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Long considered one of the few success stories that sprang from the Arab Spring, Tunisia has seen its president accused of staging a coup after he sacked his prime minister and suspended parliament with the help of the army.

President Kais Saied’s dismissal of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi on Sunday followed violent demonstrations across the country over the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

It has led to clashes between supporters and opponents of the president in the streets of the capital, Tunis.

President Kais Saied (pictured) fired the prime minister less than a year after Hichem Mechichi was appointed o the role. Pic AP
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President Kais Saied (pictured) fired the prime minister less than a year after Hichem Mechichi was appointed to the role. Pic AP

Mr Saied has said he will name a new prime minister, but his critics have accused him of a power grab that threatens Tunisia‘s young democracy.

Here is a look at the legacy of the Arab Spring and how protests and uprisings dramatically altered the political structure of much of the Arab world.

The Arab Spring

The Arab Spring spread across much of the Arab world from early 2010 as demonstrators rallied against the region’s dictatorial leaders in protests over corruption, poverty and oppression.

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Escalating anti-government protests spilt over into uprisings and eventually civil wars in several countries as the Arab Spring spread from Tunisia to Egypt, Syria, Libya and Yemen, resulting in the ousting of the leaders in those countries, with the exception of Syria.

It has directly contributed to the refugee crisis and the rise of the Islamic State and has seen fresh authoritarian leaders seize power in many countries, leaving many with their hopes crushed as they struggle to live under increasingly authoritarian regimes in countries beset by greater levels of poverty and unemployment.

Tunisia

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People took to the streets in the capital, Tunis, to celebrate the PM’s dismissal – but others have called the move ‘a coup’

The roots of the Arab Spring can be traced back to Tunisia, where Mohamed Bouazizi, a fruit seller, set himself on fire in protest after police confiscated his goods and a female officer slapped him on 17 December 2010.

Footage of his self-immolation spread across the country and led people in his home city of Sidi Bouzid to take to the streets in rage.

Within a month, protests had forced Tunisia’s authoritarian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, to flee to Saudi Arabia.

Despite the relative success of Tunisia’s revolution, the country has recently seen large protests over mass unemployment and many consider its parliament inefficient and stagnant.

These problems have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit the economy hard as infection rates soared over the summer.

Egypt

Thousands of Egyptians protest in Tahrir Square, the focal point of the Egyptian uprising, in Cairo on 29 July, 2011. Pic: Associated Press
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Thousands of Egyptians protest in Tahrir Square, the focal point of the Egyptian uprising, in Cairo in July 2011. Pic: Associated Press

Demonstrations in Tunisia following the death of Bouazizi inspired massive protests across Egypt, leading President Hosni Mubarak to leave office within weeks.

A presidential election in 2012 gave power to President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, but Mr Morsi himself was later deposed when Egypt’s military generals seized power in 2013.

Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi then became president and imposed a police state, which has seen tens of thousands of Egyptians imprisoned and hundreds executed.

The country remains under military rule.

Syria

President Bashar al Assad with his wife Asma as she casts her vote
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President Bashar al Assad with his wife Asma as she casts her vote in Syria’s president election in May 2021

As unrest spread across Syria, Bashar al Assad’s government began using live ammunition against protesters, leading tensions to boil over and igniting a civil war in 2011 between the regime and rebel groups.

IS emerged from among the myriad rebel groups and expanded across the border into Iraq, where it declared a new Islamic caliphate in 2014.

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Sky’s Mark Stone visits refugee camps in northern Syria and hears of the growing influence of Islamic State inside

Syria’s brutal decade-long civil war has seen hundreds of thousands of people killed and over 6.8 million Syrians become asylum seekers and 6.7 million displaced within the country’s borders.

Despite this, Mr Assad has managed to cling on to power with the support of Russia, Iran and Lebanon-based Shia-militant group Hezbollah, although fighting in the war-ravaged country continues and several areas remain under the control of rebels.

Libya

Members of the Libyan pro-government forces gesture as they stand on a tank in Benghazi, Libya, 21 May, 2015
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Members of the Libyan pro-government forces gesture as they stand on a tank in Benghazi, Libya, in May 2015

Similarly, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi decided to crack down on the largest protests in the country’s history with force.

The move sparked a civil war and a NATO-led coalition began conducting airstrikes in support of the country’s rebels.

Rebel forces deposed and later killed Gaddafi in October 2011. However, efforts to transition away from Gaddafi’s rule broke down and the country descended into a renewed civil war.

The internationally recognised Government of National Accord remains in control of Tripoli and the city of Misrata, while the Libyan National Army, commanded by General Khalifa Haftar, runs Benghazi and much of the oil-rich east. General Haftar’s forces are supported by Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Yemen

A malnourished girl at a hospital in Sanaa in October 2020
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Yemen’s civil war has led to one of the worst famines the world has ever seen

As protests spread throughout much of the Arab world, pressure on Yemen’s authoritarian president Ali Abdullah Saleh led him to hand power to his deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, in 2011.

However, Mr Hadi’s presidency was beset by continuing problems of corruption, unemployment and an insurgency from the Houthi militia.

The Houthis took control of the capital, Sana’a, in 2014 and declared themselves in charge of the government. Yemen’s President, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, fled to Aden, where he continues to lead Yemen’s internationally-recognised government.

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David Miliband criticises Yemen aid cut

Fierce fighting between the Iran-backed Houthi group and the western-backed coalition led by Saudi Arabia has led to one of the worst famines the world has ever seen, with half of the population lacking food and almost 16 million on the brink of starvation in 2016.

Other countries affected

While the Arab Spring saw rulers deposed in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, it also led to street protests in Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, were able to use military force to effectively end revolts before they could seriously threaten the status quo.

Legacy of the Arab Spring

While the reverberations of the Arab Spring continue to affect life in the Arab World, continuing issues including corruption, authoritarianism and poverty are likely to be exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis.

Only Tunisia’s uprising resulted in a transition to a constitutional democracy, but with the country’s president ousting his prime minister, the shift away from authoritarian rule is looking increasingly fragile.

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Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says

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Israeli soldiers 'psychologically broken' after 'confronting the reality' in Gaza, UN expert says

A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.

Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.

She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.

“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.

“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”

An Israeli soldier directs a tank at a staging area near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Tuesday, July 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP

Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.

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“This is why they are psychologically broken.”

Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.

“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.

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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’

‘An economy of genocide’

Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.

The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”

Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.

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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’

The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.

“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”

“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.

Read more:
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
British surgeons on life in Gaza

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The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.

It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.

“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.

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Israeli PM nominates Donald Trump for Nobel Peace Prize – as Gaza ceasefire talks continue

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Israeli PM nominates Donald Trump for Nobel Peace Prize - as Gaza ceasefire talks continue

Israel’s prime minister has nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Benjamin Netanyahu made the announcement at a White House dinner, and the US president appeared pleased by the gesture.

“He’s forging peace as we speak, and one country and one region after the other,” Mr Netanyahu said as he presented the US leader with a nominating letter.

Mr Trump took credit for brokering a ceasefire in Iran and Israel’s “12-day war” last month, announcing it on Truth Social, and the truce appears to be holding.

The president also claimed US strikes had obliterated Iran’s purported nuclear weapons programme and that it now wants to restart talks.

“We have scheduled Iran talks, and they want to,” Mr Trump told reporters. “They want to talk.”

Iran hasn’t confirmed the move, but its president told American broadcaster Tucker Carlson his country would be willing to resume cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.

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But Masoud Pezeshkian said full access to nuclear sites wasn’t yet possible as US strikes had damaged them “severely”.

Away from Iran, fighting continues in Gaza and Ukraine.

Mr Trump famously boasted before his second stint in the White House that he could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours.

The reality has been very different; with Russia last week launching what Ukraine said was the heaviest aerial attack of the war so far.

Critics also claiming President Putin is ‘playing’ his US counterpart and has no intention of stopping the fighting.

However, President Trump could try to take credit for progress in Gaza if – as he’s suggested – an agreement on a 60-day ceasefire is able to get across the line this week.

Indirect negotiations with Hamas are taking place that could lead to the release of some of the remaining 50 Israeli hostages and see a surge in aid to Gaza.

America’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is to travel to Qatar this week to try to seal the agreement.

Whether it could open a path to a complete end to the war remains uncertain, with the two sides criteria for peace still far apart.

President Netanyahu has said Hamas must surrender, disarm and leave Gaza – something it refuses to do.

Mr Netanyahu also told reporters on Monday that the US and Israel were working with other countries who would give Palestinians “a better future” – and indicated those in Gaza could move elsewhere.

“If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave,” he added.

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Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza

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Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza

An Israeli reservist who served three tours of duty in Gaza has told Sky News in a rare on-camera interview that his unit was often ordered to shoot anyone entering areas soldiers defined as no-go zones, regardless of whether they posed a threat, a practice he says left civilians dead where they fell.

“We have a territory that we are in, and the commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die,” he said. “If they’re inside, they’re dangerous you need to kill them. No matter who it is,” he said.

Speaking anonymously, the soldier said troops killed civilians arbitrarily. He described the rules of engagement as unclear, with orders to open fire shifting constantly depending on the commander.

The soldier is a reservist in the Israel Defence Force’s 252nd Division. He was posted twice to the Netzarim corridor; a narrow strip of land cut through central Gaza early in the war, running from the sea to the Israeli border. It was designed to split the territory and allow Israeli forces to have greater control from inside the Strip.

He said that when his unit was stationed on the edge of a civilian area, soldiers slept in a house belonging to displaced Palestinians and marked an invisible boundary around it that defined a no-go zone for Gazans.

“In one of the houses that we had been in, we had the big territory. This was the closest to the citizens’ neighbourhood, with people inside. And there’s an imaginary line that they tell us all the Gazan people know it, and that they know they are not allowed to pass it,” he said. “But how can they know?”

People who crossed into this area were most often shot, he said.

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“It was like pretty much everyone that comes into the territory, and it might be like a teenager riding his bicycle,” he said.

IDF whistleblower
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The soldier is seen in Gaza. Photos are courtesy of the interviewed soldier, who requested anonymity

The soldier described a prevailing belief among troops that all Gazans were terrorists, even when they were clearly unarmed civilians. This perception, he said, was not challenged and was often endorsed by commanders.

“They don’t really talk to you about civilians that may come to your place. Like I was in the Netzarim road, and they say if someone comes here, it means that he knows he shouldn’t be there, and if he still comes, it means he’s a terrorist,” he said.

“This is what they tell you. But I don’t really think it’s true. It’s just poor people, civilians that don’t really have too many choices.”

He said the rules of engagement shifted constantly, leaving civilians at the mercy of commanders’ discretion.

“They might be shot, they might be captured,” he said. “It really depends on the day, the mood of the commander.”

He recalled an occasion of a man crossing the boundary and being shot. When another man came later to the body, he too was shot.

Later the soldiers decided to capture people who approached the body. Hours after that, the order changed again, shoot everyone on sight who crosses the “imaginary line”.

IDF whistleblower
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The Israeli soldier during his on-camera interview with Sky News

At another time, his unit was positioned near the Shujaiya area of Gaza City. He described Palestinians scavenging scrap metal and solar panels from a building inside the so-called no-go zone.

“For sure, no terrorists there,” he said. “Every commander can choose for himself what he does. So it’s kind of like the Wild West. So, some commanders can really decide to do war crimes and bad things and don’t face the consequences of that.”

The soldier said many of his comrades believed there were no innocents in Gaza, citing the Hamas-led 7 October attack that killed around 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage. Dozens of hostages have since been freed or rescued by Israeli forces, while about 50 remain in captivity, including roughly 30 Israel believes are dead.

He recalled soldiers openly discussing the killings.

“They’d say: ‘Yeah, but these people didn’t do anything to prevent October 7, and they probably had fun when this was happening to us. So they deserve to die’.”

He added: “People don’t feel mercy for them.”

“I think a lot of them really felt like they were doing something good,” he said. “I think the core of it, that in their mind, these people aren’t innocent.”

IDF whistleblower
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The IDF soldier during one of his three tours in Gaza

In Israel, it is rare for soldiers to publicly criticise the IDF, which is seen as a unifying institution and a rite of passage for Jewish Israelis. Military service shapes identity and social standing, and those who speak out risk being ostracised.

The soldier said he did not want to be identified because he feared being branded a traitor or shunned by his community.

Still, he felt compelled to speak out.

“I kind of feel like I took part in something bad, and I need to counter it with something good that I do, by speaking out, because I am very troubled about what I took and still am taking part of, as a soldier and citizen in this country,” he said

“I think the war is… a very bad thing that is happening to us, and to the Palestinians, and I think it needs to be over,” he said.

He added: “I think in Israeli community, it’s very hard to criticise itself and its army. A lot of people don’t understand what they are agreeing to. They think the war needs to happen, and we need to bring the hostages back, but they don’t understand the consequences.

“I think a lot of people, if they knew exactly what’s happening, it wouldn’t go down very well for them, and they wouldn’t agree with it. I hope that by speaking of it, it can change how things are being done.”

IDF whistleblower
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The soldier is a reservist in the Israel Defence Force’s 252nd Division

We put the allegations of arbitrary killings in the Netzarim corridor to the Israeli military.

In a statement, the IDF said it “operates in strict accordance with its rules of engagement and international law, taking feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.

“The IDF operates against military targets and objectives, and does not target civilians or civilian objects,” the statement continued.

The Israeli military added that “reports and complaints regarding the violation of international law by the IDF are transferred to the relevant authorities responsible for examining exceptional incidents that occurred during the war”.

On the specific allegations raised by the soldier interviewed, the IDF said it could not address them directly because “the necessary details were not provided to address the case mentioned in the query. Should additional information be received, it will be thoroughly examined.”

Read more:
What is the possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal?
Two security workers injured at Gaza aid site, group says
The man acting as backchannel for Hamas in US negotiations

The statement also mentioned the steps the military says it takes to minimise civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation warnings and advising people to temporarily leave areas of intense fighting.

“The areas designated for evacuation in the Gaza Strip are updated as needed. The IDF continuously informs the civilian population of any changes,” it said.

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