Hungary’s opposition leader pledges to defend civil liberties

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February 16, 2026

Hungarian opposition leader vows to defend rights — Opposition leader Peter Magyar's Tisza Party has been leading Viktor Orban's Fidesz in polls

On the Square in Budapest: A Country at a Crossroads

It was a gusty spring evening in Budapest — the kind of night that pulls your collar up and pushes you toward other people. The city’s neo-Gothic parliament loomed like a watchful grandparent; the crowd gathered on the adjacent square was smaller than the television networks had promised, but no less loud. Flags snapped in the wind, coffee steam rose from paper cups, and a handful of teenagers chanted a rhythm that echoed off the stone facades.

At the makeshift stage, Peter Magyar spoke with the urgency of someone who believes he has a last chance to save more than a political career. He didn’t read from a teleprompter; he paced, jabbed, laughed, and then — when the subject turned to corruption and surveillance — his voice narrowed into a razor.

“We have hit a dead end,” he said. “Not because Hungary cannot succeed, but because the people who were supposed to build our future have been stealing it.” Then he named a remedy: transparency, prosecutions, and a promise to return money he says the state has lost over 16 years.

The Contest: Old Order vs. New Promise

This is the scene as another parliamentary election approaches on 12 April — a calendar date that has hung over the country for months like a verdict still to be delivered. Peter Magyar, leader of the Tisza party, has emerged as the most potent challenger to Viktor Orbán since the prime minister’s return to power in 2010. In many public polls, Magyar’s movement has run ahead of Fidesz for weeks; in coffee houses and tram lines, the chatter varies between cautious hope and bruised skepticism.

“If you listen to the numbers, it sounds operatic — but on the ground, people are hungry for change,” said Anna Kovács, a small-business owner who runs a bakery near Kálvin Square. “We pay taxes, we queue at clinics, we see new bridges and shiny projects, but our lives have not changed. My kids are thinking of leaving. That frightens me more than anything.”

Magyar has made corruption the centerpiece of his campaign. He accuses Orbán’s circle of enriching itself through state contracts and opaque procurement. His pledge of “total transparency in contracts involving public funds” is both a policy promise and a moral rallying cry: a promise to pull back the curtain on the deals many Hungarians suspect are rigged in favor of insiders.

Civil Rights and Surveillance: The Other Front

Accusations of economic wrongdoing sit beside more existential complaints about civil liberties. Magyar suggests Orbán’s government has watched — literally and figuratively — and that opponents’ private lives have been invaded in the name of national security. “If they can search through my private life,” he told the crowd, “then they can rummage through everyone’s.”

That line resonated with journalists, academics, and lawyers who have spent years watching legal reforms, media takeovers, and funding cuts shrink the space for dissent. “It’s not just about lost money,” said Dr. Gábor Török, a legal scholar at a Budapest university. “It’s about institutions that are supposed to act as checks and balances getting hollowed out. When the judiciary is weakened and the press is muzzled, the public loses the language to talk about power.”

What the Rifts Look Like on the Ground

Walk away from the square and Budapest splits into a thousand micro-stories. A woman in her seventies pauses by a memorial bench and tells you she supports Orbán because he has kept her pension stable. A taxi driver in Józsefváros says he votes for whoever wins — “it’s safer that way, and you find work,” he says — while a student in a cafés whispers about emigration as if it were a weather forecast.

In the east — along the Tisza River, where Magyar’s party takes its name — the mood is different. Fields that once produced grains are now dotted with new developments and, some say, suspiciously large estates owned by contractors close to the government. “You see tractors by day and SUVs by night,” an elderly farmer told me, smiling wryly. “The tractor is for show. The SUV is for the money.”

Numbers and the Broader Picture

It is important not to confuse noise with reality. Hungary’s headline economy has shown growth over the past decade, and unemployment figures at times have been relatively low. But many economists and citizens argue that growth has not always translated into broadly shared prosperity; wage stagnation, rising housing costs, and concerns about healthcare access complicate the narrative of success.

Fidesz has dominated Hungarian politics for more than a decade, returning to government in 2010 and holding majorities large enough to reshape institutions.
The European Union has repeatedly flagged rule-of-law concerns; conditionality mechanisms have been used to delay or withhold funds to member states where governance standards are judged lacking.
Opinion polls show a closely contested race, with Magyar’s Tisza party ahead in several surveys — a fragile lead that could evaporate depending on turnout and alliances.

International Echoes and Local Tensions

In recent weeks, foreign visitors and international headlines have added heat to an already boiling pot. Broadly, Hungary has been at the center of a wider debate about the balance between national sovereignty and shared democratic norms in Europe. Viktor Orbán has courted powers and personalities from east to west, cultivating relationships that critics say undermine European solidarity.

“What Europe needs is not a lecture but a conversation,” one EU diplomat told me off the record. “Yet when institutions are consolidated to the point where opposition voices cannot function freely, the conversation becomes impossible.”

At the rally, Magyar did not shy away from naming foreign influence — or perceived influence. He called Orbán a “puppet” of outside powers, a phrase meant to complicate the prime minister’s own frequent rhetoric about foreign meddling. In the international theater, that kind of rhetoric can be both strategic and incendiary, inviting friends and foes to pick sides.

Voices of the Voters

People at these rallies are not monoliths. Lajos, a retired schoolteacher, says he wants clean governance but doubts the opposition’s readiness. “They promise the moon,” he said. “I need someone who knows how to fix the plumbing first.” Elsewhere, younger voters speak in sharper tones: “It’s about dignity,” said 28-year-old Ágnes, who works in a tech startup. “We don’t want our country to become a story of one family getting rich.”

Why This Election Matters Beyond Hungary

You can read this contest as a local fight about jobs and corruption, and you would be right. But it’s also part of a larger global conversation: what happens when democratic institutions are gradually repurposed to secure power, and what responsibility neighbors have when that process affects regional stability and shared values.

Think about it: how do societies balance effective governance with openness? How do they create prosperity that is visible and tangible for ordinary people, not just visible on construction cranes and glossy state media?

These questions are not unique to Hungary. They surface in capitals across Europe, in small towns and big metropolises, in voting booths and kitchen-table talk. The answer Hungarians choose on 12 April will not only decide who sits in parliament but will also send a message about whether the pendulum in Europe is swinging back toward pluralism — or toward a politics of consolidation and controlled dissent.

After the Rally: Uncertain Roads Ahead

As people drifted from the square, the banners folded like tired birds. The speeches would be replayed on screens and dissected on morning radio shows. Polls would jitter; pundits would predict, and the voters would decide.

In the end, the scene that will matter most is not the podium or the prime minister’s office. It is the kitchen where a family argues about rent, the classroom where a teacher wonders about academic freedom, the courthouse where a judge considers a case against a powerful contractor. These are the places where policy becomes lived reality.

So, if you find yourself watching this story from afar, consider how it connects to conversations at home: about fairness, about institutions, about the ways power is used and who benefits. How would you want your country to answer the same questions? What would you demand of those who govern?

One thing is certain: for many in Hungary, this election is not merely a choice between parties. It is a choice about the kind of country they want to inherit — and the kind they are willing to fight for.

Soomaaliya Iyo Tanzania oo heshiis dhanka socdaalka ah gaaray

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Mahad

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February 16, 2026

Feb 16(Jowhar)=Dowladda Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya iyo Dowladda Jamhuuriyadda Midowga ee Tanzania ayaa kala saxiixday Heshiis Is-Afgarad (MoU) oo ku saabsan iskaashiga maareynta arrimaha socdaalka iyo xoojinta wada-shaqeynta hay’adaha la xiriira.

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Ka doodista cutubka 6aad ee dastuurka dalka oo la soo gabagabeeyay

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Mahad

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February 16, 2026

Feb 16(Jowhar)-Mudanayaasha labada Aqal ee Baarlamaanka Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya ayaa xarunta Golaha Shacabka ku yeeshay kalfadhiga 7-aad, kulankiisa 17-aad ee wadajirka ah, waxaana shir guddoominayey Guddoomiye kuxigeenka koowaad

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Iranian Foreign Minister Returns to Geneva for Second Round of U.S. Talks

By

hanad

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February 16, 2026

Iran FM in Geneva for second round of talks with US — Abbas Araghchi is expected to hold talks with his Swiss and Omani counterparts as well as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (file pic)

In Geneva’s Quiet Rooms, the World Holds Its Breath

There is a particular hush to Geneva in winter — a thin, refined quiet that makes every footstep sound louder, every voice more consequential. It was into that hush this week that Iran’s foreign minister arrived, flanked by a team of diplomats and experts, to take part in a second round of indirect talks with the United States. The meetings are mediated by Oman and watched, nervously and avidly, by capitals from Tehran to Jerusalem and Washington to Moscow.

On the surface, this looks like another round in the long, sullen game of diplomacy. But beneath the choreography of protocol and shuttle diplomacy lies something raw and immediate: more than 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium whose whereabouts have been a subject of fierce international scrutiny since inspectors last tracked it in June. That stockpile is the tangible fulcrum on which trust, sanctions relief, and regional security could pivot.

What’s on the Table

This round of talks is officially “indirect” — Iran and the United States are not sitting across a table, but messages and offers are being ferried back and forth through Oman and the neutral Swiss hosts. Still, the issues are stark and simple to name even if they are devilishly hard to solve.

Uranium stockpiles: Iran’s advance to 60% enrichment levels narrowed the scientific gap to a weapon-grade threshold, raising alarms in the West.
Sanctions relief: A crippled economy is Iran’s daily reality; Tehran says concessions must be matched by tangible economic reopening.
Ballistic missiles and regional proxies: Washington and allied countries want constraints on missile programs and Iranian support for armed groups across the Middle East.

“If we see the sincerity on their part, I am sure we will be on a road to have an agreement,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told foreign media in recent comments, signalling Tehran’s willingness to negotiate if economic relief follows.

Actors on a Small Stage with Global Consequences

This is not only a bilateral spat. It is a triangular flux of diplomacy, coercion, and domestic politics. On one side is Tehran, bruised by years of sanctions that have pinched ordinary Iranians hard. On another side is Washington, which has repeatedly signalled both the willingness to negotiate and an appetite for pressure — even military — if diplomacy fails. And threading through the talks are mediators: Oman, which has quietly facilitated communications before, and Switzerland, whose embassy in Tehran has represented U.S. interests since 1980.

A U.S. envoy, part of the team dispatched to the talks, told a reporter on condition of anonymity, “We’re here to set practical limits, to reduce the risk of escalation. That means verifiable steps and concrete timelines.” In the background, the United States has also sent high-profile figures, underlining the political weight behind the negotiations.

And then there is Israel. “There should be no enrichment capability … dismantle the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared recently — words that sharpen the stakes and keep the region on edge.

On the Ground in Tehran: Voices That Often Go Unheard

Walk the alleys off Valiasr Street and you’ll encounter layers of ordinary life that are too easily flattened in geopolitical summaries. A tea vendor in a small shop beside a bookstore blows steam off a kettle and shakes his head. “People here want work, safety, to travel, for their children to breathe,” he says, stirring sugar into a glass. “Talk of bombs and carriers is far from what the family needs.”

A graduate student in international relations, studying in the evenings by a single lamp, is more circumspect: “We don’t want isolation. But we also don’t want humiliation. The conversation must restore dignity and livelihoods.”

Those livelihoods are what Iranian officials point to when they say economic sectors such as aviation, mining, oil and gas could be quick wins from any deal. Hamid Ghanbari, a deputy foreign minister focused on economic diplomacy, has argued that for an agreement to be viable, the United States must also be able to benefit in areas with “strong and rapid economic return potential.”

Switzerland and Oman: Quiet Carriers of the Conversation

Switzerland’s role in these talks is a reminder of how much diplomacy depends on small acts of trust. For decades, Bern has served as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran, a custodian of messages and a place where red lines can be tested in private. Oman, too, has been a discreet broker, its pragmatic foreign policy allowing it to move between adversaries.

“Neutral ground makes it possible to speak frankly,” said a Swiss diplomat involved in the preparatory work. “Geneva’s not glamour — it’s a workshop. Our job is to create a space where inconvenient realities can be faced.”

Why This Matters Beyond the Region

Ask any trader, diplomat, or family in the Middle East and they will tell you that the outcome here reverberates far beyond Tehran and Washington. A renewed spiral into tension could raise insurance premiums on shipping routes through the Gulf, push crude prices higher, and create waves across fragile supply chains. Conversely, a credible deal that restores some economic normalcy for Iran could reshape regional alliances and reopen avenues for trade and cultural exchange.

There are also deeper currents. This is a contest not only over centrifuges and sanctions but over how the international rules around nuclear materials, verification, and state behavior are enforced. It tests whether diplomatic patience can outlast the short, sharp instincts of military pressure.

Where Things Could Go

No one in Geneva is naive: trust is thin, verification is expensive, and domestic politics on both sides could scuttle progress. Still, negotiators speak in possibilities. They imagine phased steps: verified limits on enrichment; staged sanctions relief; international monitors back in; economic engagement calibrated to ensure rapid benefits.

“Diplomacy is slow but not inert,” a seasoned analyst who follows non-proliferation issues told me. “It’s a series of trades: time for transparency, sanctions relief for verifiable rollback. The devil is in the sequencing.”

Questions That Remain

Will the indirect format be enough to broker trust? Can Geneva produce a framework that satisfies Tehran’s need for relief and Washington’s insistence on verifiable limits? And perhaps most importantly: can ordinary people — the shopkeepers, students, and families whose daily lives are most affected — feel the benefits of any agreement?

As the delegations move between rooms in Hotel lobbies and conference centers, and as the world watches a stockpile of enriched uranium hover like a danger-laden shadow, one truth remains: diplomacy is a human endeavor. It is argument and concession, fear and hope. It is, at its best, the art of averting the worst while building room for the possible.

Whether Geneva’s hush now gives way to progress, or to another round of recriminations, will depend not only on what negotiators write on their pages, but on the small acts of courage and compromise that happen off-camera. Are we ready, as a global community, to back patience over brinkmanship? The answer will shape more than treaty texts — it will reach into markets, kitchens, and classrooms from Tehran to Tel Aviv, from Washington to Geneva.

Why Ireland Is Urging Its Citizens to Avoid Travel to Cuba

By

hanad

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February 16, 2026

Why are Irish citizens being advised against Cuba travel? — The warnings come amid a deepening economic crisis in the country, as the Trump Administration ramps up pressure on its communist leadership

A Havana Cut to Candlelight: Why Ireland and Others Are Telling Citizens to Stay Away

On a late afternoon in Luyano, a neighbourhood of Havana where faded pastel buildings lean into one another like old friends, the lights blinked out for the third time that week.

Women squeezed together on stoops, children craning their necks to listen for the clack of a radio, and the smell of boiling plantains mixed with the diesel tang of generators being wheeled out into the streets. A single candle wavered on the window sill, casting the room in a soft, trembling orange.

“You learn to live with the darkness,” said Ana, a primary-school teacher who has lived in the barrio her whole life. “But when the hospitals go dark, you cannot accept that as normal. We are tired. We are afraid.”

What the Travel Warnings Mean

In recent days, Ireland joined a growing list of countries — including the United Kingdom and Canada — advising their citizens to avoid all but essential travel to Cuba. The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade placed the island on its second-highest travel warning level, signaling that travel there “is likely to present a clear and present danger to your health or safety.”

That language is not chosen lightly. It reflects an acute deterioration in daily life brought on by shortages of food, fuel and medicine; prolonged and unpredictable power cuts; and strain on communications and transport infrastructure. The UN has warned that essential services across the island are at risk.

Official lines and the human stories behind them

“We are extremely worried about Cuba’s deepening socio-economic crisis,” said Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Power outages are undermining access to safe water, sanitation and healthcare, with the most vulnerable disproportionately affected.”

For the average person, that translates into long queues for basics. “I stood in line from dawn to buy rice for the week,” said Jorge, who runs a tiny mechanic’s shop near the Malecon. “We sell car parts, but what people need is food and petrol. There is nowhere to hide from this shortage.”

The Fuel Chokehold and Its Ripple Effects

The immediate trigger for the latest crunch has been a sudden squeeze on fuel supplies. In the last month the United States moved to cut off oil deliveries routed from Venezuela, while publicly threatening sanctions—measures that analysts say have effectively choked a major supply channel.

Cuba, an island nation of about 11 million people, depends on imported fuel not only for transport but for electricity generation, water pumping and the delivery of medicines and food. According to UN briefings, more than 80% of Cuba’s water pumping equipment depends on electricity — a figure that helps explain why power outages quickly become public-health emergencies.

“An energy shortage becomes a health emergency overnight,” said Dr. Lucia Montejo, who works at one of Havana’s public hospitals. “We ration oxygen supplies, we delay surgeries, and sometimes we close neonatal units. You feel a profound helplessness when you can’t provide basic care.”

Politics at the Crossroads: Embargo, Rhetoric and Reality

There is a long and tangled history behind these events. Since the early 1960s, the United States has maintained a series of economic restrictions on Cuba. The Trump administration has described Cuba as an “unusual and extraordinary threat,” while alleging Cuban support for certain transnational groups — claims Havana rejects.

Cuban Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos de Cossio has described what he calls the new fuel restrictions as “the equivalent to war,” calling the measures a form of “massive collective punishment.” The bitterness of the rhetoric masks a key question: who ultimately bears the cost of sanctions when they bite? Often, it is ordinary people.

Internationally, the tide of opinion has not been monolithic. Ireland and many other countries have repeatedly supported UN resolutions calling for an end to the embargo. “We, alongside our EU colleagues, have long considered that it serves no constructive purpose and has resulted in significant negative impacts for the Cuban people,” a spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs told reporters.

Tourism, Embassies and the Practicalities of Warnings

For countries like Ireland, the move is both symbolic and practical. Ireland does not maintain an embassy in Havana; Dublin’s small number of nationals in Cuba are handled through the Irish Embassy in Mexico. The travel advisory underscores a practical difficulty as well: many travellers from Ireland already face barriers when planning a Caribbean trip to Cuba, including no direct flights and visa complications for subsequent travel to the United States.

“Numbers of Irish tourists in Cuba were already very low,” said Clare Dunne, chief executive of the Irish Travel Agents Association. “Between flight logistics and visa rules, Cuba has become a niche destination for the Irish market. Now airlines like Air Canada have suspended services to Havana because they cannot guarantee fuel supplies, which further hits an economy that needs visitors.”

Tourism has historically been a crucial lifeline for Cuba, bringing in foreign currency and sustaining livelihoods across hotels, restaurants and public transport. With flights canceled and visitors urged not to go, the immediate losses will be both economic and social, silencing music halls and leaving once-bustling paladares shuttered in the dark.

Faces in the Dark: Everyday Resilience and Frustration

In a Havana courtyard lit by a dozen small lamps, people shared food and stories. A 68-year-old retired seamstress named Elena brought a pot of black beans to the communal meal. “We joke, we sing, we help each other,” she said. “But jokes do not fix a hospital bed that isn’t there when you need it.”

Meanwhile, small entrepreneurs who rely on fuel for taxis or for running refrigeration for food are pinched. “I had to sell my second motorbike,” said Miguel, a taxi driver. “You ask yourself: how long can you keep surviving like this?”

What Should Travelers and Observers Take Away?

Stay informed: Warnings change quickly. Check official travel advisories from your government before making plans.
Consider the impacts: Travel has consequences that go beyond personal risk — tourism can be an economic lifeline, but visiting during crises may place strain on local resources.
Look for nuance: Sanctions, diplomacy and domestic policy all intertwine. The human consequences often outpace political calculations.

Looking Ahead

What happens next will depend on a mix of diplomacy, economic choices and the resilience of ordinary Cubans. Can international channels be opened to allow humanitarian fuel deliveries without becoming a political football? Will targeted assistance reach hospitals and water systems? Those answers are not simple.

For now, the candles keep flickering in Havana’s windows — fragile beacons of endurance. The travel warnings are a sign not only of danger but of a world watching: bureaucrats, diplomats, travel agents, and families abroad weighing the next move. If you find yourself with a passport stamped for Cuba, ask yourself: what are you prepared to see, and what responsibility do we all hold when the lights go out for whole cities?

Peace Board members commit more than $5 billion, Trump announces

By

hanad

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February 16, 2026

Board of Peace members pledge over $5 billion - Trump — Civil defence teams use heavy machinery to search the rubble of a destroyed building in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza

A New Kind of Peace Summit — and a War That Keeps Chewing at the Edges

On a sunwashed Thursday, a line of black SUVs will pull up to an unlikely venue for peacemaking: the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. Delegations from more than 20 countries — heads of state among them — are expected to walk through its doors. The announcement, posted with characteristic flourish on Truth Social, promises a pledge of more than $5 billion for Gaza’s reconstruction and humanitarian relief, and “thousands” of personnel for a UN-authorized stabilization force and local policing.

It reads on paper like progress: money, boots for order, a newly minted international board claiming ownership of the messy work of rebuilding lives. But beneath the language of pledges and press releases, the streets of Gaza still smell of smoke and the war’s arithmetic of death and displacement keeps changing by the hour.

Phone Calls, Press Releases and a Name on a Building

The “Board of Peace” is the brainchild of a controversial diplomatic blueprint that secured a United Nations Security Council resolution. Its first public meeting — at the institute that carries the name of the U.S. president who championed the plan — is being billed as the operational start of an endgame to a war that has rocked the region.

“Money is the easy part to announce,” said a European aid official who asked not to be named. “The hard part is whether the pledges will turn into cash that gets through checkpoints, into rubble-clearing equipment, into water, into schools that won’t be shelled again in a month.”

For some, the optics are jarring. To imagine the fate of an embattled enclave resting on a new institute with a political name is to confront the modern evolution of diplomacy: a mix of statecraft, branding and battalions of bureaucrats chasing both headlines and handshakes.

Gaza: Ceasefire, but Not Silence

The pause in fighting that entered a “second phase” last month has not been a serene lull. Ceasefires, as history and humanitarian workers know, can be fragile scaffolds. In Gaza, the walls of those scaffolds are riddled with holes. Palestinians and Israeli forces have continued to trade accusations of violations; the resulting strikes have killed civilians and combatants alike.

Medics in Nasser Hospital and field clinics in Khan Younis report fresh losses even as diplomats prepare talking points. Health officials in Gaza say that at least 12 people were killed in a recent round of airstrikes — including at least four in a tent encampment for displaced families, and five in Khan Younis — while the Gaza health ministry has counted roughly 600 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire deal began. Israel, meanwhile, reports four soldiers killed by militants during the same period.

“We are living in a strange kind of pause,” said Dr. Leila Mansour, a surgeon at a southern Gaza hospital. “You operate at night for the wounded and during the day you listen to promises. The body arrives, and the promises don’t heal it.”

Tents and Rubble: The Human Geography of Displacement

Walk through any of Gaza’s tent encampments and you’ll understand what reconstructing a place really means. The camps are not just rows of nylon and plastic. They hold the smell of lentils cooking in shared pots, children’s drawings pasted on tent walls, and the constant, queasy memory that today’s shelter may be tomorrow’s rubble.

“We lost our home in October,” said Amal, a mother of three, standing by the tent where she and dozens of others shelter. “The world talks about rebuilding, but I’m tired of rebuilding the same thing. I want my children to go to school near a home where they can hang their coats.”

The Yellow Line, Tunnels and Accusations

One of the most disputed features of the truce is the so-called “Yellow Line” — a demarcation meant to mark the boundary between Israeli and Hamas-controlled areas. Israeli officials say militants have repeatedly crossed that line and used tunnels to reappear beneath rubble and buildings, prompting what they call “precise” strikes in self-defense.

An IDF statement framed recent operations as narrowly targeted, insisting strikes were in response to militants who emerged armed from tunnels near the line. “When fighters move east of the line while armed, it’s an explicit ceasefire violation,” an Israeli military source told reporters. “Our duty is to protect our forces and civilians.”

For Gaza residents, that calculus feels abstract. “We have learned the geometry of fear,” said Mahmoud, a taxi driver in northern Gaza. “We know where the shelling comes from, but we also know that life has to continue between the lines.”

Lebanon: A Wider Shore of Violence

The conflict’s edges extend beyond Gaza. A recent strike on the Lebanese-Syrian border left four dead, Lebanon and Israel assigning blame differently: Beirut said civilians were killed in a drone strike near Majdal Anjar; Israel said it struck operatives from Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Since the November truce that paused large-scale fighting with Hezbollah, Lebanon has endured frequent strikes along its southern frontier. An AFP tally of health ministry reports places more than 370 Lebanese killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire.

“We feel the tremors here as if the war is a drum that never stops,” said Rania, a shopkeeper in a border town. “Every siren is another reminder that peace is paper thin.”

Promises, Practicalities, and Politics

What could a $5 billion pledge actually buy? Reconstruction in Gaza faces logistical and legal complexities: demining, rubble removal, materials subject to blockade or inspection, and the establishment of credible local policing. Add to that the political problem — who decides which local actors receive authority and who guarantees they can operate without becoming targets.

“Reconstruction without a durable political settlement is like planting seeds on a moving plate,” said Dr. Omar Haddad, a scholar of conflict reconstruction. “One needs not just money, but guarantees: guarantees of access, of protection, of rebuilding that benefits families rather than feeds spoilers.”

Key hurdles: safe corridors for materials, accountability for civilian protection, deconfliction with military objectives.
Humanitarian urgency: tens of thousands displaced; basic services — water, electricity, health — remain fragile.
Regional dynamics: Lebanon’s front and factions inside Gaza complicate any straightforward security architecture.

Questions for the Reader and the World

When a summit is held under the banner of one nation and a peace institute bears a single leader’s name, who holds the moral claim to the project? Who counts as a partner in rebuilding? And perhaps most urgently: can money and staff replace the fragile trust that communities need to live without fear?

These are not rhetorical flourishes. They are questions families in Gaza whisper to each other as children sleep among rubble. They are the same questions border communities in Lebanon ask when the sky darkens with drones.

Looking Ahead: Caution More Than Certainty

The forthcoming meeting may chart a course for funding and staffing operations that Gaza desperately needs. Or it may become another chapter in a long list of international responses that fail to align political will with on-the-ground reality. For now, the engines of diplomacy and aid rev up as bullets and accusations continue to find their marks.

As you read this, consider this: Are billions and battalions the right starting point — or a distraction from the more unglamorous work of building mutual security, accountability and everyday normalcy? Who, finally, will be allowed to live the ordinary life that seems for so many publics just out of reach?

The tents will remain until they are not. The names on buildings will remain until they are replaced by memories. The hope is that, this time, pledges turn into streets repaired, hospitals that stay open and children who can go to school without counting the minutes to the siren. The test of any peace plan will be measured not in press conferences, but in whether those children can sleep through the night.

Bondi shooting suspect Naveed Akram appears in court today

By

hanad

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February 16, 2026

Australia passes tougher gun laws in wake of Bondi attack — The 14 December attack at Bondi Beach killed 15 people who were celebrating at a Jewish festival

A Quiet Courtroom, Loud Questions: The Man on the Screen and a City Still Grieving

The small rectangle on a courtroom monitor was all that stood between a packed Sydney courtroom and the man accused of one of the most brutal attacks on Australian soil in decades.

For five minutes on a frosty morning, Naveed Akram — watched by victims’ families, community leaders and a nation still raw from December’s violence — appeared by video link from prison. He said almost nothing. When the judge asked if he had heard the discussion about suppression orders, he offered one single syllable: “yeah.”

Outside the court, lawyer Ben Archbold told journalists that his client was being held in “very onerous conditions”, and that it was too early to say whether Mr Akram would plead guilty. The next public hearing has been set for 9 March.

What the Courtroom Heard — and Didn’t

The brief hearing was largely administrative: suppression orders, timelines for evidence and the technical choreography of a sprawling prosecution. But the paperwork masks a tragedy that has stretched across suburbs and synagogues and into the living rooms of millions of Australians.

Mr Akram, authorities say, and his father Sajid carried out a meticulously planned attack on a Hanukkah celebration in December. Sajid was killed by police during the attack. Naveed has been charged with terrorism, 15 counts of murder, dozens of counts of causing wounds with intent to kill and allegations of planting explosives.

It is a roster of accusations that reads like a country’s worst wound: among the dead were an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, a couple who stepped forward to confront one of the gunmen, and a 10-year-old girl. The loss has sent shockwaves through Australia’s Jewish communities — a minority of roughly 120,000 people spread across cities and suburbs — and reignited debates about public safety, hate, and the limits of prevention.

Faces, Names and the Household Sound of Grief

In the weeks after the killings, synagogues filled not just with candles and prayers but with questions that refuse easy answers. “We lit candles in the park outside the shul,” said Miriam Levy, a volunteer who helped organise a community vigil. “People said each other’s names. That’s how we held on — to the names. To the faces. It was how we remembered that these were mothers, fathers, children.”

At another vigil on a windy coastal night near Bondi, an elderly man pressed a hand to his heart and muttered, “We thought this kind of thing happened somewhere else.” A teenage survivor, speaking through a friend, described an instinctive urge to protect: “It felt like everything slowed down — people were moving and shouting and I just wanted to get everyone out.”

Red Flags, Reconnaissance, and the Machinery of Prevention

Behind the human stories are documents that sketch a different, chillingly methodical picture.

Police say the pair practised with firearms in the New South Wales countryside, recorded videos in October railing against “zionists” in front of a flag linked to the so-called Islamic State, and even conducted a nighttime reconnaissance of Bondi Beach days before the killings. They had returned to Sydney weeks prior from a four-week trip to the southern Philippines, police documents state.

Intelligence agencies had previously flagged Naveed Akram in 2019. But officials decided then that he did not pose an imminent threat. “Sometimes the system works by constantly reassessing risk,” says Dr Hannah Sutherland, a terrorism and intelligence analyst based in Melbourne. “But it’s a tragic truth that people can slip between those reassessments. The threshold for intervention is high — rightly so in a liberal democracy — but that means early warning signs can be missed.”

How security experts see the problem

Thresholds and legal standards: Agencies often need clear, immediate markers of intent before they can lawfully intervene.
Resource constraints: Small teams must triage thousands of leads and tips daily.
Online radicalisation: Content that isn’t illegal can still be corrosive, radicalising people in plain view.

“This was not a sudden flash of violence,” said Sutherland. “The picture painted by police indicates planning. The question now is what pieces of that picture were seen by whom, and when.”

Gun Laws, Memory and the Promise to Do Better

Australia’s memory of mass gun violence is long and specific. The Port Arthur massacre in 1996, which killed 35 people, reshaped the country’s relationship with firearms — a national buyback and sweeping laws followed. Since then, truly large-scale shootings have been rare, and Australians have often pointed to their laws as a model.

But December’s attack prompted fresh debate about whether laws alone are enough. Ministerial statements since the shooting have promised tougher measures: stricter controls on firearms possession, closer monitoring of individuals deemed at risk, and a national conversation about antisemitism.

“Legislation can do a lot,” said Professor James Hollis, a criminologist. “But you can’t legislate away ideology. Prevention requires community work — early intervention programs, mental health services, better community-police relationships and more careful monitoring of extremist networks.”

A Community’s Reckoning with Antisemitism

The attack also reopened a raw national conversation about antisemitism. Community leaders have reported increases in harassment and hostile incidents in recent years, mirroring trends in other Western nations where Jewish communities have felt a rise in hostility linked to global tensions.

Rabbi Naomi Feldman, who has led interfaith vigils since the shooting, asked a question that has haunted gatherings: “How do we make our streets and places of worship feel like home again?” Her voice, measured and weary, carried on a video livestream. “That isn’t only a job for the police. It is a job for neighbours, for social media companies, for schools.”

What Comes Next — Courts, Questions, and the Long Tail of Justice

The courtroom procedures that began this week are only the first act of what will be a long legal process. Evidence timelines were discussed. Victim identification suppression orders were extended. The accused will next be back before a judge on 9 March.

As the legal machine moves at its own deliberate pace, families will continue to live with the absence left behind. “We will come to court,” said an organizer for the families in a quiet, resolute voice. “But a date in a diary won’t fix the empty chair at our table.”

So where should our gaze fall now? On the man on the screen, on the holes in the system, on the families rebuilding lives — or all of the above?

It is tempting to answer simply: prosecute, reform, heal. But grief and policy do not unfold in tidy steps. They require sustained attention, moral courage and the willingness to look at uncomfortable trade-offs between security and liberty. They require communities to rebuild trust, and for institutions to explain, transparently, what was seen and what was missed.

As the legal proceedings unfurl, and as Sydney remembers, the city asks itself a question that reaches beyond its beaches and benches: how do we make sure the next emergency is not met by the same chorus of “if only”?

In the meantime, candles keep flickering outside synagogues, people continue to leave flowers near Bondi, and the small rectangle on a monitor waits for its next appearance in court — a screen that shows a man accused of violence, and screens the questions we all must answer together.

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