WorldcrunchDaraj is a Beirut-based, Arabic-language independent digital media platform that was created by journalists.
The Kingdom is trapped between the hammer of Netanyahu’s right-wing expansionist government policies, and the anvil of the growing influence of the discourse of the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance in the region. An ultimately unsuccessful attempt by militants to cross into Israel has raised new urgency.
“Then the white man found the Middle East: a distant place, rich in nature and humanity, with a beautiful climate. He invaded it, then divided it, then separated the sections accordingly.”
The question of who will succeed Yahya Sinwar is essentially a question of whether Hamas will return from its “Iranian exile” and embrace the Muslim Brotherhood.
Lebanese writer Tarek Ismail, who fled his village in southern Lebanon in September, reflects on his new life as a displaced person: “I am now facing a fate that is not in my hands.”
The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack is just the latest Israeli strike against those who have tried to monopolize the notion of “resistance” as a purely military pursuit. The result has been the absolute destruction of Gaza, and now Lebanon, and the reinforcement of the Israeli occupation.
The Israeli military says Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, has been killed in Gaza. The strike is a major victory for Israel, closing a chapter in recent Palestinian history in which Sinwar rose to the top of Hamas, and bet everything on the Oct. 7 attack, which made him more divisive than ever among the people of Gaza.
Observers believe that the military operations targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian aid in northern Gaza is the prelude to Israel reoccupying the region and establishing Jewish settlements.
Israel is on the hunt in Lebanon one more time, with apparent early successes. But it has again ignored the fact that something always rises from the ashes.
Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly urged the Lebanese to turn on Hezbollah, as he drops bombs that kill thousands of civilians. But every citizen knows what an occupier looks like.
The Lebanese coastal metropolis has long been a source of inspiration and freedom for Baghdad native poet Aya Mansour. As Israel sends ground troops into Lebanon, she asks how the world can watch as fire and smoke covers the beauty of Beirut without saying a word.
The Houthis took control of Yemen’s capital Sanaa a decade ago in a religious coup masquerading as a revolution. Yet the Houthis have begun to speak more openly and boldly about their vision for the future of Yemen — and in doing so, may have planted the seeds of their defeat, exiled Yemeni journalist Afrah Nasser writes.
It’s clearer than ever that Israel — backed by a number of militarily and economically powerful countries that claim to abide by international law and human rights — continues to destroy these laws and standards that are based on the equality of all human beings.
With results in Sunday’s election showed Kais Saied winning the election by a landslide, Tunisia may have definitively returned to dictatorship and closed a chapter on democracy in the Arab world that began a generation ago on the streets of Tunis. Daraj took a pre-election look at what it means for the people who live there.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei vowed on Friday that the country’s regional allies would “not back down” against Israel. Yet neither criticism of Tehran has been growing among Hezbollah supporters since the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah.
Israel has targeted Hashem Safieddine, the younger cousin of slain Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, in an overnight air strike early Friday. Believed to be the heir apparent, Safieddine rose through the ranks and positions within the organizational structure. He also has very strong ties, and family connections, with hardliners in Iran.
Israel doesn’t know how far it will push into Lebanon, a great deal will depend on how much resistance they face. All of it adds up to a tragedy-in-the-making for the people of Lebanon.
The call in Lebanon to “postpone politics” is driven by a narration of the war as a religious, and not a political, event: that’s the root of Hezbollah’s ideology.
Israel has killed Hassan Nasrallah, longtime charismatic head of Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah. His recent leadership had been marked by a new kind of realism in the face of the balance of power, and served as a complement to Hezbollah supporters’ knee-jerk celebrations even when they are defeated.
The author, whose family was forced to flee during the 1947 “Nakba” expulsion of Palestinians, sees how the event has been used by leaders in the Arab world to wield authority without actually improving anyone’s life.
Nearly a year into the war in Gaza, the people of Lebanon are paying a price for both a failing of Hezbollah security, and more broadly for a support war so ambiguous that it’s impossible to understand its cause, purpose, or if anything has been achieved.
Monday was the deadliest day in Lebanon since at least 2006 as Israeli strikes killed hundreds, including dozens of women and children. The strikes appear aimed at forcing thousands of Lebanese to flee their homes in the southern part of the country, as all-out war looms between Hezbollah and Israel.
Even if the exploding Hezbollah pagers was not the first supply chain attack, having thousands of remote, hand-held devices raised terrifying questions that hadn’t been widely considered before, marking a potential turning point in the public’s trust in their electronic devices, and in governments’ ability to protect them.
Logic suggests that continuing the fighting on the southern Lebanon front is no more than meeting Netanyahu halfway toward a full-scale war. It also suggests that disrupting this man’s mission requires finding ways to stop the war.
Striking with the knowledge that innocents will die is the same genocidal approach that has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza. The particular approach, detonating electronic devices by remote control, should worry everyone in the world.
Unprecedented attacks via pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hezbollah members comes amid a growing consensus in Israel in favor of launching a war across the border into Lebanon. Meanwhile, the U.S. may have given its assent and the Lebanese government appears unable to intervene, with Hezbollah holding all the cards on this side of the border.
The Muslim Brotherhood is heading back into Jordanian politics, 30 years after being excluded following the 1994 peace deal with Israel. It’s a post-Oct. 7 sign from Amman about the specter of masses of Palestinians flooding into Jordan from Gaza and the West Bank is scary enough to play ball with the Islamist Brotherhood.
The porn industry and amateur and professional adult content plays a role in the Israeli war on Gaza. Some pornographic companies did not only provide support to Israel, but adult content also contributed to drawing a violative imagination about Israeli soldiers and their relationship with the battlefield and the Gazan victims. It is part of a long history linking pornography and war.
Efforts to vaccinate children in Gaza are undoubtedly motivated in part by moral reasons, but they also stem from the world’s concern – especially in neighboring countries – about the virus becoming endemic in the Palestinian enclave. The writer recalls how it can all implode, or spread, at any time.
Mohammad Javad Zarif is among the most recognizable faces of contemporary Iranian political life. His return to government in a strategic position does not guarantee his project’s survival. Indeed, radical Islamic forces will likely make him a prime target for destruction.
Residents of southern Lebanon believe that their hometowns will remain an open arena for a long-term war between Israel and Hezbollah, even if this has only happened so far in a way that allows both sides to stop short of declaring an all-out war.
For two decades Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah spoke about destroying Israel, but in recent speeches, he’s just demanding it pull out of Gaza. It’s one more sign that its patrons in Tehran have made a calculation to try to salvage a status quo in the region.
Hezbollah’s Imad 4 underground missile facility, which was revealed on Aug. 16, is just another layer of the Lebanese tragedy. For Hazem El-Amin, the footage brings back memories of his experience during the Lebanese Civil War.
Imane Khelif not only won a boxing gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, but she also triumphed over brutal stereotyping and ignorance about women that is part of a broader story of sports and politics that traces back to Hitler and Jesse Owens..
Hundreds of thousands of migrants are in limbo in Tunisia, which has in recent years become a major transit point for migrants fleeing conflicts and poverty in Africa and the Middle East for better lives in Europe. Women in particular lack basic rights, including sexual and reproductive health services.
Climate change has become an inevitable issue in the Middle East and North Africa — which may soon experience 200 days of extreme heat annually — and with those changes come questions of environmental justice.
Married shortly before ISIS militants began their genocide of Yazidi people in northern Iraq, Samia Samu was later abducted and held captive for nine years. Upon her recent release, she and her husband, Dakhil Hassan, celebrated by renewing their wedding vows.
Many people, especially in the Arab region, hailed the Houthis’ attacks against Israel. But what they may not know is that Yemeni people have been caught in the crossfire.
The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh has become the subject of an unhealthy debate between Palestinians and Syrians. Yet this discussion misses the point and has allowed Israel to benefit from the situation.
Several women have announced their candidacy in Algeria’s presidential election, on Sept. 7, which will potentially mark a new chapter in the North African county, five years after peaceful protests forced President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign after two decades in office.
A series of strikes occurred just days after Netanyahu returned from the United States, which will have difficulty denying a role in the targeting of three capitals in the region in 24 hours, and may spark a much wider war in the Middle East.