🇩🇪 GERMANY ACCUSES CHINA OF HELPING HAMAS WITH LASER WEAPON IN GAZA DEFENCE: FIRST KNOWN USE, REMAINS UNSECURED

Germany has formally accused China of using a high-powered laser weapon against a German surveillance aircraft operating over the Red Sea. (1/13) The mission was part of Operation Aspides. The aircraft was conducting reconnaissance in support of maritime security linked to Gaza operations. The laser was fired from a Chinese warship. It forced the German aircraft to abort its mission and return to base. (2/13)

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇸🇦 Trump Imposes 10 Percent Tariffs on Iran, Saudi, UAE, Egypt, Algeria for Ties to BRICS (1/11) Trump's 6 July tariff decree, a 10% levy on any country aligning with what he terms the anti-American policies of BRICS is the calculated fulfilment of a warning he issued in December 2024, when he pledged tariffs of up to 100 per cent on both BRICS members & partners. (2/11)

🇮🇱🇦🇪 THE UAE IS SUPPORTING A COUP AGAINST NETANYAHU:

Their diplomatic recognition of Yair Lapid is a political intervention in Israel’s domestic sphere reflecting a rift between the UAE and Netanyahu’s regional visions. (1/9) There are deep structural tensions between the Emirati model of regional order and the ethno-religious vision advanced by Netanyahu’s coalition. What appears on the surface as a scheduling choice in foreign diplomacy is in fact a strategic act of regime preference. (2/9)

🇸🇾🇶🇦 QATAR IS NOW SYRIA'S MOST STRATEGIC ALLY POST-ASSAD:

In just months, Qatar has overtaken Turkey, signing 4 major deals with Syria: covering gas, power, aid, food, media & public salaries, gaining unprecedented influence over Syria’s core state functions. (1/12) This is the fastest & most comprehensive endorsement Qatar has extended to a regional government. Saudi has so far done little for Syria. The UAE has done more but still falls behind Qatar. This reflects different strategic instincts. Smaller Gulf states often move faster. (2/12)

🇪🇬 EGYPT REJECTS RED SEA MILITARISATION:
Cairo has recently issued a firm warning against the establishment of foreign military bases along the Red Sea, signalling Egypt’s acute concern over the creeping encirclement and strategic suffocation it faces as rival powers intensify their contest over this vital maritime corridor. The Egyptian position, announced amid growing external deployments, underscores Cairo's frustration with being sidelined in a theatre historically regarded as a cornerstone of its national security doctrine. (1/7) A regional dynamic is crystallising wherein the Red Sea, rather than functioning as a shared commercial conduit, is being remade into a militarised frontier. The United States has expanded its logistical footprint at Logistical Support Area Jenkins, a newly reinforced base 20 miles inland from Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast. This facility, developed since 2022, has transformed into a critical node for sustaining operations in the event of broader conflict with Iran or its regional proxies, particularly the Houthis in Yemen. (2/7)

Iran’s First Ever Railway Connection to China May Have Been the War Trigger In late May 2025, Iran quietly inaugurated its first direct railway connection to China. 1/17 The freight line, originating in Xi’an and terminating at the Aprin dry port near Tehran, traverses Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. It forms part of a broader Belt and Road Initiative corridor and represents a geopolitical rupture of considerable magnitude. 2/17

Trump Admits Iran Won, Cancels Sanctions Relief as a Spite

Trump’s latest Truth Social post is a tacit admission that Iran won the war. He says he was working on lifting sanctions, sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy for years, and was preparing a path for Iran’s “full, fast, and complete recovery.” But then, after Khamenei declared victory, Trump canceled it all. That’s a reaction to power.

🇮🇱THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT JUST DELETED THIS DOCUMENT:
Before its removal, it revealed that 41,651 compensation claims had been filed by Israeli citizens for war-related damages as of 25 June 2025. It excluded the most recent Iranian strikes and omitted numerous frontline localities. Yet even in its partial state, it exposed the underlying reason for Israel’s abrupt acceptance of a ceasefire with Iran: fiscal exhaustion. The war did not end because it was won. It paused because the state could no longer finance its continuation. (1/8)

The published figures break down as follows:
32,975 claims for damaged buildings
4,119 for damaged vehicles
4,456 for equipment and contents (2/8)

🇮🇷 IRAN IS ALREADY REAPING THE BENEFITS OF ITS MILITARY & SYMBOLIC VICTORY
The announcement by President Trump that China can resume purchasing Iranian oil despite months of sanctions on Chinese refineries signals more than a policy reversal. It marks an inflection point in the US' strategic posture. The US is not merely retreating from its maximum pressure campaign. It is conceding to a new regional equilibrium in which Iran has emerged emboldened, resilient and increasingly central to the post-Gaza order. (1/8) This is motivated by several imperatives. First, the decision reflects an acknowledgment of the balance of power. Israel's military capacity exposed to attrition through prolonged campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon + its proxy war with Iran has reached a point of exhaustion. Its strategic reserves are depleted and its deterrence credibility tarnished. The US in tacit recognition is trying to buy time by halting escalation with Iran while it restocks and reconstitutes Israel’s war machine. (2/8)

🇷🇺🇪🇬IRAN’S VICTORY AGAINST ISRAEL HAS EMBOLDENED RUSSIA TO EXPAND DE-DOLLARISATION TO EGYPT, CREATING A NEW FINANCIAL AXIS IN THE REGION:
Egypt will now repay its debts to Russia in rubles. At first glance this seems like a routine technical adjustment. In reality it signals a deep shift in the region’s financial architecture and geopolitical alignments. (1/15) The original debt dates back to 2015. In 2024 the two governments amended the agreement to settle repayments in rubles. Putin has just ratified this. The implications extend far beyond bilateral debt. (2/15)

🇮🇱🇮🇷THIS IS WHY ISRAEL ACCEPTED THE CEASEFIRE, AND WHY IT WON'T LAST:
MENA Unleashed has always argued that fiscal crises will be the reason Israel halts its wars, & the events of recent days have confirmed that argument with clarity. The ceasefire is not the outcome of military victory. It is the byproduct of fiscal exhaustion and institutional dysfunction that forced the Israeli state to confront the limits of its war economy. 🧵(1/4) The defense establishment had already surpassed its approved budget by $25 B shekels and demanded an extraordinary sixty billion more for the remainder of 2025. $30 B was needed immediately. Procurement pipelines had stalled. Stockpiles were running dry. Reserve duty days had nearly doubled. Emergency authorisations were withheld by the Treasury which was itself facing a widening deficit and a debt to GDP ratio rising at a dangerous pace. The fiscal centre could no longer hold. (2/4)

The fall of the Sassanian (Persian) Empire and the decline of the Byzantine Empire played a pivotal role in enabling the rapid rise of Islam in the 7th century.🧵(1/6) These two superpowers had been locked in a debilitating struggle, the Byzantine-Sassanian wars, which culminated in a particularly destructive phase from 602 to 628 CE. This prolonged conflict exhausted both empires militarily, economically, and politically, and critically weakened their control over border provinces. The Arabian Peninsula, previously peripheral to them, suddenly found itself adjacent to vulnerable imperial frontiers. (2/6)

🇮🇷🇮🇱 IRAN BLACKS OUT ISRAELI CITIES IN STRATEGIC ESCALATION
Reports indicate that Iran has struck a power station in Ashkelon this morning, specifically targeting the Rutenberg and Dorad facilities. This development signals a strategic shift towards attacking Israel’s critical energy infrastructure, long discussed in MENA Unleashed. 🧵(1/7) The Rutenberg Power Station, a coal-fired facility with a capacity of approximately 2,250 megawatts, provides a significant portion of Israel’s electricity supply. Alongside it, the Dorad Power Station, a natural gas–fired plant, contributes an additional 840 megawatts. Together, these installations serve not only residential areas such as Ashkelon, Sderot, and the Negev corridor but also support a dense industrial zone that includes petrochemical operations, water desalination plants, and logistics terminals. (2/7)

🇮🇷🇮🇱 IRAN HAS SHUT DOWN ISRAEL’S SEA TRADE
Israel is abandoning its ports & acquiring an offshore port in Greece after Iran successfully imposed an indirect maritime blockade, as evidenced by Maersk's decision to suspend all vessel calls at Haifa. This unprecedented development marks the collapse of Israel’s Mediterranean trade infrastructure & reflects a strategic shift in national logistics. 🧵(1/7) The cumulative effects of Iranian deterrence, elevated war-risk premiums, Turkish embargo enforcement, and cascading global carrier withdrawals have rendered Israeli ports commercially untenable. Israel is no longer attempting to absorb maritime disruptions but is instead pursuing extraterritorial port infrastructure as a new logistical doctrine. (2/7)

🇮🇱ISRAEL HAS CONFESSED DESPERATION | Israel’s recent demand that Gulf states + Germany, Britain, & France, contribute financially to its war effort is a striking departure from decades of precedent. Since 1972, Israel has received massive volumes of Western military aid, but economic support remained limited and politically sensitive. The new call for direct economic assistance represents an official admission that Israel can no longer sustain its war economy alone. (1/5) At the heart of this shift lies a deeper economic fragility. Historically, Israel has been able to obscure the real fiscal cost of war through sophisticated financial mechanisms, including external borrowing & bond issuance (esp through world jewry). However, the strategic equation has shifted dramatically. Iran’s precision strikes on Israeli infrastructure & maritime routes have begun to constrain the financial levers Israel typically uses to fund its deficits. As economic pressure mounts, so too does the visibility of the war’s cost. (2/5)

The war on Iran is, first and foremost, a war on BRICS. A couple of months ago, Iran and Russia established an independent, sanctions-proof financial system that operates outside the dollarised global economy, for the first time since WW2. This represents a direct challenge to the United States' global financial primacy; so the current U.S. strategy is aimed at arresting the emergence of a bloc that threatens the unipolar order & the coercive mechanisms (sanctions, trade restrictions, financial exclusion) that underpin it. 🧵(1/4) This is a war to save the dollar hegemony. The prevailing discourse surrounding the duration of Israel’s ongoing campaign against Iran is mischaracterised by a superficial focus on Israeli decision-making. In reality, the longevity of this campaign is shaped far more profoundly by the United States’ broader strategic objective: to weaken the emerging BRICS, within which Iran occupies a central geopolitical and logistical role in the Middle East. Conversely, Israel functions as the anchor of the IMEC, a parallel trade route to counter BRICS-aligned connectivity. (2/4)