The United States is planning a weeks-long bombing campaign in the Middle East in response to a drone attack in northeastern Jordan that killed three American soldiers, US officials told NBC News on Thursday.

The officials said that President Joe Biden has decided to target several targets, and that the targets are expected to include Iranian targets outside Iran, and the campaign will include strikes and electronic operations.

Other reports stated that the United States is considering targeting Iranians in Iraq and Syria or the Iranian Navy.

President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will receive the bodies of the three soldiers at Dover Base, Delaware (President Biden's state) on Friday, and the start of the process will likely coincide with the reception and burial ceremony of the bodies.

While the potential targets are not inside Iran, direct attacks on the Iranian military could lead to all-out war between the United States and Iran. The United States is considering taking this course of action despite the Pentagon's admission that it has no evidence of direct Iranian involvement in the drone attack in Jordan.

The Pentagon said the Jordanian attack had "effects" on Kataib Hezbollah, one of the main Shiite militias in Iraq. The United States says Iran is only responsible because it arms Kataib Hezbollah and other Shiite militias. US officials told the New York Times that while Iran is arming and funding Shiite militias, there is no evidence that Tehran is “making the decision.”

John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said on Wednesday that US intelligence indicates that the drone attack was carried out by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a shadowy umbrella group for Iraqi Shiite militias.

The Islamic Resistance (in Iraq) has claimed responsibility for many of the 160 attacks launched against American forces in Iraq and Syria since mid-October. The attacks began in response to US support for the Israeli massacre in Gaza.

Kirby also hinted at the possibility of a long-term bombing campaign. "The first thing you see won't be the last," he said, adding that it won't be a "one-off."

Iran pledged to respond to any American attacks on Iranians in the region. Amir Saeed Iravani, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, said, "The Islamic Republic will respond firmly to any attack on the country, its interests, and its citizens under any pretext."

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip revealed, on Thursday, that more than 30,000 displaced people are located near the “Nasser Medical Complex” in the south of the Strip, lacking water, food, baby formula, and medicines.

Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement published on the Telegram platform, “More than 30,000 displaced people in schools near the Nasser Medical Complex are missing water, food, baby formula, and medicines, which are required for thousands of sick and chronic cases.”

In his statement, Al-Qudra appealed to the United Nations and its institutions to "work to conduct urgent interventions to provide the living and health needs of the displaced."

Since the outbreak of the devastating Israeli war on the Strip on October 7, 2023, the occupation has cut off supplies of water, food, medicine, electricity, and fuel to the residents of Gaza, who are about 2.3 million Palestinians who are already suffering from extremely deteriorating conditions.

Although the Israeli army allowed some relief trucks to enter the Gaza Strip, the number allowed to enter cannot meet the growing need, in light of the continuous and escalating deterioration of the infrastructure as a result of the continuous Israeli bombing, and the complete deterioration of the health system against the backdrop of the war.

The ongoing Israeli war against the Gaza Strip since October 7, until Thursday, left “27,19 killed and 66,139 injured, most of them children and women,” according to the Palestinian authorities, and caused “massive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to the United Nations.

By Zvi Bar'el

US President Joe Biden's announcement of his decision to respond forcefully to the attack on the American base in Jordan on Monday, in which 3 American soldiers were killed, led to a practical response. Hezbollah militias in Iraq, loyal to Iran, have “officially” announced that they will stop attacking American targets “so as not to embarrass the Iraqi government.” 

For its part, the United States made clear that a response would occur, and that “the militias will be judged according to their actions, not their words.” Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Hossein Salami was quick to announce that his country is not seeking to expand the war, “but will respond to any threat against Iran.” He said against Iran, not against its arms, as if what is happening is a “private” confrontation between the militias and the United States, and Iran has nothing to do with it.

The Houthis in Yemen continue to attack ships in the Red Sea, and confrontations continue on the Lebanese front, as usual. This "routine" is now waiting for the kidnappers to agree and a long ceasefire, extending between 6 weeks and two months. This period of time is more than a humanitarian truce, during which political issues that go beyond the battlefield in Gaza could mature.

The “distribution of work” in each axis seems clear. Hezbollah is clashing directly with Israel, and the Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq are dealing with the security belt that the United States provides to Israel, while Iran is not paying the price for operating its arms remotely. This distribution of labor is careful not to deviate from the limits of a low-power war, and thus allows organizations that do not belong to states to operate as a single front with Hamas, and at the same time, it does not provide an excuse for the United States and Israel to engage in a large-scale war on several fronts.

If these things were taking place in a computer game, where each side must collect points through tactical strikes, these skirmishes could continue at their current size without resolution. But as Hassan Nasrallah said in one of his speeches, “The speech is about the field,” but the field is not just raids, marches, artillery shelling, and casualties. Political pressures in Beirut, and in Jerusalem, Baghdad, Sanaa, and Washington, are mounting and demanding their share in managing the confrontations.

In the case of Lebanon, the front where there is the highest possibility of war, the pressure set links villages in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, between Christians and Shiites, between the effort to elect a president of the republic and the government, and between Hassan Nasrallah’s veto of any agreement, or Political negotiations, as long as the war in Gaza continues. In the previous truce that accompanied the release of kidnapped persons and prisoners, Hezbollah also ceased fire, then resumed it after the end of the ceasefire.

Since that time, the circle of confrontations has expanded, and Israel has deepened its attacks inside Lebanon, destroying many buildings in the southern villages, and hitting military and civilian targets deep in Lebanon, while Hezbollah brought into the battle precision missiles of the Falaq 1 and 2 model, which it has not used until now, and hit An air surveillance facility on Mount Meron, as well as attacks on Kiryat Shmona and other settlements. The firing equation still maintains the “agreed upon” border lines, and has not yet reached a large-scale war, intense attacks on all of Lebanon, and the firing of distant missiles deep into the Israeli home front.

Meanwhile, the political scene in Lebanon is waiting for a turn. On Tuesday, the ambassadors of the five countries - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, France and the United States - which took it upon themselves to save Lebanon from the political and economic crisis, met with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

There is unspoken tension between the ambassadors themselves, not only because of the substantive issues, but also because of who is leading the process. The new US Ambassador Lisa Johnson is competing with Saudi Ambassador Walid Al-Bukhari, who is acting as the owner of the house. In confronting them, French Ambassador Herve Magro is keen on the position of his country, which considers itself the first sponsor of Lebanon. Likewise, Qatar, a partner in the postponed Lebanese gas project, has something to say.

Apparently, the small glimmer of hope that emerged in previous meetings regarding reaching a political agreement has dissipated, and things have seemed less optimistic recently...

A ceasefire in Gaza could provide Nasrallah with the appropriate pretext to stop his opposition to taking political steps as long as the war continues, and would thus constitute an opportunity to reach a deal to elect a president of the republic. The truce could also constitute an opportunity to advance negotiations on the demarcation of the land border between Israel and Lebanon, and completing these negotiations would enable, at least in theory, the implementation of Resolution 1701, especially the part related to the Lebanese army deploying its forces along the border with Israel, a step that Lebanon has not yet implemented. Under the pretext that the international border line has not been agreed upon, and that the Blue Line that was demarcated with the Israeli army’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 is not the international border line.

The ceasefire will also have a calming effect on the Houthis, who have caused the greatest strategic damage, and whose repercussions can be felt well in a number of countries in the region. It will also help complete negotiations to end the war in Yemen. A long ceasefire lasting 6 weeks, or more, constitutes a sufficient period of time to allow political steps to be taken forward, and it will force the administration in Washington to exploit it in order to use its full diplomatic power to formulate with the Arab countries, primarily Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, mechanisms for a Palestinian administration in sector. 

The main ambitious goal of this step is to completely eliminate, or at least reduce, the need to resume fighting at its current level when the ceasefire ends. 

The challenge will move from the need to plan for the “day after the war” to planning for the day after the ceasefire.

The words of British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, in which he said that his country and its allies “are considering recognition of a Palestinian state, as part of a diplomatic process that leads to irreversible progress towards a two-state solution,” is an important diplomatic statement, and we hope that it will be supported by diplomatic action. 

According to Cameron, “the most important step is to give the Palestinians a political horizon,” and that Britain “has begun to consider the image of a Palestinian state, what it will consist of, and who will run it. When that happens, we and our allies will begin to think about recognizing a Palestinian state, including voting in a council.” Security. This recognition could be one of the things that will help make this process irreversible” (“Haaretz,” 1/30).

These words express a similar point of view that appeared in the statements of US President Joe Biden, two weeks after the “massacre” of October 7, when he said: “Israel and the Palestinians can no longer return to the situation that existed before October 7,” and added that at the end of the crisis There is a need to pursue a two-state solution, “which means that both parties, Israeli and Palestinian, and other leaders from the region, will have to focus on moving towards peace.”

Since then, the Biden administration has been promoting a plan to establish a demilitarized Palestinian state within the framework of normalization with Saudi Arabia, and a plan to rebuild the Strip led by Saudi Arabia and four Arab countries. Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pressured him to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state after the war. But Biden knows that this matter will not happen under a failed leader without a vision linking his political fate to the Kahanists and supporters of the transfer.

Contrary to the noise from the British Conservative Party, which viewed Cameron's words as giving a prize to Hamas, unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state that advances the two-state solution is the absolute opposite of what Hamas wants. 

The Hamas movement does not want a regional settlement, nor a two-state solution, because it is not ready to recognize the State of Israel. Every step the world takes towards a two-state solution is a reward for moderates and a punishment for extremists.

Hamas is unlikely to reject a Gaza ceasefire proposal it received from mediators this week, but will not sign it without assurances that Israel has committed to ending the war, a Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters.

“I expect that Hamas will not reject the paper, but it might not give a decisive agreement either,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Instead, I expect them to send a positive response, and reaffirm their demands: For the agreement to be signed, it must ensure Israel will commit to ending the war in Gaza and pull out from the enclave completely.”

The source said the text agreed with Israel and the US at talks in Paris last week envisions a first phase lasting 40 days, during which fighting would cease while Hamas released remaining civilians held in Gaza. 

Further phases would see the release of Israeli soldiers and the handover of bodies of dead captives, the report added.

Pretexts for the petition: a conflict of interests because Netanyahu is accused of criminal offenses and is prime minister; “The series of actions and failures that occurred before and after October 7”; Netanyahu is in an unhealthy state that requires announcing his inability to carry out his duties

A petition submitted to the Israeli Supreme Court today called on Al-Hamis to issue a decision rendering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unable to carry out his duties, thus preventing him from remaining in office and ousting him, because he “exists in a conflict of interests that harms the security of the state.”

The petition was submitted by ten people, including former Minister of Defense, Moshe Ya'alon, former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, Dan Halutz, and a member of the Knesset from the Labor Party, Naama Lazimi.

The petition was based on three central pretexts, according to the Haaretz newspaper website.

The first pretext is that Netanyahu is in a state of classical and structural conflict of interests simply because he is accused of criminal violations and holds the position of prime minister, in terms of the timetables, resources, and dedication required to adhere to the challenges of the position.

The second pretext for overthrowing Netanyahu is “the series of actions and failures that occurred before and after the October 7 massacre.” According to the petitioners, Netanyahu’s actions indicate that the interests and considerations guiding him are “personal, narrow, irrelevant and contrary to the interests of the state, the public, the kidnapped people and their families.”

The petition added that the third pretext is that there are indications that Netanyahu is in an unhealthy health condition that requires announcing his inability to carry out his duties. Last October, Netanyahu was transferred to Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem after feeling chest pains. Last July, a device to measure his heart rate was implanted in his body.

It is noteworthy that, last month, the Supreme Court issued a decision stipulating that the amendment to the “Basic Law: Government,” which aims to prevent the announcement of Netanyahu’s inability to carry out his duties, will be effective starting from the next term of the Knesset. This decision allowed the petition to be submitted today.

The majority of the judges confirmed in their decision last month that the Knesset abused its powers and that the measure that would prevent a defect in the law in this case was to postpone the entry into force of the amendment.

Blinken visits Israel at the end of the week to discuss the mediators’ proposal that crystallized in Paris regarding the deal, in addition to the issue of the “next day” after the war and the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, in exchange for opposition from Smotrich and Ben Gvir, who threaten to bring down the government.

An Israeli official said, “The possibilities of a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas are still high, because the US President, Joe Biden, wants to end the war on Gaza, and realizes that the only way to do so is a deal that leads to a long truce, and with the hope that it will become permanent” what Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported today, Wednesday.

US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, will visit Israel, where he will arrive next Saturday evening, to discuss the details of the prisoner exchange deal and the truce, in addition to the issue of the “next day” after the war and the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The newspaper also quoted ministers in the political-security cabinet as saying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “seeking a deal,” but he is “very afraid” that the deal will lead to the withdrawal of the parties of extremist ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. They added that Netanyahu does not want a government with the opposition leader, Yair Lapid.

After Ben Gvir threatened that he would topple the government if Israel agreed to the deal that was formulated during a meeting in Paris, last Sunday, which brought together the heads of the Mossad, the CIA, Egyptian intelligence, and the Prime Minister of Qatar, Netanyahu announced, “We will not liberate thousands of terrorists, and we will not withdraw the Israeli army.” From the sector.”

Ben Gvir wrote on the “X” platform that “a defeatist deal = dismantling the government.” According to the newspaper, although Ben Gvir has threatened to withdraw from the government more than once since the beginning of the war on Gaza, he is serious now, and told those close to him, “I mean every word. There is nothing I can do in a government that implements a defeatist deal. In my opinion, the government does not have a mandate.” To implement a defeatist deal with Hamas.

Those close to Ben Gvir said that he would withdraw from the government even if the deal included the liberation of a quarter or a third of the number of Palestinian prisoners who would be released, and that they believe that Netanyahu is paving the way for the possibility of liberating half the number of prisoners that are being talked about, and that he will consider this an achievement, according to what the newspaper quoted them as saying.

Meanwhile, the parties to the negotiations on the deal are awaiting Hamas’s response to it, after the head of its political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, announced yesterday that the deal is being studied. The Hamas delegation visiting Cairo today may present the movement’s response to the proposed deal.

The deal stipulates Israel's release of thousands of prisoners and a truce in the war for a month and a half, in exchange for Hamas releasing a first batch of 35 Israeli hostages. According to the Haaretz newspaper, Netanyahu refuses to pledge to abide by this deal because of the opposition within his government.

The newspaper added that Israel agreed during the negotiators' meeting in Paris that the mediators would transfer their proposal to Hamas. “Israel thus linked itself to a large extent to the mediators’ proposal, even if it did not officially ratify the entire deal.”

The newspaper added that there is “concern” among the extreme right about a long-term ceasefire that will signify the end of the war on Gaza and the continuation of Hamas in power, “at least in the south of the Gaza Strip.” Also, "Netanyahu realizes that the return of a portion of the kidnapped, in exchange for thousands of prisoners, will be interpreted by large parts of the Israeli public as an admission of failure."

The newspaper indicated that Netanyahu is approaching a point where he will have to decide between the position of the extreme right, represented by Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who reject any deal, and accepting the deal. If Netanyahu agrees to the mediators’ proposal, “there is no hope for the government to survive in its current composition.”

BY TAREQ S. HAJJAJ  

Israel claims there is not a policy to forcibly expel Palestinians in Gaza, but direct testimonies from people arriving in Rafah reveal there is a ethnic cleansing campaign taking place around Gaza City.

Meters away from Egypt’s border with the city of Rafah in southern Gaza stands Mahmoud Ahmad, whose real name has been altered at his request. Mahmoud asks passers-by about a place where he can find shelter for himself and his family, who were recently displaced from Gaza City. With a yellowed face and a hesitant voice emanating from his frail body, the weary-eyed young man tells me how his family of six arrived in Rafah on foot.

Mahmoud’s testimony is a direct refutation of the Israeli propaganda claims that the army is not forcibly displacing people from their homes. Mahmoud and his family live west of Gaza City near the Ansar area, where the Israeli army invaded last week. They had originally sought refuge at a shelter east of Gaza City in the Daraj neighborhood, but after the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Western Gaza, they returned to their home there. In Gaza, the Israeli army calls inhabitants according to their area of residence.

“The occupation would call us on our phones and order us to go to specific locations within Gaza City,” Mahmoud tells Mondoweiss. “They would call someone in Ansar [west of Gaza City] and tell them to go to north of Gaza. Then, when we reached a shelter in al-Daraj [in the north], we got another call telling us to evacuate back to the West.”

“In this way, they force us to go from one place to another,” he continues. “They cause chaos, and then we get caught in the middle.”

Mahmoud and his family lived through “days of death,” as he says. These were days when he wasn’t sure what his family’s fate would be — whether they would be buried under the rubble and left to be eaten by animals, arrested and tortured like so many others, or simply executed by gunfire.

When the family returned to their neighborhood near the coast in al-Ansar, where the army had withdrawn, they spent several days in their old apartment building, which had miraculously survived the urban decimation. Several families occupied the building, but during the day, all the occupants would gather in a single apartment and share resources while planning for what might come next. They wondered what they might do if the army invaded again.

A little over a week ago, the occupation re-invaded the Ansar and Abu Mazen Circle areas. This time, the area was full of people, and six shelter-schools teemed with displaced persons, each shelter housing between 200-300 families. 

“On the first day of the [second] invasion, we heard strange and terrifying sounds,” Mahmoud says. “Sounds of tanks and armored troop carriers. In Gaza, we’re now able to distinguish between the sounds of a moving tank and a personnel carrier, which make different noises and move at different speeds.”

Mahmoud says that from 5:00 a.m. in the morning until dawn, these vehicles did not stop their incursion into the area.

“We could hear the soldiers speaking loudly in Hebrew, and none of the people living in the building dared look out the window to see what was happening, but we all knew that they were preparing for a wider invasion of the area,” he continues. 

“On the second day, those six UNRWA schools were surrounded by the army vehicles, and then we heard a military vehicle call out through a megaphone in Arabic, ordering people to leave the schools and move to a place that had been prepared for them. They then ordered men and women to separate, dividing each of them into age groups and isolating them from one another.”

Mahmoud says that during the invasion, the machine guns never stopped. “They were firing at people and over their heads and beneath their feet,” he says. “And they killed a large number of people, we couldn’t count how many. But the sound never stopped. It didn’t stop from the vehicles or from the soldiers shooting with their rifles.”

“In addition, quadcopter drones hovered over our building,” he adds. “We could see their shadows, but we kept away from the windows, fearing that they would spot us and open fire.”

Up until that moment, the military operation continued outside Mahmoud’s building, making them believe that they would be safe so long as they remained inside and that the Israeli soldiers would not enter their homes. By the end of the day, Mahmoud says they could hear the sound of an explosion right below the building. The soldiers had entered the tower, blowing up the external garage door as well as the door to the building. All the families had gathered in one apartment beforehand, but now they all rushed to their respective apartments and locked their doors behind them. But their efforts were ultimately pointless.

“We were on the fifth floor,” Mahmoud relates. “And we could hear through the stairwell that the soldiers were going from apartment to apartment, banging on the door with their boots, and when there wasn’t an answer, they would blow the door up.”

“We were yelling as they got closer, telling them that we are civilians,” Mahmoud continues. “We told them, ‘We don’t have any weapons. We don’t have anything that can hurt you.’”

No one responded to them until the soldiers reached their apartment. Mahmoud’s family raised their hands, holding pieces of white cloth and their ID cards in either hand. They looked into the soldiers’ eyes and kept repeating that they were civilians and that they demanded safe passage, as they had just been following army directions and moving to designated safe zones.

None of their entreaties worked. Within seconds, everyone was blindfolded and bound with their hands behind their backs and made to face the wall.

“We weren’t expecting to leave our house alive,” Mahmoud says.

A home with an interrogation room

Mahmoud tells Mondoweiss that the army gathered everyone in the building on the fourth floor, separating women and children from the men, and placing each group in a room. Then, the soldiers set up a third room — for interrogation. 

They interrogated each person individually, searching their cell phones and electronic devices for information. Anyone whose phone contained videos of the October 7 events or videos published by the resistance factions showing the targeting of soldiers and tanks was arrested on the spot. Mahmoud says that his brother Ahmad was arrested due to such photos that were downloaded to his device. 

The family still does not know what happened to Ahmad from this moment on. They have contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross several times but have not received any information yet.

I asked for a photo of Ahmad, in the hopes of being able to find him, but Mahmoud refused outright, fearing for the safety of his brother and believing that if a relative of Ahmad were seen speaking to the media, there would be a reprisal from the Israeli authorities against Ahmad.

When Mahmoud was interrogated, the army asked him questions in Arabic about ties to Hamas — whether he was a Hamas member, whether he knew any members, or whether he knew if any of his neighbors were from Hamas.

Mahmoud points out that he does not have relatives in Gaza. All his uncles and extended family live abroad in the Gulf and elsewhere, and his family and his brother’s family are the only ones to have remained. They both work remotely for companies in Saudi Arabia, Mahmoud as an accountant, and his brother as a programmer. 

“Neither of us have had any ties to any military activity,” he says.

He adds that the field interrogators played “good cop, bad cop.” One officer would pretend to sympathize with him and look out for his interests, while the other was harsh and would assault everyone he interrogated, sometimes physically.

The ethnic cleansing of the Ansar area

After the interrogations had concluded, the soldiers ordered everyone to go down to the first floor. They didn’t allow them to take anything with them — no food, no clothes, no electronics, no money or wallets.

“They forced me out of my house barefoot and blindfolded and kept screaming at me the entire time,” Mahmoud continues. “No one allowed me even to pick up my shoes from my apartment. They would only scream at me, some in Hebrew, some in Arabic, some in English, and they would order me to keep walking and be quiet, threatening that the next time I ask for something they will kill me. That’s what the soldiers told everyone.”

On the ground floor, they were handed over to a group of other soldiers, who were far more harsh and brutal than the group that had interrogated them. These soldiers constantly physically assaulted them, beating them while shouting and cursing and firing live bullets above their heads and at their feet, and no one was allowed to even look at a soldier.

“If someone were to so much as stare at a soldier, they would have been killed,” Mahmoud intimates, saying that the soldiers were deliberately trying to terrorize them.

While the Israeli media and statements by Israeli officials claim that Israel will not forcibly displace Palestinian civilians in Gaza, Mahmoud’s account indicates the opposite. As the soldiers were hurling their abuse at them, they ordered them to head south on foot.

“When we reached the street, we were shocked by the massive number of soldiers filling the area,” Mahmoud continues. “They were spreading out everywhere, between the buildings, surrounding schools, entering houses. There were so many of them, and the sight was terrifying.”

That’s when the soldiers corralled them alongside all the other displaced people who had been rounded up from the neighboring shelters and ordered all of them to march south.

“They said, ‘you must all go south using the sea road,’ which is al-Rashid Street,” Mahmoud recounts. 

That’s when they joined the throngs on the long march south, repeating the scenes of their ancestors during the Nakba of 1948.

The Ansar area used to be a security zone belonging to Hamas and was used by the movement to train its fighters. It was also the location of a central prison and the police academy. This will all no doubt be used as a pretext to claim that it continued to be a Hamas stronghold and thus necessitated this brazen act of ethnic cleansing. But the reality is that all Hamas operatives retreated into the tunnels at the outset of the war, and the only people left in the area were civilians. 

The claims by the Israeli media, and even American media and officials, that the north would slowly be repopulated and that civilians would be allowed to return have been thoroughly belied by the ethnic cleansing of the Ansar area.

The US President issues a presidential decision imposing sanctions on settlers involved in terrorist attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. A decision allows the targeting of Israeli officials involved in terrorist attacks on settlers in the West Bank, whether by invitation or incitement.

US President Joe Biden intends to sign a presidential order, later today, Thursday, allowing the imposition of new sanctions on settlers involved in terrorist attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. At this stage, the sanctions target four settlers involved in terrorist attacks.

This came according to what the political correspondent of the Israeli Walla website and the American Axios website reported, citing high-ranking officials in the White House. The report noted that the presidential order allows future sanctions to be imposed on Israeli politicians or government officials involved in terrorist attacks targeting Palestinians.

American officials explained that "the first round of sanctions imposed under the new presidential order will include four settlers who were directly involved in attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, according to American information, as well as in systematic activities that led to the forced displacement of Palestinian communities."

The report did not reveal the identity of the four settlers targeted in the first round of sanctions. On the other hand, the Israeli government claims that it “has taken steps in the last two months that have led to a significant decrease in the number of attacks carried out by settlers in the occupied West Bank.”

Under the US sanctions, any assets or bank accounts held by these four settlers in the United States of America will be frozen, and sanctions will be imposed on parties that deal with them commercially or transfer money to them through the American banking system, and they will not be allowed to enter the United States.

The expected presidential decree allows the administration to “impose sanctions on persons who have directed or participated in acts of violence or threats of violence against Palestinians, intimidated Palestinians in an attempt to force them to leave their homes, destroyed or confiscated Palestinian property, or in acts of terrorism against Palestinian citizens.”

American officials explained that "one of the prominent provisions in the new presidential decree allows in the future to impose sanctions on Israeli politicians and government officials directly or indirectly involved in acts of violence against Palestinian citizens."

The order states that people “who direct, implement, implement, carry out, or refrain from implementing policies in a manner that threatens the peace, security, or stability of the West Bank” may be subject to US sanctions, and the order allows for sanctions to be imposed on people who provide support or financial assistance to settlers who have carried out attacks against the Palestinians.

The report described the US President's anticipated step as "unprecedented and the most important taken by any US administration ever to deal with settler violence against Palestinian citizens in the occupied West Bank," while Tel Aviv believes that US allegations regarding settler terrorism are "exaggerated."

High-level American officials said that this measure reflects the vision of the Biden administration, which believes that “extremist settler attacks against Palestinians have reached levels that constitute a threat to security in the West Bank and the entire Middle East, and undermine the foreign policy goals of the United States, especially the possibility of implementing the two-state solution.”

According to American officials, the White House, the State Department, and the US Treasury Department began drafting the presidential order secretly several weeks ago, and the Biden administration did not inform the Israeli government of the new order until today, shortly before it was announced.

The report explained that the Biden administration studied the possibility of including Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in the list of people targeted by sanctions, “but in the end it decided to exclude them from the list and focus at this stage on the people involved in carrying out the attacks.”

Biden and other senior American officials have repeatedly warned that Israel must act to stop the violence committed by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. Attacks there have escalated in the past few months in light of settlement expansion.

Settler attacks have also escalated since the attack of last October 7, and last December, the United States began imposing a ban on...

The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said on Thursday that the continued suspension of international funding for the agency is forcing it to “end” its operations by the end of this February, in Gaza and throughout the region.

Lazzarini explained in a statement, “At a time when the war in Gaza continues unabated, and at a time when the International Court of Justice calls for more humanitarian aid, this is the time to strengthen UNRWA, not weaken it.”

He noted that the agency "remains the largest relief organization in one of the most complex humanitarian crises in the world."

He added: "If funding remains suspended, we will likely have to end our operations by the end of February, not only in Gaza, but also throughout the region."

Lazzarini renewed the call of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to resume funding for UNRWA, according to the statement.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that more than 66 hours had passed since its ambulance team came to the rescue of 6-year-old Hind, noting that her fate and the fate of the crew were still unknown.

The Red Crescent appealed to the international community to help reveal the fate of the child Hind and the paramedics Yousef Zaino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun, and to intervene to protect civilians and health care and humanitarian workers.

On Thursday, former head of the Israeli Shin Bet Security Service, Karmi Gilon, described the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip as “revenge.”

Gilon said in an interview he gave to the Hebrew Channel 12, on Wednesday, and the contents of which were published by Channel 7, on Thursday: “We have entered into a war of revenge, and this is completely justified in light of what we have been through,” referring to the events of last October 7.

Although he considered that "Hamas received a strong blow," Gilon said that "it will remain the ruling body in the Strip as long as there is a vacuum, and there is no one to fill it. Until now, everyone has fled Gaza," he said.

He added, "Maybe there will be a ceasefire for 5 or 6 years, and the missile rituals will return, but the story of what happened on October 7 will not be repeated in my opinion." Gilon, who headed the Shin Bet between 1995 and 1996, believed that the war on Gaza was “over.”

He believed that "the war is over, and the only reason, in my opinion, for the Israeli army to remain in the field is to return the hostages (the Israeli prisoners in Gaza)."

By Dalia Dassa Kaye and Sanam Vakil

In the early weeks of 2024, as the catastrophic war in the Gaza Strip began to inflame the broader region, the stability of the Middle East appeared to be once again at the center of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. In the initial days after Hamas’s October 7 attacks, the Biden administration moved two aircraft carrier strike groups and a nuclear-powered submarine to the Middle East, while a steady stream of senior U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, began making high-profile trips to the region. Then, as the conflict became more difficult to contain, the United States went further. In early November, in response to attacks on U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed groups, the United States conducted strikes on weapons sites in Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; in early January, U.S. forces killed a senior commander of one of these groups in Baghdad. And in mid-January, after weeks of attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea by the Houthi movement, which is also supported by Iran, the United States, together with the United Kingdom, initiated a series of strikes on Houthi strongholds in Yemen. 

Despite this show of force, it would be unwise to bet on the United States’ committing major diplomatic and security resources to the Middle East over the longer term. Well before Hamas’s October 7 attacks, successive U.S. administrations had signaled their intent to shift away from the region to devote more attention to a rising China. The Biden administration has also been contending with Russia’s war in Ukraine, further limiting its bandwidth for coping with the Middle East. By 2023, U.S. officials had largely given up on a revived nuclear agreement with Iran, seeking instead to reach informal de-escalation arrangements with their Iranian counterparts. At the same time, the administration was bolstering the military capacity of regional partners such as Saudi Arabia in an effort to transfer some of the security burden from Washington. Despite Biden’s early reluctance to do business with Riyadh—whose leadership U.S. intelligence believes was responsible for the 2018 killing of the Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi—the president prioritized a deal to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. In pursuing the deal, the United States was willing to offer significant incentives to both sides while mostly ignoring the Palestinian issue.

October 7 upended this approach, underscoring the centrality of the Palestinian issue and forcing the United States into more direct military engagement. Yet remarkably, the war in Gaza has not led to significant shifts in Washington’s underlying policy orientation. The administration continues to push for Saudi normalization despite Israeli opposition to a separate state for the Palestinians, which the Saudis have made a condition of any such agreement. And U.S. officials seem unlikely to end their effort to disentangle the United States from Middle East conflicts. If anything, the war’s increasingly complicated dynamics may result in even less U.S. appetite for engagement in the region. Doubling down on commitments in the Middle East is also not likely to be a winning strategy for either American political party in a crucial election year. 

Of course, the United States will continue to be involved in the Middle East. If missile strikes on U.S. forces result in American deaths or if a terrorist attack linked to the Gaza conflict kills American civilians, it could force a greater U.S. military engagement than the administration might want. But waiting for the United States to take the lead in effectively managing Gaza and delivering a lasting Middle East peace would be like waiting for Godot: current regional and global dynamics simply make it too difficult for Washington to play that dominant role. That doesn’t mean that other global powers will replace the United States. Neither European nor Chinese leaders have demonstrated much interest in or capacity for taking on the job, even as U.S. influence wanes. Given this emerging reality, regional powers—particularly Israel’s immediate Arab neighbors Egypt and Jordan, along with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which have been coordinating since the war began—urgently need to step up and define a collective way forward. 

Finding common ground after Hamas’s brutal October 7 attacks and Israel’s devastating campaign in Gaza will be exceptionally difficult. And the longer the war continues, the greater the risk of broader fractures across the Middle East. But in the years preceding the attacks, both Arab and non-Arab states showed the potential for new forms of cooperation in what amounted to a major reset of relations across the region. Even after months of war, many of these ties have remained intact. Now, before this trend reverses, these governments must come together to build lasting mechanisms for conflict prevention and, ultimately, peace. 

Most urgently, regional powers must support a meaningful political process between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But they should also take decisive steps to prevent such a cataclysm from happening again. In particular, they should seek to establish new and stronger regional security arrangements that can provide stability with or without U.S. leadership. It is well past time for the Middle East to have a standing forum for regional security that establishes a permanent venue for dialogue among its own powers. Gleaning opportunity from tragedy will take hard work and a commitment at the highest political levels. But as distant as this vision may seem today, the potential exists for Middle East leaders to arrest the spiral of violence and move the region in a more positive direction.

ANXIETIES OF INFLUENCE

Despite mounting frustration with the Biden administration for not taking decisive action to end the war, some Arab leaders, along with pro-interventionists in Washington, may be eager to see the United States “back” in the Middle East. The Biden administration’s swift diplomatic and military response—and its willingness to use force against Iranian-aligned groups—has suggested that the region is once more at the heart of U.S. national security concerns. In fact, in terms of military might, the United States never left: at the time of the October 7 attacks, tens of thousands of U.S. forces were already stationed in the region, and Washington continues to maintain sizable military bases in Bahrain and Qatar, as well as smaller military deployments in Syria and Iraq. 

But the United States’ military and diplomatic activity since October 7 has not instilled confidence. For one thing, the administration’s effort to prevent a wider regional conflict has been decidedly mixed. At one of the most concerning flash points, Israel’s simmering conflict with Hezbollah on the Lebanese border, Washington has been unable to prevent growing violence on both sides. Along with significant military and civilian casualties, tens of thousands of civilians have been forced to evacuate towns in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has thus far refused to withdraw its forces from the border in exchange for economic incentives, and Israel—which has already assassinated a top Hamas official in Beirut—has signaled that time is running out for diplomacy. 

Meanwhile, the United States has struggled to contain military pressure from Iranian proxies in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Since the start of the war, U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria have faced more than 150 attacks from these groups. And despite a series of retaliatory strikes by the United States and the United Kingdom, Washington has been unable to put an end to the Houthis’ relentless missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea. Already, the Houthis have been able to cause significant disruptions to international trade, forcing major shipping companies to avoid the Suez Canal. Notably, U.S. attempts to corral a multinational maritime force to counter the threat have been unable to attract regional partners such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, which remain wary of the administration’s Gaza policies. 

American military and diplomatic activity has not instilled confidence.

As Washington’s military leverage diminishes, its diplomatic muscle has also weakened. Rather than showing resolve, the continual visits of senior administration officials to the region have demonstrated how little sway the United States retains—or in the case of Israel, the administration’s unwillingness to use it. During the initial months of the war, one of the administration’s few apparent accomplishments was a one-week pause in fighting in late November, which led to the release of over 100 Israeli and foreign hostages and a modest delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. But even in that case, Qatari and Egyptian mediation was crucial. Otherwise, the United States has been unwilling (at least as of this writing) to call for a cease-fire, and the administration’s public diplomacy has mostly been limited to rhetorical efforts to restrain the worst impulses of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government. 

The administration has been more vocal in promoting “day after” peace ideas focused on what it calls a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank and Gaza and regional support for rebuilding Gaza. But regional powers, particularly the wealthy Gulf Arab states, have made clear that they will not endorse such plans without irreversible steps toward Palestinian statehood. After U.S. officials began speaking more publicly about the need for a two-state solution as part of a larger normalization pact with Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu flatly rejected the possibility and insisted that Israel must remain in full security control of Palestinian areas. But even centrist Israeli officials expressed astonishment that the United States was pressing peace initiatives while the all-out war against Hamas was continuing. Meanwhile, the administration’s backing of Israel in the fighting and its perceived lack of empathy for Palestinian suffering have created significant obstacles to attracting regional support, let alone Palestinian buy-in, for any American-led plan. 

The United States will continue to be a major player in the region because of its military assets and its unparalleled relationship with Israel. But any expectation that Washington will be able to achieve a grand bargain that could definitively end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is detached from the realities of today’s Middle East. In the end, major diplomatic breakthroughs are most likely to come from, and depend on, the region itself. 

GOING IT ALONE, TOGETHER

The consequences of Washington’s diminishing influence in the Middle East have not been limited to the current conflict. As U.S. engagement in the region declined in the years leading up to October 7, major regional powers steadily increased their efforts to shape and set security arrangements. Indeed, beginning in 2019, governments across the region began to mend previously fraught relations. This unusual regional reset was driven not only by economic priorities—overcoming frictions that had previously disrupted or held back trade and growth—but also by the perception that Washington’s interest in managing Middle East conflicts was waning. 

Take the rapprochement between the Gulf states and Iran. In 2019, the UAE began restoring bilateral ties with Iran after a three-year rupture, seeing an opportunity to directly manage relations and protect its interests from Iranian-backed groups that had been disrupting Gulf shipping and threatening Emirati tourism and trade. Abu Dhabi formally resumed diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2022, paving the way for Riyadh to follow suit. In March 2023, the longtime rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran announced that they were resuming relations in an accord brokered by China after months of back-channel talks moderated by Oman and Iraq. The United States had no part in these deals. 

Meanwhile, in 2021, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE ended a three-and-a-half-year blockade of Qatar that had been motivated principally by Qatar’s backing of Muslim Brotherhood groups, its close ties with Iran and Turkey, and its activist Al Jazeera television channel. Around the same time, the UAE and Saudi Arabia reconciled with Turkey, which they had previously shunned in response to Turkish support for Qatar and for groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. (Saudi-Turkish ties had also been strained because of a Turkish judicial investigation into the murder of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.) By resuming ties, the Saudis and Emiratis opened the door to crucial Gulf investment in the struggling Turkish economy. And in May 2023, Arab leaders invited Syrian President Bashar al-Assad back into the Arab League, marking the end of more than a decade of isolation during Syria’s brutal civil war.

As part of this broader reset, governments across the Middle East also began to participate in a variety of regional forums. The Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership, which met for the first time in Baghdad in 2021 and again in Amman in 2022 to discuss Iraq’s stability, convened a wide array of previous rivals—including Iran and Turkey, the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and Jordan and Egypt. The East Mediterranean Gas Forum, established in 2020, brought together Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, and Jordan, along with representatives from the Palestinian Authority, in what is designed to be a regular dialogue built around gas security and decarbonization. And the so-called I2U2, a group that includes India, Israel, the UAE, and the United States, was set up in 2021 to foster cross-regional partnerships focusing on health, infrastructure, and energy. 

Another aspect of this regional reset was Israel’s normalization with several Arab governments. In the 2020 Abraham Accords, Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE agreed to establish formal ties with Israel, creating opportunities for new economic relations and trade. Notably, one goal of the accords was to pave the way for new direct security relationships between Israel and the Arab world. Before the October 7 attacks, the Biden administration had high hopes that Saudi Arabia, as a leading member of the Arab world, would also join this group. Building on those accords, the March 2022 Negev Summit brought together Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, the UAE, and the United States to encourage economic and security cooperation in what was intended to be a regular meeting. 

Glaringly absent from the normalization deals, however, was the Palestinian issue, which was largely set aside. As a result, Jordan refused to participate in the Negev Summit, and as tensions over Israel’s settlements in the West Bank flared in early 2023, a further meeting of the group was repeatedly postponed. Now, with the devastation of Gaza, any further progress will be contingent on not just ending the war but also building a viable plan for a Palestinian state. 

RUPTURES AND RESILIENCE

In theory, the catastrophic war in Gaza would seem to pose a grave threat to the Middle East reset. In most cases, newly established regional relations are still fragile and have yet to address thorny issues such as weapons proliferation, the continued backing of militant groups in Libya and Sudan by the UAE, Iran’s support for armed nonstate militia groups across the region, and Syria’s export of the drug Captagon. Along with endangering Israel’s fledging normalization of relations with Arab governments, the intensifying involvement of Iranian-backed groups—from Hezbollah and the Houthis to various militias in Syria and Iraq—has the potential to create new fissures between Iran and the Gulf states. Yet so far, the emerging realignments have proved surprisingly durable.

Rather than derailing relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the Gaza war seems to have strengthened them. In November 2023, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi attended a rare joint meeting of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation hosted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, and the following month, Iranian and Saudi leaders met again in Beijing to discuss the Gaza war. The two countries have also planned an exchange of state visits by Raisi and Mohammed in the coming months—meetings that are supposed to formalize new economic and security ties. And despite simmering tensions over the Houthis in particular, the Iranian and Saudi foreign ministers met at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2024, as well.

So far, the war seems to have strengthened ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, diplomatic ties between Israel and its Abraham Accord partners have so far held. The UAE has made clear that it views dialogue with the Israeli government, even in the current crisis, as an important way to make progress on an Israeli-Palestinian political settlement. And although Bahrain’s parliament has condemned the sustained assault on Gaza, the country has not formally severed ties with Israel. For both Arab states, normalization is not just about strengthening economic bonds with Israel but also reinforcing strategic ties with the United States. For despite Washington’s perceived shift away from the region in recent years, Gulf Arab states still seek U.S. security guarantees and protection: in January 2022, Biden designated Qatar as a “major non-NATO ally,” and in September 2023, Bahrain and the United States signed an agreement to strengthen their strategic partnership. 

Certainly, the war has created new obstacles to regional cooperation, particularly when it comes to Israel and neighboring states. Both Turkey and Jordan have withdrawn their ambassadors from Israel, and direct flights between Israel and Morocco stopped in October. By late January, with more than 26,000 killed in Gaza and no cease-fire in sight, Arab public opinion was more strongly opposed to normalization than ever. Many also fear that the U.S. and British military strikes on the Houthis could embolden the group in Yemen and set back efforts to formalize a long-sought cease-fire in the Houthis’ nearly decadelong war in Yemen with Saudi Arabia. And although Gulf Arab states have made a commitment to continue reaching out diplomatically to Tehran, few officials in the region are hopeful that Iran will alter its approach of “forward defense,” in which it relies on militant groups to build strategic leverage and maintain deterrence. In mid-January, Tehran’s direct missile strikes on Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria in response to Israeli strikes and an attack by the Islamic State in the Iranian city of Kerman increased tensions further.

For now, there are indications that Middle East leaders seek to transcend these disputes. For example, to manage growing economic pressure and unrest at home, Iran has given new priority to regional business and trade relations not only with Gulf Arab states but also with Iraq, Turkey, and Central Asian countries, as well as China and Russia. This points to the pragmatic impulses driving Tehran’s message that it seeks to avoid direct engagement in the Gaza conflict despite its backing of various proxy groups. But as tit-for-tat attacks mount across the region in the absence of a Gaza cease-fire, Iran’s calculations could very well shift. 

THE GAZA EFFECT

Paradoxically, one of the strongest forces holding the region together may be the plight of Gaza itself and the Palestinian issue, which the war has so starkly brought to world attention. Facing overwhelming popular anger and the long-term potential for radicalization and the return of extremist groups, regional leaders have largely aligned their policy responses to the war. Despite divergent strategies toward Israel and the Palestinians before October 7, governments around the Middle East are broadly united on demanding an immediate cease-fire, opposing any transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza, calling for humanitarian access to Gaza and for the urgent provision of aid, and supporting negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages in return for an end to the war. The question now is whether this unity can be steered toward building a legitimate peace process. 

For many regional Arab and Muslim countries, the highest priority has been defining a clear plan for Gaza and, ultimately, Palestinian statehood. Israeli leaders have suggested that Gulf states with substantial resources, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, might share the cost of rebuilding Gaza. But Israel’s current government has said it opposes a Palestinian state, and with the war continuing, no Arab governments are willing to make such a commitment or be seen to be underwriting Israel’s war effort. Instead, they have unveiled their own proposals for a postwar peace. 

In December 2023, Egypt and Qatar put forward a plan that began with a cease-fire contingent on phased hostage releases and prisoner exchanges. After a transition period, these confidence-building steps would, in theory, lead to the creation of a Palestinian unity government. Composed of members of both Fatah, the nationalist party that has long controlled the PA, and Hamas, the new leadership would jointly run the West Bank and Gaza, in view of a critical regional demand that the different Palestinian territories no longer be politically separated. This last phase would require Palestinian elections and the creation of a Palestinian state. Although Israel dismissed the plan itself, both for the inclusion of Hamas and over the issue of statehood, it provided a starting point for further discussion. 

In turn, Turkey has floated the concept of a multicountry guarantor system, with states in the region protecting and bolstering Palestinian security and governance and the United States and European countries providing security guarantees for Israel. Others have proposed that the United Nations run a transitional authority in the West Bank and Gaza, an approach that would allow time to overhaul the Palestinian governance structure and ultimately lay the groundwork for Palestinian elections. For its part, Iran has repeatedly stated that it will reinforce any outcome that is supported by the Palestinians themselves—suggesting that there is a renewed opportunity to persuade Tehran to support a deal and forestall its usual spoiler role. 

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has been developing a peace plan with other Arab states that would condition normalizing ties with Israel on the creation of an irrevocable path to a Palestinian state. Riyadh’s approach is underpinned by the 2002 Arab peace initiative that committed to Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. The current Saudi plan aligns with Washington’s push for Israeli-Saudi normalization. It remains unclear, however, whether the Saudis would agree with their American counterparts on what constitutes credible and irreversible steps toward a Palestinian state, particularly given strong Israeli resistance.

Under Netanyahu, the Israeli government continues to reject all these proposals. But as of late January, Israel remained far from accomplishing its war aim of eradicating Hamas, and it had yet to secure the release of more than 100 remaining hostages. There were also rising tensions in both the war cabinet and the Israeli public about the future course of the military campaign. Moreover, the country has deferred any serious public or political debate on its future security until the war is over. When that happens, Israel will need to have open diplomatic channels with, and secure funding and security guarantees from, Arab governments, as well as retain Washington’s engagement through the process.

It may take years to establish the necessary political conditions for a serious peace process after such a terrible war. Nonetheless, the conflict and its regional spillover are a stark reminder that although the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the only cause, regional stability will be at constant risk as long as it continues. And regional governments are increasingly aware that they cannot rely on the United States alone to provide a viable peace process for them. 

RIVALS INTO NEIGHBORS

Even as it has thrust the Palestinian issue back to the forefront of the international agenda, the war in Gaza has underscored the important new political dynamics in play across the Middle East. On the one hand, the United States appears to have less influence. But at the same time, regional powers, including those previously at odds, are taking the initiative, involving themselves in mediation, and coordinating their policy responses. Whereas before October 7, regional powers—in particular, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE—were less aligned on the Palestinian issue, they are now acting with impressive unity, coordination, and planning. To turn this shared resolve into a lasting source of collective leadership, however, these powers must embrace more permanent regional institutions and arrangements. 

Most critically, these should include a standing dialogue forum for the entire region. Episodic summits for cabinet ministers and ad hoc “minilateral” groupings such as the East Mediterranean Gas Forum and I2U2 will no doubt continue to define the regional landscape in the years ahead. But a permanent forum for regional security is lacking. In other parts of the world, cooperative security forums, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have been able to develop alongside bilateral and regional security alliances, enhancing communication even among adversaries and helping prevent conflict. There is no reason for the Middle East to remain the global exception. And given the region’s pressing need to coordinate and de-escalate, the current crisis provides a crucial opportunity to begin such an initiative.

Although leaders have been skeptical about the idea of a forum embracing the entire region, there are several ways that new cooperative security mechanisms could be built. For example, ever since the Madrid peace process was launched in the early 1990s to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such arrangements have been informally proposed in dialogues among experts. Over the past few years, numerous policymakers and others have made clear that this approach is ripe for implementation at an official level. Although such a forum should ultimately aim to include the entire region—all Arab states, Iran, Israel, and Turkey—that won’t immediately be feasible. But a smaller number of key states could start an official process, holding open the prospect of wider participation down the road. Since several Arab states and Turkey have relationships with both Israel and Iran, their participation will be especially valuable at the outset.

The Middle East lacks a permanent forum for regional security.

The new organization, which could be called the MENA Forum, to encompass the broadest understanding of the Middle East and North Africa region, should initially focus on cross-cutting issues on which there is broad consensus, such as climate, energy, and emergency responses to crises. Although the resolution of the Gaza war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will likely need to be led through a separate Arab initiative, the forum could coordinate positions on postwar Gaza through its emergency response agenda, including humanitarian support and reconstruction aid for Palestinians. The forum would not directly mediate conflicts itself: cooperative security dialogues have proved most effective when focused on improving communication and coordination to defuse tensions and on providing mutual security and socioeconomic benefits to members. But through regular contacts and a gradual building of trust, such a process could support conflict resolution in the Israeli-Palestinian arena and beyond. 

Indeed, standing regional meetings can provide important opportunities, not to mention political cover, for dialogues on contentious disputes among rivals and adversaries who otherwise lack direct channels of communication. These could include not only Israelis and Palestinians but eventually also Israelis and Iranians, who could meet in technical working groups on noncontroversial issues of mutual concern. Such interactions have already quietly unfolded on the sidelines of other multilateral forums focused on climate and water, suggesting that more inclusive regional cooperation is ultimately possible. 

Establishing a Middle East security forum will require political will at the highest levels, as well as a strong regional champion that is considered a neutral party. One possibility is to announce the new organization at a meeting of foreign ministers, possibly on the margins of another regional gathering, like one of the economic sessions that have been held at the Dead Sea in Jordan. The initiative will be more likely to succeed if it is both created and led from the region. Middle powers in Asia and Europe could provide political and technical support in areas where they may have valuable expertise, for example. At least at the outset, China, Russia, and the United States should have limited roles to prevent the forum from turning into another platform for great-power competition. Nonetheless, support from both Washington and Beijing will be critical to ensure that the forum becomes a useful supplement, rather than a threat, to their own diplomacy in the region. 

A TIME TO LEAD

Among the difficult realities that the war in Gaza has exposed, one of the starkest may be the limits of American power. As much as it may be wished for, the United States is unlikely to provide the decisive leadership or the leverage needed to push through a lasting Israeli-Palestinian settlement. It will be up to the Middle East’s own leaders and diplomats to take charge. By capturing the region’s attention and diplomatic energy, the war has provided a rare opportunity for new forms of cooperative leadership.

A regional security forum cannot by itself deliver Middle East peace—no single initiative can do that. And without accountable governance, genuine long-term stability will remain elusive. Nor is an organization like this going to replace all the competitive power balancing that has long been a hallmark of Middle East statecraft. Even in Asia and Europe, cooperative arrangements have not supplanted national strategic rivalries or been able to foreclose military confrontation, as the war in Ukraine has so painfully demonstrated. Nonetheless, a regular forum would add a crucial layer of stability to the conflict-prone Middle East. Such a project is also increasingly urgent. 

Although October 7 has not yet reversed all the regional currents favoring de-escalation and accommodation, time may be running out to capitalize on this reset. Leading Arab states, together with regional powers such as Turkey, must seize the moment to lock in some of the rapprochement that preceded Gaza and the coordination that has arisen since. The Middle East is facing a moment of reckoning. If it becomes paralyzed by the horrific bloodshed in Gaza, it could further descend into crisis and conflict. Or it can start building a different future.

On Thursday, the Israeli army withdrew from the areas of the northwestern Gaza governorates and the northern Gaza Strip, for the first time since the start of its ground military operation on October 27, 2023.

The army and its military vehicles withdrew completely for the first time since October 27 from areas they had penetrated into in the western region of the northern Gaza Strip governorate, which includes the neighborhoods of Al-Tawam, Al-Karama, and Al-Rashid Street.

Israeli army also withdrew from residential neighborhoods located in the northwestern areas of Gaza Governorate, namely “General Security,” “Al-Maqousi,” “Intelligence Towers,” “Bahloul,” and “Al-Rashid Street.”

Hours after the withdrawal, residents of those areas went to inspect their homes and property, which they had been displaced from when the war on the Gaza Strip began.

A number of citizens said that they were “able to reach this area for the first time since the start of the ground operation.”

On October 27, 2023, the Israeli army began a ground operation that included an incursion into several areas and neighborhoods in the Gaza and North governorates.

Since mid-December, Israeli army began gradually withdrawing from areas in the northern Gaza Governorate, followed at the beginning of last January by partial withdrawals from neighborhoods and areas in the Gaza Governorate.

While it reopened its incursion into some areas in the Gaza and North governorates, in the middle of last January, to carry out rapid operations, changing the locations of the incursion from time to time while retreating after the end of its operations to its locations near the eastern and northern outskirts of the North governorate, and the eastern and “southwestern” parts of Gaza.

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip that, as of Wednesday, left “26,900 killed and 65,949 injured, most of them children and women,” according to the Palestinian authorities, and caused “massive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to the United Nations.

Experts warn that mass starvation is looming in Gaza on a scale unprecedented in modern history, according to Alex DeWall, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University in Boston, and author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.

Dewal says that before the war broke out in October, food security in Gaza was precarious, but very few children – less than 1% – were suffering from severe acute malnutrition, the most serious type. Today, “almost all Gazans, of any age, anywhere in the region, are at risk.”

Not since World War II has an entire population fallen into extreme hunger and destitution so quickly. There has never been a case in which the need for international commitment to stop this has been so clear.

Dewal warns that the famine in Gaza is man-made and the result of a deliberate Israeli policy of collective punishment. It would not have been possible to push the population to the brink of the abyss so quickly had it not been for the decision to place Gaza under siege by cutting off supplies of food, water, fuel and medicine. “The small amount of aid that has been allowed in since then cannot begin to meet the needs of more than two million people, especially after all of them were forcibly displaced,” he says. “And now, even the limited assistance provided by UNRWA is at risk due to the malicious and cynical decision that "The United States and other Western governments have taken action to cut off funding for the agency."

On Wednesday, CNN broadcast a report on the poor conditions that people are currently living in, noting that “those who are still in northern Gaza are forced to eat grass, while the lack of safe drinking water means that people are drinking contaminated water. Cases of diarrhea have increased.” "Among children under the age of five, it has increased by 2,000% since the beginning of the war. For young, malnourished children living in these conditions, diarrhea greatly increases the risk of death."

The Washington Post reported that some people in Gaza have resorted to grinding animal feed into bread so that they have something to eat.

There is no doubt that Israel is responsible for creating these conditions, according to Diwal. As UN human rights experts have said, “Israel is destroying Gaza’s food system and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian people,” while the Israeli government continues to deny the existence of any famine in Gaza, underscoring how little it cares about the civilian population in the blockaded enclave.

“Merely allowing aid in and placing some limits on Israeli military action will not stop this thundering train of disaster fast enough,” de Waal wrote. “An immediate ceasefire and full restoration of humanitarian aid are the minimum requirements to prevent the worst outcomes. Even if all “That tomorrow, thousands of people, most of them children, will still die of hunger and disease due to the harsh conditions that already exist throughout the province.”

“If nothing is done to stop the famine,” he says, “this number will rise sharply in the coming weeks and months. The worst can still be prevented, but there are no major international efforts underway to do so, and unless Israel follows the recommendations of the Famine Relief Commission.” "It will deliberately cause mass death due to hunger and disease."

Today, Thursday, Israeli forces and settlers uprooted about 300 vine trees in the village of Battir, west of Bethlehem.

According to local sources, these forces, with military reinforcements and settlers, stormed the Al-Hanjaliyah Al-Qusayr area, east of the village, and bulldozed 5 dunums of land belonging to the citizen Ibrahim Khalil Abu Nimah.

It indicated that these forces closed the road between Battir and Husan.

The Israeli army committed 15 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, killing 118  people and wounding 190, during the past 24 hours.

According to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, the number of killed has risen to 27,019 people and 66,139 wounded since the start of the aggression on the Gaza Strip on the seventh of last October.

The Ministry indicated that there are still thousands of victims under the rubble and on the roads, as the occupation prevents ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will head to Israel next Saturday evening, on his sixth visit since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, amid expectations that the United States will intensify pressure to reach a solution regarding the ceasefire in light of an expected truce.

Observers who spoke to Sky News Arabia believe that the US President’s administration is facing more pressure to stop the war in Gaza, in light of the rejection of a large segment of young voters’ policy of absolute support for Israel, which threatens the popularity of potential presidential candidate Joe Biden. Therefore, the United States is intensifying its efforts to Its movements to establish a comprehensive ceasefire.

On Monday, Blinken expressed his hope of reaching an agreement to stop the fighting in Gaza in exchange for the release of the hostages. His statements came a day after the CIA director, the Qatari prime minister, and Israeli and Egyptian security officials met in Paris to develop a framework agreement to present to Hamas.

Blinken visited Israel earlier this month for a series of tense meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's wartime leadership, which yielded no results.

Democratic Party member Mahdi Afifi told Sky News Arabia that the US Secretary of State will press this time to reach a solution for a ceasefire in Gaza, and he is also expected to discuss the American proposal for a two-state solution.

The visit comes at a time when talks brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt appear to be making progress on a new agreement between Israel and Hamas aimed at the release of 136 Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and a truce in Gaza, according to Afifi.

President Biden is facing increasing pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza inside America, according to Afifi, in light of the worsening humanitarian crisis inside the Strip and the increasing number of victims to a level historically unprecedented.

Afifi also points out the political pressure on the Biden administration from within Congress to stop policies of absolute support for Israel and advance American interests, so Blinken is intensifying diplomatic moves in order to reach a solution soon.

The focus of disagreement

According to Afifi, the dispute between the two sides revolves around two axes:

The US administration fully supports the two-state solution through the establishment of a Palestinian state. Which is rejected by the Netanyahu government.

The Biden administration is dissatisfied that Israel has not yet achieved the stated goals of its war on Gaza (liberating Israelis and foreigners and eliminating Hamas); Which means its duration will be prolonged as the number of civilian deaths continues to increase.

Will US pressure succeed?

American researcher Irina Tsukerman told "Sky News Arabia" that Biden faces a dilemma in the election year, which is to ensure the settlement of the Gaza war as quickly as possible, and on the other hand to appeal to diverse constituent bodies, with conflicting views on this issue, as well as managing regional and global crises. Multiple.

On the one hand, Biden needs Israel to succeed in crushing Hamas, because he wants to be seen as standing by a key ally in the Middle East, and because Hamas has shown to be not just a local or even a regional threat, but a global threat.

On the other hand, the controversy over humanitarian and human rights appeals after the Israeli massacres and high casualty numbers in Gaza has caused division among Western allies at a critical time when the United States needs their support on the Ukraine issue given the level of polarization in the United States.

Republicans are blocking any additional funding for Israel and Ukraine and focusing on other priorities.

The difficult effort to balance these concerns has therefore included pressure to get Israel to focus solely on high-level Hamas leadership while using smaller teams of members of the IDF, to increase humanitarian access, and even to scale back operations.

The conflict expands regardless of what Israel does or does not do, because it was planned that way by Iran and its proxies.

Israel is committed to its national security priorities, and no matter how much support the United States appreciates, it cannot afford not to completely destroy Hamas' military infrastructure, otherwise the conflict will renew with Hamas better positioned to fight this war later because of its political role. It turned out that it was not a small, marginal organization, but rather it had formed an army, a system, and the capabilities of a state.

Israel and Egypt are close to reaching a security agreement, stipulating the evacuation of the displaced from Rafah, numbering about a million Palestinians, and their transfer to another area in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for “a certain influence” for Israel in the Philadelphia axis, according to what Israeli Army Radio reported today, Thursday, citing Israeli security officials. .

This comes after talks between Egyptian and Israeli security officials in recent weeks. Israel considers an agreement on the Philadelphia Axis, separating the Gaza Strip and Egypt, to be a “sensitive issue” and a “very important step.” According to the radio, Israel is not interested in working without “important coordination” with the Egyptian side.

The radio added that Israel pledged to Egypt that it “will not operate (militarily) in the Rafah area, before it allows the (displaced) residents there to leave this area, in order to reduce the risks of waves of Palestinian refugees exodus from Gaza to Egyptian territory, which is the central fear in Egypt."

Israel has not yet decided on the area to which the displaced people in the Rafah area will be transferred. The radio reported that there are two possibilities: the return of the displaced to the northern Gaza Strip, in which case the Israeli political level should approve this, or their transfer to the Khan Yunis area “after the Israeli army ends its operations there.”

Regarding the Philadelphia Axis, the radio said that Israel will have a “certain influence” on what is happening along the axis, without the presence of Israeli forces, but rather this may be through technological means installed along the axis.

The radio added that an Arab country in the Gulf will finance the construction of an underground wall in this region against tunnels extending from the Gaza Strip to Egypt. This Gulf country, whose name cannot be mentioned, expressed its approval to finance the construction of this wall, provided that there is Egyptian approval for all these matters, namely the evacuation of the displaced, certain Israeli control over the Philadelphia axis, and the construction of the underground wall.

China stands ready to work with all parties to convene a broad-based, credible and effective international peace conference as soon as possible, formulate a concrete timetable and roadmap for implementing the two-state solution and support Palestine and Israel in resuming peace talks soon, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said (Wednesday). .

Spokesman Wang Wenbin made the remarks in response to a related inquiry during a daily press conference.

He said that China has called for an international peace conference on the Palestinian issue on many occasions. After the outbreak of the recent Palestinian-Israeli conflict, China submitted to the UN Security Council the position paper of the People's Republic of China on resolving the conflict, and again called for the early convening of an international peace conference.

Wang explained that during his meeting with Abbas, President Xi stressed "the importance of maintaining the right direction of the peace talks, and called for holding an international peace conference."

The spokesman said that China's proposal is increasingly appreciated in the international community.

He added that China is ready to work with all parties to convene a broad, reliable and effective international peace conference as soon as possible, formulate a concrete timetable and roadmap for implementing the two-state solution and support Palestine and Israel in resuming peace talks soon for the ultimate peaceful and harmonious coexistence between Palestine and Israel and among the Arabs and the Jews.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said, “At dawn on Thursday, Israeli occupation vehicles stormed the courtyards of Al-Amal Hospital for the third time, took up positions there, and opened heavy fire in the vicinity of the hospital and on its buildings, before withdrawing later.”

It explained that the hospital dealt with 12 dead yesterday, including an employee and a volunteer in the association, in addition to 6 injuries.

It pointed out that Israeli forces opened fire on the hospital and its buildings, leading to bullets penetrating five vehicles, including three ambulances.

The Israeli forces continue to target and besiege Al-Amal Hospital, affiliated with the Red Crescent Society, for the eleventh day in a row, shooting bullets at anyone who moves in its vicinity.

According to the Red Crescent, Israel has tightened its siege on Nasser Medical Complex for the second week, placing 100 medical staff and 7,000 displaced people, the majority of whom are children and women, in constant terror and anxiety.

Since last Monday, the Israeli army has launched a series of intense air and artillery raids on Khan Yunis, and in the vicinity of the hospitals located there, amid ground advances by its vehicles in the southern and western areas of the city, which prompted thousands of Palestinians to flee.

It is noteworthy that 14 hospitals out of 36 in Gaza are partially operating, including nine hospitals in the south and six in the north.

The Israeli occupation forces have continued their aggression against the Gaza Strip, by land, sea and air, since the seventh of last October, resulting in the death of more than 26,900, in addition to about 66,000 wounded, and thousands of missing people.

Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani stressed that his country supports the Palestinian people and not any political faction, rejecting what he described as Israeli “lies” about allegations of Doha’s funding of Hamas.

Bin Abdul Rahman said in an interview with the American National Public Radio (NPR): “Qatar supports peace and supports the Palestinian people living in dignity. We do not support Hamas or any political faction there.”

He explained that “55 percent of Qatar’s support for the Palestinians went to the West Bank, and 45 percent went to the Gaza Strip,” and that “the support went directly to the people, and not to any political faction there.”

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Qatar, and said: “I think we must demand that Qatar, which hosts and funds Hamas and its leaders, release the rest of our hostages.” “I think the whole world is following the Qatari role.”

In other statements, Netanyahu accused Qatar of being a “problematic” country.

When Bin Abdul Rahman was asked about his response to these statements, he said: “I will not bother responding to irresponsible statements.”

He added: “The allegation of our funding of Hamas is categorically rejected, and this is clearly evident from the way we support the people of Gaza. All of this happens under the supervision of his government and the supervision of the governments of other countries,” and he stressed that this is taking place within the framework of a “transparent and legitimate process.”

He continued: “I confirm that all those who know and follow this process know that the Israeli claims are nothing but lies and are trying to mislead public opinion.”

Dozens of citizens were killed, and others were injured, in the ongoing occupation aggression against the Gaza Strip, which enters its 118th day.

A number of Palestinians were killed and dozens were injured in the Israeli missile and artillery shelling and gunfire in the western region of Gaza City, specifically in the Al-Rimal neighborhood and Tal Al-Hawa, without ambulances being able to reach them, to transport them to Al-Shifa Hospital.

A number of citizens were killed, and dozens were injured, when Israeli aircraft bombed two houses in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City.

Two citizens were killed and others were injured when Israeli aircraft bombed a house for the Abu Fayyad family in the new camp, west of Nuseirat, in the middle of the Gaza Strip.

There was also at least one killed and a number of injuries as a result of the occupation aircraft bombing a house for the Al-Buhaisi family in the city of Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

Israeli artillery shelling continues on the Al-Amal neighborhood and the vicinity of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, west of the city of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, for the eleventh day in a row.

14 Palestinian bodies arrived at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, after they were recovered this morning, from various parts.

TheIsraeli warships also fired machine guns on the shores of the Gaza Sea, Al-Wusta, and Rafah.

The Israeli aircraft targeted empty land on the Palestinian-Egyptian border, south of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.

In an infinite toll, the number of killed as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since October 7 has risen to more than 26,900 citizens, in addition to about 66,000 wounded, and thousands of missing people.

A statement by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Army stated that the Commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles Brown, discussed in a video call with his Israeli counterpart, Herzi Halevy, the ongoing operations in the Gaza Strip, while US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visits the region at the end of the week to conduct diplomatic contacts regarding the post-war period in Gaza. .

Brown stressed the need to protect civilians and not restrict relief aid. He also stressed the importance of Israel's planning for post-war conditions, according to the statement.

Brown had said in previous statements that Israel's declared goals in its war on the Gaza Strip were "very large," indicating the impossibility of achieving them, stressing that the longer the war lasted, the more difficult it became.

In the same context, officials at the White House and the US State Department said in press statements yesterday, Wednesday, that Blinken will visit the region over the weekend.

The officials stated that Blinken will hold various contacts with the parties within the scope of the assessments, regarding the situation in the region after the end of the war on Gaza, how to manage the Strip at this stage, deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, and recognize a possible independent Palestinian state.

This comes at a time when there is talk of concluding a prisoner exchange deal between the Israeli government and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Israeli Channel 12 reported that Mossad chief David Barnea revealed to the Israeli War Council a “document of principles” for the deal, which includes in the first stage the release of... 35 Israeli detainees in the Gaza Strip, including women, the wounded, and the elderly, in exchange for a truce for 35 days.

It added, "It is possible after that to extend the calm for an additional week, in order to conduct negotiations on the possibility of completing the second phase of the deal, which includes the release of the youth, and all those whom Hamas describes as soldiers."

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set red lines for any prospective deal.

Netanyahu said - in a video clip he published yesterday, Wednesday - that it will not be done at any cost, and that he has red lines, including: not stopping the war, not withdrawing army forces from the Gaza Strip, and not releasing thousands of Palestinian prisoners.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies

The announcement of the head of the Israeli opposition, Yair Lapid, granting the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “safety net” for any exchange deal that might lead to the return of those kidnapped by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip, carries with it many meanings and implications regarding the future. The emergency government, the course of the fighting, and the day after the war.

Analyzes suggested that the current government coalition, which relies on far-right parties, is not able to complete any prisoner exchange deal in light of the position of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to topple the government if a “bad deal” for prisoner exchange and ceasefire is reached.

Estimates unanimously indicate that Netanyahu has become a hostage to the extortions of the extreme right represented by the “Jewish Greatness” party headed by Ben Gvir, the “Religious Zionism” coalition headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and the settler movement in the Likud Party.

Crack and harmony

The "safety net" offer reinforced estimates that the current government coalition, which insists on continuing the war on Gaza, will not last long if any deal is completed.

Analysts' readings agree that Lapid's announcement came to return all the kidnapped Israelis and does not constitute a lifeline to save the Netanyahu government, which will disintegrate or will witness changes and new alliances that precede the scenario of early elections for the Knesset.

Political analyst, Akiva Eldar, believes that the opposition leader’s proposal to grant a “safety net” for any exchange deal reflects the state of consensus forming in Israel calling for the return of the kidnapped, and it is in harmony with the rising voices calling for their liberation, in order to deny the opportunity to the extreme right-wing rejectionist parties. For any deal and threatens to overthrow the government.

Eldar explained to Al Jazeera Net that Lapid strongly opposes Netanyahu remaining in the prime minister's chair, and holds him responsible for the failure and failure to prevent the events of last October 7 and to return the kidnapped people as part of military operations.

The political analyst believes that Lapid is well aware that the kidnappers file is an important bargaining chip on the Israeli street in the upcoming elections, so he wants to be a partner in any deal and use it in his election campaign.

He explained that all opposition parties, including the “There is a Future” party headed by Lapid, are convinced that any comprehensive exchange deal, regardless of the concessions and the price that the government will pay, will be the beginning of the rift of the current coalition, deepen the rift in Israeli society, strengthen the state of internal polarization, and will establish a new phase in the Israeli political scene.

Eldar does not rule out that the “safety net” offer was put forward at the behest of parties in the US administration, even if no indications have emerged about that. He confirms that Lapid’s proposal and his positions on the exchange and war deal are consistent with the administration of US President Joe Biden, who hinted that Netanyahu must make changes in his coalition government.

Accept and reject

In turn, the military affairs analyst in the newspaper "Haaretz", Amos Harel, believes that Netanyahu is approaching the point where he will have to decide whether to go ahead with the deal or reject it, and therefore Lapid's proposal came to provide a "safety net" for any deal.

He explained that any potential exchange deal would come with significant concessions by the Netanyahu government and would be viewed by large segments of the Israeli public as a victory for Hamas, and that its rejection by Netanyahu would mean the continuation of the war as his coalition partners, Ben Gvir and Smotrich, demanded.

It is now clear that the extreme right in the government, Harel says, "will create difficulties and obstacles to any deal, as Ben Gvir was quick to publicly declare against a deal that included concessions and threatened to dissolve the government, and Smotrich is not far from him in his position on the deal and the war."

The same military analyst said that the extreme right is concerned that a long ceasefire might mean the end of the war and thus keep Hamas in power, at least in the southern Gaza Strip. Netanyahu is also aware that the partial return of the kidnapped people, in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners, will be interpreted by large sectors of the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli public saw it as an admission of failure.

Antoine Shalhat, a researcher on Israeli affairs, believes that opposition leader Yair Lapid is supportive and supportive of the war, but he differs from Netanyahu with regard to the arrangement of goals. One of his priorities is the return of all those kidnapped by Hamas, even in exchange for Tel Aviv offering many concessions.

Shalhat told Al Jazeera Net that Lapid, who is consistent with the US administration's positions on the exchange deal and the method of fighting and war, strongly opposes Netanyahu remaining in power, and holds him responsible for the failure on October 7th and in achieving the goals of the war.

Collapse and disintegration

The same researcher explained that Lapid - like many Israelis - has become fully convinced that continuing the war and liberating the kidnapped are incompatible goals, and therefore his proposal to grant a “safety net” for an exchange deal came in response to the position of the extreme right that rejects the deal and threatens to dismantle the government.

Regarding the realism of this network, Shalhat says that its offer does not protect the government from collapse and disintegration, and is limited only to supporting the exchange deal and voting on it in the Knesset so that it can be implemented in light of the threat of Ben Gvir and the extreme right to dismantle the government if any deal is completed.

The researcher added that the background to Ben Gvir’s threats is also explained by the behavior of Netanyahu, who has become more hostage to the extreme right, as he opposes the withdrawal from Gaza and the liberation of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, delays the exchange deal, and repeats the goal of overthrowing Hamas’ rule, which reflects the conditions of this right to remain in government and continue the war until achieving its objectives.

Against the backdrop of the state of dependency that Netanyahu is living in, Shalhat says, “The positions of Israeli politicians, including Lapid, are in harmony with America’s positions, in opposition to the trend led by Netanyahu, which puts his personal interests above Israel’s higher interest and American interests in the Middle East.”

The researcher believes that Netanyahu is challenging the American position at this stage, but he has not yet reached the stage of breaking the tools of playing with Washington, which has many pressure cards to exercise if Netanyahu breaks these tools.

Source: Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera's correspondent reported that Algeria distributed to the UN Security Council a draft resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for humanitarian reasons.

The draft resolution stipulates the rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinian civilians, demands an end to all violations, and renews the call for full, rapid, safe and unhindered access of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

Yesterday, Wednesday, the Security Council held an emergency meeting called for by Algeria regarding making mandatory the decision of the International Court of Justice in the genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel.

Algeria's permanent representative to the Security Council, Ammar Benjameh, said that the International Court of Justice's decision regarding Gaza "confirms that the time of impunity has ended irreversibly," according to what Algerian official television reported.

In his speech during the emergency meeting, Bin Jama called for “ensuring accountability and accountability so that we protect future generations from such atrocities committed in Gaza,” and added, “The United Nations and the international community have pledged themselves that no criminal will escape punishment, and the Israeli occupier must not be an exception to this rule.” ".

Enforceable measures

The representative of Algeria considered that “the precautionary measures called for by the International Court of Justice must be implemented to protect the Palestinian people from the genocide to which they are exposed, and Israel, the occupying power, must respond immediately to the measures approved by the Court, and it is the duty of the international community to ensure its commitment to these measures.” "The bloodbath and genocide to which the Palestinians are being subjected must be stopped."

He pointed out that the precautionary measures approved by the court "can only be implemented through a ceasefire, and this senseless aggression must be stopped now, and the ceasefire must be stopped immediately."

On January 26, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take measures to prevent genocide against the Palestinians and improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, but the decision did not include a “ceasefire” text.

Since October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 26,000 martyrs and about 66,000 injured, most of them children and women, and causing massive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies

By Moncef Khane

Cutting funding for UNRWA at this time means furthering the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

On January 26, the very day the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an interim ruling on South Africa’s case accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people, the Israeli government dropped a bomb. It was not the usual 900kg US-made bunker buster, but a much more lethal one: it accused 12 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) of having ties to Hamas or being involved in its October 7 operation. This immediately resulted in over a dozen countries cutting their financial support for the agency and UNRWA’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, firing nine of the accused (of other three – one is dead and two are unaccounted for).

Given the meagre aid trickling into Gaza and the looming starvation of its people, particularly in northern Gaza, defunding UNRWA now is worse than collective punishment –  it could be a death sentence for many destitute and hungry Palestinians.

UNRWA was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1949 to provide relief to all Palestine refugees originally defined as “persons whose place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as the result of the 1948 war”. The definition was broadened to include persons displaced by the “1967 and subsequent hostilities”.

Today, UNRWA has 30,000 staff, mainly Palestinian physicians, nurses, educators, relief workers, drivers, engineers, logisticians, etc who provide humanitarian relief, healthcare, education and other assistance to millions of Palestine refugees throughout the Middle East. In Gaza, UNRWA’s 13,000 staff have supported almost all aspects of Palestinian life, especially after Israel imposed a blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2007 with Egypt’s support.

Critics have pointed out that the UN has delegated to UNRWA important international legal obligations that would otherwise be incumbent on Israel as the occupying power. Under the Geneva Conventions, basic services such as shelter, healthcare and education in occupied territories are the responsibility of the occupying state. Thus, in effect, the UN has subsidised, and possibly prolonged, Israel’s occupation of Palestinians.

From Israel’s perspective, UNRWA is another enemy that has prolonged Palestinian resistance to its occupation. It is a “barrier” to solving the Palestinian refugee question by simply resettling Palestinian refugees in other countries, as it is now openly advocates. For all Israeli governments, implementing UN Security Council resolutions and international law on the inalienable “right of return” of Palestinians forced by Zionist militias and subsequently the Israeli army to leave their homes in 1948 is anathema to Israel’s existence.

The accusations against the 12 UNRWA staff should be seen in this context; it is also important to remember who is making them. Israel is an occupying power facing allegations of genocide deemed plausible by the ICJ. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked UN-protected facilities including schools and hospitals, killing thousands of civilians, mainly children and women seeking refuge on UNRWA premises, as well as 152 UNRWA staff. Israel also has a long history of unsubstantiated accusations against UNRWA employees and within the context of the current conflict, it has been caught lying repeatedly about alleged crimes by Palestinians (eg, the beheading of 40 babies on October 7).

Bolstered by the UN’s hasty decisions taken without establishing through an investigation a prima facie case, Israel now claims that 10 percent of Gaza-based staff have links to “militant groups”.

Under the UN’s internal rules, due process is compulsory when misconduct is alleged. When serious allegations backed by incontrovertible evidence against UN personnel are put forward, the UN’s secretary-general has the authority to order the summary dismissal of the accused staff. Such extreme cases are rare.

In all other cases, typically, a board of inquiry is established to investigate the most serious cases, or accusations are picked up by the UN’s internal investigatory department that may initiate a formal inquest based on preliminary evidence. In the interim, the staff member facing allegations of misconduct may be suspended.

In the case of the 12 UNRWA employees accused by Israel, summary dismissal is a surprising decision not least as the circumstances of the cases – an all-out war and possibly a genocide –  and the credibility of the accusing party should compel a cautionary approach.

Yet the UN leadership was quick to jettison the presumption of innocence of their staff. On January 28, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement to advise that of the “12 people implicated, nine were immediately identified and terminated by the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini; one is confirmed dead, and the identity of the two others is being clarified. Any UN employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable”. In his statement, Guterres further states that “the abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences”.

Already, the secretary-general has seemingly adjudicated the case and promised “consequences”. He has shown no such outrage or made calls for accountability for the murder by the Israeli military of his own staff – as if such war crimes are not abhorrent acts that call for consequences.

Firing staff at will based solely, as Guterres admits, on “allegations” is troubling and should be of concern to all staff members and staff unions of the United Nations.

But more alarming and consequential is the swift decision of the United States, Austria, Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania and the United Kingdom to suspend their funding to UNRWA during an all-out war on the people it was established to protect.

Worse, when Israel is in the dock of the ICJ facing plausible allegations of perpetrating a genocide, such decisions may even be deemed a breach by these states of their obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise since some of the same governments choose to overlook the many war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israel and continue their military support for its onslaught on Gaza, now in its fourth month.

In the end, even if the 12 accused staff are found guilty of grave crimes, this hardly justifies starving UNRWA of funding when it tries to save from starvation Palestinians in Gaza. Cutting down a septuagenarian olive tree because it might have 12 “bad” olives on it is not only collective punishment – it is furthering a genocide.

The devastation of Gaza is at intolerable levels and getting worse; the Israeli government is under intense pressure from the families of hostages to do far more to free them before they perish; the United States and Arab states, anxious to avoid a regional war, are trying to mediate an end to the conflict. But Mr. Netanyahu blocks the way.

As a majority of Israelis and their allies can see, Mr. Netanyahu and his insistence on “total victory” over Hamas, with no consideration of the consequences or costs, have become a part of the problem. He is playing a cynical game, using the war to serve his political ends, and Israelis, most of whom support the effort to wipe out Hamas, are getting tired of it.

He has even managed to alienate Israel’s most important ally. Despite President Biden’s display of total support for Israel — and Mr. Netanyahu — after the atrocious attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, including the president’s personal visit to the Jewish state, Mr. Netanyahu has deliberately and publicly defied American advice as contrary to Israel’s “vital interests.” A particularly contentious conversation in late December ended with Mr. Biden angrily declaring, “This conversation is over.” It was a month before Mr. Biden phoned again.

The problem is not necessarily Mr. Netanyahu’s hawkish stance, which is shared by many Israelis enraged by the barbaric Hamas raid. It is Mr. Netanyahu’s confusion of leadership with political survival, with the widespread perception that he opposes any negotiated settlement and any American advice or mediation not because he really believes they run counter to Israelis’ interests, as he claims, but because appearing to stand up to “American pressure” and portraying the Gaza war as a far broader conflict about a Palestinian state and Iran serve his political ends.

That, at least, appears to be what a majority of Israelis believe, even those who might otherwise align with the prime minister’s insistence on trying to fully eradicate Hamas. According to a political poll taken in late December, only 15 percent of Israelis wanted him to stay in office after the war ended.

Beyond Israel’s borders, the scale of casualties and destruction in Gaza is increasingly drawing horror. According to the health ministry in Gaza, more than 26,000 people have been killed, and vast tracts of the narrow strip of land have been leveled. On Friday, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, part of the United Nations, said that Israel must take action to prevent acts of genocide by its forces in Gaza, as well as to allow more aid into the enclave. The ruling, an initial step in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, stopped short of calling on Israel to immediately suspend its military campaign, but it contributed to the pressure on Israel to find ways of disengaging.

How the war ends, however, and what happens after Gaza, as Israeli commentators phrase it, strongly depend on who is in charge. Key members of the war cabinet formed to manage the fighting, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, both former military chiefs of staff, are known to differ strongly with Mr. Netanyahu, especially on the painful question of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, believed to be 129 women and men.

Israel has historically gone to great lengths to get back captives and even the remains of those who perish, so the fate of the hostages is central in the internal Israeli debate on the war. Their families have campaigned passionately to have the release of the hostages a priority in any deliberations on the conduct of the war, fearing, as Mr. Eisenkot said in an interview, that “it is impossible to return the hostages alive in the near future without an agreement.” Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing backers have insisted that only relentless military pressure on Hamas can lead to their freedom.

The hostages are also central to efforts by three key players — the United States, Israel’s main supporter; Egypt, an Arab country bordering Israel and Gaza; and Qatar, a major donor to Gaza — to mediate. Their goal is a phased process that, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal on Jan. 21, would start with a release of the captives and lead to a permanent cease-fire.

It’s a long shot, in part because the Hamas leadership is split between the combat wing inside Gaza and leaders outside. But the Biden administration believes that without any diplomatic process, an even more dangerous war could break out with Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border and that the Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea could escalate into broader regional strife involving Iran. In the administration’s view, moreover, the task of reconstructing and governing Gaza in ways that would satisfy Israel’s security is more feasible today than ever before because Arab and Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, have shown a new readiness to normalize relations with Israel.

But, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted in Davos, the Arab states and the United States would insist “that this has to include a pathway to a Palestinian state.”

That is where Mr. Netanyahu stands solidly in the way. He has offered no true after-Gaza plan of his own but instead has positioned himself as the one man blocking a Palestinian state in the West Bank or Gaza and as the one Israeli leader prepared to stand up to Mr. Biden’s efforts to end the war. He has said that once the Gaza war is over, he would work on “full Israeli security control of all territory west of the Jordan River,” implying a full return to complete military occupation.

There are certainly questions to debate here, and Israel’s insistence on eliminating the threat from Hamas is fully justified. But the hard and often unpopular choices that Israel must make to wring a lasting victory from this war require a real leader. As the Times editorial board has argued, “Mr. Netanyahu cannot lead Israel in the search for peace.” His government “has steadfastly worked against a settlement with the Palestinians.”

Mr. Netanyahu has lost the confidence of his people and his allies. A political wizard who has been in the prime minister’s office for a total of 16 years since 1996, he has spent the last few years under indictment for corruption and in desperate efforts to stay in office. The last gambit was to bring far-right nationalists into his cabinet and to initiate a challenge to judicial oversight over the government, prompting weeks of massive protests.

 Source: Alsharq Alawsat

On Wednesday, January 31, 2024, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed that the Israeli occupation army deliberately burned hundreds of homes inside the Gaza Strip with all their property, and quoted officers from the occupation army as confirming that burning homes had become a “common means of destruction.” .

The Israeli newspaper, quoting three officers participating in the leadership of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, confirmed: “The burning operations were carried out on the orders of field officers and without obtaining the necessary judicial approvals.”

It also added that "some of the burning operations were in retaliation by the soldiers for the killing of their colleagues in the same unit."

According to the Haaretz report, three officers leading the ground attack on the Gaza Strip confirmed that setting fire to homes had become one of the paths of operations on the ground, and in some cases soldiers burned homes in which they were residing during their operations on the ground. In one case, an army battalion was about to end its “activity” in a combat center in the Gaza Strip, when one of the battalion commanders issued orders to the soldiers: “Take your belongings out of the house, and prepare it for fire.”

The report indicated that soldiers who participated in the aggression against the Gaza Strip recently published accounts of burning homes, some of which were for the purpose of avenging the killing of fellow soldiers, and sometimes out of revenge for the Al-Aqsa flood operation on October 7th.

It explained that in one case, before leaving a house, soldiers left a message for their colleagues who would come after them, in which they said: “We did not burn the house so that you could enjoy it. When you leave, you will know what to do.”

The Haaretz report confirmed that these burning operations target the homes of civilians who have no connection to the resistance factions or to the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, and these burning operations are not part of the destruction operations that the army does not hide that it has been carrying out since an early stage of the war, claiming that they belong to Hamas activists and people who participated in the storming of Settlements around the Gaza Strip on October 7, or by claiming that these homes are Hamas infrastructure, or that there is Hamas infrastructure near them.

International law prohibits setting fire to the homes of civilians not participating in the fighting for punitive purposes only.

Haaretz said that the United States recently asked Israel to stop demolishing public buildings in the Gaza Strip, such as schools and clinics, because that would harm Gazans seeking to return to their homes after the war, claiming that Israel accepted the American request, and the scope of destruction of abandoned homes was reduced. Not only because of the American request, but also because the forces operating in the Gaza Strip realized that these destruction operations require time and resources, and expose the soldiers participating in these activities to danger.

Among the most prominent public buildings that were burned or destroyed by the occupation army were: the University of Palestine, the Khalifa School affiliated with the UNRWA Relief Agency (UNRWA), Al-Azhar University, and entire residential squares in the north, center and south of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli occupation army also destroyed more than 200 archaeological and heritage sites of 325 registered sites in the Gaza Strip.

The occupation army received a painful blow during one of the destruction operations, in the Maghazi camp, where the Al-Qassam Brigades attacked the forces after preparing two buildings to blow them up, which led to the killing of at least 21 soldiers and officers and the injury of dozens, according to the official Israeli announcement.

According to an analysis of satellite images published by the British Broadcasting Corporation, between 144,000 and 177,000 buildings have been damaged in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the aggression until this week. While a Washington Post investigation reported that 350 schools and 170 mosques and churches in the Gaza Strip had been destroyed by the occupation army by the time the investigation was published last month.

The Haaretz report stated that the widespread destruction caused by the occupation army in Gaza led to discussions in academic circles about the possibility of blaming Israel for destroying “the living environment of the people of Gaza.” She explained that this term refers to destruction committed as obstacles against residents, in a way that does not allow the restoration and resettlement of a residential environment.

Field executions

These testimonies come at a time when the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, on Wednesday, accused Israel of committing a "death penalty" against dozens of Palestinians, the day after the bodies of 30 dead people were found bound in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

The club said in a statement: “Yesterday (Tuesday) in Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip, it was revealed that the bodies of 30 martyrs were found inside one of the schools that was besieged by the occupation.”

It also added: “It became clear, through the observations of those present at the scene, that the martyrs were handcuffed and blindfolded, that is, they were under arrest,” considering that “a clear indication that the occupation carried out a field execution against these people.”

It added, "Data regarding the executions of detainees from Gaza is increasing in light of the continuation of genocide in Gaza, in addition to the continuation of the crime of enforced disappearance against Gaza detainees after 117 days."

The club also noted "an increase in testimonies from detainees who were released, over the past period, about torture, abuse and humiliation, including testimonies from women and children."

It considered that "the occupation's insistence on keeping Gaza detainees under enforced disappearance has only one explanation, which is that there is a decision to isolate them, with the aim of carrying out more crimes against them in secret."

The club pointed out that "the occupation authorities refuse to provide human rights institutions, including the relevant international and Palestinian ones, with any information regarding the fate and places of detention of detainees to date, including the martyrs detained in Gaza."

New massacres

Earlier Wednesday, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the number of victims of the Israeli war on the Strip had risen to 26,900 martyrs and 65,949 injured since October 7, 2023, in a statement issued by the Ministry in which it presented the latest statistics on “the 117th day of the brutal Israeli aggression.” On the Gaza Strip.

The ministry said: “On the 117th day of the war, the toll of the Israeli aggression rose to 26,900 martyrs and 65,949 injuries since the seventh of last October.”

It also stated that "the Israeli occupation committed 16 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, claiming 150 dead and 313 injuries during the past 24 hours."

Then it continued: “There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the roads, and the occupation prevents ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them.”

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, with most of its victims being children and women, according to the Palestinian authorities, and causing “massive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to the United Nations.