Portal:Current events/2026 February 9

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Arab–Israeli conflict
  • Gaza war
    • An Israeli airstrike destroys a residential building in Gaza City, Palestine, killing four people and injuring dozens of others. (Al Jazeera)
  • Israeli–Lebanese conflict
    • An Israeli drone strikes a car in Yanouh, South Governorate, Lebanon, killing three people, including a 3-year-old child. (AP)
• Russo-Ukrainian war
  • Kupiansk offensive
    • Russian troops launch a mechanised assault east of the city of Kupiansk, capturing the towns of Petropavlivka and Stepova Novoselivka. (ISW)
  • Russian attacks on civilians in the Russo-Ukrainian war
    • Russian forces launch a large-scale attack on Ukraine using drones and ballistic missiles, killing at least six people, including a 10-year-old boy and his mother in Kharkiv, and injuring dozens of others. (The Independent)

Business and economy

• United States embargo against Cuba
  • Air Canada suspends all flights to Cuba and deploys empty aircraft to repatriate stranded passengers after the country's fuel supply was exhausted due to the U.S. blockade and the end of fuel supplies from Venezuela. (Reuters)
  • Mexico deploys two navy vessels, including the ARM Papaloapan, carrying more than 800 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Cuba amid critical shortages on the island. (Mexico News Daily)
  • Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla condemns the ongoing U.S. blockade as "cruel", accusing U.S. president Donald Trump of trying to "break the political will" of the Cuban people. Russia also calls for an immediate end to the blockade to avoid a humanitarian crisis, and says it will explore ways to help the country. (Al Jazeera)

Disasters and accidents

• Five people are killed when an air ambulance helicopter crashes at Maaten al-Sarra Air Base near Kufra in Cyrenaica, Libya. (TRT World)

International relations

• Armenia–United States relations
  • Armenia–Azerbaijan peace agreement
    • United States vice president JD Vance visits Armenia, becoming the highest ranking U.S. official to have visited Armenia in its history. Vance meets with prime minister Nikol Pashinyan to discuss implementing a peace agreement to end the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. (AP)
  • Armenia and the United States reach a nuclear deal, outlining a Section 123 Agreement and up to US$9 billion in total exports to Armenia related to nuclear energy. (Reuters)
• Allied Command Transformation
  • The United States Armed Forces announces the transfer of two major NATO command and control centres over to European military forces in Naples, Italy, and Norfolk, Virginia, as part of a gradual shift to European countries taking a leading role in the military alliance. (Reuters)
• Australia–Israel relations, Gaza war protests in Australia
  • Protests against Israeli president Isaac Herzog's state visit, following the 2025 Bondi Beach shooting, are held in cities across Australia. In Sydney, protests occurred amid a ban by the state government on hate speech grounds, resulting in police making 27 arrests and deploying pepper spray. (ABC News Australia)

Law and crime

• 2025–2026 Iranian protests
  • Iranian police arrest several senior figures from the Reformists Front, including Mohsen Aminzadeh, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, and Azar Mansouri, while additional members receive summonses to appear before prosecutors, with no formal charges publicly disclosed. (Reuters)
• 2026 political prisoner release in Venezuela
  • The Public Ministry of Venezuela says Juan Pablo Guanipa, who was released and later abducted on Sunday, broke his parole's terms and that a request has been made to place Guanipa under house arrest, while not specifying if the government has him in custody. (Reuters)
• HKSAR v Lai Chee Ying & Others
  • Hong Kong opposition figure Jimmy Lai is sentenced to 20 years in prison for violating a national security law following a two-year trial. Eight others, including six former Apple Daily executives and two pro-democracy activists, are also sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. (HKFP) (Reuters)
• Missing persons in Mexico
  • The bodies of three employees abducted from a mining facility in Sinaloa, Mexico, are recovered after being taken on January 23, while authorities continue searching for the remaining seven missing workers. (AFP via France 24)

Politics and elections

• Immigration to Sweden
  • Swedish migration minister Johan Forssell announces the implementation of stricter naturalization requirements from June 6, extending the residency period from five years to eight, imposing a minimum income threshold of 20,000 kr (US$2,225), requiring language and civic knowledge tests, and lengthening waiting times for applicants with criminal records. (Reuters)