Category World News

Iran has begun easing sweeping communication restrictions imposed after deadly antigovernment protests rocked the country for more than two weeks.

The semiofficial Fars News Agency on Saturday said authorities restored the short messaging service (SMS) nationwide as part of a phased plan after eight days of near-total internet disruption.

Quoting officials, the agency reported that the decision followed what it described as the stabilisation of the security situation and the detention of key figures linked to “terror organisations” behind the violence during protests over rising prices and economic hardship that erupted on December 28 in several Iranian cities.

Authorities said the internet blackout had “significantly weakened the internal connections of opposition networks abroad” and disrupted the activities of the “terror cells”.

They said they would gradually lift other internet and communications controls. In the second phase, users are expected to regain access to Iran’s national internet network and domestic applications, before international internet connectivity is restored in a final stage.

Local sources said access to Iranian messaging platforms, including Eita and Bale, had resumed after days of interruption.

No timeline

Reporting from the capital, Tehran, via satellite, Al Jazeera correspondent Resul Serdar Atas said daily life has been profoundly affected by the prolonged shutdown of the internet.

“People are feeling that they’re living almost 30 years back, when there was very limited internet around,” he said.

Officials say the restoration will follow a phased approach. “Now the SMS services are restored. It has been, as of now, around 10 hours since this service was restored,” Atas said on Saturday morning, adding that no clear timeline has been provided for the phased restoration of internet access.

The only official guidance so far has come from Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who has said connectivity will return “soon” – a promise Atas said remains vague.

The blackout has compounded economic pressures that initially fuelled the unrest, our correspondent said.

“It is, of course, having a huge impact on business as well. The main trigger of this protest was the economic hardship that Iranians are facing on a daily basis, and this large internet blackout is further complicating and destabilising the economy here,” he said.

“As long as this internet blackout is in place, the sense of normalcy is not going to return.”

Meanwhile, tensions remain high in Iran despite the protests being relatively subdued in recent days.

Iran’s ‍Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on ⁠Saturday said ​Iran considers ‍United States President Donald Trump a “criminal” for ‍inflicting ⁠casualties, damage and slander on the Iranian people during ​the ‌protests.

“The latest anti-Iran sedition was different ‌in that ‌the US ⁠president personally became involved,” Iranian ‌media quoted Khamenei as saying.

Officials say some 3,000 people have been arrested over the protests. There is still no confirmed death toll, though US-based rights group, HRANA, says a further 3,000 have been killed in the protests.

Atas reported that “more than 100 security personnel and hundreds of civilians and protesters have been killed,” with figures likely to change as inquiries proceed.

Officials said the government was “fully aware of its human rights obligations” and had taken “all necessary measures to exercise maximum restraint” while also fulfilling its “duty to protect its people and maintain public order and national security”.

Despite the partial easing of communication facilities, monitoring groups say overall connectivity remains severely limited. Internet watchdog NetBlocks said its data showed a slight increase in connectivity on Saturday morning, but overall access remained at about 2 percent of normal levels.

What does it say about global diplomacy that, in the same month when the West patted itself on the back for a ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank endured the highest number of settler attacks ever recorded?

In keeping with the past two years, the international community is condemning violence in principle, while granting Israel total impunity in practice. A response that is timid, hollow and all too predictable.

In October 2025, the United Nations documented more than 260 settler attacks in the West Bank, resulting in Palestinian casualties or property damage. Vehicles were torched, Palestinian agricultural workers assaulted, and olive trees burned, at the height of the harvest season. The violence is relentless, and the world’s timid response rings hollow.

But this is hardly unprecedented. Since October 2023, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 1,040 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 229 children, according to the UN. Violence is unfolding alongside mass displacement. In early 2025, an estimated 40,000 people were forcibly displaced by the Israeli army’s “Iron Wall” Operation in the northern West Bank, the largest single displacement in the West Bank since 1967.

It was then that I managed to enter the occupied West Bank, along with fellow British MP Andrew George and a staff member of our host, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians. On one of our trips, we travelled from Jerusalem to the northern town of Tulkarem; it was a drive that should have taken roughly 50 minutes, but it stretched to more than three hours. Israeli checkpoints along the way made it impossible to guarantee passage, and we were forced to take an unconventional route.

When we arrived in Tulkarem, we met with youth leaders who described how Israeli bulldozers destroyed their roads and infrastructure. Everywhere we drove, we saw roads clearly damaged, some partially repaired, and others still piles of rubble. Since January 2025, as part of “Iron Wall”, the Israeli army has forcibly expelled the residents of two refugee camps in the area, Tulkarem and Nur Shams.

We visited a six-bedroom property housing about 50 refugees displaced from the refugee camps. The house had been repeatedly raided by Israeli authorities, and the bullet-riddled wall bore testimony to their visits. A 17-year-old refugee living in the house showed us wounds from a military dog, recounting how Israeli forces had thrown him into a ditch and set the dog on him. He complained he couldn’t even watch TV any more, pointing to the smashed television. The horrifying and the mundane all in one sentence.

Given the UN’s log of settler attacks in October, it is evident the situation has grown even more acute since my visit to the West Bank in April. Violence continues unchecked, and our government is taking no robust action to stop it.

Critics will argue that I’m conflating Israeli army violence with settler violence. The truth is that the two are inseparable. I saw this everywhere I went. From the rolling hills of Masafer Yatta to the bustling streets of Jerusalem, settlers swaggered around with their rifles, taunting and intimidating Palestinians, all under the watchful eye of Israeli soldiers.

In one particularly intense moment, Israeli soldiers stood literally shoulder-to-shoulder with settlers. Both armed, both wearing camouflaged armoured vests with the Israeli flag adorned on them. A visual manifestation of how blurred these lines are.

My mind returned to these countless anecdotes last month, when I read about the extent of Israel’s impunity, which was laid bare in Jenin, with the extrajudicial executions of two Palestinians, al-Muntasir Abdullah, 26, and Youssef Asasa, 37. Despite the depravity of this act, not to mention the clear violations of international law, the UK government, once again, offered only hollow words of “concern”, sending the implicit message that Israel can continue to kill Palestinians without consequences.

Of course, these individual acts of violence do not occur in isolation; they are part of a larger plan. In August 2025, Israel approved the illegal E1 settlement expansion, authorising more than 3,000 new settlement units to be built. For decades, the international community has recognised the E1 as a red line, because construction there would divide the West Bank, obstructing the connection between Ramallah, occupied East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. But again, the UK government responded with nothing more than empty words.

Herein lies the paradox. We are told that the UK garners supposed “influence”, but only on the condition that we promise never to exercise it. What results is a dystopian pantomime, a circus of excuses. If we do not use our influence to stop the most despicable acts of violence against the Palestinian people, then what is it all for?

And let’s be absolutely clear: When it comes to Palestinians, there is a brazen disregard for the most fundamental human right, the right to life. We are witnessing livelihoods being destroyed. Forced displacement. Illegal settlement expansion. Extrajudicial killings. International law is clear: Collective punishment, settlement construction on occupied land, and extrajudicial killings are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. The entire occupation is illegal, as laid out by the International Court of Justice. So, where, exactly, is our government’s red line?

The UK government no doubt wants the world to move on. Mired by its complicity in the Gaza genocide, it surely views the “ceasefire” as an opportunity to deflect calls for action. Instead of weak statements of “concern”, the UK government should be pursuing a full suspension of arms sales to Israel, laying sanctions on Israeli ministers for their role in supporting an illegal occupation, supporting domestic and international accountability mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court, and pushing for prosecutions of British citizens serving in the Israeli army.

Whether they live in Gaza, the West Bank or Israel, Palestinian lives are not expendable. I have seen the suffering, injuries, and displacement with my own eyes in Tulkarem, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, and Masafer Yatta. I saw an apartheid system that punishes and terrorises Palestinians daily. Justice demands more than words. It demands action. And it demands it now!

Since the outbreak of war in Sudan, talk of “humanitarian ceasefires” has become a recurring political refrain, invoked whenever the humanitarian catastrophe reaches its peak. However, the ceasefire being proposed today comes in a different and dangerous context. It follows the committing of genocide and ethnic cleansing by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in the city of el-Fasher in Darfur – one of the most horrific humanitarian crimes in Sudan’s modern history, and indeed in the history of humanity.

El-Fasher, once a symbol of diversity and coexistence, has been turned into a devastated city emptied of its population. In the aftermath of this major crime, the international community has once again returned to proposing a “humanitarian ceasefire” as an option. This calls for a careful political reading that does not stop at moral slogans, but instead unpacks the motives and potential consequences – especially with regard to Sudan’s geographic, social, and political unity.

A path to peace or a gateway to disintegration?

In popular culture, there is a saying: “If you see a poor man eating chicken, then either the poor man is sick or the chicken is sick.” This proverb captures the essence of the legitimate political suspicion regarding the timing of this ceasefire.

Truces for humanitarian purposes, in principle, are meant to alleviate civilian suffering and may pave the way towards ending conflicts. In the case of Sudan, however, what raises alarm is that this ceasefire was proposed after the catastrophe occurred, not before it – after the RSF categorically rejected any humanitarian commitments, including the protection of hospitals and the securing of safe corridors for civilians to flee.

Humanitarian organisations have been operating in most regions of Sudan, including Darfur, despite security complexities and in the absence of a legal, signed ceasefire. This makes the question unavoidable: Why push for a ceasefire now? And in whose interest is this ceasefire being proposed at this particular moment?

This contradiction opens the door to suspicion that the objective goes beyond humanitarian concerns, extending instead to reshaping the political and geographic reality of the country.

Ceasefires in historical experience

Modern history is full of examples where humanitarian ceasefires transformed from de-escalation tools to preludes to fragmentation and secession. In Western Sahara, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and South Sudan, ceasefires were not always bridges to peace; more often, they were transitional stages towards the division of states and the erosion of sovereignty.

In the Sudanese context, specifically, Operation Lifeline Sudan launched by the UN in 1989 stands as a stark example of how humanitarian action was employed as a political entry point, eventually culminating in the secession of South Sudan through a referendum that followed a long process of normalising division.

The current situation, however, is far more dangerous and complex. It does not involve a government negotiating with a political movement holding national demands, but rather an unprecedented scenario in which two parties both claim to represent “the government” within a single state: The legitimate government of Sudan, on the one hand, and the RSF, seeking to establish a parallel entity, on the other.

The trap of disguised political recognition

Negotiation between “two governments” within one state is not only unprecedented in Sudan; it represents a grave political trap aimed at extracting recognition of a de facto force under a ceasefire umbrella.

The mere act of joint signing grants the rebel party parity and legitimacy, fundamentally contradicting the immense sacrifices made by the Sudanese people in defence of the state’s unity and sovereignty.

This path constitutes a direct violation of the core principles for which martyrs fell and women were widowed:

First, the principle of unity: The RSF has violated it by importing foreign elements and mercenaries, exploiting external support to impose forced demographic changes, and attempting to reshape Sudan according to agendas that bear no relation to the national will.

Second, the principle of unified government and constitutional legitimacy: The pursuit of a “parallel government” directly undermines this principle. It deals a blow to the foundations upon which the state has stood since independence, and opens the door to political chaos and institutional fragmentation.

Third, the unity of the military institution: The RSF violates it by receiving weapons and combat equipment from foreign states, and relying on looting and self-financing, completely contradicting any talk of security reform or the building of a unified national army. In practice, it lays the groundwork for multiple armies within a single state.

The ambiguity of negotiations and the absence of transparency

Concern deepens with the total lack of transparency surrounding the truce process. Why are negotiations conducted behind closed doors? Why are the Sudanese people excluded from knowing what is being agreed on in their name? How can foreign states negotiate on behalf of a people bleeding under war and displacement? Who has more right to oversee peace efforts than the people themselves? Are there priorities greater than commanding an ongoing war in which everyone is involved?

More alarming still is that the party “holding the pen” in the political process is the same party “holding the gun”, practising killing and ethnic cleansing – an ethical and political paradox that cannot be accepted.

A comprehensive reading of events suggests that this ceasefire is more likely to be an entry point for dismantling the Sudanese state than a bridge to saving it. It may lead to the entrenchment of division: Zones of influence, multiple armies, different currencies, parallel central banks, competing foreign ministries, and conflicting passports – a state without a state, and sovereignty without sovereignty.

This is a contagious disease that, sooner or later, will infect everyone along the coast, the river’s mouth and its source alike.

Between humanitarian duty and national vigilance

No one disputes the priority of improving humanitarian conditions and protecting civilians. Yet the ceasefire being pushed today may carry temporary stability at the cost of a devastating strategic price: The erosion of Sudan’s unity.

National duty demands the highest levels of vigilance and caution, lest the ceasefire turn into a political trap, pushing the project of state disintegration. While we should fully acknowledge that the crisis has deep, accumulated historical roots, we should remember that history does not forgive those who squander their homeland, nor does it absolve those who trade national sovereignty for foreign dictates.

Hope remains pinned on the awareness of the Sudanese people and their ability to unite in confronting this decisive moment, in defence of one homeland, one army, and one state – one that rejects partition and guardianship, accepting only the will of its people through a system and framework that do not involve seizure by force or the imposition of reality at gunpoint.