Category World News

Islamabad, Pakistan – More than 120 people have died in Pakistan due to climate-related incidents in the past three weeks, as the country braces for the onset of the monsoon season.

In its latest situation report, released on Wednesday, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) revealed that a total of 124 people, including 63 children, have perished across the country since June 26.

The NDMA has found that about two-thirds of the deaths were caused by house collapses and flash floods, while drowning accounted for just more than one in 10 of the deaths.

Pakistan, which has a population in excess of 250 million, is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change.

It has experienced repeated environmental disasters, most notably the devastating floods of 2022, which killed nearly 1,700 people and displaced more than 30 million nationwide, who lost their homes and livestock or suffered crop damage or losses.

According to estimates at the time, the 2022 floods caused $14.8bn in damage to property and land and a loss of $15.2bn in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Pakistan’s government blames the lack of assistance from the international community in urgently addressing the climate emergency, which is causing flash floods and other disasters. However, some experts say the government’s inaction has compounded the current situation.

The latest figures from the NDMA show that the provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa suffered the most deaths, with 49 and 38, respectively, since June 24.

Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab, saw heavy, intermittent rains last week which left several low-lying areas in the city without electricity and resulted in severe waterlogging of the city’s narrow streets. Other areas in central and southern Punjab also suffered heavy rainfall, with the country’s meteorological department predicting further rain in the coming days.

Similarly, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where at least nine people of one family drowned in Swat River while having a picnic last month, also faced heavy rain in various areas.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has warned that another strong monsoon weather system will hit most parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the next few days, while Punjab is expected to receive heavy showers.

An NDMA official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media, told Al Jazeera that, according to weather forecasting, the authority is not expecting a repeat of 2022-like “large-scale riverine floods at this stage”.

But the official added that localised flash floods and urban flooding remain a significant concern across the country.

“The NDMA has issued early warnings and advisories to provincial authorities and the public and has pre-positioned critical relief supplies at vulnerable locations. We continue to monitor the situation through satellite-based systems, weather models, and real-time ground reporting,” the official added.

How is climate change affecting the crisis?

South Asian nations, including Pakistan, typically receive 70 to 80 percent of their annual rainfall during the monsoon season, which lasts from late June to September. This year, damage caused by monsoons is compounded by extreme heat in the country’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, dubbed the “third pole” as it is home to many of the world’s important glaciers.

According to the PMD, parts of the mountainous region recorded temperatures above 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit), despite being situated at least 1,200 metres (4,000ft) above sea level.

Gilgit-Baltistan is home to thousands of glaciers and attracts climbers from across the globe. A study last year by Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change and the Italian research institute EvK2CNR estimated that the country hosts more than 13,000 glaciers.

Excessive heat has accelerated the melting of these glaciers this year, heightening the risk of floods and infrastructure damage, as well as posing a severe threat to life, land and water security.

Sitara Parveen, an environmentalist and assistant professor at Fatima Jinnah Degree College in Gilgit, said the June heatwave triggered rapid glacial melting, with temperatures in some areas breaking nearly three-decade records.

“However, risk of floods with monsoon is high, considering the evidence from ‘Little Ice Age’, where precipitation remained high with high temperature and there was less precipitation with low temperature,” Parveen told Al Jazeera.

The “Little Ice Age” was a period of regional cooling, primarily affecting the North Atlantic, from the early 14th to the mid-19th centuries.

Zakir Hussein, director general for Gilgit Baltistan’s disaster management authority, told Al Jazeera: “Given the rise in temperatures and anthropogenic climate change, the fragile ecosystem in Gilgit Baltistan is facing imminent flash flooding and risk of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) – a type of flood caused by the sudden release of water from a glacial lake.”

Who is to blame for the crisis in Pakistan?

Pakistan says the international community is not doing enough to help.

In 2023, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres argued that the international community is obligated to provide assistance, as Pakistan is responsible for only half a percent of global greenhouse emissions but its people are 15 times more likely to die from climate-related disasters.

Following the 2022 floods, Pakistan hosted a global donor conference with support from the UN in January 2023, at which approximately $10bn was pledged by donor nations – albeit much in the form of loans. But by 2024, Pakistan had received only $2.8bn of those pledges.

Earlier this year, a former head of Pakistan’s central bank said the country would need annual investments of $40-50bn until 2050 to address its escalating climate challenges.

However, while Pakistan faces genuine climate risks, some experts argue the crisis has been worsened by longstanding governance failures and poor policy decisions.

In several recent incidents, civilian casualties in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were traced to the illegal construction of homes near riverbeds and flash floods sweeping away poorly built houses.

A 2023 report by UN-Habitat, which promotes environmentally sustainable cities and towns, highlighted Pakistan’s problem of disorganised urban planning, revealing that rapid rural-to-urban migration has led to sprawling slums due to an acute housing shortage.

“This unmet demand has led to over 50 percent of the urban population residing in slums or informal settlements known as katchi abadis,” the report stated.

NDMA officials say the agency has taken a multi-tiered preparedness approach where the focus is not just on emergency response, but also risk reduction and early evacuation.

“We have issued risk maps for vulnerable districts, and provincial governments are in the process of mobilising district administrations to identify and, where necessary, relocate communities at high risk, particularly those living near nullahs (watercourses), riverbanks and landslide-prone hills,” one official said.

What do the experts say?

Pakistani climate experts say that while climate change is a serious concern, its effect has been compounded by institutional failures.

“The damages and the loss you are seeing is a cost of inaction,” said Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, an Islamabad-based climate expert. He added that houses continue to be built in riverbeds in clear violation of the laws. “How is that the fault of monsoon rain?”

Sheikh said Pakistan’s lack of urban planning and absence of preparedness have left people vulnerable to a variety of hazards, including riverine flooding, urban flooding and extreme heatwaves.

“These are separate categories of challenges, and the scale of damage, both to people and infrastructure, varies because they have different dimensions of losses,” he said.

Sheikh also criticised the government’s failure to implement meaningful climate reforms, highlighting that its response has been limited to securing foreign loans and launching projects without internal structural changes.

“I cannot think of a single policy reform that the government has taken after the 2022 floods, despite all the tall claims made by the ministers and other officials. Internal-focused driven reforms to enhance the preparedness of communities in vulnerable areas is completely missing,” he said.

“We are a reform-averse society, and we don’t want to undertake any change that is substantial in nature, and this attitude only perpetuates vulnerabilities.”

The United States is losing strategic ground to China due to US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the global stage and transactional approach to foreign policy, a Democrat-authored report has warned.

Surveying Trump’s first six months in office, the report warns that his tenure has “significantly undermined” Washington’s ability to compete with China.

The report highlights staff reductions at the US Department of State and the “chaotic gutting” of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Agency for Global Media – which oversees Voice of America and Radio Free Asia – as moves that have weakened US power and influence.

The report, released on Monday by Democratic members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, describes China as a “strategic challenge distinct from any in our nation’s history” with a “long-term strategy to unseat the United States as the world’s leading superpower”.

“While President Trump retreats from every corner of the world – attacking allies, slashing America’s diplomatic tools and embracing adversaries – China is building influence, expanding relationships and reshaping the global order to its advantage,” US Senator Jeanne Shaheen said in a statement.

According to the report, China has moved to fill the void created by Trump’s withdrawal from global initiatives such as the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement by boosting funding overseas and increasing its diplomatic footprint.

Trump’s tariff war against US trade partners has also undercut “alliances and economic partnerships”, according to the report, pushing even close US allies in the direction of China.

The warning from Democrats, who hold a minority of seats in both Congressional houses, dovetails with Tuesday’s release of an opinion survey pointing to a global shift in attitudes in favour of China.

Attitudes towards China have improved in 15 out of 25 countries, including Mexico, South Africa, Turkiye, Kenya and Indonesia, compared with last year, the nonpartisan US-based Pew Research Center said.

While overall global perception of China remains largely negative – with a median 54 percent of respondents reporting an unfavourable perception – the country is now seen as the world’s top economic power with a slight edge over the US, according to Pew.

The survey found that 41 percent of respondents viewed China as the world’s “top economy” in 2025, compared with 39 percent for the US.

Some of the sharpest shifts in perception were seen in 10 high-income countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Across this group, only 35 percent of respondents held a favourable view of the US, down from 51 percent in 2024, according to Pew, with double-digit drops in sentiment recorded in key Asia Pacific allies South Korea, Japan and Australia.

China received a bump in approval across the 10 high-income countries, rising from 23 percent favourability in 2024 to 32 percent in 2025.

Confidence in the US president across high-income countries fell from 53 percent in 2024, when US President Joe Biden was in office, to 22 percent following Trump’s return to the White House, according to Pew.

The US president’s approval rating is now slightly lower than that of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who saw a slight uptick in approval from 17 percent in 2024 to 24 percent in 2025.

Trump’s trade war has engendered “much deeper scepticism and distrust of the United States across Asia today”, said Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.

“For some, cooperation with [China] appears to be an attractive alternative,” Chong told Al Jazeera.

“However, the lack of strong responses to the US tariffs also reflect a reality where economies in the region and beyond realise that they also cannot do without economic cooperation with the United States, however much they may dislike it.”

William Yang, a senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the Brussels-based Crisis Group think tank, said China is increasingly seen as a more reliable business partner amid the uncertainty emanating from the US.

“As countries grapple with the uncertainties brought by the Trump administration, a growing number of them, including close US allies in the Indo-Pacific region, are seeking to stabilise their relationship with China by increasing high-level bilateral exchanges,” Yang told Al Jazeera.

Leaders of a host of US allies have visited China since Trump took office, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, both of whom met Chinese President Xi Jinping this week in Beijing.

Earlier this year, Xi also received the prime ministers of Singapore, New Zealand and Spain, as well as the president of Brazil.

“There are still fundamental concerns about certain Chinese practices, especially in the security sector, but in order to ensure they have more bandwidth to cope with the added uncertainties created by the Trump administration, these countries see the need to stabilise their relationship with China,” Yang said.

Sayfollah Musallet was a brother, a son and an ambitious young man who was just at the beginning of his life.

That is the message his family has repeated since July 11, when the 20-year-old United States citizen was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the village of Sinjil in the occupied West Bank.

That message, they hope, will prevent the Florida-born Sayfollah from becoming “just another number” in the growing list of Palestinian Americans whose killings never find justice.

That’s why his cousin, Fatmah Muhammad, took a moment amid her grief on Wednesday to remember the things she loved about Sayfollah.

The two united over a passion for food, and Muhammad, a professional baker, remembers how carefully Sayfollah would serve the delicate knafeh pastry she sold through the ice cream shop he ran in Tampa.

“Just in the way he plated my dessert, he made it look so good,” Muhammad, 43, recalled. “I even told him he did a better job than me.”

“That really showed the type of person he was,” she added. “He wanted to do things with excellence.”

‘The love he gave all of us’

Born and raised in Port Charlotte, a coastal community in south central Florida, Sayfollah – nicknamed Saif – maintained a deep connection to his ancestral roots abroad.

He spent a large portion of his teenage years in the occupied West Bank, where his two brothers and sister also lived. There, his parents, who own a home near Sinjil, hoped he could better connect with his culture and language.

But after finishing high school, Sayfollah was eager to return to the US to try his hand at entrepreneurship. Last year, he, his father and his cousins opened the dessert shop in Tampa, Florida, playfully named Ice Screamin.

But the ice cream shop was just the beginning. Sayfollah’s ambition left a deep impression on Muhammad.

“He had his vision to expand the business, to multiply it by many,” she said, her voice at times shaking with grief. “This at 20, when most kids are playing video games.”

“And the crazy thing is, any goal that he set his mind to, he always did it,” she added. “He always exceeded everyone’s expectations, especially with the love he gave all of us.”

Sayfollah’s aunt, 58-year-old Samera Musallet, also remembers his dedication to his family. She described Sayfollah as a loving young man who never let his aunts pay for anything in his presence – and who always insisted on bringing dessert when he came for dinner.

At the same time, Samera said he was still youthful and fun-loving: He liked to watch comedy movies, shop for clothes and make late-night trips to the WaWa convenience store.

One of her fondest memories came when Sayfollah was only 14, and they went together to a baseball game featuring the Kansas City Royals.

“When we got there, he could smell the popcorn and all the hot dogs. He bought everything he could see and said, ‘We’re going to share!’” she told Al Jazeera.

“After he ate all that junk food, we turned around, and he was sleeping. I woke him up when the game was over, and he goes: ‘Who won?’”

‘I really want to get married’

Another one of his aunts, 52-year-old Katie Salameh, remembers that Sayfollah’s mind had turned to marriage in the final months of his young life

As the Florida spring gave way to summer, Sayfollah had announced plans to return to the West Bank to see his mother and siblings. But he confided to Salameh that he had another reason for returning.

“The last time I saw him was we had a family wedding, and that was the weekend of Memorial Day [in May],” Salameh told Al Jazeera.

“I asked him: ‘Are you so excited to see your siblings and your mom?’ He said, ‘Oh my god, I’m so excited.’ Then he goes, ‘I really want to get married. I’m going to look for a bride when I’m there.’”

To keep the ice cream shop running smoothly, Sayfollah had arranged a switch with his father: He would return to the West Bank while his father would travel to Tampa to mind the business.

But that decision would unwittingly put Sayfollah’s father more than 10,000 kilometres away from his son when violent Israeli settlers surrounded him, as witnesses and his family would later recount.

Israeli authorities said the attack in Sinjil began with rock-throwing and “violent clashes … between Palestinians and Israeli civilians”, a claim Sayfollah’s family and witnesses have rejected.

Instead, they said Sayfollah was trying to protect his family’s land when he was encircled by a “mob of settlers” who beat him.

Even when an ambulance was called, Sayfollah’s family said the settlers blocked the paramedics from reaching his broken body. Sayfollah’s younger brother would ultimately help carry his dying brother to emergency responders.

The settlers also fatally shot Mohammed al-Shalabi, a 23-year-old Palestinian man, who witnesses said was left bleeding for hours.

“His phone was on, and he wasn’t responding,” his mother, Joumana al-Shalabi, told reporters. “He was missing for six hours. They found him martyred under the tree. They beat him and shot him with bullets.”

Palestinians cannot legally possess firearms in the occupied West Bank, but Israeli settlers can. The Israeli government itself has encouraged the settlers to bear arms, including through the distribution of rifles to civilians.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has recorded the killings of at least 964 Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023.

And the violence appears to be on the rise. The OHCHR noted that there was a 13-percent increase in the number of killings during the first six months of 2025, compared with the same period last year.

‘Pain I can’t even describe’

An Al Jazeera analysis also found that Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least nine US citizens since 2022, including veteran reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.

None of those deaths have resulted in criminal charges, with Washington typically relying on Israel to conduct its own investigations.

So far, US President Donald Trump has not directly addressed Sayfollah’s killing. When asked in the Oval Office about the fatal beating, Trump deferred to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“We protect all American citizens anywhere in the world, especially if they’re unjustly murdered or killed,” Rubio replied on Trump’s behalf. “We’re gathering more information.”

Rubio also pointed to a statement issued a day earlier from the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. The ambassador called on Israel to “aggressively investigate” the attack, saying “there must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act”.

It was a particularly jarring sentiment from Huckabee, who has been a vocal supporter of Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank and has even denied the very existence of a Palestinian people.

Nevertheless, no independent, US-led investigation has been announced.

According to Israeli media, three Israeli settlers, including a military reservist, were taken into custody following the deadly attack, but all were subsequently released.

It has only been four days since Sayfollah’s killing, and his family told Al Jazeera the initial shock has only now begun to dissipate.

But in its place has come a flood of grief and anger. Muhammad still struggles to accept that he “died because he was on his own land”. She sees Sayfollah’s death as part of a broader pattern of abuses, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza, where Israel has led a war since 2023.

“I see it on the news all the time with other people in the West Bank. I see it in Gaza – the indiscriminate killing of anybody in their way,” she said.