A fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran holds – but the information war intensifies. At the centre: the Strait of Hormuz, where competing US and Iranian narratives have collided.

During any truce, even when the bombs stop falling, the information war goes on.  Moments like this test journalism. Because the job is not just to report on the messaging coming from all sides – but to decode and debunk it if necessary.

Abeer Al Najjar – Professor of Media & Journalism, American University of Sharjah

Andrew Arsan – Professor of Arab & Global History, University of Cambridge

Alireza Doostdar – Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Chicago

Nazila Fathi – Former Tehran Correspondent, New York Times

Israel’s relations with its European allies are fraying, with increasingly sharp rhetoric from both sides playing out across political and media platforms. Meenakshi Ravi reports.

The Iranian diaspora contains a wide range of often conflicting views. But judging by its representation in mainstream Western media, one might assume the dominant position is support for the war.

We speak to Narges Bajoghli about how diaspora voices are weaponised in coverage of Iran.

Narges Bajoghli – Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University

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Turkish officials are promoting Istanbul as a regional financial hub amid the war’s fallout on the Gulf economies.

For Turkiye’s government, the Iran war has complicated efforts to turn around an economy still reeling from one of the worst financial crises in the country’s history.

But even as the conflict has driven up Turkiye’s fuel prices and forced authorities to dip into their precious foreign currency reserves to defend the lira, it has also presented an opportunity.

As the fallout of the war has reverberated across the Middle East, Ankara has jumped at the chance to promote Turkiye as a model of security and stability for businesses and investors.

While Iranian missiles and drones have inflicted significant damage on infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkiye, which is protected by NATO air defences, has emerged largely unscathed from aerial attacks blamed on Tehran.

Turkish officials have made little secret of their desire to capitalise on the shadow that the conflict – which is officially on pause until Wednesday under a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran – has cast over regional business hubs such as Dubai, Doha and Riyadh.

In remarks earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who last month met with 40 global CEOs to discuss ways to boost his country’s competitiveness, cast the war as a boon to Ankara’s ambitions to transform Istanbul into one of the world’s leading financial centres.

“Just as in the pandemic period, we wholeheartedly believe that this global crisis, too, will open new doors before our country,” Erdogan said in a statement posted on social media.

Turkish Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek confirmed soon afterwards that the government was preparing “radical” incentives to lure foreign capital.

Turkiye’s improving economic stability in the wake of its 2018 debt crisis and various financial incentives have helped to reposition the country as a regional hub and “safe haven”, said Bilal Bagis, head of the economics department at Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf University in Istanbul.

“A liberal investment environment, ease of entry and new comprehensive incentive packages should help boost its position,” Bagis told Al Jazeera.

While Ankara has yet to confirm the measures in the pipeline, they are likely to involve tax breaks for companies that sell goods through Turkish entities without importing them into the country, said Guney Yildiz, a Turkish-born adviser at Anthesis Group who has clients in the Gulf.

“So you’d have a commodities trader or a logistics company booking transactions through Istanbul and getting a meaningful tax benefit for it,” Yildiz told Al Jazeera.

“That’s a direct play for the kind of intermediation business that Dubai has owned for two decades,” he said, adding that “the timing is obviously shaped by the war.”

Turkiye’s Ministry of Treasury and Finance did not respond to questions about the measures under consideration, but its plans follow a series of recent initiatives aimed at luring foreign investment, including the opening of the Istanbul Financial Center (IFC) in 2023.

The special economic zone offers tax incentives to financial institutions, including a 100 percent exemption from corporate tax on export earnings until 2031.

An IFC spokesperson said the district has recently seen “growing and concrete” engagement from both foreign governments and private institutions.

“There is a particularly strong strategic focus from Far Eastern institutions,” the spokesperson told Al Jazeera.

“This is not limited to private sector companies; we are also seeing engagement at the government level. We remain in close contact with Japan and South Korea, while our discussions with the United Kingdom continue,” the spokesperson said, adding that Istanbul has a “powerful triple advantage built on geography, innovation and economic depth.

“From Istanbul, institutions can reach around 1.3 billion people and a 30 trillion-dollar economy within a four-hour flight,” the spokesperson said.

Still, Istanbul faces a steep climb to seriously compete with hubs such as Dubai.

Istanbul currently ranks 101st on the latest Global Financial Centres Index, compiled by Z/Yen Partners in collaboration with the China Development Institute, far behind Dubai (7), Abu Dhabi (21), Doha (48) and Riyadh (61).

Turkiye’s economy has been plagued by double-digit inflation and a depreciating currency since the onset of the 2018 crisis. “The lira loses roughly a fifth of its value against the dollar every year,” Yildiz said.

“For a financial firm that earns in multiple currencies and pays staff in lira-denominated salaries, the math gets complicated fast. You’re constantly managing FX exposure in a way you simply don’t have to in a pegged-currency jurisdiction like the UAE or Singapore.”

Critics have also accused Erdogan’s administration of economic mismanagement by keeping interest rates low despite fears of inflation. But the government says the move is aimed at boosting the economy and ending foreign currency manipulation.

While the IFC has reported growing interest from firms, less than half of its office space has been filled, though officials say they expect occupancy to reach 75 percent by the end of this year.

“When we look at surveys of European firms with a subsidiary in Turkiye, their main complaints are unpredictability of economic policy, political instability, legal uncertainty, high bureaucracy, high inflation and imported inflation,” Meryem Gokten, an economist at The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“None of these issues can be resolved in the short term … Turkiye has not been a financial hub so far, and I do not see it becoming one without addressing these structural issues,” Gokten added.

Selim Koru, a doctoral researcher who specialises in public policy at the University of Nottingham, expressed similar scepticism.

“Part of Dubai’s attractiveness was that it’s a tabula rasa of sorts. There is no firmly established cultural, legal, political climate, and foreign parties can have a say in what they want it to be,” Koru told Al Jazeera.

“That’s not the case with Istanbul, or anywhere else in Turkiye, really.”

For some analysts, whether Istanbul can directly challenge Dubai is not the right question.

Hasan Dincer, a finance professor at Istanbul Medipol University, said Turkiye’s bid to draw investment from overseas should be viewed as a “gradual positioning rather than direct short-term competition”.

“In emerging financial systems, investor confidence is primarily driven by predictability, transparency,” Dincer told Al Jazeera.

“And the credibility of long-term economic policies initiatives, such as the Istanbul Financial Center, represent important strategic steps whose long-term impact will depend on sustained implementation and institutional alignment,” he said.

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Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground report that Israeli bulldozers are also continuing home demolitions.

Beirut, Lebanon – Tens of thousands of displaced Lebanese families are returning home despite ongoing reports of Israeli shelling and demolitions of homes near the country’s southern border.

Cars loaded with mattresses, bags and salvaged belongings continued streaming south on Saturday as families went back to see if their homes remained. “There’s destruction and it’s unliveable. We’re taking our things and leaving again,” said Fadel Badreddine, displaced from Nabatieh.

“May God grant us relief and end this whole thing permanently – not temporarily – so we can return to our homes and livelihoods.”

A preliminary assessment by Lebanese authorities conducted before the truce found that nearly 40,000 homes had been destroyed or damaged. Beirut’s southern suburbs were among the worst-hit areas, followed by districts across southern Lebanon. “I came to check on my house and take a few things,” said Samia Lawand, a resident of Beirut’s southern suburbs.

“I found it badly damaged. It was hit in the previous war and again in this one.”

A 10-day ceasefire took effect on Thursday night, raising hopes of a pause after 46 days of intensified Israeli attacks. But uncertainty remains amid widespread destruction and Israeli warnings against returning to parts of southern Lebanon.

Amid the fragile ceasefire, Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground reported that Israeli bulldozers were continuing demolition and land-clearing operations in several areas of southern Lebanon, while Israeli artillery also shelled areas around Beit Lif, al-Qantara and Toul.

Residents living closest to the border with Israel have largely been unable to return, while others have faced delays after Israeli attacks damaged bridges linking areas south of the Litani River with the rest of Lebanon.

During the war, Israeli forces launched a ground invasion several kilometres into Lebanese territory. Israeli officials now say Israel will remain in control of 55 towns and villages.

Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng said Israel had established what it describes as a “yellow line” security zone, in some places extending up to 10km (6.2 miles) from the border.

“That allows it to control a line of antitank fire, meaning it can bring in heavy artillery and heavy armour into Lebanon,” Cheng said.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the area between the security zone and the Litani River had not yet been cleared of fighters and “weapons”.

“This will have to be done through diplomatic means or continued Israeli military activity after the ceasefire,” he said.

Rare face-to-face talks between Lebanon and Israel are expected to resume in the coming days, though both sides appear to have sharply different priorities.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun met Prime Minister Nawaf Salam at Baabda Palace on Saturday, where the two discussed the latest security and diplomatic developments.

They also reviewed efforts to consolidate the ceasefire, including Aoun’s contacts with US President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and several Arab and foreign leaders.

Meanwhile, the government’s decision to engage in talks with Israel risks deepening tensions with Hezbollah.

Both Israel and the Lebanese government have called for Hezbollah to disarm, but the group says its weapons are necessary to defend Lebanon and communities in the south, while it has insisted it will not disarm without agreement on a national defence strategy.

Hezbollah has also linked the ceasefire to broader regional diplomacy involving Iran, with parallel negotiations expected between the US and Iran in the coming days in Islamabad.

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