Israel officially recognises the Armenian genocide and defies Turkey

On Sunday, the Israeli government unanimously approved the recognition of the Armenian genocide, following a proposal by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar; the measure must still be ratified by Parliament. For Israel, this marks a major shift: successive governments had until now avoided such recognition in order to preserve their relations with Turkey, long one of their closest strategic partners in the region. The two countries are now experiencing a period of very high tension.

Gideon Saar argued that this was both a moral and a historical duty, stating that it is never too late to do what is right. He condemned a campaign to deny and downplay the Armenian genocide, which he claimed was being led primarily by the Turkish government. The genocide, which claimed the lives of between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, is already recognised by many countries, including the United States, France and Germany.

Ankara has categorically rejected this term and denounced it as a political decision aimed, according to Turkish diplomats, at concealing Israeli crimes in Gaza, where Israel is on trial before the International Court of Justice. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the war in Gaza, comparing Israeli leaders to Nazi officials, whilst Benjamin Netanyahu has described him as an anti-Semitic dictator. Turkey has suspended most of its trade relations with Israel.

Gideon Saar insisted that this was not an act of retaliation, adding that spreading lies about Israel does not grant immunity from historical truths. The decision comes alongside a thaw in relations with Armenia: the normalisation process, which began before the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, had been put on hold due to massive Israeli arms sales to Azerbaijan, and was subsequently undermined by Yerevan’s recognition of the State of Palestine in June 2024. Turkey, for its part, has promised to continue working to put an end to what it considers to be Israel’s expansionist policies in the region. RFI

🇷🇺 Russia - 🇺🇦 Ukraine • Russian missile and drone strikes have killed at least nine people in Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, three major industrial cities, and left dozens injured, including children. In Dnipro, an attack on a private company killed five people and injured 29. Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned “Russian terror” and called for a European anti-ballistic defence system. For its part, Ukraine is continuing its campaign of strikes on Russian refineries, causing fuel shortages as far as the Moscow region – a “certain shortage” acknowledged by Vladimir Putin. Putin rejected a Ukrainian proposal for a ceasefire on long-range strikes and reaffirmed his objective of seizing four Ukrainian regions.

🇷🇸 Serbia • President Aleksandar Vučić announced on Saturday that he would resign in the coming weeks and call early presidential and parliamentary elections, following 18 months of anti-corruption student protests sparked by the deadly collapse of a station canopy in Novi Sad, which left 16 people dead. The following day, thousands of protesters gathered in Kraljevo. Many fear a “tactical manoeuvre”: Vučić could run for the post of Prime Minister and install an ally as President to retain his influence.

🇩🇪 Germany • A shooting at a youth support centre in Stade, near Hamburg, has left six adults dead and one person injured, according to the police, who have arrested the suspected shooter and described the incident as a “family tragedy in the broadest sense”. The centre also provides support for mothers and their children. The motive has not yet been established, but investigators are ruling out a political or terrorist motive at this stage.

🇪🇺 Europe • A historic heatwave hit Europe this weekend, with all-time records broken in Germany (41.5°C), Denmark (37°C, a temperature not seen since 1874) and the Czech Republic (40.6°C). At least 193 million Europeans experienced temperatures of over 35°C on Saturday. Spain has recorded more than 200 deaths, and France 74 deaths by drowning since 18 June. Parisian hospitals have been exceptionally overwhelmed. Conditions are expected to ease in the west, whilst Romania and Moldova were preparing for further heatwave warnings.

🇨🇳 China - 🇪🇺 European Union • Chinese Trade Minister Wang Wentao was due in Brussels today to attempt to ease growing trade tensions through dialogue. The EU wants to redress the balance in trade, which is characterised by a deficit exceeding one billion euros a day – a deficit it attributes to unfair competition and Chinese subsidies. Beijing advocates dialogue whilst threatening retaliatory measures. Two European measures – the doubling of customs duties on steel and the taxation of small parcels – come into force on Wednesday.

🇩🇰 Denmark • The government is to prioritise access to the electricity grid, which is struggling to cope with demand, by relegating the connection of large data centres to the bottom of the list. Projects currently on hold accounted for 60 gigawatts, whilst the system is designed to handle 7 gigawatts at peak times. A draft bill, expected in the autumn, will classify access into four categories, prioritising households, healthcare, defence and transport.

🇭🇺 Hungary • Tens of thousands of people marched in Budapest on Saturday for the first Pride march since Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat in April, celebrating their regained freedom to assemble amid a heatwave of 38°C. The new conservative Prime Minister, Peter Magyar, who ended Orban’s 16-year rule, has yet to take any concrete steps to restore the eroded LGBT+ rights, calling for patience despite demands from organisations.

🇧🇾 Belarus - 🇨🇳 China • Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met Xi Jinping in Beijing, with the Chinese leader describing relations between the two countries as having reached a “historic high”. The visit follows Lukashenko’s talks with Vladimir Putin last week, against a backdrop of tensions with Ukraine, which the Belarusian president believes Moscow is seeking to use to pressure Minsk into stepping up its support for the war.

🇮🇷 Iran - 🇺🇸 United States • After several days of exchanged strikes that reignited hostilities, Washington and Tehran agreed on Sunday to suspend their mutual attacks “for the time being” and to allow ships to pass freely through the Strait of Hormuz. Both sides had been accusing each other of violating the memorandum of understanding signed on 17 June, following US strikes on Iran and Iranian retaliatory strikes against Gulf neighbours, including Kuwait and Bahrain; a Qatari national was killed by shrapnel. Iran maintains that only a single passageway, along its coastline, is authorised and warns against any attempts to circumvent this. Technical discussions, possibly including a meeting on Tuesday in Qatar, are set to continue. In Lebanon, which is covered by the protocol, Israel has continued its strikes in the south despite the framework agreement signed on Friday in Washington; Hezbollah and the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, reject this text, which makes Israeli withdrawal conditional on the movement’s disarmament.

🇹🇷 Turkey • President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today called for his country’s integration into the European defence architecture and for the removal of “obstacles” to its arms sales to the EU. Turkey has the second-largest army in NATO in terms of troop numbers, and its defence industry ranks 11th in the world.

🇮🇶 Iraq • On Sunday, the authorities arrested 47 officials, including several MPs and a senior official from the Ministry of Oil, as part of an anti-corruption operation launched by the new Prime Minister, Ali al-Zaïdi, ahead of a visit to Washington in mid-July. Security forces were deployed as far as Baghdad’s Green Zone. The operation, described as a “start”, is also part of a campaign against the financing of pro-Iranian armed factions, which the United States is pressing Baghdad to disarm.

🇹🇷 Turkey • Several thousand people gathered in Diyarbakir on Sunday to demand the release of Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the PKK (Kurdish party), who has been held in solitary confinement since 1999. In 2025, the PKK renounced armed struggle and announced its dissolution, bringing an end to a four-decade conflict that claimed at least 50,000 lives. According to a close associate of Öcalan, no lasting peace is possible whilst he remains in solitary confinement.

🇮🇱 Israel - 🇮🇷 Iran • Iranian cyberattacks against Israel have tripled in a year, rising from around 1,600 in June 2025 to 4,800 this month, according to Israel’s cybersecurity director, Yossi Karadi. Targeting critical infrastructure as well as SMEs, law firms and accountancy firms, these attacks have in some cases completely wiped out systems. “There is no ceasefire in cyberspace,” he warned. Iran generally denies carrying out such campaigns.

🇦🇫 Afghanistan - 🇵🇰 Pakistan • Pakistan today carried out its deadliest attack on Afghanistan in months, targeting three eastern provinces. Islamabad claims to have killed 29 fighters from a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, whilst the Taliban government reports that 36 to 38 civilians, including women and children, were killed and more than 160 wounded, accusing the Pakistani air force of bombing homes and then striking rescue workers a second time. These strikes were in response to an attack on Saturday evening in Karachi against a Rangers camp, which killed three paramilitary personnel and was claimed by the same group. The two neighbours, who have been at open war since late February, have summoned their respective diplomats, and mediation efforts, including those by China, have failed.

🇨🇳 China - 🇯🇵 Japan • On Monday, Beijing added 20 Japanese entities to its export control blacklist, barring them from accessing dual-use goods (civilian and military), and placed a further 20 on a watchlist. Among those targeted are subsidiaries of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and an institute under the Ministry of Defence, accused of participating in Japanese “militarism”. Tokyo has condemned the move as “unacceptable”. Tensions have escalated since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi raised the possibility of intervention in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Tokyo and Seoul have also criticised joint flights by Chinese and Russian bombers at the weekend.

🇰🇷 South Korea • On Monday, Seoul unveiled a 1,000 billion euro investment plan over 10 years to build advanced semiconductor factories and AI-dedicated data centres, equivalent to two-thirds of the country’s GDP. Samsung and SK hynix will build four factories in the Honam region. “Speed is the only way to survive,” explained President Lee Jae Myung. This is the third major investment in AI announced in the country in less than a year.

🇻🇪 Venezuela • The death toll from the twin earthquakes, measuring 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, which struck the north of the country last Wednesday has risen to 1,450, with 189 buildings completely collapsed and around 50,000 people missing, according to the UN. Survivors were still being pulled from the rubble in La Guaira and Caracas this weekend, often by local residents using rudimentary tools. Anger is mounting against the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, who has been booed and accused of inaction, as the government has restricted volunteers’ access to the disaster zones. International aid from 24 countries has intensified. The damage is estimated at nearly seven billion dollars, or 6 per cent of GDP.

🇦🇷 Argentina • The head of the Cabinet, Manuel Adorni, resigned on Saturday, his position weakened by a scandal after he admitted to concealing 500,000 dollars in his declaration of assets. A close ally of President Javier Milei, of whom he was one of the most loyal supporters, he has denounced “relentless media attacks” and denies any wrongdoing. The case is the subject of a federal investigation.

🇸🇩 Sudan • In El-Obeid, a strategic town in Kordofan, residents live in fear of an assault by Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries, who have stepped up their presence around the town. Recent attacks have targeted the power station and fuel depots, cutting off water and electricity supplies to neighbourhoods. The UN fears a repeat of the atrocities in El-Fasher, which fell in October. The city, with a population of half a million and hosting 100,000 displaced people, is approaching a full-scale siege, with prices for water and food soaring.

🇨🇩 DRC • The Ebola outbreak has spread to a fourth province, Haut-Uélé, engulfing the entire north-east of the country, home to around 15 million people. The Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which there is no vaccine or treatment, has claimed 360 lives out of 1,274 cases since the outbreak was declared on 15 May. The epicentre remains Ituri, a region rich in gold and plagued by armed violence. Treatment centres are operating at over 138 per cent capacity, and 78 healthcare workers have been infected. The WHO, which has issued an international alert, expects the crisis to last between six months and a year.