Orientul Mijlociu

President Donald Trump continues to double down on his out-of-left-field proposal to take over the Gaza Strip, remove the two million Palestinians who live there, and turn it into the world’s largest beach resort. During the press gaggle on Feb. 11, before his meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, whom Trump is pressuring to accept some of those Palestinians he is proposing to relocate, the president said, “We will have Gaza… We are going to take it. We are going to hold it.”

Après quatre décennies de violence, le fondateur et dirigeant emprisonné du Parti des travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, appelle le groupe armé à abandonner le combat et à s’autodissoudre. Mais cet appel, lancé jeudi 27 février 2025, n’est qu’un début.

C’est un appel historique ou, du moins, qui pourrait le devenir s’il ne reste pas lettre morte. Le fondateur et chef historique du Parti des travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, a demandé jeudi 27 février à son mouvement armé de se dissoudre et de déposer les armes après quatre décennies de combats contre l’État turc. « Tous les groupes doivent déposer les armes et le PKK doit se dissoudre », a ordonné le leader kurde dans une lettre lue en son nom par des députés du parti pro-kurde légal, le DEM, qui lui avaient rendu visite quelques heures plus tôt. Abdullah Öcalan, emprisonné depuis 1999 sur une île en mer de Marmara, dit « assumer la responsabilité historique de cet appel ».

In an interview, Stéphane Malsagne discusses former Lebanese president Fouad Chehab, whose biography he has written.

Michael Young: Your book is a fascinating and much-needed biography of Fouad Chehab, Lebanon’s president between 1958 and 1964. But might I start with a disagreement? The subtitle of your book is “Une figure oubliée de l’histoire libanaise,” or “a forgotten figure in Lebanese history.” Yet not only is Chehab far from forgotten in Lebanon, many Lebanese often seem to be in perpetual anticipation of the return of a Chehabist figure. In using this subtitle, what were you trying to say?

Enough already of the media’s lazy indifference to the vast undercount of the Palestinian death toll from Netanyahu’s genocidal daily bombing and shelling of Gaza’s defenseless civilian population. I’m referring to all the media – the corporate media, the public media, and the independent media. They all stick with the Hamas Ministry of Health’s (MOH) count of named victims whose corpses have been identified by hospitals and mortuaries. For months there have been no operating hospitals and mortuaries to send their grisly data to the Health Ministry.

ISIS carried out at least six confirmed attacks in November in the Homs, Hama, and Deir Ez Zor governorates, killing at least eight pro-regime soldiers and two civilians. There were also two high quality* attacks carried out during the month. ISIS attacks in central Syria declined for the third consecutive month, dropping to their lowest point since January 2023. However, attacks did not diminish in other parts of Syria, and the regime’s downfall has given ISIS new avenues to expand while also opening new ways to counter the group.

For the third consecutive day, clashes have erupted on the Syrian-Lebanese border between the Syrian Army and drug and arms smugglers from Lebanese tribes residing in villages and towns along the border near al-Qusayr, southern Homs. The confrontations have resulted in casualties on both sides.

Syrian Army Gains Ground in al-Qusayr Countryside

According to Syria TV’s correspondent, intense fighting broke out Saturday night between the Syrian Army and Lebanese tribal groups in the border villages, particularly in Matraba, with both sides using various types of weapons.

Russian cargo vessels have continued to evacuate military assets from the port of Tartus as Russia negotiates its presence in Syria with the interim government. OSINT analyst MT Anderson posted satellite imagery from February 14 showing the Russian cargo vessel Baltic Leader and potentially the Admiral Golovko Admiral Gorshkov-class frigate about 250 kilometers south of the coast of southwestern Cyprus.[i] Anderson said that the Baltic Leader departed the port of Tartus sometime after February 4, when satellite imagery showed the vessel at the port.[ii] It is unclear now if the Baltic Leader will bring evacuated Russian cargo to Russia or Libya. Russia sent some assets from Syria to Libya by air in December 2024 and January 2025.[iii] Publicly available marine tracking data showed that two cargo vessels that departed Tartus in late January, the Sparta and Sparta II, were sailing off the coast of the Netherlands on February 15, presumably in transit to Russia.[iv] Continued Russian-Syria engagement—including a recent phone call between Syrian Interim President Ahmed al Shara and Russian President Vladimir Putin—suggests that Syria seeks some relationship with Russia even as Russia withdraws its military assets from Syria.[v] Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on February 14 that Russia continues to discuss its military presence in Syria with the new Syrian administration.[vi]

Long read: British rule in Palestine during the 1920s and 1930s enabled Zionist colonisation at the expense of Palestinians.

With the allied victory and collapse of the Ottoman empire in world war one, Britain occupied Palestine which it ruled until 1948. This was formalised by the newly created League of Nations, which divided up the former Ottoman territories into ‘mandates’.