‘We knew exactly what we were doing’: Ex-US diplomat on Iran elementary school bombing

"We knew exactly what we were doing."

Did the US deliberately strike an elementary school on the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran?

Hear what former US diplomat Hala Rharrit had to say.

More than six months after the strike killed over 170 people, mostly children, the US government has yet to publicly accept responsibility or formally release the findings of a Pentagon investigation. 

Rharrit, who served as the US State Department's Arabic-language spokesperson, resigned in 2024 over US policy in Gaza. She sat down with Mohamed Hashem on Real Talk. 

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/UEJdz49l2WE

On The David Hearst Podcast, Sir Jeremy Greenstock joins David Hearst on the lessons of Iraq, the war on Iran, Gaza and the future of British foreign policy.

Premiering this Wednesday on our YouTube channel. Subscribe now and turn on notifications so you do not miss it.

Israel builds barriers in Gaza, changing its territory and infrastrucure

Though diplomatic talks over Gaza's future are at an impasse, Gaza's reality on the ground is witnessing major infrastructural as Israel builds massive sand walls in areas past the yellow line, along with gates as dividing barriers. @rnatourious has more.

Should Brits care about Palestine? | MEE Live

Andy Burnham addressed the Commons as UK prime minister for the first time on Tuesday. He focused on domestic issues such as water, energy, transport and the cost of living. But a pressing briefing to his government published on the same day argues Israel-Palestine must be a policy priority.
 
Written by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians and the Labour Muslim Network, it accuses Britain of publicly condemning Israel's occupation while its money and weaponry sustains it.
 
MEE Live's Mathilda Mallinson asked LMN Chair Ali Milani why Palestine should be a policy priority in Britain, whose new prime minister came to fame as a local mayor who put his town first.

Audience cheer at anti-Muslim speech during Jewish American Summit

Audience members laughed and cheered on Mosab Hassan Youssef as he called on Muslims to “get the fuck out of the United States” and return to the “shitholes” where they "came from", during a talk at the Jewish American Summit in Los Angeles on Sunday. 

“I don't give a fuck about your Quran. I don't give a fuck about your paedophile prophet. And I don't care, I don't give a fuck about your entire belief system. You disgust me,” added Youssef, the son of a Hamas co-founder who defected to Israel in 1997 and renounced Islam.

Netanyahu visits Gaza, boasts about occupying 60% of it

The Israeli Government Press Office released footage of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting Gaza with the army, and a video-statement in which he says: "We control the area. We are not retreating. [...] We control 60% of the Strip, and we are not stopping."

He added that the Israeli army is working towards the "demilitarisation of Hamas".

This comes as further scrutiny has been placed on the operation of the US-led Board of Peace intended to rebuild Gaza. The head of the Board, Nikolay Mladenov recently said in an interview that "there would be no more Gaza".

Is this an Israel we can trade with? | Sir Jeremy Greenstock | The David Hearst Podcast

Has Britain learned anything from two decades of military intervention in the Middle East?

Catch the latest episode of The David Hearst Podcast with former UK envoy Sir Jeremy Greenstock on Youtube

📰 Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was recently sent by Donald Trump's Board of Peace to ask the Palestinian Authority (PA) to replace any mention of the word "Palestine" in schoolbooks with the Jewish designation of "Samaria", Middle East Eye has heard.

Jeremy Greenstock, who was Britain's ambassador to the UN between 1998 and 2003, told MEE that Blair attempted to exert pressure on the PA and said that if it was serious about being seen by the Board of Peace as capable of reaching an agreement with Israel to end the war on Gaza, then the word "Palestine" should be erased from textbooks.

In a wide-ranging interview on the David Hearst Podcast, Greenstock said the demand was rejected by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Greenstock also said that his former boss was experiencing "difficulties" in his new role overseeing the postwar management of Gaza for the board.

🔗https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/blair-asked-palestinian-authority-remove-palestine-textbooks-former-uk-envoy-says

Gaza Board of Peace 'an abstract and arbitray commitee', says former British diplomat

"It's an abstract and arbitrary committee." 

Former British diplomat, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, criticised the creation of the 'Board of Peace' to manage post-war Gaza, arguing it bypasses the UN Security Council and lacks genuine legitimacy.

Greenstock stresses that no lasting settlement can work without Palestinian participation and a fundamental commitment to justice.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock recently sat down with David Hearst, editor in chief of MEE, for The David Hearst Podcast. They discussed the catastrophic cost of Western intervention in the Middle East.

From the lessons of the 2003 Iraq war to rising tensions with Iran, Israel's assault on Gaza, and the erasure of international law.

Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel.

Baghdad's House of Wisdom | Josephine Quinn | UNAPOLOGETIC

Josephine Quinn on what Baghdad's House of Wisdom actually was, and why the popular story about it preserving Greek literature isn't quite right.

The full episode is now available to MEE Youtube channel members.

UNAPOLOGETIC is hosted by Ashfaaq Carim.

Two Palestinian teenagers killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank

Two Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli forces on Wednesday evening during an attack on the village of al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news reported. 

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its crews evacuated two 19-year-old Palestinians, who were shot with live ammunition, one in the neck and the other in the back, during an attack by settlers and Israeli forces on the village. 

They later succumbed to their injuries after being transported to hospital.

Will Burnham deliver when Starmer failed? The same lobby groups funded both | Joe Gill | MEE Opinion

Joe Gill, editor at Middle East Eye, says that Andy Burnham came into office promising hope and an end to 40 years of neoliberalism, but his early record is already raising questions about how far he is willing to break from Keir Starmer.

Gill points to Burnham’s retreat on policies including caps on large political donations, rent controls and the nationalisation of Thames Water. On foreign policy, he says Burnham has so far followed much of Starmer’s approach, including support for Ukraine, reluctance to call Gaza a genocide and limited action against Israel.

#BREAKING: The President of the United Arab Emirates has pardoned Egyptian poet and high-profile activist Abdul Rahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who was facing a ten-year prison sentence, Emirati media reported.

According to the reports, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan issued the pardon on Friday after Qaradawi was convicted by the Cybercrime Circuit of the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal on 27 August, who handed him a 10-year custodial sentence and a fine of Dh200,000.

🔗 Read more: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uae-president-pardons-egyptian-poet-abdul-rahman-yusuf-al-qaradawi

Thousands of Lebanese students still displaced by war as school year nears

Thousands of children remain displaced from their hometowns in Lebanon's south six months after a new war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah. 

Many still live in schools-turned-shelters, and as schools gear up for a new academic year beginning on September 15, families are wondering where they will go — and how their children can pick up schooling amid so much uncertainty.

'Why aren't you crying?': Former US diplomat on watching Gaza from inside the State Department

"Why aren't you crying?"

Former US diplomat Hala Rharrit describes the toll of watching Gaza's genocide unfold from inside the US State Department, breaking down in her office while colleagues stayed silent around her. She joined Mohamed Hashem on Real Talk.

Watch it now: https://youtu.be/UEJdz49l2WE

Iranian green card-holding family detained without cause, due to familial relations

“They’ve done everything ‘quote-unquote’ right to become lawful residents of the United States, tax-paying members of our communities, and they’re still being targeted.”

In the aftermath of the 12-day war in 2025, and amid the ongoing hot-and-cold conflict between the United States and Iran, Iranian nationals who are lawful residents of the US have been targeted by ICE and detained without cause on an unprecedented scale.

Middle East Eye spoke with Maria Kari, a human rights attorney on the legal team representing a green card-holding family affected by this ongoing campaign against Iranians – and attack on civil liberties within the United States itself – to learn how these individuals are being subjected to detention without evidence of a threat, and why this should concern more than just immigrant communities.

Mass burial for 100 Palestinians in Gaza

Gazans held a mass funerary ceremony for the burial of around 100 Palestinians, including 62 children, whose bodies where recovered from under the rubble years after Israeli airstrikes targeted the buildings.

AfD co-chair believes Friedrich Merz will be replaced 'before Christmas'

Speaking after a historic win for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in a key state election, co-chairwoman Alice Weidal says she expects early federal elections and for current chancellor Friedrich Merz to be 'replaced before Christmas'.

The AfD party won more than 44 per cent of the vote, becoming the largest partt in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, representing the first far-right win in the country since World War II.

The AfD leadership has sought to present the party as an unflinching supporter of Israel despite repeated antisemitic and Holocaust-revisionist statements from figures within its ranks.

During a conversation with Elon Musk in January 2025, Weidel described her party as “the only protector of the Jewish people” in Germany.

Petition launched urging drop of Macklemore from Ed Sheeran tour after pro-Palestien set

The Israeli-American Council has launched a petition urging Ed Sheeran and his management to drop Macklemore from the remaining dates of his tour, after the rapper used his opening set at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium to call for a “Free Palestine”.

Macklemore performed “Hind’s Hall”, his track supporting pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses and criticising Israel’s actions in Gaza. The song is named for Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed in Gaza in 2024.

He said, “A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine.”

‘Terror’: Freed Palestinian journalist recounts two years in Israeli prison

In an interview with Middle East Eye, freed Palestinian journalist Ramez Awad recounts in harrowing detail the  conditions that prisoners live under in Israeli prisons, where he was held for two years. 

“Injustice, fear, terror, hunger, oppression, death. It was a graveyard for the living. There are no other words to describe it,” he says.