Trump has paused 3 Mideast wars, but the grievances remain and could reignite them

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The post-Oct. 7 order in the Middle East — such as it is — is barely pieced together by conditional ceasefires and mutual threats.

Iran has suffered severe blows, yet not enough to shake its posture at the negotiating table. Its allies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza are degraded but functioning, with Israel still regularly launching strikes at both. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under mounting pressure to translate military achievements into clear dividends ahead of elections later this year.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who boasts of his peacemaking abilities, still appears to be seeking a nuclear deal with Iran and wider peace in the Middle East. But talks so far have produced no results and the two countries are locked in an escalating standoff over the Strait of Hormuz.

Major military operations have halted, but the underlying grievances — which long predate Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack — have not been addressed. Millions of people are still displaced, and many fear the fighting could resume at any time.

Ceasefires “don’t fix anything — they just stop things from getting worse,” said Michael Ratney, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. “It’s part of an answer to an immediate political problem, which is (Trump) needs to get out of war and can’t figure out how do that.”

For weeks, Trump has vacillated between threats to unleash major attacks on Iran's infrastructure — at one point threatening to end “a whole civilization” — and attempts to negotiate an agreement over its nuclear program and other disputes going back decades.

This week he extended a ceasefire but said he would maintain a U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports. On Wednesday, he vowed to attack Iranian fast boats in the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has effectively choked off since the start of the war, sparking a worldwide energy crisis.

Iran has given no public indication it is willing to make concessions on its nuclear program, ballistic missiles or support for regional proxies. It says the strait will remain closed until the U.S. lifts its blockade and Israel halts attacks on Iran-backed groups like Hezbollah.

Neither side seems to want full-scale war and a new round of ceasefire talks was planned Saturday in Pakistan.

Iran's leaders, based on their statements on social media, seem to have concluded that they can withstand the blockade longer than Trump can bear soaring gas prices and an unpopular war, especially with U.S. midterm elections later this year.

Jon Alterman, chair of Global Security and Geostrategy at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Trump's record shows his instincts lean toward making headlines and announcing quick results.

“The most visible part of the fighting has stopped, but the less visible efforts are roaring ahead,” he said. “Ceasefires can seem comfortable but lock in unsustainable patterns, with one side feeling it has lost the urgency to resolve the underlying conflict.”

A truce in Lebanon agreed to last week has largely held outside of the border area, where fighting continues. Israel has indicated it plans to occupy a swath of southern Lebanon indefinitely. The Iran-backed Hezbollah, which is not an official party to the truce, is demanding that Israel withdraw.

Trump announced a three-week extension of the truce on Thursday after a meeting between Israeli and Lebanese officials at the White House.

The U.S. and Israel have demanded that Lebanon's government assume responsibility for disarming Hezbollah. Beirut tried to enact part of a plan to do so before the outbreak of the latest fighting. But Lebanese leaders acknowledged their limited capacity, and their efforts yielded little as Hezbollah retained the ability to fire thousands of missiles and drones toward northern Israel over the past two months.

With Beirut unwilling to risk civil war by confronting the militants directly — especially while Israel occupies Lebanese territory — the ceasefire offers some reprieve.

As in Gaza, Israeli forces have drawn a “yellow line” in southern Lebanon, demolishing homes that Israel claims were used by Hezbollah, preventing people from returning and announcing strikes on people it says are militants attempting to cross it. Many in Lebanon fear a return to Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation of the south, which ended after years of deadly Hezbollah attacks on Israeli troops.

On Wednesday, a day before the talks in Washington, Israeli strikes killed a well-known Lebanese journalist covering southern Lebanon and wounded another reporter. Health officials said Israeli forces fired on an ambulance crew that was trying to rescue journalist Amal Khalil and forced it to turn back. Israel denied that it targeted journalists or rescue teams.

A U.S.-brokered ceasefire reached in October led to the release of the last remaining hostages held by Hamas and has halted major military operations. But Israel still carries out regular strikes against what it says are militant targets. Health officials in Gaza, seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts, have reported more than 790 Palestinians killed since last year's ceasefire, including about 225 children. There have also been occasional attacks on Israeli forces.

Israel says its withdrawal from the half of Gaza its forces control, the return of hundreds of thousands who were displaced, the establishment of a new political authority and desperately needed reconstruction all hinge on Hamas disarming — something the militant group has shown no sign of doing.

Hamas says it has offered proposals to give up its weapons while seeking further Israeli concessions and accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire.

That has left the vast majority of Gaza's more than 2 million people confined to sprawling tent camps or the ruins of their homes, with no end in sight to their suffering.

Israel says it has the right to respond to any ceasefire violations or movement across another “yellow line” there. Health officials say scores of civilians have been killed in the strikes.

A committee of Palestinian technocrats has been established to govern Gaza temporarily, but Israel has not allowed them to enter from Egypt, and Hamas still rules half of the territory.

Mourners kiss a coffin of a Hezbollah fighter, who was killed before the ceasefire in the war between Hezbollah and Israel, during a mass funeral procession in the southern village of Kfar Sir, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Assem Abdallah reacts as he enters his friend apartment destroyed in a Israeli airstrike in Kfar Roumman, southern Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

An Israeli soldier works on tanks in northern Israel, on the border with Lebanon following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A taxi driver waits for passengers in front of a billboard that shows a graphic depicting a military personnel's hand holding the Strait of Hormuz in his fist with signs which read in Farsi: "In Iran's hands forever," "Trump couldn't do a damn thing," "The control of Strait of Hormuz will be Iran's forever," in Vanak Square in northern Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

A man on his scooter passes next to an Iranian flag placed in front of a destroyed building, following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Authorities in Tunisia have ordered a one-month suspension of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, one of the oldest rights groups in Africa and the Arab world and part of the National Dialogue Quartet awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize, in the latest move raising concerns over a widening crackdown on civil society.

The league confirmed the suspension in a statement late Friday, warning that the decision amounted to “a serious and arbitrary violation of freedom of association” and “a direct assault” on one of Tunisia’s key democratic gains.

President Kais Saied has often cited foreign funding, which rights groups sometimes rely on, as a threat to Tunisia, using it to fuel a populist narrative and accuse his political opponents and social justice activists of being foreign agents and stirring unrest at home.

“This measure cannot be seen in isolation from a broader context in the country marked by increasing systematic pressure on civil society and independent voices,” the group said, adding that it would challenge what it called an unjust decision in court while continuing to defend victims of rights violations without discrimination.

The suspension follows a series of similar measures targeting rights groups in the North African country, where courts last year ordered multiple prominent NGOs to halt activities for a month, including organizations focused on migrants’ and women’s rights.

The decision comes as journalist Zied El-Heni was placed under 48-hour detention over a Facebook post, amid a broader pattern of arrests and legal pressure targeting critics.

Mohamed Yassine Jlassi, a former president of the Tunisian journalists union SNJT, told The Associated Press on the sidelines of a protest in Tunis on Friday that hundreds of people are being detained over speech-related charges, including social media posts.

“Repression has come to affect everyone. Journalism has become a crime, civil society work has become a crime, political opposition has been criminalized,” he said.

“People now increasingly find themselves facing arbitrary prosecutions without the bare minimum guarantees of a fair trial.”

Meanwhile, the investigative outlet Inkyfada faces a court hearing on May 11, as authorities pursue the dissolution of Al Khatt, the association that publishes it.

The group said in a statement that it disputes the legal basis of the case and says the claims cited by the government have not been examined by Tunisian courts since 2024.

These developments add to growing concerns among rights advocates over restrictions on independent media, civil society and any dissenting voices under Saied, who has consolidated power since 2021 and has increasingly targeted groups he repeatedly accuses of receiving foreign funding to stir unrest and destabilize Tunisia’s national interests.

FILE - Tunisian President Kais Saied attends a signing ceremony in Beijing, May 31, 2024. (Tingshu Wang/Pool Photo via AP, File)