The Trump Administration Is Overhauling Birth Control Access for the Pronatalist Movement
The Trump administration is quietly turning a federal program designed to help lower-income Americans access birth control and other reproductive health services into an engine for pronationalism, a far-right movement with roots in eugenics that pushes people to have more babies.
On Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs published an updated “notice of funding opportunity,” first announced in April, for service providers to apply for grants through Title X, a federal program that provides low and no-cost birth control and other sexual and reproductive health services to roughly 2.8 million people every year.
For months, the federal program had been plagued with uncertainty. Donald Trump eliminated Title X from his 2027 annual budget — and last year suddenly froze a large percentage of funds going to Title X recipients before eventually restoring the funding.
But when providers opened the funding notice in April, instead of being met with relief, many were horrified to discover that Health and Human Services had a new mission in mind for the only federal program dedicated to providing contraceptives: getting women to have more babies.
Grants funded through the program will help “build body literacy, address infertility, plan and space pregnancies and navigate reproductive health conditions such as endometriosis” and other conditions that affect infertility, the notice said. Contraceptives are hardly mentioned, except in a section on “overmedicalization,” which appears to commend the fact that “reports have shown a decrease in females’ current use of any contraception.”
The notice is a part of a quiet, but significant, push to retool the Department of Health and Human Services into a weapon for a pronatalist movement seeped in the racist history of eugenics — which insists on the supposed biological superiority of white, straight, able-bodied people — and in the denial of women’s bodily autonomy and right to exist outside of motherhood.
Providers fighting back against the new requirements in court argue that this will further cede power over vulnerable communities’ health to far-right actors inside of the administration, like Assistant Secretary for Health Brian Christine, a former penile implant surgeon and anti-abortion crusader who is in charge of administering the Title X program.
“I would characterize it as really a shift toward this Project 2025 MAHA vision of prioritizing having babies over reproductive autonomy,” said Amy Friedrich-Karnik, director of federal policy at the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual and reproductive health research organization, “and really undermining the program from top to bottom.”
The notice had previously included a pre-merits alignment review that would require all grantees to undergo an ideological audit by political appointees based on their commitment to the administration’s priorities, including ending diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and gender-affirming care — even though the statute explicitly requires grantees to promote health equity and provide care to transgender recipients. However, it was later updated to remove the alignment review.
Friedrich-Karnik and other sexual and reproductive health experts argue that under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., HHS is seeking to warp a public sexual health program to advance the goals of the administration’s allies in the pronatalist movement ahead of the November midterms. Pronatalists harbor close ties and, in some cases, overlap with white Christian nationalists who want not only for there to be more babies, but also more white babies.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.
The pronatalist movement in the United States is largely, but not exclusively, divided between two categories: traditional conservatives and tech eugenicists.
Tech pronatalists like Elon Musk, a former administration official who is arguably the most prominent member of the movement, advocate for having as many children as possible to create an “elite” human race with more “high-IQ” people. Unlike traditional pronatalist conservatives, best exemplified by Vice President JD Vance, whose focus rests more on the nuclear family and defending “traditional” gender roles, tech pronatalists emphasize the use of technology such as in vitro fertilization to have as many children as possible.
While pronatalists are often not as explicit as avowed white nationalists about their desire for more white children, they often talk about “declining genetic quality” in “the West” and generally oppose immigration, even as they decry the falling birth rate and nearing population decline.
Trump, Vance, and Kennedy have all been closely aligned with the pronatalist movement. Kennedy has repeatedly opined about declining birth rates and teenage boys’ declining “sperm count”; Trump has anointed himself the “fertilization president,” despite the fact that his administration gutted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s IVF team; and in his first address as vice president, Vance declared: “I want more babies in the United States of America.”
This month, “Trump Accounts” went into effect, providing children born between January 2025 and December 2028 with $1,000 in an effort to boost the population. The president also floated the idea of providing mothers who have six or more children with medals. (After several people noted that the Nazis had done the same thing, that idea seems to be dead in the water.)
But behind the push to have more kids, there is an anti-autonomy agenda at play, said Taylor St. Germain, interim co-executive director of Reproductive Equity Now.
“This is a part of the MAHA movement that is really a veneer for an anti-abortion agenda and an anti-bodily-autonomy agenda,” said St. Germain.
“This is a part of the MAHA movement that is really a veneer for an anti-abortion agenda and an anti-bodily-autonomy agenda.”
In June, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents the majority of Title X providers, and others, sued to challenge the notice, arguing that the Trump administration was willfully violating the statute and attempting to rewrite the law through a grant notice.
“We believe that this is truly an attempt by the administration to hijack the program,” said Clare Coleman, president of the NFPRHA.
Although the administration has removed the pre-merits review that would have given additional authority to political appointees to reject providers based on politics before even assessing their ability to provide quality care, there are still concerns about the types of providers who will be brought in to the program with Christine at the helm of the Office of Population Affairs.
Christine has a long history of staunch anti-abortion advocacy, including his support for the expansion of so-called crisis pregnancy centers, deceptively advertised clinics that aim to manipulate people out of receiving abortions. Christine has called the clinics “a model for a post-Roe world.”
The problem with having crisis pregnancy centers fill the gaps of service providers is that they are “not real medical clinics,” said Friedrich-Karnik.
“They do not have the expertise to provide reproductive health care. They often oppose hormonal birth control methods, which is directly contrary to making sure that folks in Title X have access to the full range of contraceptive methods,” she said.
The fact that contraceptives are rarely mentioned in the notice is “a sign that they are decentering the statutory intent of the program,” said Coleman.
“Congress intended this program to help equalize access to contraception,” said Coleman. “The only mention of contraception is that mention in the pejorative, and talking about overmedicalization and side effects, so we just see this as a real throwaway of what the program historically has been focused on and what Congress still intends the program to be focused on.”
The funding announcement stands in stark contrast to how the Office of Population Affairs described the program less than two years ago.
A 2024 OPA handbook reads that the family planning services delivered by the program include “contraceptive products and natural family planning methods for clients who want to prevent pregnancy and space births; pregnancy testing and counseling; assistance to achieve pregnancy; basic infertility services; sexually transmitted infection (STI) services; and other preconception health services.”
While fertility is mentioned, the handbook is filled with references to contraceptives and other reproductive and sexual health services that have nothing to do with increasing the birth rate.
“RFK Jr. is really using this to push an extremist agenda that prioritizes increasing births over ensuring people have the information and health care they need to make their own reproductive care decisions,” said St. Germain.
The attempts to rewrite the mandate at HHS to focus on pronatalism are not exclusively tied to Title X. In June, the administration announced a notice of funding opportunity for an existing program called the Embryo Adoption Awareness and Services program, which was created to help raise awareness of programs that allow people to receive other people’s unused embryos. In the notice, the agency described an embryo as “a child already in existence.”
“They have defined, for the first time, embryos as children who already exist and are in need of a family,” said Coleman, “advancing this argument for fetal personhood with a certain religious belief that sperm meets egg equals life.”
Coleman said what we are witnessing now is a ratcheting up of the pronatalist agenda, using methods like funding notices that are unlikely to draw much attention outside of conservative circles.
“It’s sneaky,” she said, adding, “It’s quite unusual in my 17 years in this job to do a lot of calls with reporters about funding announcements.”
The ball is round – and contrary to some keepers’ views, in this World Cup it has performed just fine
Not every World Cup goal is a classic. Sometimes a half-hearted shot goes in as a result of little more than goalkeeper error. And on those occasions, goalies may be inclined to find an excuse.
During the 2026 tournament, some members of what is jokingly referred to as the “goalkeepers’ union” have pointed toward the performance of the ball. Joe Hart, a former England goalkeeper and serving BBC pundit, noted after one blunder: “The ball is coming into the keepers a lot faster than it feels when it comes off the foot.”
But are his concerns justified? The Conversation turned to John Eric Goff, who has been studying the physics of World Cup balls for two decades and previously wrote about what to expect from the Trionda ball being used at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
What did your lab tests predict?
Colleagues of mine at the University of Tsukuba in Japan took the World Cup ball, put a little hole in it, stuck it on a rod, attached force sensors and then set it up in a wind tunnel to obtain all kinds of aerodynamic data. They sent that data to me to look at what the trajectory modeling for the ball suggested about how it would perform in comparison to its predecessors.
Central to the performance is the airflow around the ball and how it changes as the speed of the ball increases. For the Jabulani ball used in the 2010 World Cup, for example, this airflow change happened at a speed that was right in the middle of typical free kicks and corner kicks. That caused problems for goalkeepers, as it moved in the air unpredictably as a result.
Among the recent World Cup balls we tested, Trionda has the lowest critical speed at which that airflow change takes place. That led us to predict free kicks and corner kicks with fairly consistent, stable flight.
Putting the 2026 World Cup ball through the wind tunnel test.
But we also found that Trionda’s drag coefficient was slightly larger than that of its predecessors, which implied a slightly rougher surface. So there was a possible trade-off; it might fall a couple of meters short.
Has the real pitch experience followed those predictions?
It has depended a little on conditions. Take the Mexico vs. England game at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, which took place at high elevation.
That meant the ball had less air drag on it, so it could actually go farther than it would when kicked with the same launch speed in lower-altitude conditions. It also meant that because the sideways, or Magnus forces, are proportional to air density, it would curve less.
During the England vs. Mexico game, what I noticed, especially early on, was many of England’s kicks tended to go a little long. They would kick the ball down the pitch in those first 20 minutes and it would be just out of reach of teammates.
The sense I got was they weren’t quite adjusting for the higher elevation and lower air density.
Some have questioned the flight. Do they have a point?
In other words, I’ve heard about the ball not being their favorite, but not why. The scientist in me really wants to interview a goalkeeper and find out: “Do you think it’s moving in erratic ways? Or is it something to do with the color scheme that’s flummoxing you on the pitch?”
I think goalkeepers are always going to complain about a new ball. But the Nike Flight, which was used in the 2024-25 English Premier League season, has an aerodynamic profile most similar to that of the current World Cup ball. So players who used that ball might already be somewhat familiar with the motion of Trionda.
As far as I can tell, the ball appears to be flying in ways that not only we predicted but that don’t look completely out of touch with what players would have seen with other balls.
As the World Cup has progressed, I’ve been watching the ball come in toward the goalkeepers, and it could be that the reds, blues and greens twirling in front of the goalkeepers’ eyes are confusing them.
There’s been talk of more long-range goals. Is the ball playing a role?
I have read there are more goals coming from farther out than in previous World Cups. But I don’t know if I could attribute it specifically to the ball.
It’s possible, of course. But I would really have to see what the actual number is and see what the percentage increase has been, because, for a sport like soccer where you only get two or three goals in a match, the sample size is so small.
It would certainly be a very interesting research question to pursue. But I don’t think the ball alone can be credited for these longer-range goals.
Overall, how has this ball performed?
I think the ball has been fine. It is an attractive ball, with the colors of the original version representing the three host countries – all of whom are now out of the tournament, so it didn’t bring them much luck, unfortunately.
Former British Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe dies at 78
Former Conservative minister turned Reform UK spokeswoman Ann Widdecombe has died aged 78.
Her political career spanned decades, serving as MP for Maidstone in Kent for 23 years, before going on to join Reform UK.
She worked as a Home Office and employment minister in Sir John Major’s government between 1994 to 1997.
After leaving Parliament she embarked on a showbiz career,appearing on Strictly Come Dancing in 2010 and Celebrity Big Brother in 2018.
A staunch supporter of the UK’s departure from the EU, she became an MEP for the Brexit Party, representing South West England in the European Parliament between 2019-2020.
In 2023, Widdecombe joined Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, after the party changed its name from the Brexit Party, and made a number of appearances as the party’s immigration and justice spokesperson.
Following news of her death, Farage credited Widdecombe for playing a “decisive role” in getting Brexit “over the line”.
“When Ann Widdecombe decided to stand for The Brexit Party in the snap 2019 European Elections, it was a big moment and huge boost. The voters loved her,” he wrote in a post on X, adding she would be “missed by us all”.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described Widdecombe as a “formidable politician who was never afraid to speak her mind and fought hard for what she believed”.
Tory MP and former party leader Iain Duncan Smith said she expressed her views “strongly and straight, which was refreshing in many senses and sometimes difficult”.
By appearing on Strictly, he said she discovered “a new lease of life, an inner Ann that we never had any sight of at all”.
Former Conservative MP and friend Gyles Brandreth described her as “a curious mix of Danny de Vito and Margaret Rutherford”.
“We met when we were both 19 and remained friends because she was fun and kind – even when you disagreed with her fiercely.”
Lord Howard, a former Conservative leader who clashed with Widdecombe when they were both ministers at the Home Office, told BBC Radio Kent she was a “feisty lady” and a “good minister”.
Widdecombe famously described him as having “something of the night about him”.
Lord Howard acknowledged they had had “our ups and downs” but later “made up”.
Speaking on Friday morning, health secretary James Murray said Widdecombe “was never shy of having quite firm views and sharing them quite willingly”.
“I can’t say I always agreed with her views, but she was such a part of our politics,” the Labour minister told Times Radio, adding “everyone can recognise the contribution that she made to politics” and public life.
In a statement, her agent Cloud 9 Management said her life and career were “driven by her strong Christian values and commitment to public service”.
They added that Widdecombe loved the “cut and thrust of political debate” and despite leaving Parliament 16 years ago, was “still actively campaigning for Reform UK”.
“For many, of course, she will be best (or worst?) remembered for her unforgettable appearances on Strictly Come Dancing, defying the judges week-after-week as the public delighted in her unsuccessful attempts to follow the choreography of the long-suffering Anton Du Beke,” the statement went on to say.
The former Tory minister became a favourite with viewers when she appeared on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing in 2010.
One judge likened her to a “Dalek in drag” but her popularity with the audience took her to the semi-finals.
She described her 10 weeks on the show as “magnificent” and life-enhancing”.
During her parliamentary career, Widdecombe, a staunch Catholic, often sparked controversy due to her socially conservative views, including opposing abortion and comments about the LGBT community.
In 2019, the former minister received backlash after suggesting science might one day “produce an answer” to being gay.
In the 1990s she converted to Catholicism, a move she later described as the best decision she ever made.
She told The Times newspaper: “To have a church which calls a sin a sin and has done with it is a blessed relief.”
During her political career, faced cruel comments about her appearance, with newspapers calling her “Doris Karloff”, a reference to the old Hollywood horror movie star, Boris Karloff.
However, she breezily dismissed the jibes saying: “I am toothy, dumpy, ugly, overweight, a spinster – what the hell.”
Australia-Fiji defense pact is about much more than China
Australian leader Anthony Albanese and Fiji counterpart Sitiveni Rabuka in a ceremonial moment in Suva, Fiji, July 6, 2026. Image: Instagram Screengrab
The treaty Australia and Fiji signed in Suva on July 6 is no ordinary defense pact.
The Ocean of Peace Alliance, also known as the Veitacini Treaty, is explicit: An armed attack on either party in the Pacific is treated as a threat to shared security, and both governments have committed to act against it through their domestic processes. Fiji now becomes Australia’s formal ally, joining the US, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
What stands out is that the treaty was built to be open: Other Pacific nations can join, provided every existing member agrees. That openness is the heart of the whole document, asserting that regional security should be led by the Pacific itself, not steered from outside.
Alongside the security treaty, Australia and Fiji also signed the Vuvale Union, a package reportedly worth about A$1 billion (US$690 million) over 10 years, covering climate and economic cooperation.
A similar pattern emerged earlier with the Nakamal Agreement with Vanuatu, reportedly valued at about A$500 million, and the PukPuk Treaty with Papua New Guinea last October.
The timing coincided with a Chinese ballistic missile test in the Pacific. Australia’s foreign minister confirmed that Beijing had given advance notice of the blast, though Canberra still called the move a threat to regional stability.
It is hard to read that overlap as pure coincidence — it looks more like a signal, a reminder that Beijing’s fleet can move whenever regional pressure calls for a response. To be sure, none of this geopolitical shift happened in a vacuum. It traces back to the broader rivalry between the US and an increasingly assertive China.
Chinese firms have already built a major footprint across eastern Indonesia, controlling much of the nickel processing in Halmahera, North Maluku, a key link in the global electric-vehicle battery supply chain.
That presence comes with ports and logistics infrastructure sitting right at the Pacific’s front door, which is one way of saying the fight over critical minerals and the fight over maritime security are really the same contest.
From a Western vantage point, the Fiji-Australia alliance is easy to frame as a diplomatic win for the US and its partners, as a way to hem in China.
Every additional Pacific nation drawn into Australia-led pacts strengthens the impression that the region is being pulled back into the Western security fold, especially after the alarm triggered by China’s 2022 pact with the Solomon Islands.
But that reading oversimplifies the actual position of Pacific nations. For Fiji, aligning with Australia is not a matter of bowing to Washington’s agenda. It reads more like an attempt to protect its own autonomy while managing two pressures at once: the pull of Chinese capital that comes with strings attached, and pressure from the US and its allies to fall exclusively in line.
There is another way to view this whole picture: as a survival strategy for small islands. For the people who live there, a threat to the ocean that sustains them, such as deep-sea mining for polymetallic nodules, can feel just as serious as a military threat.
Seen that way, a pact like this becomes a tool for maintaining control over one’s own fate, not simply a matter of choosing between two giants. Pacific nations like Fiji face a tangled vulnerability, caught between two rival giants and further squeezed by a worsening climate, so their efforts amount to a fight for survival.
So the real story emerging from all this isn’t about who is winning the contest between the US and China. It is about how small Pacific states are trying to build collective leverage amid two opposing pressures.
This treaty is one attempt at that. Whether it will hold up against the pull of two great powers over the long run is still an open question – one that depends on how the treaty is applied and on how the wider dynamics across the Pacific unfold in the years ahead.
M. Guntur Cobobi is a member of the Central Board of the Youth Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (PEMUDA-ICMI) and a researcher at the Center for Global and Melanesian Studies, Universitas Khairun.
Multiple Pakistani law enforcement agencies were targeted in separate hacking campaigns linked to groups associated with China and India, according to a report released on Thursday by cybersecurity firm SentinelOne.
Aleksandar Milenkoski, a principal threat researcher at SentinelOne, wrote in the report published on Thursday that “When multiple cyberespionage actors operate against law enforcement institutions of a single state, the convergence itself is a signal of target value”.
SentinelOne, headquartered in Mountain View, California, is a major player in modern cybersecurity, focusing on proactive, AI-driven defense against sophisticated attacks.
According to the SentinelOne report, researchers found evidence of multiple hacking campaigns and intrusions carried out by Chinese and Indian-linked hacking groups between February 2024 and April 2026, most notably against the Balochistan Police, which serves Pakistan’s southwestern province.
The report said the affected assets at Balochistan Police included network appliances, web servers, and several online applications, including the complaint management System that handles police and citizen data such as criminal and biometric records.
It further stated that a suspected China-linked actor placed custom implants in one of these web applications used by both police staff and citizens.
According to SentinelOne, other targets included the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police, the Islamabad Police, and the Punjab Safe Cities Authority.
The report said the China-linked activity, involving tools such as PlugX, ShadowPad, and Cobalt Strike, appeared to be motivated primarily by concerns over the safety of Chinese nationals working in Pakistan, particularly in connection with China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects, following repeated attacks by groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army.
It further said the India-linked activity, associated with Remcos and actors such as TAG-179, focused especially on Balochistan and likely stemmed from the broader rivalry with Pakistan, seeking insight into how the province’s security is managed amid mutual accusations of supporting militancy.
According to the report, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police acknowledged that one end-user login credential was compromised but stated that no core systems were breached.
The report noted that the Balochistan Police and other agencies did not respond to requests for comment. It also said China denied involvement in such activities, while India had not commented on the report.
According to SentinelOne, Pakistani law enforcement organizations are attractive targets because they hold detailed information on the country’s internal security picture, threats within its borders, and responses to them, drawing interest from both a strategic partner and a rival.
The findings come at a time when Pakistan is grappling with a sharp rise in terrorist violence, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, where security forces have faced frequent attacks and insurgent activity has intensified.
If the report’s findings are accurate, they highlight the strategic value of Pakistan’s law enforcement networks to foreign intelligence-linked cyber actors seeking insight into the country’s counterterrorism operations, security deployments, and internal threat landscape amid an increasingly volatile security environment.
So far, no official source has issued any statement confirming or denying the report.
Valve’s new Steam Machine verification system is silent on these Steam Deck-busters
About a month ago, Valve announced that it would expand its long-standing Steam Deck Verified program to the now-shipping Steam Machine, offering a separate rating of Steam games’ compatibility and playability for the fresh living room-focused hardware. Now that those ratings started appearing on Steam store pages last night (under a “Learn More” link next to Steam Deck Compatibility), we’ve found that Valve is frustratingly “still learning about” Steam Machine compatibility for dozens of games that the Steam Deck is too weak to run capably.
The Steam Machine compatibility for many Steam games is pretty simple to figure out, of course. If a game is already verified on Steam Deck, it is seemingly guaranteed to be verified on the Steam Machine, as far as we can tell. On the other side, games that have already been confirmed not to work with SteamOS (which can happen for various reasons) obviously won’t work on the SteamOS-powered Steam Machine.
The messy middle is where a Steam Machine Verified badge could come in most handy. These are games that Valve has confirmed will load on SteamOS, but which the aging, portable Steam Deck can’t handle at the 1200×800, 30 fps standard that Valve requires at default settings (for the Steam Machine, this requirement grows to 1080p and 30 fps). On the Steam Store, these games show up as “Unsupported” on Steam Deck because “the game’s graphics settings cannot be configured to run well on Steam Deck” or “this game requires manual configuration of graphics settings to perform well on Steam Deck.”
That is frankly unsurprising. But what about the more powerful Steam Machine?
Valve
That is frankly unsurprising. But what about the more powerful Steam Machine? Valve
Well, thanks for nothing, I guess!
Valve
Well, thanks for nothing, I guess! Valve
That is frankly unsurprising. But what about the more powerful Steam Machine? Valve
Well, thanks for nothing, I guess! Valve
Thus far, every such graphically unsupported Steam Deck game we’ve found on the Steam store is currently listed with an “Unknown” Steam Machine compatibility status. For all of these titles, Valve merely says it is “still learning about” the game and that “we do not currently have further information regarding Steam Machine compatibility.”
That’s a shame, because many of these games that struggle on the Steam Deck can no doubt run just fine on the much more powerful Steam Machine hardware. And new Steam Machine owners will surely want to know whether their fresh living room box can play these games, many of which have appeared on Steam’s Top Sellers list (either currently or in the past).
We were just wondering…
There is some good news for Steam Machine users in last night’s Verification update, though. Games with text that is too small to read on the Steam Deck are perfectly fine when played on a big TV. That means Steam Deck “Playable” games like 007: First Light and Lies of P get bumped up to “Verified” status on the Steam Machine. But games that Valve bumps down to “Playable” on Steam Deck for requiring an on-screen keyboard still get a similar warning on the Steam Machine, so you might want to keep a wireless keyboard nearby on your couch.
We’ve included a list of nearly two dozen games we’ve found that Valve says can run on SteamOS but can’t run well on Steam Deck, and that Valve has yet to test on the Steam Machine. Hopefully they’ll get the helpful up or down Steam Machine rating they deserve soon (a Valve representative was unavailable to immediately respond to a request for comment from Ars).
A (very partial) list of SteamOS-compatible games with “Unknown” Steam Machine compatibility (and “Unsupported” Steam Deck status due to graphical requirements):
Why Iran broke the ceasefire in the Strait of Hormuz and what might happen next – expert Q&A
The 60-day ceasefire signed by the US and Iran three weeks ago fell apart on July 8. Iran targeted vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz without its say-so, prompting the US to respond with strikes against a range of military targets in the Islamic Republic.
President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire “over”, saying further talks would be a “waste of time”, and the two sides have subsequently exchanged further rounds of attacks. We asked Scott Lucas, an expert in Middle East and US politics at the Clinton Institute, University College Dublin, to explain why the conflict appears to have restarted and what might happen next.
Why has Iran started this conflict up again – wasn’t the 14-point deal generally thought of as a victory for them?
The clashes arise from the quest for control of the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which around 20% of the world’s maritime oil and gas passes. Iran established that control days after the war began. The Trump camp needs to break it; otherwise, they will have to negotiate a deal based largely on Iranian terms.
Several rounds of clashes have taken place since the initial ceasefire was declared in April. Iran attacks a few vessels trying to cross the strait without Tehran’s permission, preventing the US from establishing a shipping corridor off the Omani coast that is outside Iranian control. The US military responds with strikes on Iranian military sites around its southern coast. After a few days, each side pulls back.
However, there is one twist in the latest cycle. The US hit not only military targets but also two civilian bridges connecting the Iranian capital, Tehran, to the second city, Mashhad.
I think that may have been symbolic rather than a substantive escalation – the assassinated Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was being buried in Mashhad on Thursday. However, this is worth watching, in case the Trump camp are thinking of renewing strikes on civilian infrastructure.
What role are the Gulf states playing and how are they aligning?
Iran’s retaliation reinforces the message the regime sent after it survived the initial US-Israeli strikes – that it has the will and capacity to survive what is thrown at it, and cause chaos in the region.
In June 2025, during Israel’s 12-day war, Tehran refrained from striking the Gulf states. This time, it made clear the gloves were off, with serious damage and effects on the political and economic positions of the six Gulf countries.
That set off a chain of consequences, including a split among those countries. The United Arab Emirates is moving closer to Israel and the Trump camp. Saudi Arabia was angered about the lack of US protection early in the war, but wanted Trump to “finish the job” with ground troops forcing the capitulation of the Iranian regime.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, talks with journalists during negotiations in Lake Lucerne, Switzerland on June 21 2026.Hamed Malekpour/Middle East Images/StringersHub/Sipa USA
Qatar has established itself as a mediator alongside – and possibly beyond – Pakistan. Oman is now manoeuvring between trying to work with Iran and trying to comply with Trump’s demands over the strait. Bahrain always follows the Saudi lead and Kuwait just wants the conflict to end.
Is there any prospect of the US strikes crippling Iran militarily?
Throughout the war, US-Israeli strikes have killed Iranian political and military leaders. They have blasted military sites, obliterated the Iranian navy, and disabled missile launchers and drone production facilities.
Mayuree Naree, a Thailand-flagged bulk carrier, damaged by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz, March 2026.Panithi Tumkaew via AP
But much of Iran’s power lies in mobile capability, from drones and missiles to the small boats and mines of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
US intelligence estimated in May that Iran still possessed around 70% of its pre-war stock of missiles and 70% of its missile launchers. According to the same assessments, only three Iranian missile sites along the strait were inaccessible.
Not only has all this been sufficient for Iran to control the Strait of Hormuz, it has enabled Iran to maintain its ability to retaliate against Israel and the Gulf states. And the Trump camp – which may have tried to seize stocks of enriched uranium this spring – has now learned that this task may be impossible.
Who is more resilient right now: Iran under renewed sanctions, or the Trump administration facing elections in four months?
The Iranian regime is in a stronger political position than it was before the war. Its economy was in serious trouble then, sparking January’s public protests, and it will be in serious economic trouble again unless there is a protracted ceasefire and the chance to rebuild.
Despite the potential lifting of sanctions and unfreezing of assets, it faces costs of more than $270 billion (£201 billion) in war-related damage, much of it to essential infrastructure.
But for now, it can rely on the priority of its show of defiance. The Strait of Hormuz, which had offered free passage for all vessels up to February 28, is now in the hands of the Iranians. That has made global economic shocks more significant than Tehran’s difficulties.
Before the war, Iran was ready to accept limits on its uranium enrichment and a renewal of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspections, disrupted by the 2025 war. Now, this issue has been relegated behind a resolution of the strait.
Unless the US military can force open the waterway, any resolution will see Iran getting benefits that were not assured before February 28. These include the lifting of some US sanctions, the unfreezing of some Iranian assets, and possibly a private investment and reconstruction fund of up to US$300 billion.
There is no upside for the Trump camp now. It has failed to get regime surrender. It has handed the initiative to its foe. Its military strength has been superseded by political ineptitude and failure. It is fighting a war which is widely disliked at home – even more so because of the self-inflicted economic pain for Americans.
Having sought a display of dominance abroad, the Trump camp now has to wear the badge of loss. With midterm elections fast approaching in the US, this could be costly.
Trump claims Iran asked US to continue ‘talks,’ declares ceasefire ‘over’
US President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran has asked Washington to continue “talks” and that Washington agreed to do so, while reiterating that a ceasefire secured last month between the two countries was “over,” Anadolu reports.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue ‘talks.’ We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
Separately, in an interview with the New York Post, Trump said he left instructions for the US to launch massive strikes on Iran if Tehran succeeds in assassinating him.
“I’ve left instructions — if anything happens, to just literally bomb them at levels that they’ve never seen before,” Trump said in an interview with the New York Post.
READ: Israel seeks US green light to strike Iran
Trump said Iran has wanted to kill him “for a long time,” adding: “That’s what we’re dealing with.”
In mid-June, Iran and the US signed a memorandum of understanding under Pakistani mediation aimed at ending their military conflict and reaching a lasting peace agreement.
However, both sides exchanged attacks over the past two days amid escalation following Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran launched a series of strikes Thursday on US military infrastructure in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan in retaliation for a second day of overnight US attacks.
READ: Israeli prime minister says Iran war ‘has not ended’
He’s Suspected of Hiring a Venezuelan Gang for a Political Killing. Trump Officials Still Work With Him.
Reporting Highlights
Suspected of Hiring Gang: The Trump administration is working directly with a powerful Venezuelan leader under investigation for an alleged political killing in Chile.
Crucial Figure in Venezuela: Diosdado Cabello remains the interior and justice minister, even though he is the target of U.S. drug trafficking charges and a $25 million bounty.
Implicit Geopolitical Deal: Washington exploits the U.S. indictment to ensure Cabello’s cooperation, while he shields himself with his power over Venezuela’s stability, former officials say.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
When Rafael Enrique Gámez Salas crossed the Mexican border in late 2024, U.S. Border Patrol agents first thought he was like hundreds of thousands of other Venezuelan migrants fleeing their country’s devastating economic and political crises.
But today the 40-year-old sits in a federal jail in Los Angeles awaiting extradition to Chile, where prosecutors accuse him of being a boss of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan street gang. Chilean authorities say Gámez organized a kidnapping that resulted in the killing of an exiled Venezuelan dissident there. Even more troubling, they believe he acted at the behest of Venezuela’s authoritarian government.
And for the past six months, the Trump administration has been working directly with the powerful Venezuelan official under investigation for allegedly ordering the crime: Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.
The unlikely alliance with Cabello began in January, when U.S. special operations forces swooped into Caracas, captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges. While critics called the operation a blatant violation of Venezuelan sovereignty, the Trump administration declared it was restoring law and order in a strife-torn region and began to restructure Venezuela’s ruined economy and exert control over its massive oil industry.
Yet the Trump administration has left Cabello in place — despite longtime U.S. accusations that he has led the repression of political opponents and enriched himself in illicit partnerships with criminal groups. Cabello has had a seat at the table during visits to Caracas by senior U.S. officials, including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for negotiations over issues such as Venezuela’s lucrative mining sector. Before Maduro’s capture, U.S. authorities had charged Cabello and a top leader of Tren de Aragua in the same drug trafficking indictment as Maduro and offered a $25 million reward for him.
Cabello and other U.S.-backed Venezuelan leaders have come under fire in recent days for their response to the devastating earthquakes on June 24 that killed more than 3,600 people, injured more than 16,000 and left thousands more missing. In an internationally televised confrontation, Cabello exchanged tense words with members of a U.S. search-and-rescue team en route to aid victims in a heavily damaged area. Critics of the sluggish Venezuelan response to the disaster, including U.S. congressional representatives in Miami, accused Cabello of interfering with rescue operations and repeated their calls for his arrest on the pending U.S. charges. But a State Department spokesperson downplayed the incident as “an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
Diosdado Cabello, right, in a meeting with Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez, center, and U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, left, in Caracas, Venezuela, in March.Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters
In Chile, authorities are investigating Cabello as the alleged mastermind behind the killing of a former Venezuelan military officer, Lt. Ronald Ojeda, who had unsuccessfully attempted an uprising against Maduro. Chile’s attorney general and other senior officials have said that Cabello became an investigative target based on testimony of captured suspects.
The 32-year-old Ojeda had been granted asylum in Chile. Authorities say they suspect that Cabello paid Tren de Aragua’s top leadership and that they, in turn, commissioned gang members in Chile, led by Gámez, to kidnap the former soldier. Chilean prosecutors believe Ojeda died while his captors were torturing him to get information about the Venezuelan political opposition.
After President Donald Trump returned to office last year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials asserted that the killing in Chile demonstrated Tren de Aragua’s ties to the highest levels of the Venezuelan government and the gang’s reach across the Americas. The president designated the gang as a terrorist group and said Maduro had sent it to invade the United States, although some law enforcement officials say the administration exaggerated the threat to justify mass deportations.
As Chile seeks the return of Gámez and prosecutors prepare to bring 20 suspects to trial, the Trump administration has been silent on the alleged role of the regime and Cabello in Ojeda’s death. U.S officials have aided Chilean counterparts with the extradition process, but they have not used the case to press Venezuelan authorities to oust, arrest or hand over Cabello, current and former U.S. officials said.
Asked at a press conference in May if the U.S. still considers Cabello a narcoterrorist, Rubio gave a brief answer. “The policy of the United States on that topic has not changed, and when it changes we will let you know,” he said.
Todd Robinson, a retired senior U.S. diplomat who served as ambassador in Caracas, said Cabello’s continuing power raises questions about whether the stated U.S. commitments to advancing the rule of law in the hemisphere are real or a cover for its interests in exploiting Venezuela’s oil.
“It’s just a horrible, horrible idea to leave him in place,” said Robinson, who was expelled from Venezuela in 2018 after criticizing human rights abuses. “I don’t know what their aim is in doing that, unless it really is about oil, not democratic transition.”
Another retired U.S. diplomat, Brian Naranjo, who served three tours in Venezuela, said the administration seems more interested in appeasing corrupt actors than uprooting them. In addition to controlling the security forces as minister of the interior and justice, Cabello maintains alliances with guerrillas in neighboring Colombia and other criminal groups that make him a danger to political stability, according to Naranjo, other officials, dissidents, and U.S. and Chilean court documents. As a result, critics say, Washington sees Cabello as a necessary evil.
“As long as he figures out a way to keep handing over things the Trump administration wants, I think he endures,” Naranjo said.
In response to a list of questions from ProPublica, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment on any ongoing investigations. The White House referred questions to the Department of Justice. The State Department and Venezuelan government officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Although Cabello could not be reached for comment, he has publicly denied allegations of involvement in the killing of Ojeda. Responding on his television show in 2024, he said: “Venezuela has nothing to do with this kidnapping. Nothing. Resolve your problems there, in Chile.”
Cabello sometimes wields a spiked club on his television show, “Con el Mazo Dando” (“Hitting With the Club”).Latin America News Agency via Reuters
As for Gámez, ProPublica found no information indicating that the Venezuelan ex-convict had been charged with a violent offense during the nearly two years he lived in the United States. Interviewed by telephone and email from the federal jail in Los Angeles, he said he worked hard at a restaurant and as a deliveryman to support his family in Utah. He denied any role in Ojeda’s death or being a member of Tren de Aragua. He also said he has no connections to Cabello.
Gámez said that, like the dissident whose kidnapping he’s accused of organizing, he left Venezuela in part because he was an opponent of the former regime. He said the governments of Chile and the United States are making him a scapegoat.
“If only I was everything they say I am,” he said. “Obviously any leader boss has money to burn and I don’t have a penny to my name.”
Hundreds of pages of Chilean and U.S. court records paint a much darker portrait of his activities and detail his alleged role in the Ojeda case and other crimes. Interviews with current and former officials from the United States, Chile, Venezuela and Spain; Ojeda’s friends and family; Gámez; and others, along with the court records, provide one of the fullest accounts of the case.
The Crime
On Feb. 21, 2024, a stolen Nissan sedan arrived at an apartment tower in Santiago, the capital of Chile, one of the safest and most prosperous nations in Latin America. It was 3:05 a.m.
Four masked men disguised as Chilean police officers got out. On the 14th floor, three of them broke into Ojeda’s apartment, handcuffed him in front of his terrified wife and son, and dragged him out, according to court documents and security video. He was barefoot and wearing only underpants.
The kidnappers rushed Ojeda to a slum hideout, where they tortured him to death, court documents say. Then they buried his partially dismembered remains in a suitcase beneath a newly laid cement floor, documents say.
Images from security video show kidnappers disguised as Chilean investigative police as they burst into Ojeda’s 14th-floor apartment in Santiago and abducted him early in the morning on Feb. 21, 2024.Obtained by ProPublicaAlleged Tren de Aragua members disguised as police officers restrained Ojeda in the elevator after abducting him in front of his terrified family. Authorities say he died in a gang hideout while his captors tortured him to get information about the Venezuelan political opposition.Obtained by ProPublica
Weeks earlier, the Maduro regime had publicly declared Ojeda a traitor.
In 2017, Ojeda and other young dissident officers had been jailed and tortured in Venezuela. Ojeda alleged in a posthumously published memoir that his ordeal had been ordered by Cabello.
Ojeda in Colombia with former Capt. Anyelo Heredia, a fellow dissident, in December 2023. Soon afterward, they slipped across the border into Venezuela to do reconnaissance for a planned military uprising. Soldiers captured Heredia, but Ojeda narrowly escaped.Courtesy of the Ojeda family
Ojeda took refuge in Chile. But in late 2023, he went to Colombia’s border with Venezuela to try to instigate a military rebellion and narrowly escaped capture. During his final days, Ojeda feared the regime was coming for him, according to his friends and family.
“Ronald and his wife had thought about what would happen if there was a knock on the door,” said his family’s lawyer, Juan Carlos Manríquez. “They had even rehearsed for it. They had agreed to protect their son at all costs by not offering any resistance.”
A tip led Chilean police to Ojeda’s buried remains nine days after his abduction. Fingerprints recovered from the abandoned Nissan had already been traced to a member of Tren de Aragua, authorities say.
In addition to the evidence of the gang’s involvement, Chilean investigators quickly came to suspect a political crime orchestrated by the Maduro regime, which had openly declared the victim an enemy of the state.
“Ojeda had already escaped from them at least once before,” said Héctor Barros, the chief prosecutor in the case. “The regime took that personally. He was a high-priority target.”
Delivering for DoorDash
Before his odyssey across the Americas, Gámez grew up in the Caribbean port city of Maracaibo, Venezuela.
After high school, he fell into petty crime and was sentenced to four years and three months in prison for robbery and other charges in a home invasion, according to Venezuelan court records and his own account.
Nonetheless, there is no indication that he became a member of Tren de Aragua until years later, according to court documents and law enforcement officials. It is not clear when and how he joined the gang, Chilean investigators say.
About a decade ago, Gámez left Venezuela as part of what has become the largest mass exodus in the hemisphere. Maduro had been elected after the death of populist President Hugo Chávez. In 2014, the price of oil had plummeted, causing inflation, unemployment and food shortages. In addition to economic necessity, Gámez said he migrated because he belonged to a political party that opposed the increasingly repressive regime.
Gámez spent years in Chile, where he worked in bread and clothing factories and as a barber. There are no indications that he had a criminal record during that period, according to interviews and court documents.
Rafael Enrique Gámez Salas featured his work as a barber on his Instagram account while living in Santiago, Chile. Authorities say he did not have a criminal record there before he left for the United States, but allege that he became a leader of Tren de Aragua after returning to Chile in 2023.Screenshot and redactions by ProPublica
In 2021, Gámez and his family joined a record number of immigrants who headed north to the United States during the Biden administration. They surrendered to U.S. border agents in Arizona and were released pending the outcome of immigration proceedings.
“All the people who came here said there was more work and better quality of life,” Gámez said. “I also thought about the future of my children and their security because I thought this was a safe country.”
The family settled in Salt Lake City. Gámez said he found jobs in a restaurant kitchen and delivering for DoorDash, sometimes working as many as 15 hours a day.
“The whole time I was here I worked,” he said. “I never had a problem.”
Until December 2022, when a Texas state trooper patrolling near the Mexican border pulled him over for driving with expired plates and discovered that his Venezuelan passengers were undocumented. Gámez admitted that he had agreed to take the family of three to Utah, court records say. He told ProPublica he was doing a favor for a friend who is related to the family. But state prosecutors charged him with smuggling of persons and smuggling of a minor, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him back to Venezuela in August 2023.
Although the government declared victory, critics said the authorities had tipped off the top gang bosses, including Hector Rusthenford “Niño” Guerrero, who managed to flee the raid.
Gámez was not involved, and Chilean authorities believe he had already left Venezuela en route back to Chile. But investigators say their later search of his communications found a post after the raid in which he appeared to celebrate Guerrero’s escape.
“They toppled the castle, but not the king,” read his WhatsApp status, according to court documents. “So the game continues.”
Authorities said the message suggests that Gámez may have had contact with the gang during his first stay in Chile or in Utah.
Citing communications and witness testimony, investigators say he was back in Chile about two months after the raid on the prison. The Venezuelan gang rapidly put him in charge of its offshoot in Santiago, called the Pirates of Aragua, according to court documents and interviews.
“There is no way he moves up that quickly when he returns to Chile unless he’s already connected,” said a former U.S. federal law enforcement official.
In early 2024, Chilean investigators say they started hearing chatter about a new gang boss, known as el Turko, who was overseeing a wave of extortion and kidnappings of immigrants.
Angered by public attention to the Ojeda case, senior Tren de Aragua leaders ordered the kidnappers to leave Chile, according to court documents and interviews. Investigators say Gámez also left, spending time in Peru and Colombia as he used his phone to oversee crimes by members of the crew still in Santiago, according to court documents and interviews.
Six weeks after Ojeda’s killing, Gámez was communicating by text with them when they attempted a carjacking that led to a gunfight with an off-duty Chilean police officer, court documents say. The officer and one of the suspected gang members were killed. Recovered text exchanges reveal that an agitated Gámez gave real-time instructions to the accused killers as they fled the scene, according to court records and interviews.
“The clothes you had,” he wrote, according to court records. “Dump them…right away the shoes…everything.”
Police arrested three suspects for killing the police officer and found data in their phones that identified Gámez as el Turko, according to documents. It included a trove of telltale communications in which Gámez, acting on instructions from senior gang bosses outside Chile, allegedly directed the plot to kidnap Ojeda, according to interviews and court documents.
“The order comes from above and they are putting their trust in me,” Gámez told his crew in a text, according to court documents.
By mid-2024, the police knew who they were looking for. But they didn’t know where he was.
End of an Odyssey
On Dec. 30, 2024, U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Gámez after he crossed near Brownsville, Texas.
He was carrying a Colombian passport with an alias to hide his previous deportation and hoping to rejoin his wife and children in Utah, according to officials and his account. But fingerprint checks revealed his true identity.
Gámez pleaded guilty to a charge of being illegally in the country after deportation and received a sentence of 13 months in prison. He also pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in the 2022 smuggling case and was sentenced to 120 days, according to court records.
In Chile, the sprawling investigation had gathered momentum. Chilean police tracked down other fugitives abroad with the aid of U.S. and Latin American law enforcement agencies. And a number of witnesses, including accused kidnappers, implicated Gámez and the Venezuelan regime, court documents show. Three of them pointed the finger at Cabello, according to sources close to the case.
Cabello, right, with Rodríguez on Venezuela’s National Civil-Military Unity Day in April.Javier Campos/NurPhoto via Getty Images
“Diosdado Cabello, who is a Venezuelan politician, gave the instruction to do the kidnapping,” said an admitted kidnapper. Cabello allegedly paid Guerrero, the top boss of Tren de Aragua, according to that testimony.
Another alleged gang member testified that one of Ojeda’s kidnappers told him the crime was “ordered by the Government of Venezuela, planned by the leaders of Tren de Aragua, and executed by the members of the gang who were in Chile,” court documents say.
“The money was paid by the government,” the alleged gang member said.
So far, authorities said they do not have other evidence that directly connects Cabello to the crime — like communications between the Venezuelan leader and gang bosses. But last year, Chile took the extraordinary step of going to the International Criminal Court to accuse the Maduro regime of being involved in Ojeda’s death. That case is in the preliminary investigation stage as part of the court’s probe of human rights abuses in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan government responded to Chile’s charges with a statement that the case “doesn’t just lack a legal basis, but is sustained by a vicious hate towards Venezuela, showing the desperation to please the agendas ordered by the United States.”
The U.S. agenda in Venezuela has come under increasing scrutiny. Venezuela’s opposition, which has long counted on the United States for support, continues to call for Cabello’s ouster and democratic reforms. But an unspoken bargain between Cabello and the Trump administration prevails, according to dissidents and current and former U.S. officials. The administration exploits the leverage of the U.S. indictment to ensure Cabello’s cooperation, while Cabello shields himself with his power to upend Venezuela’s stability, critics said.
Naranjo, the former diplomat, said Cabello’s willingness to accommodate Washington suggests that he is “going to be around far longer than anybody wants. He’s always demonstrated his ability to react and adapt, operationally and tactically, to the circumstances in front of him.”
In a recent and dramatic sign of the evolving partnership with the United States, Trump announced June 13 that a U.S. missile strike had killed Guerrero, Tren de Aragua’s leader, in Venezuela’s lawless mining region. Trump said the strike had been “coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well.”
Guerrero’s death will make it more difficult for Chilean investigators to pursue the allegations that Cabello hired the gang to target Ojeda, former officials said. But Ojeda’s family and other dissidents hope that the trial in Santiago will show that the Venezuelan regime, like other authoritarian governments, enlisted organized crime to send a terroristic message to its foes at home and abroad.
“Diosdado Cabello is the person we want punished,” said Javier Ojeda, the victim’s brother.
Chilean authorities say Gámez and other suspected gang chiefs who have been captured could provide further evidence about the alleged links to Cabello. Gámez has consented to extradition, according to court documents, but the process could still take weeks. Gámez told ProPublica he decided to return voluntarily to Chile because he wants to fight the charges against him in the Chilean courts.
Gámez questioned the credibility of witnesses against him, saying one of the admitted gang members “is looking for an escape … by any means, like lying and inventing things.” He didn’t respond to some questions about the voluminous court file against him, including his alleged communications.
Gámez asserted that he’s being set up as a fall guy for political reasons. Both the Chilean and U.S. governments, he said, have exploited the Ojeda case in their persecution of Venezuelans.
Chilean authorities have arrested many Venezuelans “to use that as a strategy so they leave Chile,” he said. “The same as the president here did…everyone they caught they connected to Tren de Aragua to arrest them and throw them out of the country.”
Israel and Lebanon have a long history of failed ceasefires – will this time be any different?
If implemented, the framework agreement hammered out between Lebanon and Israel in June 2026 could serve as the most consequential agreement between the two countries in nearly 80 years.
But that is a big “if.” The deal envisions peaceful relations between the two states and lays out a road map to disarm the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, secure Israel’s full withdrawal from Lebanon and restore Lebanese sovereignty over its entire national territory.
As it stands now, all of those provisions are a far cry from reality. For one, Hezbollah has rejected the agreement outright. Meanwhile, Israel’s continued military operations risk undermining the domestic legitimacy of the Lebanese government and, ultimately, its ability to implement the agreement.
As experts on armed conflict, ceasefires and peace processes in the Middle East, we have studied past ceasefires between Israel and Hezbollah in 1993, 1996, 2006, 2024 and April 2026. Our forthcoming paper on the subject demonstrates a consistent pattern: Each agreement created only a temporary interval before hostilities recurred or only marginally reduced violence. Throughout, there appeared to be a tacit understanding between Hezbollah and Israel that conflict would eventually resume.
A history of ceasefire breakdowns
Lebanon and Israel have never normalized relations, but they do have a precedent for an agreement that successfully contained conflict. The 1949 U.N.-brokered Lebanese-Israeli General Armistice Agreement ended hostilities following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. With sustained international backing and U.N. monitoring, it established the de facto border that largely remains in place today and prevented a return to full-scale war for roughly two decades.
That relative stability began to unravel in the 1970s as the Palestine Liberation Organization expanded its armed presence in Lebanon, provoking repeated clashes with Israel that culminated in Israel’s invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and 1982.
Since Israel’s 1982 full-scale invasion of Lebanon, agreements and ceasefires intended to end hostilities have repeatedly broken down. Parties have exploited lulls in fighting to buy time, rebuild capabilities and consolidate political or territorial gains ahead of the next round of conflict.
The 1983 agreement between Israel and Lebanon offers both an example of this dynamic and an enduring lesson. It promised peace and normalization in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. But it unraveled within a year when anti-government forces launched a joint offensive against Lebanese army positions in West Beirut, shattering the authority of the Lebanese government and fracturing the army along sectarian and ideological lines. The 1983 agreement thus failed because the Lebanese state had lost its ability to implement it.
Chief Lebanese negotiator Antoine Fattal, left, and Israeli chief negotiator David Kimche, right, sign an Israeli troop withdrawal agreement in Khalde, Lebanon, on May 17, 1983.AP Photo/Bill Foley
Israel became mired in a prolonged occupation. In that environment, Hezbollah emerged from a network of Shiite Islamist militants, making its dramatic entry into the war by attacking an Israel military base in 1982. It later carried out the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the barracks of American Marines and French peacekeepers in 1983.
In the decades that followed, Hezbollah grew in power, leveraging sustained Iranian support and the potent narrative of resistance to Israel. Since then, conflict in Lebanon has largely revolved around the struggle between Hezbollah and Israel.
Violence flared and subsided periodically, and Lebanon and Israel reached ceasefire agreements in 1993, 1996 and after a 2006 war. Crucially, however, Hezbollah’s disarmament was either left off the agenda – as in the 1993 and 1996 ceasefires – or incorporated into a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution that failed to lay out credible mechanisms for implementation.
As such, the periods of relative calm that followed these ceasefires created space for Hezbollah to rebuild its military capabilities, consolidate its political influence and retain the initiative over when to resume hostilities with Israel.
Can Hezbollah be disarmed?
The present-day context is in many ways unique because the balance of power in Lebanon has shifted in ways that make Hezbollah’s disarmament – and a historic Lebanese settlement with Israel – more politically plausible than at any point in decades.
Israel’s military campaigns have significantly degraded Hezbollah, while public opinion in Lebanon has increasingly turned against the group, blaming it for repeatedly dragging the country into unnecessary wars.
Even among Lebanon’s Shiite community, support for Hezbollah is weaker than in the past, and anger toward Iran, its main sponsor, is growing.
Since coming to power in 2025, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have sought to capitalize on this shift by pursuing Hezbollah’s disarmament in line with the 2006 U.N. resolution, which calls for the disarmament of all nonstate armed groups in Lebanon and the extension of Lebanese state authority to the south.
For years, these provisions remained largely aspirational. Today, they are a concrete possibility.
Hezbollah supporters sit in front of a giant billboard that shows the two late Hezbollah leaders – Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine – with other deceased commanders of the group.AP Photo/Hussein Malla
But the window for diplomacy remains narrow, and actions by both Israel and Hezbollah risk closing it. The danger is that short-term political incentives override longer-term strategic opportunities.
With elections approaching and few of the stated objectives of Israel’s war with Iran having been achieved, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under mounting pressure to demonstrate tangible results against Hezbollah.
As such, prolonging the conflict in Lebanon may offer domestic political advantages – delaying proceedings in his criminal trial and allowing him to campaign as a wartime leader with strong security credentials.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, is attempting to capitalize politically on Israel’s continued military operations and Netanyahu’s insistence on maintaining a long-term presence on Lebanese soil.
For an organization built on resistance to Israeli occupation, reclaiming that mantle may offer the most effective path to renewed relevance and legitimacy.
The need for diplomacy
In a paradox that borders on the tragic, Israel may find itself repeating the strategic mistakes that helped create Hezbollah in the first place and giving new life to an adversary it has brought to the brink.
The broad pattern of four decades of conflict and ceasefire negotiations indicates that Hezbollah and Israel remain committed to continued confrontation. As such, the likelihood that the ceasefire will give way to full-scale war remains high, in our opinion. That is, unless ongoing, face-to-face diplomacy is strengthened and professionalized.
Expert diplomacy has often been indispensable to major breakthroughs in conflict resolution. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Egyptian and Israeli commanders met face to face along the Suez–Cairo road, under U.N. auspices. Both sides had an interest in halting the fighting and broadly agreed on the principles that eventually led to disengagement and, ultimately, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979.
These buildings were destroyed in Israeli strikes along the waterfront in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, on June 19, 2026.AP Photo/Hassan Ammar
More recently, American diplomacy demonstrated that even long-standing disputes between Israel and Lebanon are not beyond negotiation. After brokering the 2022 maritime boundary agreement, U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein launched a new round of talks aimed at resolving disputed sections of the land border and reducing tensions along the Blue Line – a U.N.-determined demarcation line pending the negotiation of the final border. Those efforts were overtaken by the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas and the regional wars that followed, but they demonstrate that sustained U.S. engagement can produce tangible progress.
The hard road ahead
It is clear that sustained diplomacy is necessary for the success of any agreement. In the present context, that would require American pressure on Israel to curtail military operations on Lebanese territory. Moreover, the next stage of negotiations will have to confront more long-standing territorial and political disputes that have bedeviled regional peace.
At the same time, Lebanon will require steady diplomatic backing to maintain momentum on Hezbollah’s disarmament, alongside security assistance and financial support to enable the Lebanese military to extend government authority over the entire national territory.
Moments like this are rare in armed conflict. They arise not from design but from the unintended convergence of military outcomes, political shifts and diplomatic initiative. They are also fleeting.
The history of the Israel–Lebanon conflict is littered with missed opportunities and openings that closed before they could be consolidated. This may be one of them. It has the contours of a breakthrough – and the fragility of a mirage.
