The border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand remains volatile, more than two weeks after hostilities renewed, with sporadic clashes continuing despite repeated calls for de-escalation. Both governments accuse each other of violating previous cease-fires, while the international community struggles to secure a lasting peace.

While the border crisis drags on, Thailand is relying on an unexpected outsider: Israel. With advanced drones, high-tech howitzers, and anti-drone defenses, Tel Aviv is becoming a driving force in Thailand’s military modernization, creating a strategic partnership that challenges the influence of major defense powers.

In the Cambodian lands of laterite and rice fields, an expatriate, rooted here for ten years, watches with alarm the peril of a border conflict with Thailand. In Kampot, rocked by the river and green pepper, the sound of weapons shakes the harmony of a region united by culture and history.

Dix jours après la reprise des hostilités le 7 décembre, le conflit armé entre le Cambodge et la Thaïlande s’enlise et s’intensifie, transformant une vieille querelle frontalière en crise régionale majeure. Les combats, concentrés le long de la frontière terrestre mais désormais étendus jusqu’aux infrastructures intérieures, ont déjà fait au moins 27 morts, dont 13 Cambodgiens, et déplacé près de 800 000 personnes des deux côtés.​

At the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA) in Phnom Penh, art and faith came together this week as students, faculty and staff held a solemn prayer event dedicated to Cambodian soldiers standing firm on a volatile border.

Thai military forces intensified operations on Saturday, December 13, 2025, launching multiple airstrikes on Cambodian soil in what marks a serious escalation along the contested border, just hours after a new ceasefire was announced under U.S. mediation.

As the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia intensifies, a generation of young people on both sides finds itself caught between nationalism, digital propaganda and a deep longing for peace. For many youths, the war is no longer a distant political dispute: it is lived daily through social media feeds, disrupted friendships, and uncertain futures.

The confrontation between Thailand and Cambodia has shifted from the border trenches to the world’s screens and news feeds. As deadly exchanges of fire continue along their disputed frontier, Bangkok has crafted an influential communication strategy in which disinformation, rapid responses, and privileged access to global media outlets are deployed as strategic tools.

Thailand has long cultivated a flexible foreign policy often described as “bamboo diplomacy” — bending with geopolitical winds without breaking ties. In 2025, this approach is again at the heart of Bangkok’s efforts to navigate increasingly intense competition between China and the United States, while preserving its strategic autonomy.

Between the evening of December 10 and December 11, 2025, Cambodia’s northwest border was engulfed in fire and devastation, leaving behind heavy human and emotional tolls.

As tensions flare again between Cambodia and Thailand, UNESCO — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — has voiced serious concern about the situation, especially regarding the Preah Vihear Temple, a priceless World Heritage site and centuries-old testament to Khmer civilization.

The Secretary-General of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), Louise Mushikiwabo, has voiced deep concern over the renewed armed clashes between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Thailand along their shared border.

In the past 48 hours, fighting along the Thai–Cambodian border has surged again, with Thai air strikes and bombardments targeting Cambodian military positions — but also hitting civilian areas, triggering a massive displacement of people.

As armed clashes intensify along the border between Cambodia and Thailand, the international community is sounding the alarm. On 8 December, artillery exchanges and small‑arms fire reached a worrying level, prompting the U.S. to issue a security alert to its citizens — advising them to avoid any area within 50 kilometres of the border line.

The complaint by the Cambodian Human Rights Committee (CHRC) against the journalist Matt Hunt of France 24 — together with alarming displacement figures released by the Defense Ministry — highlights a moment of acute tension at the border. This situation reveals a double challenge: the battle over media narratives and the humanitarian reality of a conflict far beyond diplomatic grids.

Despite a fragile cease-fire negotiated in July 2025 under the auspices of Donald Trump, Thailand resumed military operations against Cambodia in early December — launching air strikes, triggering massive evacuations, and sowing grave uncertainty over the future of peace between the two nations.

In a renewed outbreak of cross-border violence that revives long-standing territorial tensions, the Thai army bombed Cambodian positions Monday morning — killing at least four civilians and wounding nine others in the provinces of Preah Vihear and Oddar Meanchey.

In a renewed climate of tension on the border with Thailand, the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports today ordered the closure of 377 schools across four border provinces, affecting nearly 78,600 students and 3,197 teachers.

The tension between Phnom Penh and Bangkok has hardened anew. This Monday morning, the Cambodian Ministry of Defence strongly condemned a series of “deliberate military attacks” carried out by Thai forces along the common border — in Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province.

The possible exit of PTT from Cambodia, due to the drastic drop in sales and the popular boycott of Thai products, illustrates an economic and political crisis with major repercussions.

The recent resurgence of border tensions between Cambodia and Thailand, analyzed in an AMRO report published in November 2025, reveals the extent of short- and medium-term economic disruptions for Phnom Penh and its border provinces.

The conflict between Thailand and Cambodia reached a critical point in 2025. Beyond a territorial dispute, it is a geopolitical, political, and human maelstrom tearing the region apart. Let us explore the deep reasons behind Thai aggressiveness, recent episodes, humanitarian issues, and possible scenarios for the future.

The episode could have remained a localized incident in a mountainous area still marked by the scars of war. But it took a major political turn. By deciding to suspend a series of security cooperation agreements with Cambodia, Thailand has rekindled border sensitivities. Phnom Penh, for its part, firmly rejects any responsibility in the explosion of a landmine that supposedly injured several Thai soldiers near the Preah Vihear temple, a highly sensitive symbol of the common b

Since the beginning of 2025, the border between Thailand and Cambodia has been the theater of a major geopolitical crisis that continues an old but still burning territorial dispute. The epicenter of this conflict is the contested zone around the Ta Krabei temple, a historic site adjacent to the more widely recognized temples of Preah Vihear, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.