New evacuation orders have been issued in low-lying areas of Pakistan’s Punjab province amid a heavy flood warning, with the region experiencing its worst flooding on record.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department posted on X on Monday that rains were persisting across the country as “another intense monsoon system is expected to bring exceptional downpours in southern parts during the next two days”.
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It added that “widespread heavy to very heavy rain thundershowers accompanied by windstorms” were expected to hit areas on Monday.
Rains persist across Pakistan as another intense monsoon system is expected to bring exceptional downpours in Southern parts during next two days.#MonsoonAlert #RainfallUpdate #WeatherUpdate #RainInPakistan #Monsoon2025 #PakistanWeather #RainyDays #HeavyRainfall #StaySafe pic.twitter.com/1ancjiLfag
With an evacuation order issued to communities near the swollen Chenab, Sutlej, and Ravi rivers, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Multan in Punjab, explained that the situation was “not under control”.
“We have reports from early this morning that Jalalpur Pirwala, which is 90km [56 miles] from Multan … that half a million people are stuck after the water inundated their villages; some of them are seeking protection under rooftops,” he said.
“There aren’t sufficient boats to evacuate these people. Helicopter operations have been called in, but the weather is also not good,” he added.
With the rain continuing, Hyder stressed that the situation was a “huge calamity” with villages and houses destroyed, but also the country now having to reel from losing crops due to the destruction of farmland.
In Multan, located between the Sutlej and Chenab rivers, floodwaters have breached at least three embankments, inundating dozens of villages.
Jalalpur Pirwala has been among the worst-hit places, with floodwaters submerging homes, farmland, and standing crops.
At least five people were killed on Saturday when a rescue boat carrying 30 people capsized near Multan.
Meanwhile, India alerted Pakistan of high floods on the Sutlej River on Sunday, warning that the monsoon rain would affect downstream districts.
New Delhi has been relaying such warnings through diplomatic channels rather than through the Indus Waters Treaty, which governed water sharing between the neighbouring countries, after India left the agreement in April following an attack on Indian-administered Kashmir that resulted in the deaths of 26 tourists, which India blames on Pakistan.
In the Solomon Islands, where the Pacific Island leaders are scheduled to hold their annual summit, climate change and security are expected to take center stage as China and the United States battle for control of the area.
The group’s small island states meet for a meeting on Monday, which started the week-long gathering in Honiara.
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On Thursday, the 18-member forum’s leaders, including Australia and New Zealand, will retreat to Munda, a coastal town.
After the Solomon Islands banned those observers due to a dispute over Taipei’s attendance, the summit will this year take place without the two dozen donor partners, including China, the US, and Taiwan.
Three of the 18 forum members have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, three have US defense agreements, and several are French-territorians. There are ties to China between 19 of the members.
The Pacific Islands Forum’s secretary-general, Divavesi Waqa, stated that this year’s meeting will address “regional priorities,” including “climate change, ocean governance, security, and] economic resilience.
These are more than just policy issues, they say. Waqa told reporters on Sunday that they are lived realities for the people of our country.
The meeting’s theme, “Lumi Tugeda: Act Now for an Integrated Blue Pacific Continent,” according to Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele, “reflects the urgent need for regional unity and action.”
According to a statement, Manele said, “If ever there was a time that required stronger Pacific regionalism and collective action, it is now.”
After being critical of his predecessor’s close ties with China by Western critics, the leader of the Solomon Islands has previously defended his decision to outlaw foreign observers.
As the forum updates its rules for non-member participation, Manele told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) last month.
According to reports that the decision was related to a decision not to include Taiwan in this year’s meeting, the Pacific region must always lead, drive, and own their own agenda, Manele said.
He claimed that “we are not under any external forces.”
Solomon Islands is a sovereign country, so let me be very clear. Our government serves the interests of our country and the region.
The Pacific Islands leaders are expected to sign the proposed “Ocean of Peace” Declaration at this year’s forum, which is being signed by Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who said it comes as the region has experienced “catastrophic calamities caused by climate change” as well as “its rich resources exploited by many”.
According to him, the proposal includes guiding principles like “peaceful resolution of disputes” and “rejection of coercion,” as well as “protecting and recognising the Pacific’s stewardship of the environment.”
After visiting Vanuatu, Australia’s prime minister is expected to sign a landmark agreement to strengthen economic and security ties on Wednesday.
The United Nations’ top court recently ruled that states must immediately act urgently to address the “existential threat” of climate change by cooperating to reduce emissions, leading Vanuatu to lead an important case before the International Court of Justice.
In light of criticism of Canberra’s lackluster record on reducing its own emissions and fossil fuel exports, Australia will be on the agenda in Honiara to host the COP31 climate change meeting next year. This is a Pacific COP.
Australia has previously pledged to work closely with its island neighbors to raise awareness of the challenges that rising sea levels and storms pose to them.
As the Israeli military’s punishing assault on besieged Gaza rages, five people have been killed in a shooting attack in occupied East Jerusalem, according to Israeli authorities.
Six of the injured were in “serious condition” and received gunshot wounds following the shooting at Ramot Junction, according to Israeli paramedics’ Magen David Adom, in addition to the 12 others who were injured in the attack on Monday morning. Several others were “lightly injured by glass” and treated at the scene, according to Magen David Adom.
The shooting was deemed a “terror attack,” according to Israeli police.
Soon after the shooting broke out, two attackers were “neutralized,” according to police. According to Israeli police, a security officer and a civilian shot and killed the attackers of the attack that claimed the lives of five people in occupied East Jerusalem.
According to the police, the bus station was opened to fire when the perpetrators arrived in a car.
Following an attack that left five people dead in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israeli forces have closed all checkpoints, according to sources who spoke to Al Jazeera.
Israeli Army Radio reported that Israeli forces erected a military cordon on four Palestinian villages in the territory’s Qatana, Biddu, Beit Inan, and Beit Duqu governorates and are conducting raids there after police claimed the perpetrators had been from the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military announced that it had expanded its forces in the greater Jerusalem region and was looking for what it called “accomplices” of the shooting’s perpetrators.
On September 8, 2025, Israeli forces gather by a body in front of a bus in occupied East Jerusalem.
According to Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, who is based in Amman, Jordan, Israeli authorities claim that the two attackers are from a region west of occupied East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. They claim that the two gunmen both opened fire on the same day that two gunmen boarded a bus, one of whom witnesses claimed was a ticket inspector.
The Green Line actually bleeds into occupied East Jerusalem if you look at the location where it appears on a map, which is located close to the illegal settlement of Ramot, north of West Jerusalem. She continued, “These settlements are deemed illegal by international law, and they constitute structures and buildings that violate Palestinians’ rights and threaten the territorial stability of a future Palestinian state.”
According to Salhut, “Israeli officials are now trying to wrap their heads around how exactly this happened,” adding that they haven’t seen anything like it in a while and that the last time there was a shooting like this in greater Jerusalem occurred in November 2023.
doubts an attack was ordered by Hamas.
In addition, according to Israel Hayom newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed judges that security developments had prevented him from appearing for his scheduled Monday corruption trial.
The shooting’s location has been visited by both Netanyahu and Israel’s far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
According to Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg, the shooting attack was most likely to have taken place in the West Bank rather than Hamas in Gaza.
Goldberg told Al Jazeera that he “seriously” doubted whether Hamas had ordered it when he spoke from Tel Aviv.
In a region dominated by rebel fighters and a critical area for cocaine production, Colombian authorities have rescued 27 of the country’s 72 soldiers who were being held captive in southwest Colombia.
The military stated in a statement on Sunday that 45 soldiers are still “deprived of their liberty” by the guerrilla regime.
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The National Army is “holding steady in the area, ensuring the return of the kidnapped personnel,” it continued.
A rebel group from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), known as the Central General Staff, has been attacking military positions in the Micay Canyon in the Cauca Department, which is known for its coca crops.
The soldiers were participating in a military operation when about 600 people “obstructed the deployment of troops” in San Juan de Micay, according to the army.
The move was “intentionally facilitated control of routes used for illegal mining and drug trafficking,” according to the army.
Colombia has struggled to maintain security in some rural areas, where FARC-abandoned territory is being fought over by drug gangs and rebel groups.
President Gustavo Petro launched an offensive to regain control of the area last year, but he was met by strong local opposition.
Petro claimed in a post on X that the soldiers should be freed.
They might be your children, I say. Colombian children must be a part of each other’s lives and surpass their own. He wrote that the president’s word was that the dialogue commission was prepared.
In areas with little state presence, the government claims that armed groups frequently hold detentions in the neighborhood community.
However, a defunct FARC group has captured soldiers twice in less than a month.
After a gunfight that left 10 members of the former FARC group dead, villagers in the southern department of Guaviare last month took 33 soldiers from them at the rebel group’s direction.
Erin Patterson, an Australian mother, was given a minimum 33-year prison sentence for the murder of three of her ex-girlfriends through a meal laced with death cap mushrooms. In a case that has devastated the victims’ families, the judge claimed she showed no compassion.
In recent months, the small East African coastal region of Somaliland has been making international headlines after several high-profile Republicans in the United States endorsed a bill to recognise it as an independent state.
The question of Somaliland’s independence from Somalia has long divided the region. While the territory declared its sovereignty in the 1990s, it is not recognised by Mogadishu or any other world government.
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Recently, Republicans in the US House of Representatives, including Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Representative Pat Harrigan of North Carolina, and other key conservative heavyweights, have backed the push for recognition.
“All territorial claims by the Federal Republic of Somalia over the area known as Somaliland are invalid and without merit,” said the text of the bill introduced in June, calling for the US to recognise Somaliland “as a separate, independent country”.
At around the same time, media reports surfaced that said Israel had reached out to Somaliland as a possible location to resettle Palestinians it plans to expel from Gaza.
Human rights advocates from Somaliland have voiced concern that the forced resettlement of Palestinians could “render Somaliland complicit in the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza”, with worries that countries who previously sympathised with Somaliland may potentially “withdrawing their support”.
During a news conference at the White House in early August, US President Donald Trump addressed the issue. “We’re looking into that right now,” he said in response to a question about whether he supported recognition of Somaliland if it were to accept Palestinians. “Good question, actually, and another complex one, but we’re working on that right now,” he added, without giving a clear answer.
Less than a week later, Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas penned a letter to Trump calling for Somaliland’s recognition. One of the key justifications stated in the letter by Cruz, who has received nearly $2m in funding from multiple pro-Israel lobby groups, including the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was that Somaliland “sought to strengthen ties with Israel, and voiced support for the Abraham Accords.” The accords are a set of agreements normalising diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab states.
Republican Ted Cruz addresses AIPAC in Washington, DC in 2016 [File: Joshua Roberts/Reuters]
In response to Cruz’s letter, Somalia’s ambassador to the US released a statement warning that any infringement of Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would empower armed groups and “destabilise the entire Horn of Africa region”.
Al Jazeera reached out to the ministers of foreign affairs and information of Somaliland for comment on the plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians and whether they were engaging in talks with the Israelis about this, but did not receive a response.
Somaliland has not commented on the forced relocation of Palestinians, but officials have openly stated that it welcomed US consideration for its recognition, with the spokesperson for the region’s presidency thanking US Senator Cruz for his advocacy and stating that “recognition of this established fact [Somaliland] is not a question of if, but when”.
Recognition plus armed groups: A recipe for disaster?
In Somaliland, a region with traditionally strong support for the Palestinian cause, many people are hopeful about one half of the plan and concerned about the other.
Those who spoke to Al Jazeera shared concerns about the ramifications and possible dangers that could arise from potential Israeli plans to force Palestinians to relocate to Somaliland.
Ahmed Dahir Saban, a 37-year-old high school teacher from the town of Hariirad in Awdal, a province in the far northwest bordering Djibouti, said Palestinians would always be accepted with open arms in Somaliland, but that any attempts to forcibly relocate them from Palestine would never be accepted. He cautioned the authorities in Somaliland about the deal.
“The people of Palestine cannot be forced from their blessed homeland. What the Americans and Israelis are doing is ethnic cleansing, and we in Somaliland want no part of it,” he said.
Ahmed said, aside from the move being morally wrong and inhumane, he believes it would “risk violence from [armed] groups” and have serious ramifications for the region.
“Al-Shabab and Daesh [ISIL/ISIS] could carry out attacks throughout Somaliland if the authorities went through with accepting forcibly relocated Palestinians. Even here in Awdal, we wouldn’t be safe from the violence.”
Ahmed fears that if Somaliland accepts expelled Palestinians, the armed groups will exploit public anger against such a move to expand their sphere of influence and possible territorial control in the region.
Armed al-Shabab fighters ride on pick-up trucks in Somalia [File: Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP Photo]
Armed groups like al-Shabab maintain a presence in the Sanaag province, which is partially administered by the Somaliland government.
Analysts who spoke to Al Jazeera share similar concerns.
Jethro Norman, a senior researcher with the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), believes the US and Israel’s meddling in Somaliland under the pretext of relocating Palestinians would create significant opportunities for armed groups.
“Al-Shabab and IS-Somalia [ISIL Somalia] have consistently framed their struggle in terms of resisting foreign interference and protecting Somali sovereignty, but they’ve also spent years perfecting narratives about Western-backed dispossession and ‘Crusader-Zionist’ intrigue,” he remarked.
When Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, al-Shabab held protests in areas they govern in support of Palestine. Large crowds also came out in support of the Palestinian cause in rebel-controlled territory in Somalia.
“A Palestinian relocation programme, especially one perceived as externally imposed and aligned with Israeli wishes, would provide these [armed] groups with an unbelievably potent propaganda tool, allowing them to position themselves as defenders of both Somali unity and Palestinian dignity against what they could characterise as a cynical Western-Israeli scheme,” Norman told Al Jazeera.
Peace at what cost?
Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 after the country descended into civil war. In the years since, the administration in the capital, Hargeisa, has been able to create a de facto state within Somalia’s borders. Schools, security and stability emerged, but Somaliland has yet to secure international recognition.
However, some of the decades-long gains have come at a cost to many who call Somaliland home.
Dissent and freedom of expression have come under fire in Somaliland. This has affected the press, civilians and marginalised communities alike, with media outlets raided and journalists arrested.
Members of the public are routinely arrested for having the Somali flag in an attempt to silence unionist voices, which make up a significant portion of the Somaliland populace.
Somaliland army members participate in a parade to celebrate the anniversary of their ‘independence’ in Hargeisa in 2024 [File: Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
More recently, entire communities have fallen victim to scorched-earth policies implemented by Hargeisa. Nowhere is this more visible than in the city of Las Anod in Sool province. For years, local clans complained of marginalisation by the centre, which led to a public uprising. Security forces responded by killing civilian protesters in December 2022. Somaliland authorities then laid siege to the city for nine months; hundreds of people were killed in the violence, almost 2,000 were injured, and 200,000 were displaced.
Somaliland eventually lost control of Las Anod and the vast majority of its eastern region – about one-third of the territory it claims – to pro-unionist communities who have recently formed the semiautonomous Northeast regional state.
As a result of the siege, rights groups such as Amnesty International released a damaging report in 2023 accusing Somaliland of indiscriminately shelling homes, schools, mosques, densely populated civilian neighbourhoods, and even hospitals in Las Anod, which is a war crime under international law.
The Somaliland administration became the only local actor in Somalia to be accused of war crimes since al-Shabab, which was accused of committing war crimes by Human Rights Watch in 2013.
But now talk of possible Israeli plans to forcibly relocate Palestinians has heightened fears of further violence in Somaliland.
“You can hear the whispers of something,” said Mohamed Awil Meygag in the city of Hargeisa. The 69-year-old witnessed how conflict devastated the region in the 1980s and fears another uncertain path for Somaliland.
Mohamed adamantly supports the recognition of Somaliland as an independent state, but is wary of reports about forcibly relocating Palestinians from Gaza. He also feels the authorities in Hargeisa have not been sufficiently transparent.
“When Americans talk about recognising Somaliland, they [Somaliland’s government] always welcome it, and it’s right, but when it’s about Palestinians being brought here by force and the role of Israel, you don’t get the same kind of response. They’re quiet,” he said.
Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi [File: Monicah Mwangi/Reuters]
“Relocating Palestinians forcefully here, no matter what is given in return, even if it’s recognition, is not worth it. We [Somaliland] will have the blood of fellow Muslims on our hands, and no Muslim should support such a thing,” Mohamed added.
“They [the US and Israel] don’t have good intentions and we cannot risk jeopardising our country.”
For analysts, the possible forced relocation plan is also just one part of broader international interests at play in the region.
“This so-called ‘relocation plan’ is part of a wider architecture of power that extends far beyond the interests of US and Somaliland officials,” noted Samar al-Bulushi, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, who said that more foreign alliances in the region could help fuel political instability.
Al Jazeera reached out to the US Department of State for comment. In response, they directed us to the government of Israel. Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli embassy in the US for comment on the plans to relocate Palestinians to Somaliland, but they did not respond to our queries.
Uncharted waters
Amid reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is in contact with at least four countries to explore the forced transfer of Palestinians, Israel’s Channel 12 reported recently that “progress has been made” in talks with Somaliland over the issue.
On September 2, US Representatives Chris Smith and John Moolenaar also wrote a letter to Secretary of State Marc Rubio, urging the removal of Somaliland from its travel advisory on Somalia, citing Hargeisa as a strategic partner in containing China, actively engaging and supporting US interests, as well as “growing ties with Israel through its solid support for the Abraham Accords”.
“The pro-Israel networks sit in the same Washington ecosystem as Red Sea security hawks and China sceptics, and you can see some sponsors explicitly pairing Somaliland recognition with closer Israeli ties and anti-China rhetoric. Ted Cruz’s August letter urging recognition is a clear example of that framing,” said analyst Norman.
However, if the Trump administration were to recognise Somaliland, it would lead to catastrophic ripple effects in Somalia and beyond its borders, he feels.
“It would risk turning a smoulder into open flame,” the DIIS researcher said.
For al-Bulushi, the deal that is reportedly on the table says more about the region’s lack of global power than its growing influence.
“The very act of entering into such a compact with the US and Israel speaks to the lingering power asymmetries between African leaders and global powers,” she said. “[It] symbolises a lack of independence on the part of Somaliland leaders – ironically at the very moment when they are seeking recognition as a sovereign state.”
A truck carries people and their belongings as they evacuate southbound from Gaza City on September 2, 2025 [Eyad Baba/AFP]
