What Pakistan's defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Turkey means for the Middle East

The deal, which establishes that an armed attack on one signatory will be treated as an attack on all three, risks drawing Islamabad deeper into Middle Eastern rivalries

Zia Ur Rehman in Islamabad

Published date: 8 August 202

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/what-pakistan-saudi-arabia-turkey-defence-pact-means-middle-east

A new security pact between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey is reshaping the Middle East's strategic map, bringing together three of the Muslim world's most influential powers under a collective defence framework.

Named after the holy city where it was signed on Friday, the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement stipulates that an attack against one member is an attack against all three.

Echoing Nato's Article 5, the clause gives the pact immediate geopolitical significance, even as the joint statement leaves specific military commitments vague.

For Pakistan, the world's only nuclear-armed Muslim-majority state, the accord marks a striking departure from its traditionally cautious stance as a regional mediator.

By standing alongside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Islamabad is positioning its armed forces as a potential security guarantor at the heart of an emerging axis spanning South Asia and the Gulf.

The pact signals a potentially significant shift. As the long-standing regional order anchored by Washington comes under increasing strain amid war and shifting alliances, Middle Eastern powers are seeking to take greater control of their own security, with Pakistan's nuclear and conventional military capabilities potentially providing a new anchor.

The deal also comes as the Middle East's traditional security order faces unprecedented strain. 

The US and Israeli war on Iran has transformed the regional strategic landscape, with direct strikes reaching Saudi territory and commercial shipping severely disrupted across both the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea.

"All three countries have a shared economic and security interest in preventing further escalation, which ultimately compelled them to sign the pact," a Pakistani security official monitoring the region told Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity.

Disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have affected supplies of Saudi energy and fertilisers, sending shock waves through the global economy. Import-dependent countries such as Pakistan and Turkey have been among those particularly exposed to the disruption.

But the security calculus is even more consequential.

Both Saudi Arabia and Turkey have experienced attacks linked to the broader regional conflict, while Islamabad and Ankara remain deeply concerned about cross-border instability spilling over from their lengthy frontiers with Iran.

Ankara faces an additional security dilemma: the prospect that the arming of Iranian Kurdish militias by external powers could unravel its fragile, hard-won peace process with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

The wider conflict has also emboldened Iran and its Houthi allies in Yemen, who have escalated direct attacks on Saudi territory.

For Gulf leaders, the failure of traditional US security guarantees to deter such strikes has raised questions about Washington’s reliability as a security partner.

The result is a decisive push by regional heavyweights to construct defence arrangements that rely less on external guarantees.

Former Pakistani ambassador Asif Durrani described the pact as the "first concrete building block of an emerging regional security architecture", arguing that it signals a move towards greater regional ownership of security.

"If this momentum continues, it could open the door to addressing decades-old conflicts, including the enduring Palestinian issue, through a more regionally driven approach,” Durrani wrote on X.

Analysts emphasise that the pact is not an isolated development, but rather the culmination of deepening trilateral cooperation.

Michael Kugelman, senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council, described the pact as "a logical outgrowth of deepening security ties" among the three countries in recent months.

It builds upon existing foundations. Riyadh and Islamabad signed a bilateral mutual defence agreement in late 2025, which saw roughly 8,000 Pakistani troops, fighter jets and air defence systems deployed to the kingdom, while Turkey remains a major defence supplier to both nations.

For Washington, the pact could be particularly welcome.

With its major focus on collective regional deterrence, with an eye to Iran, "it'll be received well in Washington, which wants to see more burden-sharing from top allies", Kugelman said on X.

An economic lifeline in military uniform

For Pakistan, however, the pact is about more than geopolitics. It is also deeply connected to the country's economic vulnerabilities, analysts said.

The pact marks a notable shift for Islamabad, which spent recent months positioning itself as a diplomatic bridge between Washington and Tehran.

While Pakistan helped broker the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding in June to temporarily halt regional hostilities, subsequent escalations narrowed its neutral stance. For a government battling persistent inflation and fiscal distress, strategic defence policy is now increasingly inseparable from financial necessity.

Historically, Pakistan has leveraged its military strength to secure economic backing, particularly from the US and Saudi Arabia.

This collective defence framework institutionalises that model, allowing Islamabad to monetise its operational capabilities, ranging from joint training and troop deployments to arms exports, in exchange for vital Gulf investments, energy concessions and diplomatic support.

For Riyadh, Pakistan offers access to a large, experienced military with decades of combat and counterinsurgency experience. For Islamabad, closer security cooperation with Saudi Arabia offers the prospect of investment, financial assistance and a stronger economic relationship with one of the region’s most powerful states.

"In this sense, Pakistan's military strength is becoming an economic asset as well as a strategic one," the security official told MEE.

Saudi money, Turkish technology, Pakistani military power

The emerging partnership also brings together three distinct forms of strategic power.

Sheharyar Khan, a political analyst and senior adviser at Pakistan’s Ministry of Law and Justice, described the emerging combination as one in which Saudi Arabia provides the financial power, Turkey contributes technological innovation, and Pakistan supplies core military capability.

"Together, the three countries could form a security partnership whose capabilities extend far beyond traditional troop deployments," Khan told MEE.

Each state brings a complementary asset. Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, provides vast capital, energy market dominance and regional diplomatic weight.

Turkey, which operates Nato's second-largest military, has an advanced and increasingly self-reliant defence industry, including expertise in unmanned aerial systems, electronic warfare and precision-guided munitions, reducing reliance on foreign suppliers.

Pakistan contributes a massive, combat-hardened army and the Muslim world’s sole nuclear deterrent.

The risk of entrapment

Yet the agreement also carries significant risks for Pakistan, experts said.

Iran's response to the pact has been swift and critical.

"The Saudis should know that a paper agreement with Turkey and Pakistan does not bring them security, just as years of unilateral milking of the Americans did not bring them security," Ebrahim Rezaei, a member of Iran's parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, wrote on X, dismissing the arrangement.

The response underscores Islamabad’s fundamental dilemma: deepening involvement in Gulf defence architecture risks fracturing its delicate, traditionally cautious relationship with Tehran.

Analysts warn of "entrapment", the danger of Pakistan being dragged into foreign confrontations that do not serve its own national interests.

Historically, Pakistan has avoided direct entanglements in Middle Eastern power struggles. Its parliament famously declined to join the Saudi-led Yemen coalition in 2015 because of domestic political and sectarian concerns.

Home to a large Shia minority, some of whom see Iranian clergy as political and religious guides, Pakistan must also ensure that closer alignment with Saudi Arabia and Turkey is not perceived at home as an anti-Iranian stance that could inflame internal sectarian fault lines.

'Muslim security bloc'

The agreement has sparked intense debate over whether it could evolve into a broader, multi-nation security bloc across the Muslim world.

Retired senior Pakistani military official Muhammad Saeed suggested that additional Muslim countries from the region, and potentially beyond, could eventually join the framework.

But he cautioned that military power alone would not determine the success of such an arrangement.

"For Muslim states, the real and collective strength will not come only through military capabilities but primarily through long-term investments and collaboration in knowledge, innovation, discipline, character, and tolerant interpretation of sectarian sentiment," he wrote on X.

The prospect of a more cohesive security grouping has already attracted attention in Israel.

In February, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett explicitly warned against Turkey seeking a "hostile axis" with Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, "to surround Israel".

Analysts, however, argue that Pakistan's nuclear status inevitably changes the strategic calculations surrounding the pact.

For Saudi Arabia, closer defence ties with Islamabad could provide an additional layer of deterrence at a time when the kingdom faces threats from Iran while also navigating its relationship with Israel.

The India factor

The pact also has implications far beyond the Middle East.

For Pakistan, closer ties with Saudi Arabia and Turkey could provide a strategic counterweight to India.

While Saudi Arabia maintains extensive economic and trade ties with New Delhi, the collective defence framework further strengthens Pakistan's role as a security partner for key Gulf powers.

Although India's Ministry of External Affairs responded cautiously, saying that New Delhi was "closely following developments", Indian national security analysts are monitoring the situation with growing concern.

"While most are obviously seeing this from a Middle East lens, it impacts other theatres as well. Pakistan's conflict-laden relationship with India [is] at the top of that list," Kabir Taneja, executive director of the Middle East programme at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank, wrote on X.

Former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal, in a post on X, described the pact as "a very negative development for Indian interests", suggesting that India expand its strategic options with the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Greece, Cyprus and Afghanistan.

Iran says Hormuz reopening hinges on US accepting Tehran’s conditions

Iranian officials have stated that Tehran is close to reaching a deal with Oman to reopen the strait to commercial vessels

News Desk

AUG 8, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/iran-says-hormuz-reopening-hinges-on-us-accepting-tehrans-conditions

A spokesman for the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Mohebbi, confirmed on 8 August that the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is subject to the mechanisms and conditions specific to the Islamic Republic and is not related to the ongoing negotiations between Iran and Oman.

Mohebbi said that Hormuz is not just an economically important waterway for Iran but is also one of the geographic and strategic assets that allow Iran to project power in the region.

He added that reopening the strait depends on Washington “fully accepting Tehran's conditions” and abandoning its interference in regional negotiations.

The IRGC spokesman stressed, "Once the United States accepts Iran's conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will certainly be opened."

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also announced on Saturday that Iran and Oman are “very close” to reaching an agreement on establishing a new shipping route through the strait, Tasnim News Agency reported.

Araghchi said the agreement would include certain conditions, including compensation for US violations of the Islamabad memorandum of understanding signed by Washington and Tehran in June.

He added that Tehran and Muscat were discussing a temporary shipping route while technical and legal issues related to establishing a permanent route were being addressed.

In response to the unprovoked US-Israeli war on the country in February, Iran seized control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of global oil and gas exports normally travel.

Iran's closure of the strait triggered a global energy supply shock that drove up gas prices, worsened inflation, and raised alarms about oil reserves worldwide.

On Saturday, Iran targeted a vessel linked to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) as it attempted to transit Hormuz.

UAE state news agency WAM reported that the vessel was targeted by a missile and that the situation was under control.

ADNOC reported that, since the start of the war, 15 of its vessels have been attacked by missiles and drones while passing through the strait. This week alone, three vessels were targeted, resulting in one crew member's death and injuries to 20 others.

A US official also confirmed that progress has been made in talks between Iran and Oman regarding the Strait of Hormuz.

"We expect a deal soon," a US official told Reuters on Friday, adding that once a deal to restore the free passage of commercial vessels is announced, the US will lift its blockade of Iranian ports.

"As ​always, ⁠US actions will continue to be performance-based and tied to ⁠Iran's ​implementation of ​its commitments," the official said.

Meanwhile, Ali Akbar Velayati, advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, stressed that foreign forces fueling instability must leave the region.

Velayati wrote on X that "the recent developments were achieved through the steadfastness of the armed forces, the resilience of the Iranian people, and the courage of the axis of resistance."

He added that "the defeat of America and the Zionist entity has reinforced the belief that foreign forces, which are the primary factor in insecurity, must leave the region."

Since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran in February, Iranian forces have targeted US bases on the territory of its regional allies, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, causing significant damage as well as casualties to US troops.

Velayati stressed that “the countries of the region are capable, through increasing the level of cooperation and coordination among themselves, of ensuring stability and security.”

Israel Vetoes Trump in the Middle East—Again

The special relationship undermines American sovereignty.

Andrew Day

Aug 6, 2026

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/israel-vetoes-trump-in-the-middle-east-again/

If not for Israel’s veto power over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the Trump administration might have secured peace in Gaza, stabilized relations with Iran, and clinched a deal with Saudi Arabia to help build a nuclear program for the kingdom.

OK, that last “opportunity” deserved a hard pass, unless you reckon nuclear proliferation in the world’s most volatile region somehow serves U.S. interests. But in journalism, three makes a trend, so I’ve got myself a column.

And America has got itself a big problem: Israeli pushback on President Donald Trump’s efforts to build a better Middle East shows how our most entangling of alliances undermines U.S. sovereignty.

The Gaza example is the most recent. Washington has enabled Israel’s assault on Gaza, and Trump would now like to use his Board of Peace, which he oversees, to bring peace to the Palestinian enclave. That’s quite the task, and Israel, an ostensible client state of the U.S., isn’t making it any easier.

Last Thursday, Trump announced on social media that the Board had reached “a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza.” Trump added, “As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw.”

Sorry, Mr. President, but you’ve been reading fake news.

“Contrary to inaccurate reports,” the Board of Peace said in a statement this Monday, the Israeli military would withdraw forces only after Hamas handed over all its weapons.

That’s not what Trump had said, and it’s not what Hamas had understood the phased agreement to require. So, what happened? The Times of Israel reports:

The US-backed Board of Peace appeared to change its conditions for the IDF to withdraw from Gaza after its top officials held a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, shortly before a fresh Israeli airstrike was reported in the enclave.

It’s déjà vu all over again. In late July, the Trump administration announced an agreement to develop a Saudi civilian nuclear program. But there was a catch. The very next day, Trump clarified on Truth Social that the deal “is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.” 

By “Trump clarified,” I mean that he retroactively decreed a new stipulation apparently designed to kill a deal opposed by Israel. The chances in the near future of Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords—which normalize relations between Muslim nations and Israel—are approximately, checking my math, consulting my copy of Introduction to Statistical Concepts: not gonna freakin’ happen.

Again, the death of the U.S.–Saudi nuclear deal is a good thing, but it was brought about by a very bad thing, namely, Israel’s de facto veto power over Trump’s Middle East policy.

One Mideast nuclear agreement that actually would be good for American interests is the one with Iran that Trump was on the verge of securing in 2025. Early in his second term, Trump aimed to strike a deal that would deny Iran a pathway to the bomb. Statements by White House officials indicated Tehran could still be allowed to enrich uranium for civilian nuclear purposes.

But in spring 2025, something changed, and the Trump administration adopted the hardline position that Iran must commit to zero enrichment. That was a non-starter for Tehran, as the Islamic Republic had repeatedly declared.

Comments by Joe Kent, who resigned this March from a top counterterrorism position in the administration, shed light on what happened: Israel pressured the White House to move the goal posts. In an interview with The American Conservative, Kent recounted that Israel and its American supporters promoted the zero-enrichment demand to “break up the agreement” and set Trump on the path to a regime-change war.

I expect we’ll soon have a fourth “Israeli veto” example to sustain the trend, and this one might illustrate the fundamental problem best of all. In July, Trump said that he’ll consider selling America’s F-35 fighter jet to Turkey. Apparently, that’s not the kind of thing American presidents are allowed to do.

Weeks after Trump’s comments, the State Department said Turkey hasn’t met “conditions” necessary to receive the plane. The main problem is legitimate: Turkey possesses a surface-to-air missile system made by Russia, raising intelligence risks since that system can spy on nearby aircraft. But even if Ankara relinquished it, a major hurdle would still stand between the Turks and the F-35.

You’ll never guess the hurdle.

“Israel reportedly has pressed Trump not to provide Turkey with the aircraft, amid fears that a sale could weaken Israel’s qualitative military edge,” Fox News reports.

That last phrase is key. Since the Cold War, Washington has followed a policy of maintaining Israel’s military superiority in its region. In 2008, the policy was codified into law by the Naval Vessel Transfer Act, which obliges the president to monitor and uphold Israel’s ability to defeat “any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors.”

It’s an odd policy. Realism 101 says the U.S. should foster a balance of power in other regions, but this law requires the commander-in-chief to do the opposite: underwrite Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. Obviously, the three episodes dealt with above are part of a problem that transcends the Trump administration.

For America First patriots devoted to safeguarding our nation’s independence in foreign affairs, this problem demands attention and concern. Though of course, our special friend in the Holy Land will move heaven and earth to veto our efforts to solve it.

Are US and Israel benefitting from 'migration blackmail' in Spain?

Analysts accuse Morocco of unleashing undocumented migrants into Ceuta. Many note how Tel Aviv and Washington are seizing the moment with particular zeal.

Sarah Leah Whitson

Aug 05, 2026

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/morocco-spain-migrants-israel/

Questions continue to swirl around the flash flood of nearly 60,000 migrants who swam or walked from Morocco into Ceuta, a tiny Spanish enclave on the tip of Africa last week.

How did so many migrants manage to breach Moroccan border security forces, who appear to have largely disappeared from their stations? Why had so many migrants received social media messages encouraging them to swarm the enclave?

Analysts pointed their fingers at the Moroccan government, arguing it was once again deploying “migration blackmail,” as the practice has been dubbed, to punish its European neighbors and bend them to its will. But this time, Israel and the United States appear to be the principal beneficiaries. Indeed, they have seized on the politically embarrassing episode to weaken a Spanish government they view as one of their principal European antagonists.

This was not the first time Ceuta’s border had been breached, nor the first time that Morocco was accused of opening its borders to allow streams of migrants to enter European territory.

In 2021, Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s other enclave in Africa, also saw a mass incursion of 6,000 people into their territories; Spain explicitly blamed Morocco for deliberately relaxing its migration controls to punish the government for criticizing Trump’s 2020 recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, which Trump did in exchange for Morocco entering into the Abraham Accords with Israel.

The pressure worked, as Spain acquiesced in 2022 to support Morocco’s autonomy plan for the occupied territory, in exchange for Morocco’s promise that it would not allow further incursions into the enclaves.

France too has often found itself facing down Moroccan tactics to weaponize migration for political concessions. Rabat long refused to accept French returns of undocumented migrant children from Morocco until it secured a package of trade and investment concessions from Paris in 2020. To reward Morocco for acting as Europe’s external border police, the European Union also has time and again rewarded Morocco with hundreds of millions of Euros in aid, most recently as part of the 2024 “EU Migration Pact.”

This time, the exact reasoning behind Morocco’s actions remains unclear. Some analysts wondered whether the move was meant to pressure Spain as a first step toward an attempted annexation of Ceuta, which the Moroccan government views as illegally occupied.

While officially, the U.S. government recognizes Ceuta as sovereign Spanish territory, voices in the U.S. and Israel have increasingly encouraged Morocco to claim the enclave. The timing is uncanny. For example, the 2027 U.S. House Appropriations Bill passed in July included a report specifically asserting that “Spanish-administered cities of Ceuta and Melilla are located in Moroccan territory,” and urged the State Department to encourage talks over their “future status.”

As far back as 2019, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair tweeted a map of Ceuta and Melilla, saying, “Dear Arabs and Muslims. Want to free occupied Arab Islamic lands? Here’s a good start!” In March, Michael Rubin, a longtime neoconservative analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, openly urged Moroccans to invade the enclaves in a new “Green March,” referring to when Moroccans marched to Western Sahara to claim it from Spain in 1975.

Others argue that Morocco is acting more broadly in service of a U.S.-Israeli campaign to punish Spain for calling on Israel to stop its genocide in Gaza and refusing to support the war on Iran.

The circumstantial evidence for a broader strategy is significant. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been a particular thorn in the side of the U.S. and Israel, emerging as a leading global critic of both countries. In the past three years, Sanchez has imposed arms and settlement trade embargoes on Israel and refused to allow U.S.-flagged cargo ships carrying weapons for Israel, as well as an Israeli warship, to dock or refuel at Spanish ports. (Both ships docked in Moroccan ports instead.) More recently, Sanchez refused to allow the U.S. to use jointly operated military bases on Spanish soil for military operations for the war with Iran.

The Trump administration has already threatened to punish Spain with a full trade embargo, particularly dangerous given Spain’s reliance on the U.S. for 30% of its gas and 20% of its oil imports. Israel withdrew its ambassador from Spain in 2024 and expelled Spain from the Civil-Military Coordination Center, which ostensibly oversees the ceasefire and humanitarian aid to Gaza.

But the Ceuta incursion unleashed a whole new level of rhetorical fire from Israeli and U.S. officials and right-wing commentators, who jumped on the incident to blame Sanchez’s left-wing government for failing to protect its borders from African migrants, to mock its “colony” in Africa, and even to urge Morocco to overtake the enclaves from Spain for itself.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, tweeted, “Maybe before it continues lecturing us, it’s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa.” J.D. Vance chimed in to chide the incursion as the “consequences of mass migration and the radical left-wing globalist policies that have enabled the Invasion of the West,” while President Trump warned, “That’s going to be us in three years if the wrong side gets in.”

The Israel-U.S.-Morocco trifecta has grown stronger and more coordinated ever since Morocco signed the Abraham Accords, normalizing its relationship with Israel, in exchange for U.S. recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara. The Moroccan government, a monarchical dictatorship, has ignored overwhelming domestic opposition to Israel and has dramatically expanded its military, security and economic ties with the country, rivaling only the United Arab Emirates for the closest Arab-Israeli government relationship.

In 2021, Israel and Morocco signed a vast defense cooperation agreement, and Morocco is now one of Israel’s largest arms purchasers; it has expanded intelligence sharing and counterterrorism cooperation and signed at least nine agreements, including on cybersecurity, trade, tourism, agriculture, and energy. In exchange, Israel itself recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, a useful precedent for its own wish to annex what remains of Palestine.

Morocco has not issued any formal statement about its role in the Ceuta incursion, nor offered any condolences to the migrants who perished. But by July 31, it had dramatically expanded its deployment of forces to secure the enclave and provided transportation for the 48,000 migrants who returned to Morocco a day after arriving in Ceuta.

Whatever the immediate precipitating factor for the migrant incursion, it has served as a useful political cudgel for Israel and the United States.

The new migration blackmail now has impacts that extend far beyond the borders of Spain or Europe, just as the U.S.-Israeli conflict over Palestine now reaches deep into the politics of African and Latin American states.

Netanyahu Says Israel Didn’t Agree to Proposal on Hamas Disarmament Announced by Trump

The so-called 'Board of Peace' has already walked back a key part of the plan after a meeting with Netanyahu

by Dave DeCamp | August 4, 2026 

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/08/04/netanyahu-says-israel-didnt-agree-to-proposal-on-hamas-disarmament-announced-by-trump/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel had rejected a proposal for Hamas’s disarmament in Gaza that was announced by President Trump and the so-called “Board of Peace.”

Netanyahu made the comments in a brief video posted to his Facebook page, where he denied that the IDF was withdrawing from Gaza. “I stand firm on our security interests. We will not withdraw from our current lines until Hamas is completely disarmed,” he said.

Netanyahu also suggested that Israeli attacks would continue in Gaza, saying he has directed “IDF soldiers to do whatever is necessary to protect themselves, our territory and our citizens.”

He added that Trump and his advisors “believe they can disarm Hamas and demilitarize Gaza” through the deal. “They sent us a draft, we did not agree to it, we sent our comments,” he said.

A day earlier, Netanyahu held talks with representatives from the BoP, which walked back a key part of the agreement following the meeting. In the initial announcements from Trump, the BoP, and the body’s top Gaza envoy, Bulgarian politician Nickolay Mladenov, it was clear that the idea was for the “decommissioning” of Hamas’s weapons to happen as the IDF withdrew from Gaza.

Mladenov even explicitly said that the withdrawal “must move in lockstep with decommissioning,” but after his meeting with Netanyahu, the BoP claimed that wasn’t the case.

“Contrary to inaccurate reports, we note that the withdrawal of the IDF beyond the Yellow Line will take place only once decommissioning is complete, as Hamas committed to the mediators. This applies to light weapons, heavy weapons, and the tunnels alike,” the BoP said.

Hamas has maintained that it won’t begin the process of disarming until Israel ceases its attacks and withdraws back to the initial “yellow line,” the dividing line between the IDF-occupied side of Gaza and the rest of the Strip. After the October 2025 ceasefire deal was signed, Israeli forces were left controlling 53% of Gaza, but that has increased to somewhere around 70% as Israeli troops conducted ground incursions to seize more territory, a clear violation of the agreement.

Israel has also violated the October 2025 deal by continuing constant attacks in Gaza, which have killed at least 1,252 Palestinians. Dozens have been killed since Trump announced the disarmament deal, including two killed on Monday.

While disarming Hamas has been used as the pretext for Israel’s continued attacks and occupation of Gaza, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has previously said the IDF won’t withdraw from the Palestinians territory even if Hamas disarms and that the ultimate goal is to start establishing Jewish settlements.

Fox News screaming desperately into wind as Trump loses grip

The popular rightwing network spent months building a case for the Iran War. Now they are invested in keeping up support, even if hosts have to skirt the truth

Nolan Denaro

Aug 03, 2026

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-war-fox-news/

Fox News has always served as a purveyor of Republican war propaganda, but its coverage of the Iran conflict has been particularly aggressive, and in many ways unmoored from reality, giving their viewers a more than skewed vision of what President Donald Trump can — and cannot — accomplish in Iran today.

It appears that it has been an editorial decision at Fox to convince their audience (whose median age is 55) that the Iranians cannot be negotiated with nor trusted and that war was — and still is — the only option. Its range of hosts and guests continue to insist that Trump’s military campaign has been a rousing success (by all independent, observable accounts it has not) and he just needs to finish the job.

Of course this a bit of a far cry from the decisive regime change narrative that Fox had generated in the lead-up to the war.

Mark Levin, one of Trump’s favorite hosts on the channel, has been a leading champion of this narrative, saying for weeks before the February war on his Fox show “Life, Liberty & Levin,” that “if we don’t act, and by that I mean not diplomacy, but decisively, quickly, and overwhelmingly with our military against the top of the regime,” then Iran will certainly, according to Levin, “build nuclear weapons, as North Korea has.” Levin also warned his audience that Iran “will not hesitate to launch ICBMs with nuclear warheads against our cities.”

Trump made it a point to post these kinds of arguments from Levin and others on Truth Social, prepping the Fox News audience, and the American people more broadly, for war.

After the conflict began, longtime host Laura Ingraham reframed the conflict using a classic neoconservative spin. “The real debate here… is not between the interventionists and the isolationists, or even between Trump and some elements of his base,” Ingraham said, “The real conflict here is between those who believe America is good, and those who believe fundamentally America is corrupt and evil.”

This of course is a warmed-over strawman seeking to chill any debate over the war, and encouraging the Fox audience to label anyone who opposes Trump’s actions as “anti-American.”

As military force failed to meet Trump’s vacillating objectives, Fox’s hosts remained unfazed. Confident as ever, Jesse Watters stated on March 25 that the Iranians were “running out of time and firepower.” In an effort to convince his audience of imminent regime collapse, Watters also said that, “every day that our bombers fly unchallenged, the regime loses power.”

Of course time is not on our side. The regime is still in power but the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now dangerously low, and the same goes for U.S. stockpiles of defensive missile systems. Meanwhile, the first and most intense stage of fighting did little to deplete Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones.

Touted as Fox’s wisest military mind, Gen. Jack Keane is a key fixture of the network's war coverage. He, like Levin, says that the Iranians are too irrational for diplomacy. In a recent appearance on “Life, Liberty & Levin,” Gen. Keane said, “We have said on this show multiple times, you cannot trust the Iranians. They will lie and cheat. And even if they make a deal… they will not comply with it.”

Now he is on Fox as recently as this weekend suggesting Trump was within range of victory when he paused fighting for the MOU (memorandum of understand) of which he said the Iranians did not comply. He said on July 29 that the U.S. must engage in a "comprehensive" military attack on Iran, focusing on civilian infrastructure like bridges and roads and airports, "isolating" it while the CIA and Mossad can help the people there overthrow the regime.

The network creates an echo chamber by bringing on guests to repeat and validate the hawkish positions of the hosts. Maria Bartiromo hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a softball interview on July 26, in which she asked him what it would take for the war with Iran to conclude. The prime minister urged Americans to support another round of fighting, arguing that only regime change will stop Iran from “wreaking economic chaos through the world, murdering thousands of its own citizens, and shooting at everyone.”

“This is what this regime is doing when they don’t have nuclear weapons, so imagine what they would do if they had nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told Fox News viewers.

Marc Thiessen — a prominent neoconservative, Bush administration alum, and Fox News contributor — is another voice in favor of escalation. Throughout the war, Thiessen, a former “never-Trumper,” has appealed to the MAGA base by painting attractive pictures of “simple” ways to win the war.

On a July 23 episode of “Special Report,” Thiessen said, “It’s very simple… We have about 14 days of combat where we have to take out all the targets we have available. We took out 85% of their defense industrial base, [so now] we take out 95% of it. We set back all their programs, and we further entomb the nuclear dust, then we stop major combat operations, we impose the blockade, we open up the Strait of Hormuz, and then we go and we help the Iranian people overthrow their regime.”

The network’s morning show “Fox & Friends,” offers Today Show-sized breakfast bites for war coverage. Recently, the program featured pro-Israel radio host Sid Rosenberg. He made the case that military action was the only path forward, saying, “it is inevitable that President Trump is going to have to do what he doesn't want to do, which is go in there with this massive, all-out attack. There’s no other way to stop this,” Rosenberg said, “Once you start this,” he added, “there needs to be a finish, and the only finish is complete surrender by the Iranians. I hate to say it, but complete annihilation."

The round-the-clock warmongering on Fox News has done little to move the general public, aside from a percentage of older Republican die-hards. But the network's role as a source of validation for the president could give him the confidence to escalate.

If Fox News expresses support for any and all military actions Trump takes, he could well conclude that the public as a whole is supportive of his war – a devastating miscalculation, likely to be followed by ill-advised policy decisions.