UK reaffirms Middle East security partnership with US despite war plans leak

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Cambridgeshire, Britain, March 24, 2025. (File/AFP)
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Updated 25 March 2025
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UK reaffirms Middle East security partnership with US despite war plans leak

  • The Trump administration accidentally leaked key military information about US airstrikes targeting Houthi positions in Yemen on March 15, just hours before the attack

LONDON: Britain will continue to work with the United States on regional security in the Middle East and will deepen relations with Washington on intelligence and defense matters, a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday.
Asked about the mistaken disclosure to a journalist of a conversation about US military action against Houthi targets, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government was confident any communication of British intelligence with the US would not be leaked.
In an article published on Monday, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief disclosed that officials from the Trump administration shared key military information with him about US airstrikes targeting Houthi positions in Yemen on March 15, just hours before the attack.

Jeffrey Goldberg, an experienced journalist, explained that US government officials mistakenly included him in a text channel where they were discussing the details of the strike.
“The US is our closest ally when it comes to matters of intelligence and defense,” the spokesperson told reporters, declining to comment directly on the specific story.
“We work with the United States incredibly closely on all matters in relation to defense and security ... We will continue to work with the US on regional security.”


UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza

Updated 03 January 2026
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UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza

  • In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
  • Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials

UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.