The ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese political and militant group Hezbollah is on shaky ground following an Israeli air-strike on Beirut's southern suburbs March 28. It was the first strike on Lebanon's capital since a pause in hostilities came into effect on Nov. 27 last year. Israel—which has bombed southern Lebanon almost daily despite the ceasefire—said it was retaliating for a rocket attack into northern Israel. (TNH)

President Donald Trump on March 15 ordered a series of air-strikes on Yemen's capital, Sanaa, promising to use "overwhelming lethal force" until the Houthi rebels cease their attacks on shipping along a vital maritime corridor. Houthi authorities said 13 civilians were killed in the strikes. Yemen's Houthi rebels, who control the capital, have said they will resume attacks on ships in the Red Sea in response to Israel's renewed blockade on aid to Gaza. Following the January Hamas-Israel ceasefire, the Houthis had paused their campaign of attacks on shipping, which they depict as a gesture of solidarity with the Palestinians (although many targets are not linked to Israel). (AP, TNH)

Israel has been imposing a total blockade on aid entering the Gaza Strip since March 2, raising fears of a return to violence, and of a rapid further deterioration in the dire humanitarian situation in the devastated enclave. The move is intended to pressure Hamas to accept a temporary extension of the first phase of the three-stage ceasefire deal that went into effect on Jan. 19, while giving the Palestinian group little in return. The second phase of the deal was supposed to see Israel and Hamas hammer out a plan for Gaza's post-war governance. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instead repeatedly expressed support for US President Trump's widely condemned proposal to expel the 2.1 million Palestinian residents of Gaza and take control of the territory. Arab leaders meeting in Cairo on March 4 endorsed a $53 billion reconstruction and post-war governance plan as a counter-proposal to Trump's vision, but it was immediately rejected by the US and Israel. Even before assistance was cut off, Palestinians in Gaza said the dramatic increase in aid entering the enclave during the first phase of the deal brought less relief than they had hoped.

South Sudanese troops have deployed around the house of Vice President Riek Machar and arrested officials from his SPLA-IO party, marking one of the most serious threats yet to the peace deal that Machar's group signed with President Salva Kiir in 2018. The arrests follow reports of clashes in northeastern Upper Nile state between the national army and the ethnic Nuer militia known as the White Army, which was allied to Marchar during the 2013-2018 civil war. Machar's spokesperson said they do not know why their officials have been detained, but the information minister accused them of collaborating with the White Army. The International Crisis Group’s senior analyst on South Sudan told Reuters that a delicate balance of power among political elites is now "at risk of collapsing," while the UN and regional bodies warned of "widespread violence" in Upper Nile. Tensions have been mounting since the government's decision last year to postpone long-overdue elections, a delay that critics called a failure to implement the 2018 agreement—which has itself been blamed for fuelling instability. Commanders and politicians compete for power in a transitional government based in the capital, Juba, by fighting local wars in the peripheries.

Amnesty International called Feb. 28 for the immediate release of both Israeli and foreign civilians held hostage by Hamas, and of all Palestinians arbitrarily detained by Israel. The organization said that the release of hostages and prisoners should not be conditional upon the result of the next phase of ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel. There are at least 59 hostages remaining in Gaza, the majority of whom are Israelis. Meanwhile, there are more than 4,000 Palestinians held in detention in Israel without charge or trial, which Amnesty called a violation of international law.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Feb. 28 urged that the call by imprisoned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan for an end to the organization's decades-long insurgency against Türkiye must serve as a catalyst to end the systematic misuse of terrorism charges against government critics in the country.

Öcalan founded the PKK in 1978, and the party waged an insurgency against Türkiye for four decades, with approximately 40,000 killed in the conflict. The PKK has been declared a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the US and EU. Öcalan has been imprisoned on the island of Imrali since his capture in February 1999 for violating the controversial Article 125 of Türkiye’s Penal Code. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2002. 

In a dramatic escalation of the ongoing conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the M23 rebels on Jan. 26 seized Goma, the capital of North Kivu province on the Rwandan border. The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting to discuss the situation, with the DRC accusing Rwanda of sending hundreds of troops across the border to support the M23. The DRC is caling for an arms embargo on Rwanda, and sanctions on its mineral exports.

Human rights organizations, including the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), have urged an immediate end to violence between illegal armed groups in the northeast Colombian region of Catatumbo. WOLA joined the Colombian movement "Defendamos la Paz" in a call for armed groups in Catatumbo to suspend their conflict. In the Jan. 19 statement, WOLA wrote: "The Ejercito Nacional de Liberación (ELN) must cease human rights violations and adopt a truce to halt armed confrontations with Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) dissidents." The rights organizations also called on the Colombian government to provide immediate humanitarian aid for the large number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the region. WOLA urged the armed groups involved to "respect international humanitarian law and allow relief efforts to reach those in need."