Israel’s ‘Sabotage’ of Peace Agreement Working Again as Iran Closes Strait of Hormuz in Response to Lebanon Assault

“When will Trump impose consequences for this obstructionism?”



Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a news conference in Jerusalem on June 15, 2026.
(Photo by Ronen Zvulun/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Jun 20, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Israel’s attempts to sabotage the peace agreement between the United States and Iran appear to be working again, with its relentless attacks on Lebanon reportedly prompting Iran to once again close the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, mere days after it reopened.

“In light of the United States’ clear bad faith and breach of its commitment to implement the first clause of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) for ending the war, and in response to the continuous and ongoing violations of the ceasefire by the Zionist regime in southern Lebanon, it is hereby announced that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to maritime traffic,” said the Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters of the Iranian armed forces on Saturday.


‘Evidently Hoping to Sabotage’ US-Iran Deal, Israel Bombs Beirut

US Central Command claimed that traffic through the strait had continued, with 55 commercial ships traveling through it, though it was unclear when those crossings took place.

The announcement that the strait had once again closed came after days of escalating attacks by Israel despite the memorandum of understanding signed this week, which included terms for a ceasefire “on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”



A ceasefire mediated by the US and Qatar between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect on Friday afternoon despite continuing bombardments by Israel earlier in the day that killed 47 people and wounded 97 after Hezbollah killed four Israeli soldiers occupying Lebanese territory.

Within an hour of the agreement taking effect, Israel began carrying out additional attacks across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley that continued through the night and into Saturday. One strike, on a three-story apartment building in the town of Barish in the Tyre district, reportedly killed a mother, father, and their two children, while wounding 12 others and leaving seven trapped beneath rubble.

Israel said its continued attacks were in response to Hezbollah’s firing of projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, which Hezbollah said it launched as Israel attempted to further expand its occupation toward the strategically important Ali al-Taher hills “under the cover of the ceasefire.”

Israel’s leaders have explicitly stated in recent days that they have no intention of abiding by any ceasefire reached between the US and Iran, leading President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance to issue uncommonly blunt criticism of Israel’s tactics.

Quoting a senior Trump adviser on Friday, Zeteo reported that behind the scenes, the president is “madder at the Israelis than the Iranians,” believing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to drag him back into a war that has brought his popularity to new lows and sparked a global economic crisis.

Just as it has for months, Israel’s tried-and-true tactic of raining hell upon Lebanon every time a US-Iran ceasefire appears close seems to be working once again. The wave of attacks earlier this week led peace talks in Switzerland planned for Friday to be postponed.

As Iranian negotiators departed for Switzerland on Saturday, Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said little was likely to happen there unless there was evidence that the US would “fulfill its obligations.”

Those obligations include stopping Israel’s occupation and ethnic cleansing campaign in southern Lebanon, which has now killed more than 4,000 people, wounded nearly 12,000, and led to the forced expulsion of more than 1.2 million Lebanese civilians by Israeli forces.

“Israel is still trying to sabotage the ceasefire with Iran by continuing to launch attacks in Lebanon,” said Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “When will Trump impose consequences for this obstructionism?”




The renewed closure of the Strait of Hormuz raises the stakes considerably for the Trump administration, which has described opening it and restoring economic normalcy as a core objective, with Trump warning of “bedlam” in a matter of weeks if the deal fails and the critical oil shipping route remains closed.

James Bays, the diplomatic editor for Al Jazeera, explained that as Iranian diplomats prepare to negotiate with the US, they feel that “now is a time of maximum leverage” and that they are “using that weapon now” to try to force the US to restrain Israel.

While Trump has had no shortage of angry words and is reportedly “swearing a lot” about Netanyahu behind closed doors, Joe Kent, Trump’s former counterterrorism chief—who resigned earlier this year because of his vocal opposition to the Iran war—argued that unless the US exerts material pressure on Israel, the prime minister has no incentive to stop attacking Lebanon.

“For the MOU to hold and result in a lasting peace, we must restrict aid to Israel immediately and make it clear that we will not defend them should Iran opt to strike in response to Israel’s attacks in Lebanon,” he said. “Israel has not responded to our verbal and written demands—that is not going to change, unless we change it by taking action.”

‘Psychopath’ Ben-Gvir Slammed for Demand That ‘All Lebanon Must Burn’

Ben-Gvir’s invocation of mass slaughter came as the US is trying to negotiate an end to President Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran.


Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir speaks at the Israeli parliament on June 3, 2024 in Jerusalem.
(Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Jun 19, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir drew widespread condemnation on Friday when he declared that “all Lebanon must burn” shortly after four Israeli soldiers were killed in a fight with Hezbollah.

In a social media post, Ben-Gvir said that Israel should retaliate for the deaths of the soldiers with a scorched-earth military campaign aimed at killing large numbers of Lebanese people.

“For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep,” the far-right Israeli Cabinet member wrote. “Enough with the ping-pong. In the Middle East, you don’t win with measured responses and restraint—you need to go berserk. To obliterate. To crush the terror.”

Ben-Gvir also took a subtle shot at the Trump administration, which has called for Israel to cease its military operations in Lebanon so that the US and Iran can negotiate an end to the illegal war of choice President Donald Trump launched earlier this year.

“With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not forfeit,” he wrote. “All of Lebanon must burn.”

Ben-Gvir’s demands for mass slaughter were widely condemned as the ravings of a genocidal maniac.

“You are a psychopath and one of the greatest threats to the security of Israel and of Jewish people around the world,” journalist Yashar Ali wrote in response to Ben-Gvir. “You belong in a psychiatric institution, not in a government role.”

Humza Yousaf, former first minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, argued that Ben-Gvir’s ravings should end any question about the nature of Israel’s current government.

“For those who continue to deny Israel has any intention of committing genocide then read this tweet from a minister at the heart of the Israeli government,” Yousaf wrote. “He belongs in the Hague, convicted and in a jail cell.”

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said that Ben-Gvir’s post should make Western nations reconsider which nation is the largest obstacle to achieving peace in the Middle East.

“While regional states are intrinsically involved in efforts to bring about peace in the region,” Parsi noted, “this Israeli cabinet minister tweets that ‘All of Lebanon must burn!’ And he repeats that call twice in the post. When will the West ask the question that never gets asked: How is the rest of the region supposed to live in peace and security next to a state that behaves like this?”

British journalist Owen Jones remarked that, in calling for mass killing in Lebanon, Ben-Gvir “sounds like a Nazi.”

“If this wasn’t Israel,” Jones added, “everybody would say he sounds like a Nazi.”

Palestinians May Pay the Price for Netanyahu’s Defeat in Iran

Historically, when Israel fails to secure a strategic breakthrough on one front, it seeks compensation on another—typically where Palestinians are most vulnerable and where international scrutiny is weakest.

A Palestinian boy looks at a burnt vehicle following a reported attack by Israeli settlers in Jalud village, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on March 22, 2026.
(Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/ AFP via Getty Images)

Ramzy Baroud
Jun 19, 2026

Common Dream


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing perhaps the most precarious moment of his political career. He knows it. His allies know it. And his rivals—both within his coalition and across Israel’s political spectrum—are preparing to capitalize on his growing weakness.

Former Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon, who also served as deputy prime minister between 2007 and 2009, is among the latest Israeli political figures to join a growing chorus of criticism directed at Netanyahu.

“In the final result,” Ramon said in an interview with Radio Galey, cited by the Israeli outlet Srugim, “we did not win.” He then broke down that failure in blunt terms: “We did not win in Lebanon, we did not win in Iran, and we did not win against Hamas.”

Another prominent critic is former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot, who joined Netanyahu’s emergency war government following the events of October 7, 2023, before resigning with Benny Gantz in June 2024.

Arab and Muslim countries, along with their allies in the international community, must not wait for Israel to launch a much larger assault on the West Bank before responding.

Beyond accusing Netanyahu of failing to protect Israel on October 7, Eisenkot argues that the prime minister has effectively surrendered Israel’s political decision-making to US President Donald Trump, thereby strategically weakening Israel.

Ironically, Netanyahu’s coalition partners have often been even more opportunistic than the opposition.

Since the formation of the current coalition government on December 29, 2022—widely regarded as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history—figures such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have repeatedly used Netanyahu’s political vulnerability to expand their own influence. Whenever Netanyahu needed political support to remain in power, they demanded concessions in return.

For Israel’s far-right extremists, Netanyahu’s inability to secure decisive strategic victories has often translated into opportunities to advance their own agendas. Every setback on the battlefield became an opening for greater settlement expansion, harsher measures against Palestinians, and deeper entrenchment of extremist policies.

Unable to deliver “victory,” Netanyahu turned perpetual war into a political strategy in its own right. The result has been a genocidal war in Gaza, widespread devastation in Lebanon, and a dangerous confrontation with Iran that has repeatedly brought the region to the brink of a wider catastrophe.

For a time, this formula proved politically sustainable. Netanyahu successfully enlisted unwavering US support to keep the fires of war burning. At the same time, the failure of Europe and much of the international community to hold a wanted war criminal accountable provided him with the political space necessary to continue his bloody calculations.

Yet that formula may be nearing its limits. While this possibility may appear encouraging, it comes with a serious warning. If Netanyahu can no longer sustain the wars that have prolonged his political life for nearly three years, he may escalate where resistance is weakest: the occupied West Bank.

Regarding Iran, there is growing recognition that the current confrontation is unsustainable indefinitely and that some form of arrangement will eventually emerge. Likewise, regardless of whether Lebanon is formally included in any future agreement, Israel’s ambition of permanently occupying parts of Lebanese territory remains untenable.

Historically, when Israel fails to secure a strategic breakthrough on one front, it seeks compensation on another—typically where Palestinians are most vulnerable and where international scrutiny is weakest.

As Israeli elections approach, it is therefore reasonable to fear a further escalation of the genocide in Gaza, pushing both the death toll and the level of destruction to new heights. According to Gaza health authorities, nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire agreement was announced in October, bringing the overall death toll of Israel’s genocide in Gaza to 73,000 Palestinians.

Though Israel’s war has already failed to break Palestinian steadfastness, the broader objective remains unchanged: the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and the transformation of the strip into a space that can no longer sustain Palestinian life.

The West Bank, however, presents a different challenge.

There, Israel faces a fragmented political landscape and a Palestinian Authority that refuses to develop an effective strategy for confronting accelerating Israeli violence, ethnic cleansing, home demolitions, land confiscation, and the relentless expansion of illegal settlements.

This vulnerability has enabled Israel to move from discussing annexation to implementing it in practice. The strategy rests on two interconnected pillars: extreme violence and displacement on the one hand, and rapid settlement expansion on the other.

According to an Oxfam International study published on June 12, Israel has killed 1,244 Palestinians, including 268 children, in the occupied West Bank since 2023—more than the total number killed during the previous 17 years combined.

This bloodshed has been accompanied by large-scale displacement that has already uprooted nearly 46,000 Palestinians, many of them from refugee camps and vulnerable communities across the northern West Bank.

An Amnesty International report published on June 10 documented the full or partial displacement of at least 117 Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities between January 2023 and April 2026.

Expectedly, the violence, displacement, settlement expansion, and land seizures are not isolated developments but components of a coherent political project. In September 2025, Smotrich openly proposed the annexation of 82% of the occupied West Bank. What was once presented as a political vision is now steadily being translated into facts on the ground.

The era of Netanyahu may be nearing its end, but before this bloody political chapter closes, countless more Palestinians may be forced to bear the cost.

Arab and Muslim countries, along with their allies in the international community, must not wait for Israel to launch a much larger assault on the West Bank before responding.

The matter demands urgent attention and immediate action.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Ramzy Baroud
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books including: "These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons" (2019), "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (2010) and "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (2006). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
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Israel Hits Lebanon With Drone Strikes Hours After Trump and Iran Sign Interim Peace Deal

A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the agreement with the US would be “nullified” if the Trump administration refused to “force” Israel to end its assault on Lebanon.

A photo taken from a position in northern Israel shows Israeli Merkava tanks driving along a road past destroyed buildings in southern Lebanon on June 17, 2026.
(Photo by Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jun 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The Israeli military carried out drone strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday, just hours after the presidents of the US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding that establishes a framework for negotiations to end the war launched by the Trump administration and Israel in late February.

Lebanese media reported that “an Israeli drone dropped a munition on Beit Yahoun, injuring two people.” A separate drone strike “on a vehicle at the roundabout between Kfartebnit and Arnoun killed one person and critically wounded another,” according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

The attacks underscored the threat that Israel’s ongoing military occupation of and assault on Lebanon poses to the prospects of a final peace agreement between the US and Iran. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) that Trump signed in France late Wednesday explicitly includes Lebanon and indicates that continued Israeli attacks would violate the deal.

“The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war, by signing this MOU, declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon,” the document states.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been accused of working to sabotage diplomatic progress, has voiced defiance in response to negotiations between the US and Iran, refusing to commit to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon. Since March 2, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed around 3,800 people, including hundreds of children, according to Lebanese authorities.



Reuters reported Thursday that Israel is “holding negotiations with the US as it seeks to continue its deployment of troops in southern Lebanon.” An unnamed senior Israeli official, described as close to Netanyahu, told the news outlet that “Israel would not back down on its positions, including keeping troops deployed in the area south of Lebanon’s ⁠Litani River.”

“A second Israeli official told Reuters that the outcome of the talks would ultimately depend on whether US President Donald ⁠Trump ‘decides to force the issue’ by threatening repercussions if Israel does not abide by the interim Iran pact’s terms,” the outlet added.

Speaking during a press conference on Wednesday, Trump called Netanyahu “a very good man” and an “amazing prime minister.”

“We have a little dispute over Lebanon,” the president added. “I say, ‘You can do a little softer touch, Bibi. You don’t have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that’s from Hezbollah.’”

Esmaeil Baqaei, the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said Thursday that the MOU signed Wednesday would be “nullified” in the absence of a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and an end to military attacks.

“It is the responsibility of the US,” said Baqaei, to “force” Israel to “respect the US commitments to Iran in this document.”

Bolivian President Paz declares state of emergency over anti-government blockades

Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz declared a state of emergency on Saturday, granting broader powers to deploy the military and clear road blockades after nearly two months of protests paralysed the economy and fuelled demands for his resignation.

Issued on: 20/06/2026 
By: FRANCE 24

Bolivia's President Rodrigo Paz speaks on the day he signs an agreement with the Bolivian Workers' Confederation (COB) union after 50 days of anti-government protests, a step toward resolving a conflict that has paralyzed the country, in La Paz, Bolivia, June 19, 2026. © via Reuters

Bolivia’s crisis intensified on Saturday as ​President Rodrigo Paz declared a state of emergency, enabling wider military deployment to clear blockades and restore ​order after ‌protests brought the economy to ⁠a halt over the past 50 days.

The move came in a ‌live message to the nation just hours after ⁠Paz unveiled a deal struck on Friday with the main union, the Bolivian Workers’ ​Confederation, (COB) that aimed to ease tension.

The conflict ‌initially erupted after Paz abruptly cut long-standing fuel subsidies to shrink the deficit, amid a worsening dollar crunch ‌and talks with the International Monetary Fund.

Despite later steps to stabilize ​fuel prices and reverse unpopular land reforms, protests intensified into broader discontent, with unions demanding wage increases, ​an end to fuel and dollar shortages, and ​Paz’s resignation.

Protesting groups, many allied ​to former leftist President Evo Morales, have cut off key roads, stranding ​trucks and choking supplies of food, fuel and medicines to many areas, including La Paz.

The emergency declaration gives Paz broader constitutional tools to restore order, such ⁠as sending armed forces to clear blockades.

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)

Arendt in Bolivia and How The Right Gatekeeps Democracy

Joseph Bouchard

 June 19, 2026

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Image by Milos Hajder.

What is democracy? Few have answered this question with more needed might than German-American Jewish political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt. Writing in the immediate aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust, Arendt sought to protect humankind from ever again facing such totalitarian destruction. She argued that totalitarianism reduces human beings to abstract cogs in a machine, denying what she called the “living soul” of bodypolitik. For Arendt, the people’s will, and the demos, are fluid. As she writes in On Revolution, it is not a static document or a single day of voting; but a river that changes course according to the lived reality of citizens, however complex and sometimes naive. To freeze that river, and attempt to contain popular will through growing restrictions, is to invite tyranny into hallowed halls.

Today, in Bolivia, and in much of the region, we are witnessing the consequences of ignoring Arendt’s warning. The protests and blockades that have gripped key areas of the country for 6 weeks are not, as many elites claim, a negation of democracy. They are democracy in its most raw and vital form; the fluid will of the people pushing back against a government that has forgotten its oath.

The right, including the Paz government, the far-right in Santa Cruz, the US government, and other Latin American autocrats, have called the protesters everything from “sore losers,” “threats to the democratic order,” and even, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it, “terrorists and drug traffickers.” Maria Corina Machado, Javier Milei, Jose Antonio Kast, and others have also said the protesters were attempting a “coup” and “attacking democratic institutions and stability,” nevermind the fact that they themselves are autocrats who support right-wing coups and dictatorships. To them, voting is but a sacrosanct ritual reserved for the most deserving; anything else is anarchy against the balance.

Yet, the protests and direct action have mass support and represent a wide array of sectors, including labor unions, indigenous groups from everywhere between the Amazon and Altiplano, social sectors, mining unions, student unions, teachers’ unions, cocaleros, transport unions, and more radical leftist nationalists. They are also supported by the main two leftist political parties in opposition, and some in Paz’s own government. For the most part, these actions have remained overwhelmingly nonviolent. When violence has occurred, it has overwhelmingly come from two sources: government repression, or the far-right paramilitary groups that see the current crisis to, as El Pais put it, revive a race war.

Yet, listening to the right, you would think the country had fallen into rule by, as they call them, “violent minorities”. In their view, democracy is reduced to a transactional vote every five years. The people should simply choose between the names on a ballot, no matter how constrained or compromised those choices are, and then remain quiet until they get another chance. Accept any and all government policies. No protests, no unrest, no negotiation, no fluidity between the people and their government. Just elitist rule with a brief, ceremonial interruption for an election. If this sounds like monarchic rule, we’re not that far off.

Claure and his cohort do not understand, or perhaps pretend not to understand, that most of the blockaders actually voted for the current government, particularly the Vice-President, populist Edmand Lara. They were, put simply, forced to, having to pick between two rotten apples in the same barrel. The left was weak, divided, and systematically destroyed by the 2019 coup and subsequent insurrectionist regime. The PDC, despite its historical ties to the brutal Banzer dictatorship, portrayed itself as an inclusive, social democratic, liberal government. It promised to protect most (and even create some) social programs, defend indigenous rights, and preserve the economic gains of the previous 14 years, while providing the required stability and openness to grow the country further, outward. It promised it would not be another Tuto Quiroga, another Samuel Doria Medina, or another Carlos Mesa.

The people believed that promise, and entrusted the PDC with their sacred vote. And the minute the PDC got into government, it began governing as if there had never been a choice. No matter what, the result would be a government with deeply oligarchical and authoritarian tendencies. As if, they had voted for the PDC-ADN 1997 ticket. By the way, Tuto was the VP on that ticket, and ran against a presidential ticket headed by another Paz family member.

The reality has been a betrayal, much like when Paz’s great uncle, upon taking government under a “leftist” banner, sold out to Banzerismo and the far-right. This Paz government’s first move was to cut taxes for the rich. It bowed to Trump’s United States, reversing Bolivia’s hard-fought foreign policy. It imposed austerity, slashing subsidies for fuel and food that working families depend on to survive. It went after political opponents with a vengeance while rewarding the coup plotters of 2019 and the far-right who had been convicted on various criminal charges – many of them are back on the street today and terrorizing the protesters. In San Julian one week ago, those same forces attacked protesters with illegal weapons, with protection from the state. It dismantled the judiciary, packing the courts with loyalists. And then came the coup de grâce: the administration attempted to reclassify indigenous lands to benefit the very oligarchies that now hold Paz by the throat.

The social sectors, indigenous groups, and the rump left met the moment. “Betrayed” is a word I’ve heard already hundreds of times among them. What do you expect when a large ideological segment of the population, by most polls the largest, has no national political representation? President Paz has even gone after that. His government has gone after the only two socialist former presidents. He has jailed protest leaders. The government kidnapped a MAS senator in broad daylight, and arrested and injured journalists. Its coalition has systematically isolated any and all leftist figures, including the Vice-President, who are arguably the only people left with genuine street credibility and the ability to mediate.

This is where we are at. This government and its sheltered allies may pretend the protests are undemocratic while they and the United States try to turn this continent into a mafia empire. But the people are reminding you of this crucial Arendt lesson, which you ignore at their own peril, with their bodies on the line, that this is not how this works. Democracy is living. It’s messy, and can be a bit prepubescent sometimes, no matter your monarchical sensibilities for a beautiful, perfect, gatekept vote only for the most pious. And you will have to govern with them, not without them, no matter what you tell yourselves.

We must speak plainly about what this kind of right-wing faction actually believes. They do not believe in democracy. They believe in controlled opposition. They believe in a system where the popular will is expressed once, then locked in a vault for half a decade, during which the government can loot the treasury for their friends and family, weaponize government, dismantle indigenous protections, and crush dissent without consequence.

The rule they have forgotten, the rule that Hannah Arendt understood while staring into the abyss of totalitarianism: You rule for the people, not for the oligarchies. When you rule for the oligarchies, when you treat democracy as a sham, the vote as a chore, and protest as a crime, you bring about the destruction of the very thing you pretend is sacred. Denying people their space for political participation may lead a desperate people to resort to violence to regain its voice, creating a vicious cycle of political violence that may never be undone. The last time Arendt was ignored, the President’s great uncle had the 1952 Revolution on his hands.

Bolivian uprising

By Forrest Hylton

Published 14 June, 2026

First published at NLR Sidecar.

In power for just six months, the government of Bolivia’s centre-right president Rodrigo Paz Pereira hangs in the balance. Five weeks of siege and strikes have effectively paralysed the country. Road blockades, led by millions of mostly indigenous campesinos, surround La Paz and continue to hold across five of Bolivia’s nine departments — Santa Cruz, Oruro, Potosí, Chuquisaca and Cochabamba. Teachers are on strike alongside miners, factory workers, transport workers and the neighbourhood committees (FEJUVE) of La Paz’s sister city, El Alto. Overlooking the capital from the rim of the high plains, El Alto connects La Paz to the rest of Andean Bolivia. With over 900,000 residents – mostly migrant, working-class and indigenous — the city has been the crucible of the protests, uniting with the western highlands and highland valleys, where most of Bolivia’s 11.4 million inhabitants live.

The immediate demand of protesters is the president’s resignation. Since taking office in January, Paz has responded to Bolivia’s acute cost of living crisis and runaway inflation by cutting spending, reducing fuel subsidies and selling off state enterprises, betraying his “capitalism for all” agenda. Restoring relations with the US, he has pivoted toward Trump and prioritized mining, energy, financial and agribusiness interests. Roadblocks and protests began to spread from the beginning of May, with demonstrators calling for a halt to rule by unconstitutional decree and the proposed criminalization of social protest; no privatization of state enterprises such as electricity and water, nor rate hikes; no IMF-backed loans and structural adjustment programmes – a campaign promise that Paz has walked back; the provision of fuel that does not damage vehicles (as opposed to the “garbage gas” the government has supplied to cover shortages) and re-payment for vehicle repairs; fuel and bread subsidies and control of prices for basic foodstuffs; and no new laws that sign away mineral and land rights in backdoor deals with foreign governments and multinationals.

Transport workers remain on indefinite strike in La Paz, prompted by chronic fuel shortages. Neither buses, minibuses nor taxis are running in the capital, which is divided by roadblocks separating the north and city centre from the affluent zona sur. Those who can afford fuel cannot drive far. Except for one artery opened intermittently to the sub-tropical Yungas valleys in the northeast, and another opening on 6 June by the police and military in Río Abajo in the zona sur, through which fruits and vegetables arrive, the blockade has cut La Paz off completely. Thousands of trucks are stranded on highways, with truckers sleeping in vehicles and cooking communally. Produce is scarce, and prices have spiked for the food that remains, including basics such as potatoes, flour, bread, milk and eggs. People queue for hours for fuel or chicken before it runs out. The price of ground beef is astronomical. Hospitals lack oxygen and medicines; pharmacies have trouble filling prescriptions. The National Health Fund has announced that unless the blockade is lifted, medical supplies may soon run out. Ambulances – used by past governments to transport arms and the military police — are not allowed through the roadblocks.

The most heavily blockaded areas are in the predominantly Quechua- and Aymara-speaking regions that helped secure Paz the presidency. Due in large part to the populist campaigning of Vice-President Edmand Lara — whom Paz has since marginalized — Paz won comfortably in El Alto as well as the western highlands and highland valleys. Many voters now feel betrayed. As those marching and manning the barricades see it, they put Paz in power, and the time has come to remove him. The son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora (1989–93), Paz studied at the American University in Washington, DC and his administration is staffed with establishment figures who cut their teeth in international institutions and the private sector; in contrast to his predecessors, it includes no figures from indigenous movements, peasant organizations or mining unions, and very few women. At stake in the stand-off is the meaning of “democracy”, the future of Bolivia’s pluri-ethnic state, sovereignty over land, minerals and natural resources, and the implementation of the constitution. The implications are geopolitical as much as domestic: as one union leader from Oruro put it, accusing Paz of governing for the “well-to-do classes” (las clases pudientes), “we will not be a colony of the United States”.

*

The demonstrations are organized by long-standing peasant and worker federations. The CSUTCB, founded in 1979, organizes campesinos by region — western highlands, valleys, and eastern lowlands — department, province, canton and municipalities-ayllus (towns surrounded by Andean peasant-pastoral communities) that also act as rural trade unions (sindicatos agrarios). Leaders meet with members in assemblies to discuss and determine strategy and tactics; they are beholden to the rank-and-file, expected to voice their demands and subject to recall. Resolutions taken by the executive committee are published, discussed and implemented at each territorial level. The COB, the trade union confederation founded in 1952, follows a similar organizational structure and leadership system. In its heyday in the 1950s–80s, it effectively represented civil society. Though its ranks have thinned since — largely due to privatization and de-industrialization, begun under Paz Pereira’s great-uncle, Víctor Paz Estenssoro, who served as president in the late 1980s, and continued under Jaime Paz Zamora in the early 1990s — it remains a powerful force.

Mobilization against the present government began in January, in response to the passing of “emergency” legislation that sought to attract foreign investment by slashing regulations of key sectors of the economy and grant large-scale tax exemptions, among other unpopular measures, including the elimination of fuel subsidies. After three weeks of protest, Paz signed an agreement with the COB and CSUTCB to modify the legislation. Then in early April, Paz attempted to pass a controversial agrarian reform — Law 1720 — that would have opened indigenous and peasant land holdings to corporations. It was repealed a month later, on 13 May, after workers from the northern Amazonian departments of Beni and Pando marched on La Paz, where they were joined by the miners’ union, the FSTMB, and representatives from the CSUTCB.

In April, the CSUTCB leadership held an assembly, made resolutions, sent Paz a petition of grievances — including unfulfilled campaign promises — and gave him three weeks to respond. The COB followed suit. Led by the FSTMB, the federation helped initiate mobilizations on 1 May, alongside the Túpac Katari Confederation, the radical regional CSUTCB organization of the 20 provinces in the La Paz department. On 18 May, when tens of thousands of indigenous peasant trade unionists marched together with miners from Oruro, Potosí and La Paz, and the regional workers’ central (COR) from El Alto and La Paz, they were met with tear gas and rubber bullets. In response, they tried to break through the police lines guarding the Palacio Quemado to force Paz’s resignation, but their numbers were insufficient. The same happened on 22 May.

After two weeks of the blockades, Paz flew ten tons of chicken from Santa Cruz to La Paz on a plane borrowed from Argentine President Javier Milei; the following week 70 cisterns of gas were successfully brought down from El Alto. Peruvian, Chilean and Brazilian governments have also offered to fly in “humanitarian aid” — food, fuel, medicine — to La Paz, Santa Cruz and especially Beni, whose governor has declared a humanitarian emergency. (Such largesse has not been forthcoming for Cuba, suffering under US blockade.) On 20 May, Paz announced he would not resign, nor engage in dialogue with demonstrators until they demobilize, claiming that “blockades equal death”. He instead promised a cabinet reshuffle, volunteered to cut his salary and that of his ministers, and proposed an “Economic and Social Council” with which to socialize — through monthly meetings — the reforms he plans to implement, incorporating “all sectors” into his government.

Meanwhile, on 25 May, Paz’s cousin, Minister of Public Works Mauricio Zamora, headed a “humanitarian mission” led by the military and police — ostensibly designed to open the road between La Paz and Oruro to let oxygen, medicine and food through. During the operation Víctor Cruz Quispe, a twenty-four-year-old father of two, and Aymara community member from a small town south of La Paz, was shot and killed. The government initially denied the death had occurred; later, police issued a report saying it was likely due to friendly fire. Demonstrators occupied the centre of La Paz, descending in column after column from El Alto, and up through the zona sur from Río Abajo and Chasquipampa in their tens of thousands, reiterating the call for Paz to resign, and demanding justice for Cruz Quispe’s widow and children. They surrounded the Palacio Quemado, though didn’t attempt to storm it.

In response, police conducted raids on the residences and hostels of social movement leaders, especially in El Alto, despite Vice-President Lara’s request that they be called off. The freeing of prisoners and the lifting of arrest warrants has become another principal demand of protesters; nearly 500 are currently being detained according to the CSUTCB leadership. The media reports that at least four protesters have died, one in clashes, along with eight others who died because the roadblocks prevented them from receiving medical attention. At least fourteen police have been injured in the confrontations; we do not have a clear picture of how many demonstrators have been injured.

Paz has insisted that he is not planning to privatize state enterprises or impose structural adjustment in exchange for IMF loans. But this has fallen on deaf ears. So far, co-operative miners from Oruro, Potosí and La Paz are the only group to call off the mobilization. When representatives from the highland Quechua-Aymara migrants’ association in the Yungas met with Paz on 26 May, the rank-and-file called an assembly, rejecting their authority, and imposed a blockade.

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For the Paz administration, this mobilization has stark precedents. In 2003 and 2005, two consecutive presidents were brought down when, after decades of neoliberal restructuring, popular insurrections immobilized the country. Then as now, the leading protagonists were the FEJUVE-El Alto neighbourhood associations, the COB, and especially the CSUTCB. In 2003 the chief demands were the resignation of President Sánchez de Lozada; abrogation of a law criminalizing social protest; a halt to the proposed export of Bolivian gas through Chile; repeal of the 1996 Hydrocarbons Law to facilitate re-nationalization; no participation in the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement; and a constituent assembly. Responding with militarization and state terror, leaving 67 dead, Sánchez de Lozada then fled to the US, leaving vice-president Carlos Mesa as interim president. “If I don’t follow through, you can kick me out”, Mesa promised. In 2005, the popular sectors did just that — through insurrection.

Evo Morales came to power in the aftermath of these uprisings. Leader of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), an alliance of unions and social movements formed in 1997, Morales was the first president in Bolivia’s history to identify as indigenous. He won 54 per cent of the vote in 2006 — the first time any candidate had achieved an absolute majority — on promises to nationalize Bolivian gas and prevent Washington-backed coca eradication. His tenure brought unprecedented political stability and economic prosperity until 2014–15, when the collapse of gas export prices led to an economic downturn. After losing a referendum in 2016 on a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to stand for a fourth term, Morales ran anyway, considerably eroding his legitimacy. He won with 47 per cent of the vote, but that was not enough for the Organization of American States (OAS), the US or the anti-MAS bloc, initially led by the middle class in La Paz and other cities, later by the far right in the eastern lowlands. In 2019, a coup based on fake claims of electoral fraud forced Morales into exile and brought to power a far-right government led by President Jeanine Añez — a previously unknown senator from Beni, who until recently was in jail, awaiting trial for sanctioning massacres of dozens of unarmed, mostly indigenous demonstrators at Senkata in El Alto and Sacaba in Cochabamba in 2019, carried out under a State of Exception.

Morales’s influence has waned since 2019, now extending little beyond the Chapare and the coca growers’ trade union federation in the tropical lowlands of Cochabamba. But the 2020 election saw another MAS victory, bringing Morales’s former finance minister Luis Arce to power and enabling Morales to return to Bolivia. Relations quickly deteriorated, however, dividing the party between arcistas and evistas, with disastrous results. Morales ejected Arce from the party in 2023, while Arce tried using the constitution to prevent Morales from returning to power. An arrest warrant for Morales on charges of alleged rape and human trafficking saw him retreat to the tropics of Cochabamba, where he is guarded by supporters. Bolivia’s economic travails continued under Arce, intensified by a pandemic-induced recession. There was another coup attempt in 2024, allegedly orchestrated by Arce himself in a desperate attempt to bolster popular support – a rumour enthusiastically promoted by Morales and his supporters. The furore further eroded MAS’s legitimacy, which, after two decades in power, went on to lose every one of its senate seats in the 2025 election. The “little war” between Morales and Arce paved the way for a presidential run-off between the centre-right, represented by the Paz-Lara ticket, and the far right, led by the pro-Trump and pro-IMF former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga. In the wake of Paz’s victory, Arce was arrested on corruption charges.

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Broad sectors of the urban population have lined up behind Paz, as have the eastern regions which saw massive counter-mobilizations in 2003–2005. As in 2019, civic committees in La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro, Chuquisaca, Tarija and Potosí, led by the local Chambers of Commerce, as well as real estate and construction interests, mayors, city councillors and local businesspeople, are on the march. Class, ethnic and demographic gulfs separate these counter-demonstrators from the millions of peasants and workers leading the siege. There is often a racist edge to these mobilizations, in part because of the leadership of Santa Cruz, where anti-indigenous racism is central to the regionalist (“camba”) identity of entrepreneurial economic leadership, “development” and “progress”. The 1781 siege of La Paz, led by Aymara leader Túpac Katari, continues to haunt the imaginations of property-holding and even working-class citizens, who regard themselves as defending the nation from what they see as the violent, irrational hordes of the indigenous peasantry.

The Paz administration and the corporate media have attempted to stigmatize the uprising by associating it with Morales, and allege that they are being funded by narco-traffic and terrorists. Isolated incidents of violence have also been amplified to discredit the movement. On 18 May, anti-government protesters removed wooden doors and rows of chairs from an office building to build barricades in the streets below the Plaza Murillo. Footage circulated on social media; talking heads, in line with the official script, emphasized vandalism and violence. Two men who beat a police officer were arrested, sentenced and jailed. The following night, in the prosperous zona sur of La Paz, baseless rumours circulated that “Indians” from Río Abajo and Chaskipampa were coming to loot and steal (rape and murder were implicit). The same rumours circulated in 2019 and 2003. But then as now, the exceptions prove the rule: the mobilizations are highly disciplined and tightly controlled. The occupation of the capital on 25 May took place with few incidents; the same was true of the women-led “empty pots” march — designed to dramatize the dire economic conditions — the following day.

Calls for Paz to impose a State of Exception have come from Quiroga, Paz’s opponent in the 2025 election, and Stello Cochamanidis, head of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee, who has demanded a “firm hand” in ending the rebellion, which the new commander of the armed forces duly promised. These are boosted by the corporate media. On 26 May, the lower house abrogated law 1341, passed in 2020 to set limits on the executive’s State of Exception decrees and the army’s use of lethal force. At a meeting of his Economic and Social Council — at which all relevant social movement leaders were absent — Paz warned he would impose “constitutional order” through force if the blockade did not end. On 3 June, the Minister of Defence and Minister of Education resigned without explanation, amid speculation that the US was trying to force a declaration of martial law. On 8 June, following approval by the Plurinational Assembly, Paz signed legislation that prepares the ground for a State of Exception, which would suspend constitutional rights and empower the military to clear the blockades; demonstrators say they will respond with civil disobedience and resistance to defend the future of their children and grandchildren. They are prepared to die if necessary.

There are signs of escalation. On 7 June, a joint military-police operation on Saturday to unblock the roads in San Julián, Santa Cruz, employed members of the fascist Cochabamba Youth Union on motorbikes; one policeman received a bullet wound to the head (most likely by friendly fire), six were injured, along with thirty civilians. The police were ultimately forced to retreat. That same day, national union leaders from the mining, manufacturing, construction and education sectors were kidnapped in El Alto by masked agents in civilian clothes and taken to the anti-narcotics police headquarters. On 10 June, Vicente Salazar, head of the CSUTCB’s Túpac Katari Confederation, was apprehended in the city centre of La Paz; his whereabouts could not be immediately verified.

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While the insurrections of two decades ago occurred during the first wave of the pink tide, today strong headwinds are blowing from the far right. A statement issued by Argentina’s Foreign Ministry, signed by Chile, Paraguay, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador and Peru, condemned efforts to destabilize “the democratic order” — which is to say, militarized neoliberalism under US leadership. On 21 May, the Shield of the Americas, the new military coalition convened by Trump, also issued a rebuke of the protesters. Paz also has the support of the World Bank, the IMF and the OAS (reprising the role it played in abetting the 2019 coup). Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau has condemned the mobilization as an “ongoing coup d’état’, while Marco Rubio has insisted that “we will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere”. On 4 June, after a call with Paz, Rubio announced that the US was ramping up emergency assistance to help with food and medical ​shortages. Pete Hegseth’s message to demonstrators: “We’re watching you.”

The US has returned to Bolivia with a vengeance. The DEA and CIA are back in Morales’s home region of the Chapare, having been expelled in 2008–9. In March, with Paz’s blessing, the US captured the Uruguayan narco-trafficker Sebastián Marset in Santa Cruz and extradited him to the US. Yet the relation of the administration to narcotics is murky, to say the least. In late November, Laura Rojas, a former congressional deputy and close associate of Paz’s, flew into Santa Cruz from Los Angeles in a private jet with 32 suitcases containing cash. Confiscated by customs, the cases subsequently “disappeared” from a warehouse subcontracted to store them. The warehouse is linked to a major narcotics bust (Rojas is currently awaiting trial). Protesters allege that US and Bolivian governments’ attempts to link them to drug money are part of the cover-up of the nexus between the government, the DEA and narco-traffickers. Stranger things have happened.

An outlier is Colombia. President Gustavo Petro has voiced his support for the rights of demonstrators, referring to the protests as “a popular insurrection” and insisting they were defending “Latin American dignity”. Paz’s government claimed Petro’s comments amounted to an “attack on democracy” and expelled the Colombian ambassador. Yet Petro is soon to leave office, and his putative successor, Iván Cepeda, recently finished second in the first round of the general election, behind the far-right mafia lawyer and populist, Abelardo de la Espriella. Sadly, a similar show of solidarity has not been forthcoming from Brazil, where Lula da Silva has stuck to the official line by calling for an end to blockades and for negotiations (meanwhile offering to hand over Brazil’s rare earth minerals to Trump in alliance with one of Brazil’s most reactionary governors). Mexico has long defended national sovereignty, including Cuba’s, but is facing threats to its own — most recently Trump’s extradition of two governors in the ruling Morena party.

Yet time appears to be running out for Paz. Some of his support in the urban middle class has begun to erode; ditto on the far right. Two politicians from Paz’s Christian Democratic Party went on hunger strike on 28 May, demanding Paz find a solution; on the same day he failed to show up for a meeting with the Santa Cruz Civic Committee, which demands a “National Salvation Plan”. Morales has called for elections in 90 days — a proposal deemed “seditious” by José Luis Lupo, the Minister of the Presidency. Others demand constitutional succession, along the lines of 2003 and 2005. Vice-President Lara would become interim president, and, presumably, call new elections. Quiroga and his rival on the centre-right, Samuel Doria Medina, would be the likely winners in that scenario. Paz surely remembers Lozada’s ignominious departure to the US in 2003; leaders such as Severo Marca of the peasant confederation CSUTCB have issued warnings to Paz to resign while there’s still time to avoid a similar fate.

In the previous uprisings, Morales and MAS helped broker the accords that led to constitutional succession, calculating — correctly — that Morales’s turn would come next. But with MAS widely unpopular, even among many of the demonstrators, and arrest warrants out for Morales, this is unlikely to be an option now. Other mediating institutions — namely, the Catholic Church, the Ombudsman’s Office and the Permanent Human Rights Assembly — have been either missing in action or ineffective. Discredited by the events of 2019, they are husks of what they were in 2003–2005. Vice-President Lara has attempted to play a mediating role, inviting Paz to a meeting with representatives from the Plurinational Assembly on 9 June, but was stood up, and denounced by other members of the government as “seditious” for his contact with movement leaders.

A path out of the impasse remains unclear. Monday saw the largest march since the uprising began, with peasants from northern Potosí, Oruro and Cochabamba descending on La Paz from El Alto along with tens of thousands of others to the sound of pututus (bulls’ horns). What is certain, in the words of the demonstrators, is “fusil, metralla, el pueblo no se calla!”: “Rifle, machine gun, the people will not be silenced!”