Category World News

Paris, France – Nearly 50 years ago, the former Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini spent about three months in the village of Neauphle-le-Chateau, west of Paris, recording speeches that helped encourage the Iranian Revolution, before he returned to Iran to overthrow the shah in 1979.

On the heels of the death of his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the US and Israel’s assault on Iran, France and other European nations could be dragged into the conflict in the Middle East.

Since the start of the war that has killed more than 1,200 people in Iran, French President Emmanuel Macron has balanced between condemning it, calling the strikes illegal, but stating that Iran “bears primary responsibility” for the outbreak of the conflict.

“France’s position is somewhat of a fine line,” Laure Foucher, a researcher at the French think-tank Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique (Foundation for Strategic Research, or FRS), told Al Jazeera.

“Macron’s position recognises that this operation was executed outside the framework of international law. At the same time, France is not condemning it strongly because we believe that the responsibility lies primarily with Tehran, which was unwilling to compromise,” said Foucher.

But France remains critical of the US and Israel’s military intervention.

“The French are very clear in saying that the nuclear issue in Iran and the threats coming from Iran cannot be resolved with a military operation from the outside – and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and [US President Donald] Trump’s stated goal of regime change, even less so,” Foucher added.

Although the US and Israel initially went after Iran’s leadership, missile arsenal and nuclear technology, the two nations are advocating for overthrowing Iran’s government.

Given the region’s history, the French government is sceptical of militarised action dedicated to regime change, Foucher noted.

“We have the precedent in Iraq. We know where that led,” she said.

Attacks on Iran ‘completely unjustified’

The sentiment among the public is that Israel and the US are operating outside of international law.

“The American and Israeli attacks on Iran are completely unjustified,” said Adele Supau, a 23-year-old in Paris.

“I could never speak on behalf of an entire people or on something I’ve never experienced … But this is not the way to change things. So, I can’t say that I could ever agree with the Americans and the Israelis,” she told Al Jazeera.

In response to the escalating conflict, France is sending 10 warships to the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz. Macron already deployed two ships in the Mediterranean to maintain key shipping lines and protect French citizens. Approximately 400,000 French citizens live in the Middle East.

“This is not an offensive mission,” Macron said in a recent news conference. “It is an escort and support mission.”

In a similar vein, Macron has called for creating an international coalition to secure the commercial shipping paths that are “essential to the global economy”.

Supau said that she wished France pushed back more against the US and Israeli attacks.

“I understand France’s response. I would have liked us to be more forceful in rejecting and countering Trump’s action,” Supau said.

“The Spanish response is much more decisive, regarding the attack and, in general, on Trump’s and the United States’ actions. I found it very commendable,” she added. “I would like it if all EU countries could respond similarly and stand up against the extreme power that Trump is wielding over the whole world.”

France’s role in the Middle East

The war could also strain French alliances in the region.

France has defence agreements with several Gulf states, and Macron has promised to defend those.

“What is happening in the Middle East could lead to an extremely dangerous escalation, particularly with regard to the Gulf states. We have partnerships with Gulf States,” Foucher said.

Beyond the Gulf states, Lebanon, previously a French protectorate, is another key concern.

Lebanon has been under heavy fire from Israel, after Hezbollah sent rockets into Israel.

Macron called for a truce from regional leaders, including Israel, and raised the issue in a phone call to Trump.

“Everything must be done to prevent this country, which is close to France, from being dragged into war once again,” the French president wrote on social media.

France promised to provide armoured transport vehicles to Lebanese armed forces to help fight against Hezbollah, as well as humanitarian aid for displaced people.

The expanding conflict and global instability are leading to a shift in people’s minds about France’s position in the world, Supau noted.

“Everyone is much more fearful about the future, and European and nationalist sentiments are taking hold. The conflict is still geographically far away in people’s minds, but personally, I am quite concerned, not out of fear for myself, but for all the people who are there,” she said.

Iranian diaspora split

In France, the Iranian community is divided.

Sarra, 27, who spoke under a pseudonym to protect her identity, grew up in Iran and lives in Paris. She opposes the conflict.

“I am against war. Being against war does not mean I support the regime. Unfortunately for the majority of Iranians abroad, [war] is the solution. I don’t think so. I don’t believe that war could bring freedom, and the United States and Israel brought this war to Iran. It’s a war of opportunity for them,” Sarra said.

Foucher said, “Some people believe that even though the regime is terrible, this war is dangerous because the objectives are completely inconsistent with the demonstrations in Tehran and elsewhere.

“Another group believes that while there are certainly valid criticisms of the American and Israeli military intervention, it could weaken the regime, and that is all they want today.”

While some community members support the war, Sarra said the sentiment among people she knows still living in Iran is not the same.

“I have family and friends in Tehran. War is not what they want; it is not the solution for freedom. There are people who were happy about certain events, like the death of Khamenei, but it is still war,” Sarra said.

Ultimately, outside military intervention is not the way for Iran to gain freedom, Sarra noted.

The Middle East may be at a turning point. For the first time in decades, Gulf cities such as Dubai and Doha face risks to their economic stability, which depends on access to global markets and steady trade. Airspace restrictions and regional conflict have forced airlines to reroute or ground flights. Foreign investors are now questioning the region’s investment safety.

The war is challenging the Gulf states’ economic model, developed over the past 20 years.

Dubai, Doha, and Manama were built on the expectation that regional stability would attract global investment despite ongoing political tensions. This premise is now in serious jeopardy. Airports operate at reduced capacity, airlines have moved aircraft for security, and Bahrain has reportedly stationed civilian planes abroad as a safeguard.

For decades, US military bases in the Gulf deterred Iran and protected Washington’s allies. But the war has now raised a pressing question: Have these bases become part of the security problem they aimed to solve?

To understand what is happening now, we need to look back to 2020, when US President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. This event marked a turning point in the conflict between Washington and Tehran.

This strike made Iran’s leaders significantly more cautious.

Before Soleimani’s killing, Iran relied on a strategy of calibrated pressure through its regional network of partners and proxies. The September 2019 drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco facilities, claimed by the Houthis, illustrated this approach: the use of force without crossing the threshold of direct war with the United States.

The attempt to storm the US embassy in Baghdad in late 2019 prompted Washington to act. In Trump’s view, killing Soleimani redefined the rules of engagement.

Soleimani’s death left a major void in Iran’s decision-making. He wielded considerable authority within the Revolutionary Guard and among military leaders, and many trusted his capacity to manage crises. After his death, Iran became more cautious and less likely to provoke a direct confrontation with the United States.

Nonetheless, caution did not halt Iranian activity. The country expanded its military, increased its missile arsenal, and accelerated drone development. The war in Ukraine unexpectedly became a testing ground for Iran’s drones, providing valuable lessons for improvement.

Meanwhile, Iran’s regional influence declined.

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in December 2024 removed the central pillar of Iran’s regional axis. Tehran lost its strategic bridge to Lebanon and the Mediterranean, which had existed for more than 40 years. Syria no longer served as Iran’s strategic depth and immediately shifted from being an ally to a sworn regional foe.

In Iraq, Iran’s grip on armed groups weakened under mounting domestic pressure. In Lebanon, Hezbollah retained military strength but lost strategic leeway. In Yemen, the Houthis remained closest to Iran’s core interests.

During this time, Tehran tried to show it was open to diplomacy. The agreement with Saudi Arabia, brokered by China in 2023, was a major step, and Iran’s relations with other Gulf states and Egypt slowly improved. Iran also took part in several rounds of nuclear talks with the United States and other major powers.

Then, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began.

That conflict changed how Iran made its strategic decisions. The strong caution after Soleimani’s death started to look like weakness to Iran’s enemies, even though some in Tehran saw it as patience to avoid a fight on bad terms.

At first, Tehran tried to keep the conflict from growing and avoid a direct fight with Israel or the United States. But each time Iran held back, it appeared to be sending the wrong message.

The 12-day war followed, and Iran suffered heavy losses, including damaged nuclear infrastructure.

Since the end of that war, however, Tehran has focused on rebuilding military capabilities, especially drone production.

The most significant change is strategic. Rather than containing the conflict within its borders, Tehran now appears more willing to expand it regionally. The aim is not only military retaliation but also to transform the war into a broader regional crisis that could disrupt global energy markets, threaten maritime routes, and destabilise international air travel.

In short, Iran appears determined to reclaim its image as the region’s disruptive power rather than a weakened actor.

This shift has complicated Washington’s strategic calculations.

Trump assumed that sustained military pressure might force the Iranian regime towards internal collapse or acceptance of stricter US terms. However, events have unfolded differently.

Instead of mass protests, domestic anger in Iran has shifted towards a sense of existential threat, especially after Trump suggested the war could alter Iran’s borders. The assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during the war, followed by his son’s elevation as successor under wartime conditions, also gave unexpected momentum to the regime’s political survival.

On the battlefield, the war has begun to expand across multiple fronts.

Hezbollah’s entry into the conflict opened a new front along Israel’s northern border, the closest direct point of confrontation between Iran and Israel. Reports of coordinated strikes between Hezbollah and Iranian forces, along with increasing clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops, suggest this front could become the war’s central arena.

Currently, the Yemeni front remains relatively restrained, while Iraqi factions focus on limited attacks and other regional dynamics. If these fronts fully activate, the war could expand into the Red Sea and potentially threaten the Suez Canal, one of the world’s most critical trade routes.

In Washington, anxiety is rising that the conflict could escalate further. After an intelligence briefing, US Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, warned that the Trump administration’s approach could eventually lead to the deployment of ground forces in Iran.

In Tehran, statements from figures such as security chief Ali Larijani indicate that Iran is prepared to escalate further at sea. The Strait of Hormuz is now part of a strategy to transfer the costs of war to the global economy. If Tehran moves to mine or close the strait, the confrontation could quickly become a global energy crisis.

Gulf states now find their strategic assumptions under scrutiny. Years of warnings from regional diplomats about unchecked escalation have shifted to open concern about whether the US–Gulf security framework still guarantees stability or exposes the region to greater risk.

Amid these developments, a more troubling question is circulating among policymakers and analysts: What if Iran’s new leadership decides the war provides an opportunity for a nuclear breakout?

There is no public evidence that Tehran has made this decision. However, Iran possesses large quantities of highly enriched uranium, and the political constraints that once limited its nuclear ambitions may have shifted, first due to the former supreme leader’s religious ban on nuclear weapons until his assassination, and second as a result of the war. If Iran were to conduct its first nuclear test during the conflict, the war would enter a new phase, potentially altering both the regional balance of power and global nuclear norms.

In this context, the US president now faces three difficult options.

The first is to expand the war in pursuit of regime change in Iran, which risks a full regional conflict. The second is to declare limited strategic success and attempt to rebuild deterrence. The third is to continue the war at its current intensity, accepting the growing political and economic costs.

Each of these choices would change the Middle East for years to come.

Gaza City, the Gaza Strip – Shortly before the call to sunset prayer, Islam Dardouna stretches her hand towards a pot hanging over a makeshift stove fashioned from a battered metal can, with scraps of paper and pieces of wood feeding the fire beneath it.

Then she pauses. She turns her face away from the rising tongues of smoke. Her face stained with a thin layer of soot and her clothes steeped in the lingering smell of fumes, she takes a deep breath but does not immediately lift the lid.

In her right hand, Dardouna holds an asthma inhaler as though it were a ladle or tongs. With her other hand, she tries to prepare food for her three children.

“I can no longer tolerate the fire at all,” the 34-year-old says in a strained voice as she raises the inhaler to her mouth.

“We heat water on it, cook on it … everything. It completely destroyed my health,” she said, pointing to her chest.

Dardouna has been displaced from Jabalia in northern Gaza since the start of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory in October 2023.

She now lives with her husband – 37-year-old Muath Dardouna – and their children in Sheikh Ajleen, west of Gaza City.

A year and a half ago, their home was destroyed. Since then, the family has moved from place to place until they eventually settled in this camp alongside other displaced families.

Everything changed after the war began. But for Dardouna, having to cook daily over an open fire in the face of cooking gas and fuel ranks among the worst.

“Our entire life now is a struggle, searching for wood and things we never imagined we would need one day,” she says. “There is no cooking gas and no gas cylinders. We lost all of that during displacement.”

What makes the situation even harder is that she suffers from asthma and chronic chest allergies, conditions she says began during Israel’s 2008 war on Gaza when she inhaled the smoke of a phosphorus bomb that dropped on her house. Her situation improved over the years, but has dramatically worsened during the current war.

“I developed airway obstruction, and recently there were masses found in my lungs,” said Dardouna, who in January was hospitalised for six days after suffering from oxygen shortage.

“The doctors prescribed an oxygen cylinder for me,” she says, quietly. “But unfortunately, I cannot afford it.”

A prolonged shortage

Like so many others across Gaza, Dardouna is struggling amid a prolonged shortage of cooking gas and fuel that has persisted since the start of the war.

Supplies have remained severely limited even after a “ceasefire” came into effect in October that included provisions allowing the entry of fuel and essential goods into the territory.

However, the quantities that have entered since then remain far below the population’s actual needs, according to official sources in Gaza and United Nations agencies.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says the availability of cooking gas in Gaza remains “critically constrained”, with the limited quantities entering the territory covering less than three percent of what is required.

As a result, many families have been forced to rely on alternative and often hazardous cooking methods.

UN data indicates that about 54.5 percent of households rely on firewood for cooking, roughly 43 percent burn waste or plastic, and only around 1.5 percent are able to cook with gas.

Humanitarian groups warn that such unsafe alternatives endanger people’s health and the environment due to prolonged exposure to smoke and toxic fumes produced by burning plastic and other waste.

Amid these conditions, cooking over open fires made from wood, scrap materials or plastic has become a daily reality across displacement camps and neighbourhoods throughout Gaza.

The crisis has intensified during the Muslim holy month Ramadan, when families must prepare both suhoor meals before their daily fast and iftar meals afterwards.

Firewood has become expensive, requiring a daily budget. Lighting the fire before dawn is also often difficult due to the lack of lighting and unfavourable weather conditions, so the family often skips the pre-dawn meal entirely.

“Today, for example, it’s raining and windy. I couldn’t light the fire,” said Darduna’s husband, Muath, who is also helping out with the daily cooking.

“Even when we break our fast, we wish we could drink a cup of tea or coffee afterwards, but we can’t, because lighting the fire again is another struggle.”

A former psychosocial support worker for children, Muath says it pains him to see his children fasting without suhoor.

“Every detail of our lives is literally suffering,” he says. “Fetching water is suffering. Cooking is suffering. Even going to the bathroom is suffering. We are truly exhausted,” he added.

“Our lives are covered in soot,” Muath says, pointing to the black smoke stains left by the fire.

He describes gas as “one of our dreams”, recalling how “it felt like Eid day” when the family got a gas cylinder a few months ago. “But we don’t even have the stove to use it, and many families are like us,” he said.

“We are living on the edge of nothing. Displacement and war stripped us of everything,” he adds. “We are willing to live with the simplest rights in tents. But there is no heating, no gas, no lighting. It feels like we are living in open graves on Earth.”

Serious implications

In a statement on Wednesday, the General Petroleum Authority in Gaza warned of the “catastrophic and dangerous consequences of the continued halt in cooking gas supplies” to the territory, stressing that the crisis “directly affects the lives of more than two million residents” amid already dire humanitarian conditions.

The authority said Gaza had already been facing a shortfall of about 70 percent of its actual gas needs compared with the quantities that entered after the “ceasefire” announcement.

It added that the “complete suspension of gas supplies places the Gaza Strip before a looming disaster that threatens food and health security”, particularly during Ramadan.

The authority also said that preventing gas from entering the enclave constitutes a “clear violation of the ceasefire understandings”, calling on mediators and international actors to intervene urgently to ensure the regular flow of cooking gas into Gaza.

Across Gaza, many families now rely on ready-made meals from aid distributions and charity kitchens because of economic collapse and the difficulty of cooking.

“Even when food arrives ready hours before iftar,” Muath says, “heating it becomes another problem.”

The frustration of daily survival pushes Muath to the brink.

“As a father now, I cannot even provide the most basic things,” he says. “Imagine my son simply wants a cup of tea … even a little wind can stop me from making it.”

‘The fire suffocates you’

In a nearby tent, Amani Aed al-Bashleqi, 26, sits watching food being cooked over an open fire for iftar while her husband stirs the pot.

She said cooking on fire makes food taste “flavourless” – not because the taste changes, but because “exhaustion and suffering have become part of every bite”.

“We start cooking early so we can finish by iftar, and after breaking the fast, my husband and I are completely exhausted and covered in soot.”

Like Dardouna, al-Bashleqi says the smoke causes severe headaches and health problems.

“The fire suffocates you. All the women in the camp suffer health problems from cooking on fire,” she says. “But we have no choice.”

She has a seven-month-old baby, and her biggest worry is boiling water for his milk.

“Sometimes I boil water and keep it in a borrowed thermos, but I don’t always have one,” she says. “And sometimes when he wakes up at night, I mix the milk with water without boiling it, even though I know that’s not healthy. But what can I do?”

Nearby, Iman Junaid, 34, displaced from Jabalia to western Gaza City, sits with her husband Jihad, 36, in front of the fire preparing food.

Junaid blows on the flames while she pushes an empty plastic oil bottle under the fire.

Behind them, bags full of plastic bottles are piled up. The family collected them to fuel the fire because cooking gas has been unavailable for months.

A mother of six, Junaid says she knows the health dangers of burning plastic, but has “no other choice”.

“My little daughter is one year old, and her chest always hurts because she inhales the smoke,” she says. “Our life is collecting and burning plastic and nylon.”

“With the price of wood rising, we now wish we could even find wood. Gas has become almost impossible … we’ve forgotten it.”

She said there were many promises that gas would enter Gaza after the “ceasefire”, but “nothing happened”.

For Dardounah, the solution is not simply bringing cooking gas into Gaza. “What we need is for life to become possible again,” she says.