Arab Center Washington DC

Drone warfare in South-West Asia and North Africa has expanded dramatically in recent years. For many belligerents, drones have become the weapon of choice, not only because they are relatively inexpensive, hit targets with precision, and can terrorize troops and civilians, but also because they can shift power dynamics, giving the weaker party the ability to outlast the stronger one.

I. Legislative Branch 1) Legislation House Resolution Condemns Hezbollah. On June 23, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced H.Res.1379, condemning Hezbollah for “its repeated violations of ceasefire agreements” and calling on the Lebanese government to ensure that the group immediately ceases all attacks and disarms in accordance with the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Senate Approves One Iran War Powers Resolution, Rejects Another After Trump Pressure.

On 26 June, the United States announced that a “trilateral framework” had been agreed between Lebanon and Israel – with US support, redefining the nature of the conflict between them.1 This followed five rounds of US-sponsored direct negotiations since 14 April.

The war in Sudan, which began in April 2023, has entered its fourth year and remains the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis. The conflict has forced some 14 million people from their homes, including nine million displaced internally and an estimated 4.4 million who have crossed into neighboring countries. Egypt is the single largest recipient of people fleeing Sudan, with around 1.5 million new arrivals since the conflict began.

When President Donald Trump, in close partnership with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attacked Iran on February 28, 2026, he anticipated the total capitulation of the Islamic Republic. Although the opening phase of the campaign inflicted significant damage on Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure, and eliminated the top echelon of its political leadership, Tehran refused to yield.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran” as a mediator on June 18, 2026, a day after US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had agreed to the deal. The document is meant to bring the 2026 Iran war to an end, a war that had opened on February 28 with joint US and Israeli strikes and spread quickly across the region.

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Rutgers University Senior Analyst for Iraq and Interim Deputy Program Director, Middle East and North Africa, International Crisis Group Deputy Director, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House Chief Strategist, Asia Frontier Capital (AFC) Iraq Fund; Senior Fellow, Institute of Regional & International Studies (IRIS), American University of Iraq-Sulaimani Professor of History and Political Economy and al-Sabah Chair...

Skip to Main Content A memorandum of understanding ending three months of hostilities between the United States and Iran has revealed divergent US and Israeli perspectives over the trajectory of the war with the Islamic Republic. This divergence was clearly on display in a campaign by the Israeli government’s most hardline members, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, against the memorandum and the policies of President Donald Trump’s administration in general.

This paper investigates Israeli academia in the post-Gaza war era (2023–25) as a structural actor involved in the production of a security-military discourse that reframes colonial violence and gives it epistemological legitimacy. The paper argues that universities and research centers in Israel are no longer neutral spaces, but rather central sites for reproducing the logic of security within the field of knowledge.

On June 17, 2026, the United States and Iran signed an interim ceasefire deal that provides for an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” This agreement, however, does not address the underlying condition that makes Lebanon a perpetual theater of conflict. Lebanon has never possessed genuine sovereignty, and this chronic deficit of internal and external control renders it a permanent arena for proxy warfare.