Category World News

Israel’s military has carried out an attack on a village in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, local media outlets are reporting, amid growing concerns of a wider Israeli escalation as the government pushes for the disarmament of Lebanese group Hezbollah.

In a social media post on Thursday, Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee told residents of the village of Sohmor to leave their homes ahead of a planned strike on a building he claimed contained “Hezbollah military infrastructure”.

The Israeli military later said it was attacking several “Hezbollah targets” across Lebanon, without specifying where exactly the strikes were being carried out.

The Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV said the Israeli army had targeted two residential buildings in Sohmor.

Israel has launched near-daily attacks on Lebanon despite a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah that came into force in late 2024.

Those attacks have ramped up in recent months as Israel and its main ally, the United States, have been pushing the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.

Later on Thursday, the Israeli army issued another evacuation threat for residents of the Bekaa Valley village of Mashghara, west of Sohmor, saying it planned to attack “Hezbollah infrastructure” there.

Last week, the Lebanese military said the first phase of its plan is to bring all the weapons held by non-state actors between the Litani River and the Israeli border, in southern Lebanon, under its control.

The army said on January 8 that it had established a state monopoly on arms in the south in an “effective and tangible way”, without specifically mentioning Hezbollah.

The Lebanese cabinet, meanwhile, has asked the army to brief it early next month on how it would pursue disarmament in other parts of the country.

A senior Hezbollah official warned the Lebanese government this week, however, that trying to disarm the group across Lebanon would trigger chaos and a possible civil war.

Hezbollah has insisted that the disarmament push only applies to the southernmost region of Lebanon that borders Israel, refusing to relinquish its weapons elsewhere.

In an interview with Russian state media outlet RT, senior Hezbollah political official Mahmoud Qmati said on Wednesday that pursuing a state monopoly on arms further north would be “the biggest crime committed by the state”.

“The path taken by the Lebanese government and state institutions will lead Lebanon to instability, chaos and perhaps even civil war,” Qmati said, though he added that Hezbollah would not be dragged into a confrontation with Lebanon’s army.

Hezbollah has argued that it must retain its weapons in order to deter Israel from occupying additional territories in southern Lebanon, where the Lebanese army is ill-equipped to respond.

Israel has maintained troops in five areas of southern Lebanon, in violation of the 2024 truce.

“There will be no talk or dialogue about any situation north of the Litani River before Israel withdraws from all Lebanese territory, liberates the south and the prisoners, and stops its violations against Lebanon,” said Qmati, the Hezbollah official.

Reporting from the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Thursday, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr explained that by targeting areas north of the Litani River for attack, the Israeli military is signalling that it has “shifted to phase two of the disarmament plan”.

But the Lebanese army has said “it needs time to put a plan together and that it will present it to the government next month”, Khodr said.

“Lebanese army sources [are] saying that this is very challenging, especially if Hezbollah refuses to cooperate with the army. And Hezbollah [is] making clear it will not cooperate with the army,” she explained.

Protests in Iran, which began in late December 2025 over the country’s worsening economic conditions, have escalated into a broader challenge to its clerical leadership, which has been in power since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Tensions with the United States have mounted since US President Donald Trump suggested that Washington could militarily intervene in Iran if there was a crackdown on protesters.

Critics of the Iranian government, primarily in the West, claim that thousands of people have died in the protests. In particular, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) put the death toll at 2,615 on Wednesday.

However, the Iranian government said these numbers have been exaggerated, and Iranian state TV reports put the figure at about 300.

On Wednesday night, Trump’s tone softened when he said he had received assurances from Iran that the killings of protesters in Iran had stopped and that executions of detained demonstrators would not go ahead.

But his earlier threats to attack Iran prompted Tehran to warn of retaliation and, on Wednesday, Qatar ‌confirmed some personnel ‍had been removed from the Al Udeid air‌base, which hosts US armed forces, saying it was ‌in ⁠response ‌to “current ‍regional ‌tensions”.

There have been some clashes between demonstrators and security forces in Iran, resulting in deaths. An ongoing internet blackout – which entered its eighth day on Thursday – has made it particularly difficult to track the actual number of deaths, according to watchdog NetBlocks.

What do we know about the death toll in Iran?

Iran has not released an official death toll, but authorities stated this week that more than 100 members of the security forces have been killed in clashes with protesters. Opposition activists said the toll is much higher and includes more than 1,000 protesters.

HRANA said the number of people killed had climbed to at least 2,615 on Wednesday.

Norway-based organisation Iran Human Rights (IHR) reported on Wednesday that at least 3,428 protesters had been killed in a crackdown on demonstrations.

But the same day, Iranian state TV said mass funerals were taking place in Tehran that would include 300 bodies of security force members and civilians.

In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Iranian ‍Foreign ‍Minister Abbas Araghchi denied that Tehran had plans to execute protesters. During this interview, Araghchi downplayed the death toll that is being reported.

“I certainly deny the numbers and figures they have said. It is an exaggeration, it is a misinformation campaign, only to find excuses, only to do another aggression against Iran,” Araghchi said, adding that the number was being exaggerated to involve Trump in the conflict.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify any of the figures that have been reported.

Among all of these figures, HRANA’s numbers are the ones that are most cited by news organisations worldwide.

What is HRANA?

According to its website, US-based HRANA is the news agency affiliated with Human Rights Activists in Iran (also known as HRAI and HRA), which is described as “a non-political and non-governmental organisation comprised of advocates who defend human rights in Iran”.

The website states that HRAI was formed in 2005 but does not name or provide details about who formed the organisation.

It says that in February 2006, a small group of Iranian activists gathered to organise protests against human rights violations in the country.

“That effort lay the foundation of a larger vision that ultimately led to the establishment of an organization later known as Human Rights Activists in Iran,” the website states, adding that, initially, the effort was focused on political prisoners. It supported victims’ families, documented abuses and ran public education campaigns in Iran.

Why is the group now based in the US?

By March 2010, the group was legally registered inside Iran, shifting from a “semi-secret organization into one which openly operated in Iran”, it states.

The organisation adds that during this time, the group decided to publicly disclose the names of its leaders. “By publicly disclosing the names of our leaders, we hoped to neutralize such suspicions that have historically led to brutal crackdowns in the past.”

However, the government did crack down on it, it says.

The website adds: “The military-style crackdown of our organization on March 2, 2010 left our members even more determined than before to re-group and ultimately rebuild the necessary infrastructure needed to continue our work despite the security risks that threatened each and every one of us.”

According to a document published by Amnesty International on March 12, 2010, HRAI reported that Iranian security forces raided the house and workplace of at least 29 of its members between March 2 and March 3, arresting 15 people.

The website adds that soon after the crackdown, HRAI registered in the US as a nonprofit organisation, and focused on recruiting skilled members, integrating technology into its operations and “obtaining appropriate sources of financial support”.

What is HRANA’s assessment of the crisis in Iran?

This week, HRANA reported that of the 2,615 people killed, 2,435 were protesters, 153 were affiliated with the government or military, and 14 were civilians who were not protesting.

Besides the death toll, HRANA has reported that 18,470 people have been arrested over the course of 617 protests in 187 cities, beginning on December 28 in Tehran.

HRANA has also published news articles online with names, photos, ages and more information about some of the people who it says have been arrested or killed.

What do we know about HRANA’s backers, members and methodology?

Al Jazeera contacted HRANA for comment, but a spokesperson declined to disclose information about the group’s members or funding sources, citing security concerns.

The spokesperson told Al Jazeera that the organisation confirms all data with primary sources, but said it could not disclose the identities of individuals or organisations in Iran with whom HRANA corroborates information. Its methodology for collecting and analysing data is not provided on its website.

How has HRANA’s previous reporting compared with official government figures?

Iran fought a 12-day war with Israel from June 13 to 24 in 2025.

HRANA reported that over the course of the conflict, 1,190 people were killed and 4,475 were injured in Iran. These figures included civilian and military casualties. The organisation additionally reported that during the war, 1,596 people were arrested by Iranian security forces.

By contrast, according to Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education, 610 people were killed and 4,746 people were injured over the course of the war.

In September 2022, a young woman named Mahsa Amini, aged 22, was arrested in Tehran for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. She collapsed while in custody and died in hospital a few days later.

Her death caused national outrage and widespread protests in Iran that lasted for several weeks. The slogan “woman, life, freedom” was chanted in the streets.

HRANA reported in October 2022 that 200 people died and about 5,500 people were arrested during those protests.

“Down with America” has been among the chants heard in global protests from Iran to Latin America. US thinking has often blamed this animosity on ‘hating our freedoms’, but that explanation ignores the US’s frequent abuse of power.

South America is at a crossroads. The attack on Caracas, the abduction of Nicolas Maduro and the threats towards the Colombian and Mexican presidents by the US president are an ominous sign of the years ahead. In addition to armed external meddling, elections have sharpened political tensions from La Paz to Santiago, Buenos Aires to Quito, and the region’s biggest democracies are heading to the polls again later in 2026. Unequal dividends from decades of growth, combined with the post-pandemic erosion of state capacity, have widened the appeal of hard-line, populist responses. The danger is not only domestic: the region’s drift towards militarised politics, and the open threats by the US, surface the risks of external influence, a modern rehash of the banana republic and gunboat diplomacy playbook.

Taken together, these dynamics point to a dangerous convergence. Rising insecurity, hollowed-out political representation and renewed external coercion are reinforcing one another, weakening institutions and making the region once again vulnerable to domination rather than self-determination.

Peru is a stark cautionary tale. For two decades, the country had above-average economic growth, attracted heavy foreign investment, and even sought OECD membership. By early 2026, the sol is widely regarded as South America’s most stable currency. Yet prosperity has not translated into institutional stability: seven presidents in nine years speak to a deeper political dysfunction. The sociologist Julio Cotler has argued that Peru’s elites, enriched by exports of raw materials, had scant incentives to share gains or build capable and inclusive institutions. The result is a brittle political economy, where colonial hierarchies linger, inequalities across gender, class and ethnicity persist, and state services are dysfunctional, weakening legitimacy and representation.

That brittleness is now colliding with insecurity. In Lima, transport strikes over rising violence and extortion have repeatedly paralysed the city; dozens of bus drivers were murdered in broad daylight throughout 2025. Protests turned deadly in October 2025, when a rapper and street artist was shot near the government palace during demonstrations against the new president, José Jerí. The president of Congress called the victim a “terruco” (once a label for terrorists), illustrating the toxicity of Peru’s political landscape, as this term is a slur aimed at dissenters, often Indigenous or peasant, to delegitimise their protests and demands. This is not an isolated phenomenon, but a symptom of how political systems treat social conflict as a policing problem, something to be repressed rather than addressed.

Peru’s response has been the militarisation of public space. Under Jerí, the government declared a state of emergency and sent soldiers to patrol the streets “until insecurity is eradicated”. Ecuador has tried something similar, going so far as to declare an “internal armed conflict”, leading to increasing human rights violations. When political demands are marginalised in favour of military or police force, political representation collapses into patronage or fear. Peru’s Congress illustrates this collapse of representation. It has become a plutocratic trading house where vested interests are waved through, rather than a forum for undertaking the reforms necessary for the state to respond to the demands of its citizens.

The 2026 presidential campaign in Peru is amplifying this logic. Frontrunners promise mega-prisons, drone surveillance, and even transferring inmates to Salvadoran prisons. Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, openly invokes “mano dura” (a militarised response to the crisis of the state and representation). Across the Andes, “order” is back as a magical solution and political proposal, reinforced by US support for repression as a policy response, though it rarely fixes the causes of violence: social exclusion, impunity and hollowed-out states.

Chile offers a cautionary example. The celebratory chants for Pinochet heard after Jose Antonio Kast’s electoral victory illustrate a nostalgia for the certainty of authoritarianism and dictatorship, one that was sponsored by US intervention. Yet the appeal of “strong hand” governance is less about ideology than about disillusionment with parties and governments that feel distant and self-serving. When elites ignore citizens’ needs, toughness is performed, replacing political representation. The military is politicised and society is militarised. From this shift, it is a short step to a symbiosis in which politicians and uniforms defend predatory interests, local or foreign, under the banner of security, as authoritarian arrangements take hold and soldiers receive “warrior dividends”.

The return of hard-line populism in the region, as well as open US military intervention and bombing, resonates with a wider revival of militarised responses to social and political problems. The revival of the Monroe Doctrine in the Caribbean, the breach of international law and the use of sheer force, the so-called “Don Doctrine”, point to a governing logic that substitutes coercion for political legitimacy. Financial pressure, visible in Argentina’s most recent legislative elections, and the summary execution of alleged drug traffickers follow the same pattern. These are not isolated phenomena but variations of the same response: the gaslighting of social problems through force. Ultimately, this produces fragile states, fragmented societies and politicised militaries that undermine the very capacity needed to deliver safety, fairness and democracy, making external interference easier, not harder.

As leaders in the region pursue militarisation as a means of repressing dissent, they weaken states and position countries much as they were when banana republics first emerged. Weak institutions, corrupted legislatures and politicised security forces once again define political life. Today, the script is updated, more overt, raw and transactional, as the missiles and the aftermath of the abduction of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela illustrate.

A different path is possible, but it begins by describing the problem correctly. Violence is real, yet security without legitimacy is ephemeral, and force without institution-building is brittle. The Andes will not escape the current trend of insecurity and instability by doubling down on emergency powers, larger prisons and sweeping the streets with soldiers in full gear. The only way to bypass this path is to invest in justice and tackle the institutionalised inequalities that make violence feasible and profitable. This cannot happen without recasting political representation away from current predatory dynamics.

If the region continues the chant of right-wing populism in 2026, it will see more states of emergency, more “internal conflicts” and more militarised campaigns, and inevitably more room for foreign actors to set the terms and priorities in the region. A reboot of banana republics with a “security” add-on. It might even hand the US president the geopolitical equivalent of a “FIFA Peace Prize”, something that resembles a prize for the performance of success, but that ultimately fails in real life. The only way out of this trajectory is to ensure that politics takes place without the shadow of a uniform and populism, and that citizens’ voices are not eclipsed by the interests of cliques and short-sighted elites. This task will be more difficult given the pressures from the US for transactional deals that do not care for democracy, human rights or legitimacy.