Dr. Rafat Sayed Ahmed: 2025 will bring major developments and events on the regional and Palestinian levels, as an extension of the crises of the previous year

Dr. Talal Abu Afifa: The occupation will remain in most of the Gaza Strip’s territories, and the war will continue in the West Bank with all means of killing and settlement

Dr. Muhammad Bou Taleb: The “New Middle East” will be imposed by brute force and at the expense of the blood of more than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza

Sami Mshasha: 2025 will be a dark and difficult year for UNRWA and the refugees, and the fate of our right of return will be decided in it

Mahmoud Mona: Next year will witness broader challenges, especially after President Trump takes power in the largest and most powerful colonial state

Muhammad Zahdi Shaheen: Things in the region are going from bad to worse, and the new year is an extension of the past disasters and wars

Only two days and the sun of the year 2024 will set with all the pain, disasters and tragedies it has brought due to the war of extermination that the Israeli occupation state has been continuing on the Gaza Strip for fourteen months, and has expanded its scope to include other regions, most notably the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, which has caused tens of thousands of victims and many times more wounded, and horrific and unprecedented destruction in homes, buildings, infrastructure, schools, hospitals, universities, streets, and others.

So what will the new year be like? Will it be an extension of what came before it, or will it bring signs of relief and reconciliation for the peoples of this region, especially the Palestinian people, in light of the disasters that have befallen them as a result of the Israeli war machine supported by the colonial Western countries, led by the United States of America, which awaits the entry of its new president, Donald Trump, into the White House on January 20th.

Writers and analysts who spoke to Al-Quds expressed great pessimism about what the new year will bring, stressing that nothing bodes well for the future, given the ongoing war of extermination, starvation and legislation in the Gaza Strip, and the international community’s continued suspicious silence regarding the Israeli atrocities.

The Israeli war on the Gaza Strip continues

Dr. Rifat Sayed Ahmed, Director of the Jaffa Center for Studies and Research in Cairo, expected that the new year 2025 will bring major developments and events on the regional and Palestinian levels, affected by the extension of the crises witnessed in the previous year.

Ahmed said that the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip will continue after US President Trump takes office, expecting that this war will stop later, but only after the occupation has almost completely destroyed the Strip.

He added: "The Palestinians will need to rebuild their national memory, in light of the loss of geography and history due to the Israeli destruction.

Ahmed pointed out that civil wars in Syria will ignite between opposing factions, which seek power and spoils at the expense of the future of the country.

He expected that Syria would turn into several conflicting countries and groups, while Qatari and Turkish ambitions would continue in the country's resources, especially Syrian gas and Aleppo.

Regarding Iran, expect Iranian policy to retreat inward, with the country adopting an approach based on containment and rapprochement with the United States.

Possibility of confrontation between Israel and Iran

He pointed to the possibility of a military confrontation between Israel and Iran, which may include targeting Iranian nuclear reactors, which could lead to a dangerous escalation in the region.

Ahmed stressed that the Arab region will turn inward, as countries will witness deep economic crises and increasing economic disparity within them.

He expected that some Arab countries would witness internal political transformations, while economic and social conditions would continue to deteriorate.

Sayed Ahmed concluded his vision for 2025 by noting that the entire region may face complex situations, where civil wars and conflicts over spoils will dominate the scene, amid a clear absence of major national projects or influential regional movements.

2024 is a year full of disasters and calamities

In turn, Dr. Talal Abu Afifa, a member of the General Secretariat of the General Union of Palestinian Writers and Authors, said that on the occasion of the new year 2025, we are all hopeful that it will be a better year than 2024, which was full of disasters, catastrophes, killing, and genocide of our people in the Gaza Strip, and the destruction of stones, trees, and all pillars of life, in addition to the Russian-Ukrainian war.

He added: Personally, I am not optimistic about this new year. Perhaps the severity of the genocide in the Strip will ease, but the occupation will remain in most of the Strip’s lands and the siege will continue.

Abu Afifa believed that the war will continue against our people in the West Bank with all means of killing and settlement in light of what the Israeli right is planning, especially the extremist duo Ben Gvir and Smotrich, to increase settlement and the number of settlers, and to annex the West Bank to Israel, considering that the West Bank is "Judea and Samaria", or at least annexing the lands of (B, C). This will lead to an increase in the attack and assaults and more harassment, procedures and the commission of crimes.

What happened in Syria does not bode well

He added: As for the Arabs, what happened in Syria does not bode well. The Israeli army has occupied more Syrian land, and sectarian conflict is imminent, with killing and destruction coming inevitably, as happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam's regime, where no less than a million Iraqis were killed, most of them Sunnis, in addition to Lebanon, which is also likely to be preoccupied with a sectarian war after the weakening of Hezbollah and the killing of its senior leaders during the last war.

He continued: I believe that Iraq will witness more sectarian conflict and siege if it does not recognize Israel, and I do not rule out a war between Syria and Iraq to occupy them with a sectarian war by planning and mobilizing the United States, Israel, and some of the subservient regimes in the Arab world, just as they occupied Iraq and Iran in the eighties of the last century with a bloody war that lasted 8 years, which claimed no less than a million dead from each side.

Abu Afifa concluded by saying: “Unfortunately, the Arab world has been in its worst state for decades, because most of the regimes in it are linked, willingly or unwillingly, to the United States, and do what it is ordered to do, even to the devastation of their countries and peoples.”

2024 is a milestone in the history of massacres and wars of extermination.

For his part, the writer and analyst in political sociology, Dr. Muhammad Najib Bou Taleb from Tunisia, said that the year 2024 will represent a turning point in the history of massacres and wars of extermination, as the world witnessed heinous crimes against humanity, especially in Palestine.

Bou Taleb explained that this year will witness the increasing ugliness of man against man, and the exposure of the falsehood, hypocrisy and contradictions of Western moral systems.

Bou Taleb stressed that the new year will carry repercussions from the past year, as the results of the destruction and expansion of the Israeli occupation will appear.

He expected that the world would witness the implementation of dangerous projects, most notably the “New Middle East” project, which is being imposed by brute force and at the expense of the blood of more than fifty thousand Palestinians in Gaza, in addition to thousands of victims in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

He pointed out that the year 2025 could be a "second catastrophe", in light of the lack of ability to establish new international organizations to condemn crimes, or form fronts for steadfastness and confrontation.

“The current climate is one of political intimidation and military bullying, with the equation being set in favour of ‘whoever pays more’,” Bou Taleb said.

He warned that the Arab world is experiencing a phase of "individual escape" and divisions, pointing to the possibility of the Arab League disintegrating and being replaced by new structures controlled by commercial powers and arms dealers.

Bou Taleb stressed that these transformations are led by Israeli extremism, which is free from any moral or humanitarian controls.

Israel will work to end the Jerusalem and refugee files

UNRWA expert Sami Mshasha said that Israel's undeclared goal with the outbreak of the war of extermination more than a year ago, and the most dangerous from a strategic perspective, is to finish two main axes within what is called the "final solution issues," specifically the Jerusalem and refugee files.

He pointed out that the plans had been ready for years, and the war of extermination gave the entity the justification to roll out the plan to establish the "unity" of Jerusalem by expelling UNRWA from the city, and that the refugee file is being eliminated through displacement, settlement, killing and compensation, and not through implementing the right of return for refugees to their lands, cities and villages, or even a return to the areas of influence of the Palestinian Authority, which are shrinking in area and authority day after day.

Mshasha stressed that after more than a year, the entity has achieved important successes with regard to its strategic goal, as it succeeded in depicting UNRWA as a cursed devil, as a sponsor and supporter of “terrorism,” and that it includes “saboteurs.”

He said: The entity was able to destroy and sabotage UNRWA facilities and centers in the Strip, destroy the infrastructure of all refugee camps, kill more than 260 of its employees, and pin terrorism charges on a number of its employees, and that it has no place in the future, and that it is a stumbling block that must be removed.

He pointed out that the year 2025 will witness dangerous developments in the UNRWA and refugee file, including: the ambiguity of the status and future of the Palestinian refugee in Syria, and will he be targeted as happened with the Palestinian refugee after the fall of Baghdad and Libya, for example? Will the file of the Palestinian presence in Lebanon and the scarecrow of settlement be reopened to serve the goals of Geagea and other Lebanese figures and parties?

Fears of displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan

He added: This is accompanied by an increase in the pace of Israeli statements, perceptions (and plans) to transfer (displace) numbers of West Bank residents to the East Bank, and to open the file of settling Palestinian refugees in Jordan, a complete and actual settlement without any possibility of exercising the right of return (or even family reunification).

Mshasha confirmed that next year will witness the complete transfer of all UNRWA headquarters offices from its headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah to Jordan. The West Bank operations management will be relocated from Jerusalem and divided into three administrative and supervisory headquarters, one in the south, the second in the north of the West Bank and the third in the center.

He pointed out that next year, either the entire presidential headquarters will be seized or access to it and its use for UNRWA purposes will be prevented, and the ban on the entry of the Commissioner-General, senior staff, and the prevention of UNRWA employees in Jerusalem who hold green IDs from entering the city will remain in effect.

He believed that the greatest fear is that UNRWA schools in the Shuafat camp within the borders of Jerusalem will be closed with the migration of large numbers of students to other schools, and the efforts made by the occupation municipality to encourage them to register in its schools.

He explained that the Shuafat camp and the vocational training center with its vast areas near the Qalandia camp will be targeted in the coming months in particular (and the vocational training center enjoys a sensitive location as it is adjacent to the Jerusalem airport where a new settlement is planned to be built).

Expel UNRWA from Jerusalem and dismantle it in the West Bank

He added: Next year, it will be expelled from Jerusalem and its weakening and dismantling will be rolled out in the West Bank, with the progress of Smotrich's plan to tighten control over the West Bank next year, and plant the seed of displacement and settlement of the largest possible number of refugees, and eliminate the description and title of "camp" and "refugee" from our dictionary.

Mshasha stressed that next year there will be no role for UNRWA in the reconstruction process in Gaza, the institution that played the main role in the reconstruction process after previous wars on the Strip.

He added: Next year, work will be done to implement 50 recommendations issued by the independent committee formed by the UN Secretary-General (the Colonna Committee), which will interfere in all the details of UNRWA’s work, increase the conditions and restrictions on its work, its educational curricula, and the neutrality of its employees, and marginalize the status and role of UNRWA workers’ unions.

He said: UNRWA will be forced to have international and local partners to share tasks, undermine UNRWA’s mandate, and weaken its representative role for refugees, so to speak. Next year, neither American support nor even the Swedish donation will be returned to UNRWA, and UNRWA’s financial crisis will worsen, and UNRWA’s services will decline in quantity and quality, which will increase the levels of poverty and extreme poverty among refugees.

At the end of his interview with Al-Quds, Mshasha stressed that the coming year will be a dark and difficult year for UNRWA and the refugees, and a year in which the fate of our right of return will be decided.

Three main axes predict what the year 2025 will bring

Jerusalemite writer and cultural activist Mahmoud Mona said that with the closing of the last pages of this painful year and the beginning of a new chapter in our lives and the history of the region, we must focus on three main axes to try to understand what happened, and perhaps predict what the region might become in the coming year.

He pointed out that the continuation of the war and genocide against the Gaza Strip and its people for the second year, and the continued adoption by Western countries of a position of neutrality at times and support at other times, confirms the continued existence of the scourge of racism and the continuation of viewing the non-European other with an inferior view.

Mona stressed that the shameful acts that occur daily in Gaza are completely inconsistent with the positive laws that the West established after the First and Second World Wars, but their failure to apply in Gaza is clear evidence of the growth of the Orientalist approach to dealing with everything that is not Western, as the well-known Palestinian academic Edward Said wrote and warned about forty-five years ago.

He added: There is no doubt that hostility to Islam has increased in recent years, and Muslims and Islam have been described as violent and terrorist, and therefore from a Western perspective it was possible to exclude the application of international law and humanitarian law in the war on the Gaza Strip. Here too, it is possible to understand why South Africa defended the Palestinian cause in the International Criminal Court - although it used Western courts and laws, Western countries were the first to stand against this advocacy in a revealing historical moment.

Mona believes that the coming year will witness broader challenges in this context, especially after President Trump takes power in the largest and most powerful colonial state. We may hear more hostility and arrogance towards everything that may represent Islam and the East in an attempt to normalize and legitimize this narrative.

He added: Therefore, we must fight this colonial and authoritarian thought, and weave new threads and fruitful alliances with the emerging countries of the South, which were - and some of them still are - victims of exploitation and racism by the West. Our understanding of the world must be expanded to a larger and more comprehensive area than seeing Western countries as the sole representatives of world opinion or the world.

Fears of repeating the Libya model in Syria

As for the Arab and regional axis, Mona pointed out that the new reality in Syria, and perhaps in Lebanon as well, combines a strange feeling of pain and hope together, and perhaps it is a moment to recall our Palestinian writer Emile Habibi in his "optimistic" expression. He said: We hope and pray that what is already divided will not be divided, and that the current events will not lead to more killing and destruction as happened in Libya, or as happened in Egypt.

He added: Perhaps the closest scenario is a repressive regime with a democratic cover, as in Tunisia. But we must remember that in the midst of the major changes that the region is witnessing, some small opportunities may suddenly and unexpectedly arise that can be built upon and exploited for the better.

He explained that the geographical proximity of Syria and Lebanon to historical Palestine makes the current change a concern for us, but we must also adhere to the principles of freedom and justice and support the Syrian and Lebanese peoples at a critical historical moment that may achieve their desired freedom.

Mona stressed that the Palestinian issue cannot be separated from its Arab and Islamic context, and therefore the Arab peoples will remain fully supportive of the Palestinian issue and our rights to freedom and self-determination.

He warned that as the months of the coming year progress, the context of bargaining and trade-off between the freedom of the Palestinian people and the Syrian people must be avoided; necessarily, supporting the rights of one is supporting the other, and the freedom of the former is structurally, politically and socially linked to the freedom of the latter.

Restoring the Palestinian House and Building a Liberation Program

The last axis, according to Mona, and the most important, is the internal Palestinian axis. He said: I will not repeat the importance of restoring the internal house and building a clear political liberation program.

He added: It is necessary to review some of the basic concepts that are organically linked to the Palestinian political movement, and to study them from a purely Palestinian perspective, especially at this stage. He pointed out that the most important of these concepts is the concept of freedom and self-determination, and their connection (or lack thereof) to the concept of the nation-state and citizenship. Also, the concept of the right to liberation and resistance and their forms while maintaining the legitimacy of the struggle with its high moral foundation.

Mona said: The open question remains about the possibility of restructuring and correcting the entity of the Palestine Liberation Organization or working to build an alternative organization, especially at a time when we face the greatest challenge ahead of us in the coming year, which is preserving the collective Palestinian political, cultural and social identity of all Palestinians, regardless of their place of residence or their identification card.

He added: The current war targets not only the Palestinian existence in the physical sense, but also in the metaphorical sense of everything that the Palestinian reflects in terms of humanity, rights of existence, and dreams of a better future. This identity is manifested as a central global issue that witnesses a huge amount of international solidarity and cooperation, which constitutes a lever for the cause and each also has a great humanitarian weight.

Mona concluded by saying: We remember what our great poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote several decades ago about planting and harvesting hope. Let us hope that the coming year will bring a little peace, a scent of freedom, and a lot of love and humanity.

Nothing looks good

For his part, writer and political analyst Muhammad Zahdi Shaheen confirmed that based on the data and the sequence of events, it is expected and likely that nothing new will emerge on the horizon, and that the new year will be nothing but an extension of the past disasters and wars.

He added: When looking at the new American administration, we find that it aligns and intersects greatly with the occupation’s policies, and clearly supports it, in addition to the inability of international institutions, organizations and bodies, the bias of the international community in favor of the Israeli side, and the absence and fragmentation of the Arab position.

Shaheen continued: "If we look at the course of events in the region as a whole, whether on the Palestinian level in general or on the Syrian, Lebanese and Gulf Arab states, we find that things are going from bad to worse. Although our outlook has always been optimistic, we do not see anything that bodes well."

He concluded by saying: However, there remains a glimmer of hope for sudden dramatic shifts that may change the direction of the compass.