War in the Middle East: one Month of Devastation

After one month, the toll of the war in the Middle East is devastating. In the first 24 hours alone, Israel and the United States dropped around 2,000 bombs on Iran. Since then, more than 8,000 targets—primarily in Tehran and other major cities—have been attacked. The number of victims has already reached the thousands, and the ecological damage will burden the population for decades to come.

Meanwhile, the ring of fire has continued to spread: to Israel, neighboring Arab states, Lebanon, and Syria. In southern Lebanon, the Israeli army is employing the same method notorious in Gaza—large-scale destruction and the displacement of the civilian population.

With this war, Trump and Netanyahu are provoking global chaos. The disruption of oil and gas supplies is fueling inflation and threatening to trigger a worldwide economic crisis. At the same time, the halt in fertilizer exports from the region endangers food supplies in the Global South.

Human rights activists warn that the war in Iran is overshadowing the ongoing violence in Gaza and the West Bank, where, over the past year, 36,000 Palestinians have been displaced by violent settlers and the Israeli army.

More and more people and governments understand that this spiral of violence and escalation must be stopped before it claims even more lives and spreads further. This is not the case, however, for the leadership of the European Union and the governments of its most influential member states. Their silence and ambiguity make them complicit with Trump and Netanyahu.