The United States has warned Israel it may stop supplying the country with weapons unless the humanitarian situation in Gaza improves.

This is not the first time Israel’s major ally has threatened to turn off supplies. In May, US President Joe Biden said he would halt some shipments of weapons to Israel if an invasion of the southern city of Rafah went ahead. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed on with the campaign – and the flow of US weapons continued.

The latest warning though, which says Israel has 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation on the ground, or risk violating US laws governing foreign military assistance, is a significant step up in pressure, suggesting US military aid could be in jeopardy.

While other countries have drastically reduced their military aid to Israel over the past year, the United States has not.

Here’s a breakdown of who supplies Israel with weapons:

The United States:

The United States is overwhelmingly the biggest supplier of arms to Israel. In 2023 69% of Israel’s arm imports came from the US, according to a report into international arms transfers by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Germany was the second largest, providing 30%, followed by Italy with 0.9%. The UK, France and Spain were among other minor contributors.

The US-imported weapons “have played a major role in Israel’s military actions against Hamas and Hezbollah,” the think tank reported, noting that at the end of 2023, thousands of guided bombs and missiles were delivered from the US to Israel. F-35 and F-15 fighter jets were also delivered to Israel from the US in January 2024.

The US also provides financial assistance to Israel, delivering over $130 billion in bilateral funding since 1948, according to the US State Department. In 2019, the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding that ensured the US would annually provide Israel with $3.3 billion from the Foreign Military Financing program, and another $500 million for missile defense.

Germany:

While in 2023, Germany contributed 30% of Israel’s weapons, that supply has significantly reduced over the course of 2024.

Earlier this year, the International Court of Justice rejected a request from Nicaragua to order Germany to stop supplying military aid to Israel. One of their key reasons was that German military aid to the country had fallen from approximately €200 million ($220 million) in October 2023 to €1 million ($1.1 million) by the time of the judgement in March.

But on October 10, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the country had not stopped providing Israel with arms, noting that Germany “(has) supplied weapons and we will supply weapons.” He added that weapons will be delivered to Israel “in the near future.”

Israeli security has historically been a core element of German foreign policy due to the Nazi Holocaust against Jews during World War II.

Italy:

Italy has provided helicopters and guns to Israel, according to the SIPRI, and is a partner of the F-35 fighter jet program, helping to manufacture parts.

However, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told local media in late January that Italy had stopped arms shipments to Israel since October 7 last year. Any deals signed before then were still being honored, SIPRI said.

Pagella Politica, an Italian monitoring organization, said Italian companies had sold arms worth almost $129 million to Israel in the decade to 2022.

The United Kingdom:

The British government says its “exports of military goods to Israel are low.” It said it granted licenses valued at $23.42 million in 2023. However, the UK has suspended some licenses to Israel for military equipment over the past year.

Foreign Minister David Lammy suspended around 30 licenses out of 350 to Israel upon the Labour government taking office in July, with an official assessment finding there was a clear risk that the weapons could be used “to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

The suspensions impacted the supply of some parts for drones and F-35 fighter jets. However, the UK government did not suspend supply of material not used in the Israel-Hamas conflict – for example, for training purposes.

Spain:

In February, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation issued a press release noting that the government had not issued any arms sales to Israel since October 7 last year.

On October 11, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez condemned what he described as an “unacceptable” Israeli offensive in Lebanon and urged the international community to stop arms exports to Israel.

“We are emphasizing the urgency for the Israeli government to cease its hostilities which are violating international law by invading a third country, in this case Lebanon, as well as International Humanitarian Law, as has even been questioned by the International Court of Justice,” he said.

France:

While France has historically provided Israel with arms, in recent weeks the relationship between the two countries has become strained as French President Emmanuel Macron called for an end to arms exports to Israel to try and push for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza.

On October 5, Macron called for the complete suspension of the sale of arms “used in the war in Gaza,” and stressed that France had not been involved in their supply. According to SIPRI, its data does not show any French exports of major arms to Israel from 2019-23, but it notes that France did supply components for arms.

Italy’s parliament made it illegal on Wednesday for couples to go abroad to have a baby via surrogacy — a pet project of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party which activists say is meant to target same-sex partners.

Since taking office in 2022, Meloni has pursued a highly conservative social agenda, looking to promote what she sees as traditional family values, making it progressively harder for LGBTQ couples to become legal parents.

The upper house Senate voted into law a bill proposed by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party by 84 votes to 58. The bill was already approved by the lower house last year.

The legislation extends a surrogacy ban already in place in Italy since 2004 to those who go to countries such as the United States or Canada, where it is legal, imposing jail terms of up to two years and fines of up to €1 million ($1.1 million).

“Motherhood is absolutely unique, it absolutely cannot be surrogated, and it is the foundation of our civilization,” Brothers of Italy senator Lavinia Mennuni said during the parliamentary debate. “We want to uproot the phenomenon of surrogacy tourism.”

Earlier this year, Meloni called surrogacy an ‘inhuman’ practice that treated children as supermarket products, echoing a position expressed by the Catholic Church.

On Tuesday, demonstrators gathered near the Senate voicing their outrage at the bill, saying the government was lashing out at LGBTQ people and damaging those who wanted to have children despite the fact that Italy has a sharply declining birth rate.

“If someone has a baby, they should be given a medal. Here instead you are sent to jail … if you don’t have children in the traditional way,” Franco Grillini, a long-time activist for LGBTQ rights in Italy, told Reuters at the demonstration.

Rainbow Families President Alessia Crocini said 90% of Italians who choose surrogacy are heterosexual couples but they mostly do so in secret, meaning the new ban would de facto affect only gay couples who cannot hide it.

The clampdown on surrogacy comes against the backdrop of falling birthrates, with national statistics institute ISTAT saying in March that births had dropped to a record low in 2023 — the 15th consecutive annual decline.

“This is a monstrous law. No country in the world has such a thing,” said Grillini, referring to the government’s move to prevent Italians from taking advantage of practices that are perfectly legal in some countries.

For the past decade, China has consistently ranked last in the world for internet freedom due to its all-pervading online surveillance and content control system dubbed the “Great Firewall.”

But a new report out Wednesday shows that internet freedoms in China’s neighbor Myanmar are now just as lacking.

The report from Freedom House, a US government-funded NGO, found that global internet freedom has declined for the 14th consecutive year. China and Myanmar ranked joint last for 2024, with a score of nine out of 100.

Since seizing power in a 2021 coup, Myanmar’s military junta has violently cracked down on dissent, imposing restrictions on online access and speech including widespread internet shutdowns, and built “a mass censorship and surveillance regime,” said the authors of “Freedom on the Net 2024: The Struggle for Trust Online.”

The report points to censorship technology introduced in May that blocked most virtual private networks, or VPNs, “cutting residents off from tools they had relied on to safely and securely bypass internet controls.”

Myanmar’s throttling of internet freedoms was designed to “suppress the activities of civilian prodemocracy activists and armed resistance groups,” the report said.

Human rights groups and United Nations experts have long documented evidence to support the report’s claims. In 2022, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar said the junta was building a “digital dictatorship” to curtail online freedoms and ramp up surveillance of civilians.

Access to information online was “a matter of life and death for many people in Myanmar,” the UN report found, especially for “those seeking safety from indiscriminate attacks by the military and the millions trying to navigate a devastating economic and humanitarian crisis.”

Meanwhile in China, the Freedom House report found the government has continued efforts to “isolate China’s domestic internet from the rest of the world, blocking international traffic to some government websites and imposing huge fines on people using VPNs.”

In recent years, China’s internet watchdog has stepped up regulation of cyberspace as authorities intensified a crackdown on online dissent. China’s censors have reined in blogs, US search giants, and social media – even regulating “likes” of public posts.

In response to the report, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday that “Chinese citizens enjoy all rights and freedoms in accordance with the law.”

Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said “this so-called report is completely false and has ulterior motives.”

Elsewhere, the report paints a dim view of global internet freedom, with conditions for human rights online deteriorating in 27 out of 72 countries surveyed.

Of those covered by the report, almost 80% of people live in countries where individuals were arrested for posting their political, social, or religious views online. In a record 43 countries, people were physically attacked or killed in retaliation for their online activities, the report found.

It points to Thailand’s strict royal insult laws, that have ensnared hundreds of people in recent years, including one man who was sentenced to a record 50 years in prison in January for social media posts deemed damaging to the king.

The Central Asian nation Kyrgyzstan showed the biggest drop in internet freedoms, according to the report, as President Sadyr Japarov ramped up efforts to silence digital media and suppress online organizing.

Kyrgyz authorities blocked and later shut down investigative media website Kloop “after it reported on an imprisoned opposition figure’s allegations of torture in detention,” the report said.

Conversely, Iceland retained its status as having the “most free” online environment with a score of 94 out of 100.

The report also covers online disinformation campaigns and political interference in the run-up to elections, including harassment of independent researchers and fact checkers.

In the United States, pressure on independent experts “has left people less informed about influence operations ahead of the November elections,” the report said.

False allegations against such researchers “prompted a wave of litigation, subpoenas from top Republicans on the US House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee, and online harassment aimed at … participants,” which had a “chilling effect,” the report found.

When Flutterwave launched in 2016, the fintech company quickly became the poster child for African startup success stories. In 2021, it achieved unicorn status, reaching a valuation of more than $1 billion, and in 2022, after raising $250 million, it secured a $3 billion valuation.

CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola was celebrated for his leadership and lauded as a trailblazer in African fintech, providing digital payment services for businesses across the continent.

Then later that year, came a flurry of damaging allegations of workplace bullying and accusations of money laundering in Kenya, which sent shockwaves through the industry. At the time, Flutterwave denied financial impropriety, said it had tried to solve a harassment claim amicably, and had a zero-tolerance stance on bullying — but the company’s reputation took a hit.

However, Agboola says Flutterwave has weathered the storm and emerged stronger than ever.

In November 2023, Kenyan authorities cleared the company of all money laundering allegations. Additionally, a former employee who sued the company for reputational damage and emotional distress lost her appeal seeking $900k although the initial $2,500 previously awarded by a Kenyan court was upheld.

“Trust is the business we’re in,” Agboola said. “We’ve been working tirelessly to regain that trust.”

“We have worked on our corporate governance, infrastructure, compliance system and that’s what we are going to keep doing as a company and part of that is why we brought Mitesh in,” he added.

In September, Flutterwave announced it had appointed Mitesh Popat, a former Citibank executive with a wealth of experience working on the continent, as its chief financial officer.

Local media has reported that Flutterwave has also had to deal with security incidents. The company said in a statement that it is “committed to doing our part to ensure the security of the financial system in Africa,” giving the example of its partnership with Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crime Commission, and adding that it has “invested heavily in ensuring the highest level of security across all our products and have a team of world-class talents across finance, risk, legal, and compliance and certifications.”

Bawo Egbakhumeh, a senior compliance and anti-money laundering specialist not connected with Flutterwave, is well-versed in governance and operational challenges faced by growing companies.

But she added that in recent years, “Flutterwave seems to have responded by tightening its governance, improved compliance programs with more focus on accountability and transparency.

“Global partnerships and investor pressure likely pushed the company to make necessary reforms and adherence to improved governance standards,” she said.

A unified Africa

Agboola says that in the last year, the company has secured new payment licenses in Ghana, Zambia, Uganda and Rwanda, and more than 20 in the United States through a major partner bank, facilitating cross-border transactions from the US to Africa.

While the company has previously talked about plans to IPO, Agboola says the company is “focused right now on expansion and deepening the company’s market penetration in enterprise payments.”

“IPO is one of many growth opportunities on the table, and we continue to put processes in place to be well-prepared for that next phase of our growth,” he added.

Beyond the focus on governance and structure, Agboola envisions a future where Africa’s diverse payment systems are seamlessly integrated into a unified marketplace. “Africa today is not a country, but we want to make it feel like one,” he said.

Agboola highlighted the challenges of navigating the continent’s fragmented payment systems, like M-Pesa in Kenya and bank transfers in Nigeria, which complicate cross-border transactions.

“A money transfer from Nigeria to Ghana could take up to three days,” Agboola explained. “Our mission is to ensure that businesses and consumers can transact across borders as effortlessly as they do within them.”

Based in San Francisco but still heavily focused on the African market, recently, the company partnered with MainStreet Bank, unlocking access to 49 US states and allowing seamless cross-border transactions for African businesses through its Send App, Agboola said.

He added that this collaboration, coupled with the integration of American Express into Flutterwave’s payment network, represents a significant win for African businesses, enabling them to reach millions of new customers globally.

“These partnerships are game-changers,” Agboola noted. “With MainStreet Bank, we’re not just connecting Africa with the US; we’re facilitating faster, more reliable payments for merchants and consumers across both continents.”

Beyond partnerships, Flutterwave is also investing heavily in new technologies like AI to enhance its payment infrastructure.

“We are committed to staying ahead of the curve by leveraging AI to improve our compliance, monitoring and risk management,” Agboola said.