TIMEP

Five years since President Kais Saied’s July 25, 2021 power grab, the consequences of his consolidation of power are increasingly visible in Tunisia. Since suspending Parliament and later ruling by decree, Saied has reshaped and dismantled the institutions that emerged from Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, weakening parliamentary oversight, diminishing judicial independence, and narrowing the space for political opposition and civil society.

Following five rounds of direct talks, on June 26, 2026, the governments of Lebanon, Israel, and the United States signed a US-brokered Trilateral Framework. The Framework, which references a Security Annex that has not been officially published but has been leaked, comes on the heels of a devastating period of violence in Lebanon that has plunged the country into yet another crisis.

This tribute is an attempt to remember and honor Sudanese researcher, analyst, and dear friend Hamid Khalafallah, while struggling with a loss I still do not know how to make sense of. Any word feels too little for a loss this massive. What does it mean for all of us when such a force of life, care, and kindness leaves our world? How do we reckon with an absence so heavy that it changes the shape of everything around it?

The horrific targeting and killing of journalist Amal Khalil on April 22, one of many instances of Israel’s targeting of journalists in Lebanon, adds to a growing body of documented crimes against civilians. This pattern of impunity should compel the Lebanese government to sign on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and pursue accountability for its citizens.

The outbreak of war in Lebanon in March closed off a rare opening for an economic turnaround before it could even begin. That opening had been taking shape at the start of this year: After six years of stringent austerity measures, the government had begun to cautiously expand public spending, leveraging improvements in tax revenues.

Homs is a city that many in Syria have only visited when they are on the way to somewhere else. Located between Aleppo, Damascus, Tartus, and Palmyra, its central location has long placed it as a crossroad of cities, but rarely as a destination. Before the war, Syrians and tourists stopped there to have a break or to buy some of the city’s famous sweets before continuing on to Krak des Chevaliers, Deir Mar Musa el-Habashi, or other destinations.

With conflict, crisis, and repression driving high levels of instability, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region continues to be one of the world’s largest originators of and hosts for refugees and internally displaced people globally.

Just as Sudan marked a grim milestone, the third anniversary of the war that started in its capital Khartoum, the war in Iran threatened to plunge the broader region, Sudan included, into deeper strife. Now, regardless of how ceasefire talks fare, Sudan is likely to be irrevocably pulled into the Gulf’s orbit. Sudan’s war is primarily a national and local level war.

Israel’s expanded war on Lebanon may prove to be the war from which Lebanon cannot recover. Both its territorial integrity and its power-sharing system are at serious risk, and with them the country’s survival as a unified state. The latest US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel, signed on June 3, did not survive 24 hours.

When the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced in early May that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi visited Egyptian troops stationed at a base in the UAE, showing photos of him shaking hands with airmen, most Egyptians were surprised. The images landed amid anxiety over the possibility of Egyptian involvement in a deeply unpopular regional war with Iran.