Turkey will on Monday engage leaders from the Islamic world to leverage their influence over Gaza’s future, amid growing concerns about the stability of a ceasefire that has lasted just a few weeks.

The truce, brokered on October 10 by US President Donald Trump to end the two-year-long Israel-Hamas conflict, has been increasingly fragile, challenged by ongoing Israeli strikes and reports of Palestinian attacks on Israeli forces.

Turkey, one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s Gaza offensive, will host the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Pakistan, and Indonesia in Istanbul on Monday.

These senior diplomats had previously been consulted by Trump in late September during the UN General Assembly in New York, shortly before he unveiled his plan to halt the fighting in Gaza.

According to Turkish foreign ministry sources, Ankara plans to urge the visiting ministers to support measures that would allow Palestinians greater control over Gaza’s security and governance.

On the eve of the meeting, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also received a Hamas delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya, the movement’s chief negotiator.

“We must end the massacre in Gaza. A ceasefire in itself is not enough,” Fidan said, arguing for the two-state solution to the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We should recognise that Gaza should be governed by the Palestinians, and act with caution,” he added.

Turkey-Israel tensions

Besides its denunciations of Israel, Turkey has been instrumental in backing Hamas. Fidan, who has accused Israel of seeking excuses to break Trump’s truce, is also expected to repeat calls for Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, which is wracked by hunger and tens of thousands of deaths from the Israeli army’s offensive.

Yet Israel has long viewed Turkey’s diplomatic overtures, including towards Trump, with suspicion as a result of the country’s closeness to Hamas.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly voiced their opposition to Turkey, a NATO member with one of the region’s most credible militaries, having any role in the international peacekeeping force mooted for Gaza.

Under Trump’s plan, that stabilisation mission is meant to take over in the wake of the Israeli army’s withdrawal from the Palestinian territory.

A Turkish disaster relief team, sent to help efforts to recover the many bodies buried under Gaza’s rubble — including those of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas — has likewise been stuck at the border because of the Israeli government’s refusal to let them in, according to Ankara.

A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif early on Monday, killing at least 10 people and injuring about 150, just months after a quake and strong aftershocks killed more than 2,200 people at the end of August.

Here is a look at why the war-shattered South Asian country experiences frequent tremors, and how their impact can be reduced:

Are earthquakes common in Afghanistan?

Hemmed in by rugged mountains, Afghanistan is prone to a range of natural disasters, but its earthquakes cause the most fatalities, killing about 560 people on average each year and causing annual damages estimated at $80 million.

Studies indicate at least 355 earthquakes with a magnitude higher than 5.0 have hit Afghanistan since 1990.

Why is Afghanistan prone to tremors?

Afghanistan is located on the edge of the Eurasian tectonic plate, which shares a transgression zone with the Indian plate — implying the two may converge or brush past each other — and is also influenced by the Arabian plate to its south, creating one of the world’s most tectonically active regions.

The northward movement of the Indian plate and its thrust against the Eurasian plate is usually responsible for Afghanistan’s numerous quakes.

Which areas are vulnerable?

Eastern and northeastern Afghanistan, especially regions along its borders with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan, are particularly prone to earthquakes.

This includes heavily populated Kabul, which has the highest average estimated damage due to earthquakes, amounting to $17 million every year, according to a study.

Earthquakes are also particularly dangerous in Afghanistan’s mountains where they can trigger landslides, exacerbating loss of life and property.

Which were Afghanistan’s worst earthquakes?

Afghanistan has recorded around 100 “damaging” earthquakes since 1900.

Among the worst in recent years was a magnitude 6 quake in 2022 that killed 1,000 people. Multiple quakes in one month in 2023 together killed 1,000 people and destroyed entire villages.

One of Afghanistan’s largest earthquakes, with a magnitude of 7.5, struck in 2015, killing 399 people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Some of the greatest devastation was seen in 1998 as two earthquakes shook Afghanistan within three months – the first killing 2,300 people and the second 4,700.

How can the country build resilience?

Studies recommend new structures be built in an earthquake-resistant way and existing buildings be retrofitted to reduce chances of collapse.

Better monitoring and early warning systems must also be created for more timely alerts, while fault lines should be mapped using geospatial and remote sensing technologies to enable relocation of people in vulnerable areas, they suggest.

• Says Christians are being killed in record numbers in Nigeria.
• Vows the US will intervene to bring the violence to an end.
• Threatens military action against North African country.

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the US military could deploy troops to Nigeria or carry out air strikes to stop what he called the killing of large numbers of Christians in the West African country.

Asked if he envisioned troops on the ground or air strikes in Nigeria, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “Could be. I mean, other things. I envisage a lot of things. 

“They’re killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria … They’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We’re not going to allow that to happen.”

Trump made the comment on Sunday evening as he headed back to Washington after a weekend at his vacation home in Florida.

Trump threatened on Saturday to take military action against Nigeria if Africa’s most populous country failed to crack down on the killing of Christians.

The US president’s threat of military action came a day after his administration added Nigeria back to a “Countries of Particular Concern” list of nations that the US says have violated religious freedoms. Other nations on the list include China, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia and Pakistan.

No Tomahawks for Ukraine

On Ukraine, Trump said he was not really considering giving Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles. Asked by a reporter aboard Air Force One if he was not considering providing the weapons to Ukraine, Trump responded: “No, not really.”

On October 12, Trump had said he may offer long-range Tomahawk missiles that could be used by Kyiv if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not end the war in Ukraine. 

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew to Israel that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy discussed Zelenskiy’s request for weaponry, including Tomahawks. 

Tomahawk missiles have a range of 2,500 km (1,550 miles), long enough to strike deep inside Russia, including Moscow.

The Kremlin has warned against any provision of Tomahawks to Ukraine, and Trump said they would be “a new step of aggression” if introduced into the war.

Trump avoids SC tariff arguments

He also said he will not attend the Supreme Court’s upcoming oral arguments concerning the legality of his global tariffs.

Justices have a Wednesday hearing scheduled for arguments on the tariffs case. Trump told reporters on Air Force One that despite his desire to be there, he does not want to create a distraction during the hearing.

“I wanted to go so badly,” Trump said as he flew back to Washington after a weekend in Florida. “I just don’t want to do anything to deflect the importance of that decision. … I don’t want to call a lot of attention to me. It’s not about me, it’s about our country.”

Arguments before the highest US court on Wednesday will centre on the legality of Trump’s sweeping global tariffs in a major test of one of his boldest assertions of executive power, regarding an issue that has been central to his economic and trade agenda.

The Supreme Court took up the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that Trump overstepped his authority in imposing most of his tariffs under a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. 

The tariffs were challenged by various businesses and 12 US states.

Trump defended his use of tariffs to balance global trade flows, citing years of high duties charged by other countries on US imports. He said his tariffs had increased US revenues and driven the stock markets to a series of record highs.

“If we don’t have tariffs, we don’t have national security, and the rest of the world would laugh at us because they’ve used tariffs against us for years and took advantage of us,” he said.

“We were subject to being abused by a lot of other countries, including China. For years, not anymore. Tariffs have brought us tremendous national security,” he said.