As conflict spirals in the Middle East nearly a year since the October 7 atack by Hamas on Israel, human rights lawer and Executive Director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) Mai El-Sadany says the United States' role has been "extremely harmful" to the region. "When we think about the US role, it's a role that has involved public statements that have not sufficiently, or at times, ever centered the value of civilian life, it's a matter of continued arms transfers to Israel without any conditions, it's a matter of giving a greenlight to an escalatory policy by Israel that keeps moving the goalposts," she tells AFP during an interview. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES