Syria said on Friday it was willing to cooperate with the United States to reimplement the 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel, which created a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating the two countries’ forces.
In a statement following a phone call with his US counterpart Marco Rubio, Asaad al-Shaibani expressed Syria’s “aspiration to cooperate with the United States to return to the 1974 disengagement agreement”.
Washington has been pushing diplomatic efforts towards a normalisation deal between Syria and Israel, with envoy Thomas Barrack saying last week that peace between the two was now needed.
Speaking to The New York Times, Barrack confirmed this week that Syria and Israel were engaging in “meaningful” US-brokered talks to end their border conflict.
Following the toppling of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel deployed its troops into the UN-patrolled zone separating Syrian and Israeli forces.
It has also launched hundreds of air strikes on military targets in Syria and carried out incursions deeper into the country’s south.
Syria and Israel have technically been in a state of war since 1948.
Israel conquered around two-thirds of the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, before annexing it in 1981 in a move not recognised by much of the international community.
A year after the 1973 war, the two reached an agreement on a disengagement line.
As part of the deal, an 80-kilometre-long (50-mile) United Nations-patrolled buffer zone was created to the east of Israeli-occupied territory, separating it from the Syrian-controlled side.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday that his country had an “interest” in normalising ties with Syria and neighbouring Lebanon.
He however added that the Golan Heights “will remain part of the State of Israel” under any future peace agreement.
Syrian state media reported on Wednesday that “statements concerning signing a peace agreement with the Israeli occupation at this time are considered premature”.
Russia has become the first country to accept the Taliban government in Afghanistan since the group took power in 2021, building on years of quieter engagement and marking a dramatic about-turn from the deep hostilities that marked their ties during the group’s first stint in power.
Since the Taliban stormed Kabul in August four years ago, taking over from the government of then-President Ashraf Ghani, several nations – including some that have historically viewed the group as enemies – have reached out to them. Yet until Thursday, no one has formally recognised the Taliban.
So what exactly did Russia do, and will Moscow’s move pave the way for others to also start full-fledged diplomatic relations with the Taliban?
What did Russia say?
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement saying that Moscow’s recognition of the Taliban government will pave the way for bilateral cooperation with Afghanistan.
“We believe that the act of official recognition of the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will give impetus to the development of productive bilateral cooperation between our countries in various fields,” the statement said.
The Foreign Ministry said it would seek cooperation in energy, transport, agriculture and infrastructure.
How did the Taliban respond?
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in an X post on Thursday that Russian ambassador to Kabul Dmitry Zhirnov met Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and conveyed the Kremlin’s decision to recognise the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
The Ambassador of the Russian Federation, Mr. Dmitry Zhirnov, called on IEA-Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi.
During the meeting, the Ambassador of Russian Federation officially conveyed his government’s decision to recognize the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, pic.twitter.com/wCbJKpZYwm
— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Afghanistan (@MoFA_Afg) July 3, 2025
Muttaqi said in a video posted on X: “We value this courageous step taken by Russia, and, God willing, it will serve as an example for others as well.”
What is the history between Russia and Afghanistan?
In 1979, troops from the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to establish a communist government. This triggered a 10-year war with the Afghan mujahideen fighters backed by US forces. About 15,000 Soviet soldiers died in this war.
In 1992, after rockets launched by rebel groups hit the Russian embassy in Kabul, Moscow closed its diplomatic mission to Afghanistan.
The Russian-backed former president, Mohammad Najibullah, who had been seeking refuge in a United Nations compound in Kabul since 1992, was killed by the Taliban in 1996, when the group first came to power.
During the late 1990s, Russia backed anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan, including the Northern Alliance led by former mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Then, on September 11, 2001, suicide attackers, affiliated with the armed group al-Qaeda, seized United States passenger planes and crashed into two skyscrapers in New York City, killing nearly 3,000 people. This triggered the so-called “war on terror” by then-US President George W Bush.
In the aftermath of the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to call Bush and express his sympathy and pledge support. Putin provided the US with assistance to attack Afghanistan. Russia cooperated with the US by sharing intelligence, opening Russian airspace for US flights and collaborating with Russia’s Central Asian allies to establish bases and provide airspace access to flights from the US.
In 2003, after the Taliban had been ousted from power by the US-led coalition, Russia designated the group as a terrorist movement.
But in recent years, as Russia has increasingly grown concerned about the rise of the ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) group – a regional branch of the ISIS/ISIL armed group – it has warmed to the Taliban. The Taliban view ISIS-K as a rival and enemy.
Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, accompanied by the withdrawal of US forces supporting the Ghani government, Russia’s relations with the group have become more open. A Taliban delegation attended Russia’s flagship economic forum in Saint Petersburg in 2022 and 2024.
With the ISIS-K’s threat growing (the group claimed a March 2024 attack at a concert hall in Moscow in which gunmen killed 149 people), Russia has grown only closer to the Taliban.
In July 2024, Russian President Putin called the Taliban “allies in the fight against terrorism”. Muttaqi met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow in October 2024.
In April 2025, Russia lifted the “terrorist” designation from the Taliban. Lavrov said at the time that “the new authorities in Kabul are a reality,” adding Moscow should adopt a “pragmatic, not ideologised policy” towards the Taliban.
How has the rest of the world engaged with the Taliban?
The international community does not officially recognise the Taliban. The United Nations refers to the administration as the “Taliban de facto authorities”.
Despite not officially recognising the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan, several countries have recently engaged diplomatically with the group.
China: Even before the US pulled out of Afghanistan, Beijing was building its relations with the Taliban, hosting its leaders in 2019 for peace negotiations.
But relations have picked up further since the group returned to power, including through major investments. In 2023, a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) signed a 25-year contract with the Taliban to extract oil from the basin of the Amu Darya river, which spans Central Asian countries and Afghanistan. This marked the first major foreign investment since the Taliban’s takeover.
In 2024, Beijing recognised former Taliban spokesperson Bilal Karim as an official envoy to China during an official ceremony, though it made clear that it was not recognising the Taliban government itself.
And in May this year, China hosted the foreign ministers of Pakistan and the Taliban for a trilateral conclave.
Pakistan: Once the Taliban’s chief international supporter, Pakistan’s relations with the group have frayed significantly since 2021.
Islamabad now accuses the Taliban government of allowing armed groups sheltering on Afghan soil, in particular the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to target Pakistan. TTP, also called the Pakistani Taliban, operates on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is responsible for many of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan in recent years. Afghanistan denies Pakistan’s allegation.
In December 2024, the Pakistani military launched air strikes in Afghanistan’s Paktia province, which borders Pakistan’s tribal district of South Waziristan. While Pakistan said it had targeted sites where TTP fighters had sought refuge, the Taliban government said that 46 civilians in Afghanistan were killed in the air strikes.
This year, Pakistan also ramped up the deportation of Afghan refugees, further stressing ties. Early this year, Pakistan said it wants three million Afghans to leave the country.
Tensions over armed fighters from Afghanistan in Pakistan continue. On Friday, the Pakistani military said it killed 30 fighters who tried to cross the border from Afghanistan. The Pakistani military said all the fighters killed belonged to the TTP or its affiliates.
Still, Pakistan has tried to manage its complex relationship with Afghanistan. In April this year, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar met Muttaqi and other Afghan officials in Kabul. Dar and Muttaqi spoke again in May.
India: New Delhi had shut its Kabul embassy in 1996 after the Taliban took over. India refused to recognise the group, which it viewed as a proxy of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.
New Delhi reopened its embassy in Kabul after the Taliban was removed from power in 2001. But the embassy and India’s consulates came under repeated attacks in the subsequent years from the Taliban and its allies, including the Haqqani group.
Yet since the Taliban’s return to Kabul, and amid mounting tensions between Pakistan and the group, India’s approach has changed. It reopened its embassy, shut temporarily in 2021, and sent diplomats to meet Taliban officials. Then, in January 2025, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri flew to Dubai for a meeting with Muttaqi.
And in May, India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar spoke to Muttaqi over the phone, their first publicly acknowledged conversation.
Iran: As with Russia and India, Iran viewed the Taliban with antagonism during the group’s rule in the late 1990s. In 1998, Taliban fighters killed Iranian diplomats in Mazar-i-Sharif, further damaging relations.
But it views ISIS-K as a much bigger threat. Since the Taliban’s return to Kabul, and behind closed doors, even earlier, Tehran has been engaging with the group.
On May 17, Muttaqi visited Iran to attend the Tehran Dialogue Forum. He also met with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Massoud Pezeshkian.
After Russia, will others recognise the Taliban?
While each country will likely decide when and if to formally recognise the Taliban government, many already work with the group in a capacity that amounts, almost, to recognition.
“Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries don’t necessarily have much of an option but to engage with the Taliban for both strategic and security purposes,” Kabir Taneja, a deputy director at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, told Al Jazeera.
“Most would not be doing so out of choice, but enforced realities that the Taliban will be in Afghanistan for some time to come at least.”
Taneja said that other countries which could follow suit after Russia’s recognition of the Taliban include some countries in Central Asia, as well as China.
“Russia’s recognition of the Taliban is a geopolitical play,” Taneja said.
“It solidifies Moscow’s position in Kabul, but more importantly, gives the Taliban itself a big win. For the Taliban, international recognition has been a core aim for their outreach regionally and beyond.”
BEIRUT: Hezbollah has begun a major strategic review in the wake of its devastating war with Israel, including considering scaling back its role as an armed movement without disarming completely, three sources familiar with the deliberations say.
The internal discussions, which aren’t yet finalized and haven’t previously been reported, reflect the formidable pressures the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group has faced since a truce was reached in late November.
Israeli forces continue to strike areas where the group holds sway, accusing Hezbollah of ceasefire violations, which it denies. It is also grappling with acute financial strains, US demands for its disarmament and diminished political clout since a new cabinet took office in February with US support.
The group’s difficulties have been compounded by seismic shifts in the regional power balance since Israel decimated its command, killed thousands of its fighters and destroyed much of its arsenal last year.
Hezbollah’s Syrian ally, Bashar Assad, was toppled in December, severing a key arms supply line from Iran. Tehran is now emerging from its own bruising war with Israel, raising doubts over how much aid it can offer, a regional security source and a senior Lebanese official told Reuters.
Another senior official, who is familiar with Hezbollah’s internal deliberations, said the group had been holding clandestine discussions on its next steps. Small committees have been meeting in person or remotely to discuss issues including its leadership structure, political role, social and development work, and weapons, the official said on condition of anonymity.
The official and two other sources familiar with the discussions indicated Hezbollah has concluded that the arsenal it had amassed to deter Israel from attacking Lebanon had become a liability.
Hezollah “had an excess of power,” the official said. “All that strength turned into a weak point.”
Under the leadership of Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed last year, Hezbollah grew into a regional military player with tens of thousands of fighters, rockets and drones poised to strike Israel. It also provided support to allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Israel came to regard Hezbollah as a significant threat. When the group opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in 2023, Israel responded with airstrikes in Lebanon that escalated into a ground offensive.
Hezbollah has since relinquished a number of weapons depots in southern Lebanon to the Lebanese armed forces as stipulated in last year’s truce, though Israel says it has struck military infrastructure there still linked to the group.
Hezbollah is now considering turning over some weapons it has elsewhere in the country — notably missiles and drones seen as the biggest threat to Israel — on condition Israel withdraws from the south and halts its attacks, the sources said.
But the group won’t surrender its entire arsenal, the sources said. For example, it intends to keep lighter arms and anti-tank missiles, they said, describing them as a means to resist any future attacks.
Hezbollah’s media office did not respond to questions for this article.
Isreal’s military said it would continue operating along its northern border in accordance with the understandings between Israel and Lebanon, in order eliminate any threat and protect Israeli citizens. The US State Department declined to comment on private diplomatic conversations, referring questions to Lebanon’s government. Lebanon’s presidency did not respond to questions.
For Hezbollah to preserve any military capabilities would fall short of Israeli and US ambitions. Under the terms of the ceasefire brokered by the US and France, Lebanon’s armed forces were to confiscate “all unauthorized arms,” beginning in the area south of the Litani River — the zone closest to Israel.
Lebanon’s government also wants Hezbollah to surrender the rest of its weapons as it works to establish a state monopoly on arms. Failure to do so could stir tensions with the group’s Lebanese rivals, which accuse Hezbollah of leveraging its military might to impose its will in state affairs and repeatedly dragging Lebanon into conflicts.
All sides have said they remain committed to the ceasefire, even as they traded accusations of violations.
PART OF HEZBOLLAH’S ‘DNA’
Arms have been central to Hezbollah’s doctrine since it was founded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to fight Israeli forces who invaded Lebanon in 1982, at the height of the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war. Tensions over the Shiite Muslim group’s arsenal sparked another, brief civil conflict in 2008.
The United States and Israel deem Hezbollah a terrorist group.
Nicholas Blanford, who wrote a history of Hezbollah, said that in order to reconstitute itself, the group would have to justify its retention of weapons in an increasingly hostile political landscape, while addressing damaging intelligence breaches and ensuring its long-term finances.
“They’ve faced challenges before, but not this number simultaneously,” said Blanford, a fellow with the Atlantic Council, a US think tank.
A European official familiar with intelligence assessments said there was a lot of brainstorming underway within Hezbollah about its future but no clear outcomes. The official described Hezbollah’s status as an armed group as part of its DNA, saying it would be difficult for it to become a purely political party.
Nearly a dozen sources familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking said the group wants to keep some arms, not only in case of future threats from Israel, but also because it is worried that Sunni Muslim jihadists in neighboring Syria might exploit lax security to attack eastern Lebanon, a Shiite-majority region.
Despite the catastrophic results of the latest war with Israel — tens of thousands of people were left homeless and swathes of the south and Beirut’s southern suburbs were destroyed — many of Hezbollah’s core supporters want it to remain armed.
Um Hussein, whose son died fighting for Hezbollah, cited the threat still posed by Israel and a history of conflict with Lebanese rivals as reasons to do so.
“Hezbollah is the backbone of the Shiites, even if it is weak now,” she said, asking to be identified by a traditional nickname because members of her family still belong to Hezbollah. “We were a weak, poor group. Nobody spoke up for us.”
Hezbollah’s immediate priority is tending to the needs of constituents who withstood the worst of the war, the sources familiar with its deliberations said.
In December, Secretary General Naim Qassem said Hezbollah had paid more than $50 million to affected families with more than $25 million still to hand out. But there are signs that its funds are running short.
One Beirut resident said he had paid for repairs to his apartment in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs after it was damaged in the war only to see the entire block destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in June.
“Everyone is scattered and homeless. No one has promised to pay for our shelter,” said the man, who declined to be identified for fear his complaints might jeopardize his chances of receiving compensation.
He said he had received cheques from Hezbollah but was told by the group’s financial institution, Al-Qard Al-Hassan, that it did not have funds available to cash them. Reuters could not immediately reach the institution for comment.
Other indications of financial strain have included cutbacks to free medications offered by Hezbollah-run pharmacies, three people familiar with the operations said.
SQUEEZING HEZBOLLAH FINANCES
Hezbollah has put the onus on Lebanon’s government to secure reconstruction funding. But Foreign Minister Youssef Raji, a Hezbollah critic, has said there will be no aid from foreign donors until the state establishes a monopoly on arms.
A State Department spokesperson said in May that, while Washington was engaged in supporting sustainable reconstruction in Lebanon, “this cannot happen without Hezbollah laying down their arms.”
Israel has also been squeezing Hezbollah’s finances.
The Israeli military said on June 25 that it had killed an Iranian official who oversaw hundreds of millions of dollars in transfers annually to armed groups in the region, as well as a man in southern Lebanon who ran a currency exchange business that helped get some of these funds to Hezbollah.
Iran did not comment at the time, and its UN mission did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters.
Since February, Lebanon has barred commercial flights between Beirut and Tehran, after Israel’s military accused Hezbollah of using civilian aircraft to bring in money from Iran and threatened to take action to stop this.
Lebanese authorities have also tightened security at Beirut airport, where Hezbollah had free rein for years, making it harder for the group to smuggle in funds that way, according to an official and a security source familiar with airport operations.
Such moves have fueled anger among Hezbollah’s supporters toward the administration led by President Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam, who was made prime minister against Hezbollah’s wishes.
Alongside its Shiite ally, the Amal Movement, Hezbollah swept local elections in May, with many seats uncontested. The group will be seeking to preserve its dominance in legislative elections next year.
Nabil Boumonsef, deputy editor-in-chief of Lebanon’s Annahar newspaper, said next year’s poll was part of an “existential battle” for Hezbollah.
“It will use all the means it can, firstly to play for time so it doesn’t have to disarm, and secondly to make political and popular gains,” he said.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud said on Friday that the kingdom’s current priority is reaching a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, when asked about the possibility of normalising ties with Israel.
He was speaking during a visit to Moscow.
The local health ministry in Gaza says more than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on the region since an October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
According to Israel, 1,200 people were killed in that attack and more than 250 taken hostage into Gaza.
Gaza final proposal
US President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a “final proposal” for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.
The president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the deal on normalization of ties that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.
Trump said on Tuesday Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.
He was asked on Friday if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, and said: “We’ll see what happens, we are going to know over the next 24 hours.”
A source close to Hamas said on Thursday the Islamist group sought guarantees that the new US-backed ceasefire proposal would lead to the end of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out. Dozens of Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza authorities.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed over 56,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza’s entire population and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations.
A previous two month ceasefire ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18. Trump earlier this year proposed a UN takeover of Gaza, which was condemned globally by rights experts, the UN and Palestinians as a proposal of “ethnic cleansing.”
Abraham accords
Trump made the comments on the Abraham Accords when asked about US media reporting late on Thursday that he had met Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman at the White House.
“It’s one of the things we talked about,” Trump said. “I think a lot of people are going to be joining the Abraham accords,” he added, citing the predicted expansion to the damage faced by Iran from recent US and Israeli strikes.
Axios reported that after the meeting with Trump, the Saudi official spoke on the phone with Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces.
Trump’s meeting with the Saudi official came ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Russia pummelled Kyiv with the largest drone attack of the war, injuring at least 23 people and damaging buildings across the Ukrainian capital hours after US President Donald Trump spoke to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, officials said on Friday.
Air raid sirens, the whine of kamikaze drones and booming detonations reverberated from early evening until dawn as Russia launched what Ukraine’s Air Force said was a total of 539 drones and 11 missiles.
Families huddled in underground metro stations for shelter. Acrid smoke hung over the city centre. Outside a high-rise apartment block damaged by a drone, residents stood around surveying the scene as the clean-up job began. Some cried. Others looked on silently.
“I woke up to the sound of explosions, first the Shahed drones started buzzing, and then the explosions began,” said 40-year-old resident Maria Hilchenko. “Then people started screaming outside. The explosions from the Shaheds kept coming.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack “deliberately massive and cynical”.
“Notably, the first air raid alerts in our cities and regions yesterday began to blare almost simultaneously with media reports discussing a phone call between President Trump and Putin,” Zelensky said on X.
“Yet again, Russia is showing it has no intention of ending the war and terror,” he added, calling for increased pressure on Russia and more air defence equipment.
Kyiv officials said the attack damaged about 40 apartment blocks, passenger railway infrastructure, five schools and kindergartens, cafes and many cars in six of Kyiv’s 10 districts. Poland said the consular section of its embassy was damaged in central Kyiv, adding that staff were unharmed.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that 14 of the injured were taken to the hospital.
Ukraine’s state-owned railway Ukrzaliznytsia, the country’s largest carrier, said on Telegram that the attack on Kyiv forced them to divert a number of passenger trains, causing delays.
Damage was recorded on both sides of the wide Dnipro River bisecting the capital, and falling drone debris set a medical facility on fire in the leafy Holosiivskyi district, Klitschko said.
Russian airstrikes on Kyiv have intensified in recent weeks and included some of the deadliest assaults of the war on the city of 3 million people.
Call for sanctions
Trump said that the call with Putin on Thursday resulted in no progress at all on efforts to end the war, and the Kremlin reiterated that Moscow would keep pushing to solve the conflict’s “root causes”.
Speaking to reporters on his return to Washington from a trip to Iowa, Trump said, “I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don’t think he’s there, and I’m very disappointed.
“I’m just saying I don’t think he’s looking to stop, and that’s too bad.”
The decision by Washington to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine prompted warnings by Kyiv that the move would weaken its ability to defend against intensifying airstrikes and battlefield advances.
On Friday, Zelensky called for increased pressure on Moscow to change its “dumb, destructive behaviour”.
“For every such strike against people and human life, they must feel appropriate sanctions and other blows to their economy, their revenues, and their infrastructure,” he said.
Ukraine’s Air Force said it destroyed 478 of the air weapons Russia launched overnight. However, airstrikes were recorded in eight locations across Ukraine, with nine missiles and 63 drones, it added.
Social media videos showed people running to seek shelter, firefighters fighting blazes in the dark and ruined buildings with windows and facades blown out.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched with its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian. Many more soldiers are believed to have been killed on the front line, but neither side releases military casualty figures.
Late on Thursday, Russian shelling killed five people in and near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, Ukraine said.
Zelensky said he discussed air defences in a conversation with Trump later on Friday, agreeing to work on increasing Kyiv’s capability to “defend the sky” as Russian attacks escalate.
He added in a message on Telegram that he discussed joint defence production, as well as joint purchases and investments with the US leader.
Ukraine has been asking Washington to sell it more Patriot missiles and systems that it sees as key to defending its cities from intensifying Russian air strikes.
A decision by Washington to halt some shipments of weapons to Ukraine prompted warnings by Kyiv that the move would weaken its ability to defend against Russia’s airstrikes and battlefield advances. Germany said it is in talks on buying Patriot air defence systems to bridge the gap.
One source briefed on the call told Reuters they were optimistic that supplies of Patriot missiles could resume after what they called a “very good” conversation between the presidents.
US outlet Axios reported, citing unnamed sources, that the call lasted around 40 minutes, and that Trump told Zelensky he would check what US weapons due to be sent to Ukraine, if any, had been put on hold.
Zelensky, speaking later in his nightly video address, said he and Trump had agreed to “arrange a meeting between our teams to strengthen air defences.
“We had a very detailed discussion on joint production. We need it, America needs it.”
Speaking to reporters as he left Washington for Iowa earlier on Friday, Trump said “we haven’t” completely paused the flow of weapons but blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, for sending so many weapons that it risked weakening US defences.
“We’re giving weapons, but we’ve given so many weapons. But we are giving weapons,” he said. “And we’re working with them and trying to help them, but we haven’t [completely stopped]. You know, Biden emptied out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves.”
The pause in US weapons shipments caught Ukraine off guard and generated widespread confusion about Trump’s current views on the conflict, after saying last week he would try to free up a Patriot missile defence system for use by Kyiv.
Ukrainian leaders called in the acting US envoy to Kyiv on Wednesday to underline the importance of military aid from Washington, and caution that the pause in its weapons shipments would weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia.
The Pentagon’s move has meant a cut in deliveries of the Patriot defence missiles that Ukraine relies on to destroy fast-moving ballistic missiles, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
ANKARA, Turkey — Firefighters in Turkey remained locked in a battle to contain flames tearing through forested hillsides in the west of the country on Friday, while similar wildfires in neighboring Greece were largely brought under control.
Wildfires that broke out in at least five locations across Turkey’s Aegean coastal province of İzmir — fueled by soaring temperatures, strong winds, and low humidity — have killed two people, forced the evacuation of tens of thousands and damaged some 200 homes.
Forestry Minister İbrahim Yumakli said Friday that firefighters, supported by water-dropping aircraft, remained on the ground battling a deadly wildfire near the town of Odemis for a third day. Elsewhere, emergency crews worked to halt the spread of a new blaze that broke out late Thursday near the district of Buca.
The fire near Odemis claimed two lives — a forestry worker who died Thursday trying to contain the flames, and an 81-year-old resident who succumbed to smoke inhalation, according to authorities.
“Our intense air and land fight to control the fires in Odemis and Buca,” continues, the minister said on X, without providing further details.
Another wildfire that broke out Wednesday near the popular vacation destination of Cesme was contained Friday, Yumakli said. The fire prompted the evacuation of three neighborhoods and caused temporary road closures.
In Greece, a coastal wildfire on Crete remained under control. But the fire service maintained a large deployment on the island as the authorities feared flare ups due to strong winds.
More than 5,000 tourists, hotel workers and local residents were moved out of the area on Wednesday as the blaze threatened seaside resorts. Several areas of the country remain on alert due to the adverse weather conditions.
Local authorities in Crete estimate that the wildfire has burned approximately 15 square kilometers (3,700 acres) of land.
Turkish officials have not provided an estimate of the total land area consumed by the fires.
Authorities said most of the fires Izmir were caused by faults on power lines. Yumakli blamed the blaze in Buca on sparks caused by construction workers using a grinder to cut through metal.
Summer wildfires are common in both Greece and Turkey, where experts warn that climate change is intensifying conditions.
The children of Dr Marwan al-Sultan, director of Gaza’s Indonesian hospital and one of the territory’s most senior doctors, said they believed their father was deliberately targeted in the Israeli airstrike that killed him on Wednesday.
Sultan died when an Israeli missile was fired into the apartment block in Gaza City where he and his extended family were staying after their displacement from northern Gaza. His wife, daughter, sister and son-in-law were also killed in the attack.
His surviving daughter Lobna said the airstrike specifically targeted the room her father was in. “All the rooms were fine except for his, the missile hit it precisely,” she said.
His son Ahmed said there was “no other explanation” other than that his father was deliberately targeted by the Israeli military. He also added that the floors where his father and their extended family were staying were the only parts of the block hit in the airstrike.
The apartment building in Gaza City where Dr Marwan al-Sultan and several family members were reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike
Photos and videos taken by local journalists and given to the Guardian, showed that the apartment block had been hit on the front side of the fourth and fifth floors, while the rest remained intact.
“Until the last minute of his life, he did not leave his job. He paid for this dedication with his life,” said Ahmed. “I was there only 10 minutes before the airstrike and the scene I faced when I went back to the apartment after the attack is indescribable. I didn’t know who had survived and who had died. Some people were only now shattered body parts. Most of those who died were women and children.”
He said his father’s death was not just a loss for the family but for the whole of Gaza. Sultan was an experienced cardiologist and a leading figure in Gaza’s medical community. He was also one of only two remaining heart specialists in the territory, according to Healthcare Worker Watch (HWW), a Palestinian medical organisation.
“My father was loved by all people,” said Ahmed. “He had been besieged at the Indonesian hospital and also at the Kamal Adwan hospital but he did not leave. For the first few months [of the war] we did not see him except a few hours of the day because he was always at the hospital.”
His death means that all of the directors of the hospitals in northern Gaza have either been killed or detained by the Israeli military forces.
Video footage of a bombed out apartment in Gaza
The director of Kamal Adwan hospital, Dr Ahmed al-Kahlout, and his fellow acting director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, as well as Dr Ahmed Muhanna, the director of al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza, are all being held in an Israeli prison.
In a statement, the IDF said: “On Wednesday, the IDF struck a key terrorist from the Hamas terrorist organisation in the area of Gaza City. The claim that as a result of the strike uninvolved civilians were harmed is being reviewed.
“The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to mitigate harm to them as much as possible. The Hamas terrorist organisation systematically violates international law while using civilian infrastructure for terrorist activity and the civilian population as human shields. The incident is under review.”
According to data from HWW, Sultan was the 70th healthcare worker to have been killed by the Israeli military in the past 50 days. The UN says that overall more than 1,400 healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war in October 2023.
Under the Geneva conventions, the set of international laws that police the conduct of warring parties, attacks on healthcare workers during conflict could be war crimes. The conventions state that doctors and other healthcare professionals should be protected, not targeted or attacked during conflict, and must be allowed to carry on providing medical care to those who need it.
How often do French police stop small boat crossings?published at 13:06 British Summer Time
13:06 BST
Rob England BBC Verify senior data journalist
French police have stopped a small boat from crossing the English Channel to the UK this morning by slashing its inflatable hull.
Officers typically try to intercept boats before they launch, as French maritime law restricts their ability to intervene once vessels are in the water – unless those on board call for help.
But this morning’s incident was in “waist-deep water” according to the BBC’s Andrew Harding, who witnessed it happen on a beach south of Boulogne on France’s Channel coast.
So how often do French police step in?
According to official figures, there have been at least 12,130 instances this year where people were prevented from boarding small boats.
Recently, a gap has emerged between the number of preventions and successful crossings, with nearly 4,800 arrivals in the UK compared with about 2,700 preventions.
The BBC has previously reported on smugglers adapting their methods – including the use of “taxi boats” to ferry people out to vessels waiting just offshore, in an attempt to exploit French legal limits on water-based intervention.
France is now considering legislation to allow police to act once boats are in the water. However, some campaigners warn the move could endanger lives.
