Despite investing tens of billions of USD into its Armed Forces over the past two decades, Venezuela is curiously left with a military that is significantly weaker than before these investments were made. This spectacular feat is not only the result of highly peculiar procurement decisions, but also due to the fact that the Venezuelan Armed Forces of the late 1990s was in fact among the most powerful in South America. For years procuring modern armament from sources like the United States, France and Israel, these countries were replaced by Russia, China and Iran after the United States imposed an arms embargo against Venezuela in 2006 because of President Hugo Chávez's policies.

 

Some nations eagerly show off their drone arsenal in an effort to display their military might to the rest of the world, other countries are less keen on revealing their inventory and operations of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). One such country is Morocco, which currently operates a sizeable fleet of Israeli, Chinese and Turkish UAVs and UCAVs. [1] Nonetheless, very little is known regarding their actual operations, with Morocco appearing intend on keeping UAV operations the armed forces' best-kept secret.

 

The time when the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) almost solely relied on aging Soviet armament mixed in with some of their more modern Russian brethens is long gone. Over the past decade, Ethiopia has diversified its arms imports to include a number of other sources that presently include nations such as China, Germany, Ukraine and Belarus. Arguably more surprising is the presence of countries like Israel and the UAE in this list, which have supplied Ethiopia with a number of specialised weapon systems.

 

On the 6th of May 2021, protests erupted in Jerusalem over a decision to evict Palestinian residents in favour of Israeli settlers in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood of East Jerusalem that under international law is a part of Palestine. Israeli authorities violently cracked down on the protests, injuring scores of Palestinians and bringing both camps closer to the brink of armed confrontation. As protests continued with many more wounded, Hamas issued an ultimatum under which Israel was required to pull back its forces from Jerusalem's religiously sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque by the 10th of May. Following Israel's failure to adhere to the ultimatum, Hamas then commenced rocket fire at Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip, which has been the scene of many comparable clashes in the past decades.