency had warned European governments of possible Russian drone attacks from the Mediterranean.


Issued on: 25/09/2026 - RFI

"The situation is serious", President Emmanuel Macron said in an live interview on Thursday on the international situation. © LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP

"We are going to send military resources, that is to say, soldiers, radar systems and defence systems, to protect this site – not to get us involved in any conflicts, but to protect this site," Macron told TF1 and France 2 on Thursday in a wide-ranging primetime interview on the international situation.

Crude oil prices have surged recently as the main alternative route for Saudi oil exports through Yanbu has come under missile attacks from Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis.

Facing growing pressure at home over high fuel prices, Macron sought to reassure the French people that France has adequate gas and oil supplies as winter approaches.

He said Paris was actively working to ensure flows were not disrupted.


On the subject of a 90-day US ban on diesel exports, under consideration by the White House but which Washington denies, the president said it would be "catastrophic" both globally and for the US economy.

“I think all the experts around [President Donald Trump] and all the American refiners can only tell him the same thing: 'this decision would be a bad one – not just for the rest of the world, but for the US economy as well'," he said

No CIA warning

President Macron also talked about possible Russian attacks on French soil.

He denied a report in Spanish newspaper El Mundo that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had warned European governments about the threat of potential drone attacks from the Mediterranean.

"I can deny it. The CIA did not inform French services," he said.

Macron nonetheless said Russia is multiplying its hostile and criminal acts against European countries, and France could face strikes similar to the failed attack in Leipzig airport in August, which Germany has blamed on Russia.


Growing Russian threat

Macron gathered French party chiefs at the Elysée last week to brief them on the growing threat from Russia. He later said he had ordered his government to draw up a plan to protect critical infrastructure against drone and cyber attacks.

Macron said Moscow was seeking to intimidate Europe and break the continent's resolve in supporting Ukraine.

On Monday , rance's interior minister said the hybrid warfare threat being waged by Russia is "real and documented".

Russia says European allegations of hybrid attacks are baseless and the result of anti-Russian hysteria.

Macron's position on Russia was weakened this week after France persuaded EU members to get Russian-Uzbek metals tycoon Alisher Usmanov exempted from EU sanctions, citing national security concerns.

That prompted Azerbaijan to pardon a French national jailed for espionage.

What Washington’s Defense Pledge To Saudi Arabia Means As Houthi Attacks Intensify – Analysis

SWEET FUCK ALL!


September 25, 2026
Arab News
By Gabriele Malvisi

Key Takeaways:

Gulf Research Center chair Abdulaziz Sager tells Arab News that Rubio’s Wednesday pledge to honor the Nov. 2025 U.S.–Saudi Strategic Defense Agreement will be judged on kit, operational know-how, and intel—not an automatic U.S. fight on Riyadh’s behalf.

 Coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki: six ballistic missiles toward Taif and Yanbu intercepted Thursday; Houthis claimed strikes on Jazan sites without evidence.

Sager wants planning help, timely imagery, and treating Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb as one problem. Chatham House’s Neil Quilliam calls Rubio’s line a “sop”: reassurance without promising intervention if the waterways worsen. Tests he names: a major strike on energy/civilians, or a lasting Red Sea shipping campaign. 

CENTCOM’s Adm. Cooper (May): 6,000+ drones and 1,500+ ballistic missiles intercepted since the Feb. 28 war began; an Arab News tally had GCC states taking 83% of early Iranian missiles/drones vs. 17% at Israel.

Sept. 8–19: reported hits and intercepts from energy sites to Riyadh; East–West pipeline shut Sept. 11 (Saudi blame on Iraqi militias), restart reported this week. July civilian nuclear cooperation deal is background. Quilliam: “America First” and Gulf self-help.

From the perspective of Saudi Arabia, the value of Washington’s renewed defense assurances will lie in the support they deliver as Houthi attacks intensify, according to Abdulaziz Sager, founder and chairperson of the Gulf Research Center.

“For Riyadh, that support rests on three areas: military equipment, operational expertise and intelligence,” he told Arab News.

A partnership intended to strengthen deterrence is now being tested by attacks on Saudi territory and threats to the waterways on which regional trade depends. The immediate question, Sager said, was how Washington would put its commitments into practice.

On Thursday, the Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen said Saudi air defenses had intercepted six ballistic missiles fired by the Houthis toward Taif and Yanbu. Damage or casualties were not immediately clear, Reuters reported.

“Escalations and violations by the terrorist Houthi militia will be dealt with firmly,” the coalition’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki, said.

The Houthis separately claimed, without providing evidence, that they had used missiles and drones to attack military sites in Jazan.

The latest developments followed an assurance from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday that Washington would honor its defense commitments to Saudi Arabia, and was closely monitoring the regional situation.


“We have a very strong defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, and we will live up to our commitments in that agreement,” Rubio said when asked whether President Donald Trump was prepared to take further action against the Houthis.

Rubio declined to specify what further military action Trump might take, while reiterating Washington’s commitments to Riyadh.

“The US has made commitments to them. We will live up to those commitments. We are living up to those commitments now,” he said, adding that Trump had “many options available” without specifying what they might be.

The distinction between practical defense assistance and direct US intervention is central to understanding that pledge, Sager said.

“Rubio’s remarks should be understood as a commitment to continue the defense support Saudi Arabia expects from the US, rather than a promise that American forces would fight on its behalf,” he explained.

The US-Saudi Strategic Defense Agreement, signed in November 2025, built on more than eight decades of defense cooperation. The White House described its aims as a strengthening of the partnership, and reinforced deterrence across the Middle East.

According to Sager, the immediate question was not whether Washington would honor the agreement, but how it would do so, particularly in terms of strengthening readiness and coordinating defense capabilities.

“Saudi Arabia would expect assistance with planning and identifying threats, alongside timely intelligence and satellite imagery to help it defend its territory and critical infrastructure,” he said.


“Rubio’s words offer reassurance on those practical forms of cooperation, but they leave open the question of whether Washington would take a direct military role if the crises in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea escalate.”

Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, offered a slightly different reading of the scope of Washington’s assurances.

“Rubio’s remarks were essentially a sop to Riyadh, offering reassurance without removing the ambiguity that surrounds US support for Saudi Arabia,” he told Arab News.

“He reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to the 2025 defense agreement, but avoided any promise of automatic military intervention should the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea crises intensify.”

Those questions have become more pressing as the war with Iran increasingly places Gulf states under sustained security and economic pressure, despite their efforts to contain the conflict through diplomacy.

The scale of the pressure was apparent even early in the war. An Arab News analysis published on March 26 found that Gulf Cooperation Council member states had faced 83 percent of the Iranian missile and drone attacks tallied since the conflict began on Feb. 28, compared with 17 percent directed at Israel.

The defensive response has also been substantial. Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, told Congress in May that regional missile defenses had intercepted more than 6,000 attack drones and more than 1,500 ballistic missiles targeting US and partner forces, according to reporting on a subsequent Pentagon inspector general’s review.

Houthi attacks have intensified over the past month, targeting Saudi cities and energy infrastructure. On Sept. 8, a wave of strikes wounded 73 people and caused fires that halted operations at some energy facilities, Saudi authorities said.

The following day, the Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen reported further ballistic missile and drone attacks on Abha, Khamis Mushayt and Jazan.

By Sept. 19, the escalation had reached Riyadh, with the coalition reporting it intercepted a ballistic missile aimed at the capital, and thwarted attacks on Yanbu, Taif, Baish and Farasan.

The expanding geographic reach of the attacks underscored the challenge of protecting population centers and critical infrastructure while also safeguarding the Kingdom’s Red Sea export route.

The pressure on energy infrastructure has come from more than one direction; Saudi Arabia attributed a drone attack that forced its East-West Pipeline to close on Sept. 11 to Iraqi militias. Reuters reported on Tuesday that pipeline operations had restarted, citing sources briefed on the matter.

The pipeline provides an alternative delivery route to the Red Sea for Saudi crude when passage through the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted. Protection of that route therefore requires security for both the infrastructure that carries the oil and the shipping lanes used to export it.


Rubio did not directly address media reports of requests to Trump for US intervention, but described attacks on regional energy infrastructure as “very disturbing.” His remarks came as a Houthi military adviser told news agency Agence France-Presse that the group would target US interests in the region if Washington intervened in the conflict in Yemen.

Disruption in the Strait of Hormuz and the escalation in the Red Sea have underscored how closely interconnected are the Gulf’s territorial security and economic interests. Attacks on energy facilities or shipping can affect regional revenues, international supply chains and global markets.

Sager said a key test of the US-Saudi defense agreement would be whether Washington treated Hormuz and Bab Al-Mandab as parts of the same security challenge.

“If Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia or shipping near Bab Al-Mandab intensify while Washington remains focused primarily on Hormuz, Rubio’s pledge will come under scrutiny,” he said.

Quilliam said there were several scenarios that could test the US commitment.

“The most immediate test would be a major Iranian or Houthi strike that causes substantial damage to energy infrastructure or results in significant civilian casualties,” he said.

“A second scenario would be a sustained campaign against shipping in the Red Sea that disrupts Saudi exports and impacts global energy markets.”

He suggested that Washington might act before either scenario fully materialized, although Rubio had announced no such decision.

“The US appears to be preparing for another round of escalation against Iran and may use that opportunity to intensify military operations against the Houthis,” Quilliam said.

“Rubio’s remarks may therefore have been intended to reassure Riyadh ahead of a possible expansion of US military activity in the region.”

The security debate is unfolding alongside broader bilateral collaboration. In July, Washington and Riyadh signed a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement, providing a legal foundation for US participation in Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear energy program.

That expanding relationship provides context for Rubio’s assurances, but does not in itself define at what point Washington would commit forces to another military campaign. Quilliam said any such decision would be shaped by the administration’s approach.

“We should bear in mind that the Trump administration is focused on ‘America First’ and it will only intervene if to do so serves that interest,” he added.


According to Quilliam, Gulf “decision-makers have learned over the past decade — and even more so during the current Trump administration — that US policy is now unpredictable and poorly served by an overarching strategy, and so must plan for all eventualities and take regional security into its own hands and share the burden with regional partners.”

Sager said the most immediate measure of the partnership remains the practical support available to Saudi Arabia across the connected threats it faces.

“Riyadh would expect its defense partner to recognize the links between the threats and provide timely intelligence, equipment and operational support where they are needed,” he added.

“Protecting navigation in the Gulf while leaving the Red Sea exposed would address only part of the security challenge.”

The test, then, is how assurances from Washington translate into the capabilities Sager identified — and whether those capabilities help protect Saudi territory, critical infrastructure and access to both waterways.

America’s Arsenal: While Supplies Last

American imperial overstretch is coming home to roost in Saudi Arabia.

by Nolan Denaro | Sep 25, 2026

Smoke rose over Riyadh last week as Houthi forces launched strikes on the Saudi capital, as well as on crucial oil infrastructure in major coastal cities.

It has been a disastrous month for Saudi Arabia as Houthi forces have made substantial gains along the west coast of Yemen. The Yemeni group scored massive victories in early September, capturing the port city of Mocha along with other key islands in the Red Sea. This will allow the Houthis to more effectively restrict Saudi transit through the Bab Al-Mandeb strait, dealing a severe blow to the already battered global oil market.

The problems for Saudi Arabia don’t come solely from their south, however. Militia groups in Iraq have gotten involved, and they’ve begun launching missiles from Saudi Arabia’s north. Targets have included crucial oil infrastructure, most notably the East-West Pipeline – a crucial means of getting oil trapped in the Persian Gulf across the country to the Red Sea.

Saudi Arabia is in a moment of serious peril. Pinched between militias from Yemen in the south and Iraq in the north, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has sought the assistance of President Donald Trump. MBS called Trump two times on September 10 urging him to take military action against the Houthis, a request Trump has refused thus far.

Mohammed bin Salman’s plea for help highlights a broader dynamic in his relationship with the U.S., one which places Saudi Arabia in the position of relying heavily on America for their military. This is not only true offensively for Saudi, but also defensively. Their ability to shoot down incoming missile fire is reliant on American-made defensive systems, such as Patriot interceptors. Their supply of these systems has been dramatically reduced in recent months due to the conflict in Iran.

With America being similarly low on crucial defensive systems, which are needed to protect U.S. bases, Saudi Arabia is now left unable to effectively defend key oil and military sites. Iran – which is aligned with the Yemeni and Iraqi militias in a coalition known as the Axis of Resistance – is able to watch as economic pressure builds on Saudi Arabia, and by extension the United States.

Conventional strategic thinking is being thrown into question due to this war. America’s military bases in the region have been a burden rather than an asset. They’ve served as easy targets for Iran to strike, helping them climb the escalation ladder at their own pace. The Gulf Arab nations – who were under the impression that these bases would deter Iranian attacks on their soil – are now reconsidering their close ties to the United States. The decision by these nations to become reliant on America for their defense is also being questioned. They’ve been battered by Iranian missiles and drones all throughout the conflict, and have been left largely defenseless due to the shortage of American-made interceptor systems.

America has served as the world’s arms salesman for decades. Our government has built up a long list of clients who rely on our country for their defense, as Patrick Buchanan pointed out in his book A Republic, Not an Empire. After going down a list of the many foreign entanglements Washington has roped us into, Buchanan pointed out that we have become, in effect, a global empire.

“Nothing can destroy this country except the overextension of our resources, Republican Senator Robert A. Taft once said. Indeed, it would be an understatement to describe the commitments above as an overextension of our resources. In their totality, they make the nineteenth-century British Empire look isolationist; truly, this is imperial overstretch.”

“Our situation is unsustainable. The steady expansion of global commitments, as relative national power declines, is a prescription for endless wars and eventual disaster.”

Buchanan’s decades-old assessment has been proven correct.

What has been made apparent by the shortage of defensive weapons is that we cannot maintain this posture of perpetually arming nations across the globe. Not only are we being tasked with ensuring the defense of nations in the Middle East amid the Iran war, but we also must protect our own troops – stationed at U.S. military bases – from incoming fire.

Of course, we must also supply Israel with the defensive systems necessary to strike at Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and elsewhere while enjoying protection guaranteed by the United States.

Escalation also continues in eastern Europe, as Ukraine’s provocative strikes on Moscow will undoubtedly lead to a Russian response. America will once again feel obligated to ensure Kyiv’s defense, not only by supplying them with weapons, but also intelligence assistance. In the Pacific, American weapons stationed in South Korea and Japan were relocated at the beginning of the Iran war due to the lack of defensive systems in the Middle East, further proving that American attempts to police the entire world are futile. The U.S. does not possess infinite resources.

American troops at bases across the Middle East have tragically been killed by Iranian strikes, as the military is forced to ration the remaining stockpile of defensive weapons. Just days into the war, America’s client-states in the Gulf were said to have depleted years worth of munitions. In the months of conflict that followed these dire reports, the effects of what Buchanan called “imperial overstretch” were being felt. Bases faced an onslaught of Iranian missiles and drones. Damage was so severe that many will likely not be returned to by the U.S. military. A chaotic withdrawal, of sorts.

The American regional order in the Middle East is collapsing in real time. In this period of chaos, there is the option to change course. Our leaders could realize the errors of their ways and bring the troops home.

This is not what Washington is known for, however.

My fear is that rather than acknowledge the failures of imperialism and chart a new path of restraint, the War Party will dig its heels in. The tendency of those at the helm of all failed government programs – especially war – is to blame every factor but themselves for the disaster. We often hear “if only we stayed longer,” or “we just needed more funds.” Many war hawks are more appalled at the act of leaving a war than they are at the decision to launch one unnecessarily. Take the neoconservative’s response to Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal or Trump’s attempts to leave Syria, for example.

If every crisis is met with another new foreign commitment, this cycle of imperial overstretch will never end. Eventually, something has to give. We can only hope that somebody in power can recognize that the empire is decaying, accept this reality, and guide us back to a sane foreign policy with grace.

It would be delusional and reckless of me, however, to tell you that I am hopeful. Our leaders possess no such humility.

Nolan Denaro is a political analyst, writer, and host of “The Quest For Clarity” podcast, available on YouTube and Spotify. He is a columnist at Antiwar.com, and his work has been published by Responsible Statecraft, the Libertarian Institute, The Daily Caller, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He writes on U.S. foreign policy, economics, and current events, with a particular focus on war and imperialism. He maintains a personal Substack blog, and you can follow him on X @nolandenaro. Nolan can be reached for correspondence at nolansdenaro@icloud.com.

Abbas Barred From US by Trump While Netanyahu, Wanted by ICC for War Crimes, Gets Welcome Mat

A director at Amnesty International said the US had made clear it was seeking to “punish the state of Palestine for pursuing international justice and accountability at international institutions.”


Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a news conference in Jerusalem 
(Photo by Ronen Zvulun/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Sep 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

While the Trump administration bars Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his delegation from entering the US to attend the United Nations General Assembly for the second year in a row, it is welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza by the International Criminal Court.

In November 2024, the ICC found “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu bore criminal responsibility for the use of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts, including intentionally targeting civilians.

Since October 2023, Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed at least 73,000 Palestinians, including more than 21,000 children, while reducing much of the landscape to rubble and leaving most of the population displaced. Meanwhile, Israel’s restrictions on food, water, medicine, electricity, and other essentials have created conditions of severe hunger, dehydration, the collapse of medical care, and civilian deaths.

President Donald Trump has previously assured Netanyahu that he would not be arrested while visiting New York on the basis of the ICC warrant. The US and Israel are not parties to the Rome Statute, meaning that they are not obligated to enforce the ICC’s warrant.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani examined whether his administration had the legal authority to detain Netanyahu earlier this year. Officials determined they did not, but Mamdani called on the federal government to execute the ICC warrant and said, “Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large.”

As The Jerusalem Post reported earlier this week, there has been “unusual involvement” from the US Secret Service with the prime minister’s visit next week, with more than 60 New York Police Department security officers and detectives expected to participate in his security detail.

Netanyahu is set to take the podium on Thursday, September 24, amid intense international scrutiny and condemnation of the aggressive US-Israeli war against Iran, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements across the West Bank and the explosion of settler terrorism against Palestinians, and Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon.



The US State Department has emphasized that it barred Abbas and around 80 other Palestinian officials from attending—forcing Abbas to appear at the UNGA remotely via video call—partially in response to Palestinian leaders bringing evidence of Netanyahu’s crimes before international tribunals including the ICC and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Israel has been accused of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention in Gaza.

The State Department described the use by Palestinians of international legal bodies like the ICC and ICJ as part of an effort to “internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Incidentally, around two-thirds of the weapons Israel has imported between 2021-25 have been from the US.

Erika Guevara Rosas, a senior director at Amnesty International, said on Thursday that “the State Department’s statement makes it obvious: This decision is designed to punish the state of Palestine for pursuing international justice and accountability at international institutions, including through the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).”

“This measure is part of a relentless campaign of reprisals against the very notion of international justice,” Guevara Rosas continued.

The Trump administration has also sanctioned ICC personnel over its case against Netanyahu, as well as Palestinian human rights organizations that provided evidence that assisted in the prosecution of Israeli nationals.

In July, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was launching a “whole-of-government response” intended to “systematically disable” the ICC’s ability to operate and threatened to dismantle the institution “brick by brick, if necessary.”

Guevara Rosas argued that the ban on Abbas constituted a “clear violation” of the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement, which states that the US cannot block individuals from entry simply because of poor relations with their home government.

The State Department acknowledged this explicitly on Thursday when it announced that it would allow the president and foreign minister of Iran—a nation with which the US has been at war for more than six months—into the country “consistent with our host country obligations,” though they have faced some shopping and travel restrictions.

Guevara Rosas said the Trump administration was “setting a dangerous precedent in which the US instrumentalizes its privilege as the host country of the UN to impose arbitrary restrictions on attending the UNGA, and other UN meetings.”



On Thursday, the General Assembly voted 152-3 calling on the US to reverse its decision to deny entry to the Palestinian delegation in person and allow them to participate via a pre-recorded message.

Itay Epshtain, an Israeli international humanitarian law expert who works with the Norwegian Refugee Council, argued that the UN could do much more, including voting to move part of the General Assembly to a location where the Palestinians would be allowed to participate.

“The [UNGA] decision to allow President Abbas to speak remotely is welcome,” he wrote on social media. “But precedent is more exacting: In 1988, when the US barred PLO chairperson [Yasser] Arafat, the assembly moved its Palestine debate to Geneva.”

Human Rights Group Urges Congress to Block ‘Illegal’ Sale of 2,000-Pound Bombs to Israel

“A vote to let this sale proceed is a decision to help Israel commit more war crimes.”

Crew members with the 28th Munitions Squadron warehouse 2,000-pound MK-84 bombs inside a hardened structure at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota on April 21, 2010.
(Photo by Airman 1st Class Corey Hook/United States Air Force)

Brett Wilkins
Sep 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A human rights organization called on members of Congress to block the Trump administration’s proposed $2.8 billion transfer of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, warning that approving the massive weapons package could violate US law and expose lawmakers to potential liability for complicity in war crimes.

In a letter to congressional lawmakers, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) urged legislators to introduce joint resolutions of disapproval under the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) once the administration formally notifies Congress of the sale.

“Forty thousand of the bombs that flattened Gaza is not a defense package, it is a down payment on the next round of atrocities,” DAWN executive director Omar Shakir said in a statement. “Every member of Congress now has the law and the evidence in front of them. A vote to let this sale proceed is a decision to help Israel commit more war crimes.”

The proposed package includes 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, along with 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads, according to reporting by The Washington Post. The weapons would be purchased largely through Foreign Military Financing, meaning US taxpayers would pay for Israel’s acquisition of the munitions.

The MK-84 is among the largest conventional bombs in the US arsenal. The Post reported that its blast can propel metal fragments thousands of feet, penetrate thick concrete and metal, and create large craters.

“Munitions experts [said] that US forces almost never drop bombs of this size in populated areas,” DAWN wrote in its letter. “Israel has used them hundreds of times in Gaza and Lebanon. The Biden administration paused a shipment of these bombs in May 2024 precisely because of the risk of mass casualties in Rafah; President [Donald] Trump released it within days of taking office.”

Loosened rules of engagement implemented by the Israel Defense Forces following the Hamas-led attack of October 2023, combined with the IDF’s use of artificial intelligence technology to select targets far more rapidly than humans, resulted in a staggering loss of civilian life in Gaza when 2,000- and 1,000-pound bombs were dropped.

“Israel’s assault has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 21,000 children, and the killing has not stopped,” DAWN said on Friday, adding that the United Nations Children’s Fund “said last month that at least 300 children had reportedly been killed since the October 2025 ceasefire, an average of one child every day.”

DAWN argued that the proposed transfer would violate multiple US laws, including provisions of the AECA and Foreign Assistance Act governing how American weapons may be provided and prohibiting assistance to governments engaged in consistent patterns of gross human rights violations. The organization also invoked the Leahy Laws, which prohibit certain assistance to foreign military units credibly implicated in gross human rights abuses.

The group further warned that knowingly providing weapons that are subsequently used to commit war crimes could also be “illegal” under the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although Israel and the US are not signatories to the Rome Statute, the treaty stipulates that people from nonsignatory nations who commit crimes in states that are party to the treaty—as Palestine is—can be held criminally accountable for their acts.

The ICC has issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The Hague-based court also ordered the arrest of three senior Hamas leaders; all three were extrajudicially assassinated by Israel.

The proposed sale has already encountered some congressional resistance. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced Wednesday that he would not clear the transfer, citing the absence of sufficient assurances that the weapons would be used consistently with US and international law and concerns about civilian protection in Gaza and Lebanon. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has also vowed to block the sale in the upper chamber.

However, DAWN cautioned that a congressional hold is not necessarily sufficient to stop the transfer. The organization noted that the Trump administration has previously invoked emergency authorities to bypass congressional review of arms sales to Israel.

Under the AECA, Congress can attempt to block a major arms transfer through a joint resolution of disapproval. DAWN is urging lawmakers to bring such resolutions to recorded votes in both chambers and to hold public hearings examining the administration’s use of emergency authorities to circumvent congressional oversight.

“The administration is betting that Congress will do what it always does: complain, then look away,” DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar said on Friday. “Congress should show the administration that it’s no longer the rubber stamp it long has been on arms to Israel and block this sale.”