In recent weeks, the Horn of Africa has continued to treat the expert community to a series of political developments that require careful reflection and offer a wide field for interpretation.

A series of meetings between representatives of the United States, Qatar and Israel have just taken place in Cairo with, aimed at working out the details of an increasingly elusive ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Hamas representatives have repeatedly been invited to join these negotiations, but they have not yet given their consent.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to drag his country into a war with no end in sight. Despite the fact that Israel razed the Gaza Strip to the ground and eliminated several Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, it did not come close to victory on either the northern or southern fronts.

If the core purpose of Washington’s sanctions on Iran was to force a regime change in Tehran and cripple its ability to affect geopolitics in the Middle East, none of this has happened. In fact, recent events show Iran behaving as a country that sounds neither deterred by Israel nor under immense pressure, both economic and military, from Washington. In response to Israel’s killing of Ismael Haniyeh in Iran, Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri said that Iran will “make the aggressor Israeli regime pay the price for its aggression in a legitimate and decisive action”.

This summer, with the help of Russia, Iran and Iraq, relations between Syria and Turkey were restored. This event became the subject of current diplomacy to find a detente in the Middle East. Of course, the US did not approve of such an act by Turkey. However, Ankara’s new attitude does not satisfy Syria either. What is the reason for this?

In the context of a long lull in Libya, when the parties have given up direct fighting and toughened political rhetoric, the first steps towards the restoration or rather the creation of some semblance of national institutions are being observed. The Armed Forces have not been spared from such processes. It is in this logic that the recent visits of Lieutenant General Mohammed Al-Haddad, Chief of General Staff of the Western Libyan forces

On August 10^th, the Israeli Defense Forces (a rather inappropriate name, given their recent history) struck the Tabeen School Complex in Gaza, where it is estimated around 4000 people, refugees from the fighting in other parts of Gaza, were sheltering.

Turkey is particularly concerned about the ongoing simmering conflicts near its borders, where the Kurdish issue poses a key security threat to Ankara. Turkey refuses to countenance the existence of any form of Kurdish entities in neighboring countries, and this is having a negative effect on relations between Turkey and the USA.

The persistent peace talks in Doha have been unable to de-escalate tensions and establish a ceasefire in Palestine. Astonishingly, the ongoing Doha peace talks, led by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States, do not include Hamas – the actual stakeholders in the current war in Gaza – and their emphasis on a truce based on the framework proposed by the US President Biden on 31^st May 2024. The recent assassinations of the leaders of the two top organizations fighting against Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, have intensified regional tensions.

The Israeli strike that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh pushed the Middle East a lot closer to a wider war than it was before July 31^st. Because Haniyeh was killed on Iranian soil during an official visit, Tehran promised military retaliation. The latter sees this as necessary to punish Israel to counterbalance the humiliation it suffered for failing to protect an official guest. But, thanks to Russia’s intervention and proactive diplomacy, clouds of a wider war have begun to disappear.

According to recent reports, Israel, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, is doing everything in its power to prevent the cessation of hostilities in Gaza and is trying to provoke Iran into starting a regional conflict. Israel believes that such actions will help resolve some aspects of strategic security in the future.

The ongoing tension between Iran and Israel can be understood in the context that the latter views itself as the vanguard of Western Civilization in the region. Israeli representative stated as much on 14^th August 2024, during an emergency UNSC meeting convened to discuss his country’s bombing of Al-Tabeen school that killed about 100 civilians. Israel and The West cannot foresee themselves backing down until the entire region is brought under neocolonialism.