What happened

Israel’s parliament on Monday gave final approval to legislation that makes death by hanging the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis. The Knesset approved the bill 62-48 amid condemnation from human rights groups, Palestinians and several European governments.

Who said what

“From today, every terrorist will know, and the whole world will know, that whoever takes a life, the State of Israel will take their life,” far-right National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, the driving force behind the bill, told lawmakers. Capital punishment was already legal in Israel, but only two people have been executed in 78 years, most recently Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962.

“In theory, Jewish Israelis could also be executed under the law,” the BBC said, but the law’s language precludes that in practice. “The intent is clearly for the law to apply to Palestinians and not to Jewish terrorism at all,” Yoav Sapir, the former head of Israel’s public defender’s office, told The New York Times.

What next?

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has already asked the Supreme Court to annul the law. The court will likely strike it down over its discriminatory provisions, Sapir told the Times.

After the return of the final hostage taken during the 7 October attacks, phase two of the 20-point Gaza peace plan is under way. During this period, the plan requires Hamas to demilitarise, relinquishing its weapons, and for Israel to fully withdraw its troops from the region.

The return of the body of police officer Ran Gvili has “turned the page on arguably Israel’s darkest chapter”, said Henry Bodkin in The Telegraph. However, “in doing so, it ushers in an uncertain new era”.

What did the commentators say?

There is no doubt that the “situation changed” when the ceasefire came into effect on 10 October, but the balance of power “remains precarious in the almost entirely destroyed territory”, said Luc Bronner in Le Monde.

Since the ceasefire was introduced, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed – at “an average of just over 4.5 deaths per day” – with 1,400 more wounded, and three Israeli soldiers have been killed. This compares to around 92 deaths per day during the two years of conflict preceding the ceasefire, according to Ministry of Gaza records. What has become clear is that “it is neither full-scale war nor a true ceasefire”, said the outlet.

“Difficult questions remain unaddressed”, said Reuters. Phase two efforts have been “shaken” by Israeli attacks in the region, and Hamas resistance. Both Israel and Hamas have “shown little sign of narrowing their disputes”. Phase two success is contingent on the disarmament of Hamas, “further withdrawal of Israeli forces” and deployment of peacekeepers. “Many Israelis and Palestinians suspect Donald Trump’s plan will never be fully realised and a frozen conflict will continue indefinitely.”

The Gaza reconstruction effort is “better organised than many commentators seem to realise”, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Of course, progress towards peace faces “many obstacles”. Why would Hamas, whose existence is “about armed struggle”, want to “neuter itself”?

The jury is also out over whether Qatar and Turkey – two of its biggest supporters and now members of the Board of Peace – will pressure Hamas to sign a deal. Looking forward, Hamas will “want a share” of the projected “$25 billion [£18.2 billion] in investment in new utilities and public services”, which could provide “more than 500,000 jobs”.

Nevertheless, “any sensible person should wish success for the Board of Peace and its courageous Palestinian representatives”. The Board of Peace may appear a “stunt” to many, but there is a “real plan”, “anchored” in UN resolutions. This is different from other Trump-led ventures: it is an “attempt at systematic implementation”. It may be a “long shot”, but it’s the “best chance” to create a Gaza controlled “by its people”, not by Israel or Hamas.

Gaza has to be approached differently, said Nidžara Ahmetašević in Al Jazeera. If current plans go ahead, the region will be “on its way to becoming a semi-protectorate, just like Bosnia”. The peace plan may promise to end attacks, but it “institutionalises endless external control”. The Dayton Accords, which brought the Bosnian War to an end 30 years ago, excluded Bosnian citizens, and the “same logic underpins” the proposed plans in Gaza: “peace negotiated about a people, not with them”. “Peace that merely stops violence without enabling freedom and dignity is not peace.”

What next?

At home, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to fight to stave off challengers to his position, mainly from some relatives of hostages, said Bodkin in The Telegraph. The “bring them home” movement has been an “uncomfortable voice” in Netanyahu’s ear, and has ignited “intense feelings of solidarity” across the country”.

According to current polling, should Yonatan Shamriz – whose brother was killed in December 2023 – start his own party, he could win six Knesset seats, providing a “significant block” to the current PM.

“Ultimately, the question is whose clock is ticking with a greater sense of urgency,” said Dennis Ross and David Makovsky in Foreign Affairs. Israel has “made clear” that it will resort to violent action if the voluntary disarmament falls through, giving a deadline of six months after the initial ceasefire.

Trump’s role will be key, having to “apply sustained leverage” on all parties, backed up by states that have influence in the region. If this phase fails, the “future looks bleak”. At best, the territory will stay partitioned and, at worst, “Gaza will once again become a war zone”.

What happened

The Israeli government announced Monday it had recovered the remains of Ran Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer killed fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. The return of Gvili’s body marks the “first time since 2014 that there are no Israeli hostages,” living or dead, being held in the Gaza Strip, CNN said.

Who said what

“Completing the recovery of Israel’s fallen paves the way for the next phase” of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, The New York Times said. That includes opening the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, “allowing Palestinians who fled the enclave to return home for the first time.” Gvili’s family had “urged” the Israeli government to delay the second phase “until his remains were recovered and returned,” The Associated Press said.

Israel must now “complete the implementation of all the terms of the ceasefire agreement in full,” Hamas said in a statement, “without any reduction or delay.” The “next phase is disarming Hamas and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday. He called the recovery of Gvili’s remains “an incredible achievement” for Israel and its soldiers. Hamas “worked very hard to get the body back” in collaboration with Israel, Trump told Axios. “Now we have to disarm Hamas like they promised.”

What next?

Israel said Monday it would reopen the Rafah crossing in the “next days,” but only for foot traffic. There is “a great deal of skepticism in Israel and the region that Hamas will peacefully disarm,” Axios said, and that “Netanyahu will show restraint and let the process play out.”

What happened

Israel’s Cabinet has approved 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday. The decision — approved Dec. 11 but classified until now, according to Smotrich’s office — brings the number of Jewish West Bank settlements approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government to 69, a nearly 50% increase since 2022.

Who said what

The settlements are “widely considered illegal under international law,” The Associated Press said, and Israel’s “construction binge” in the West Bank “further threatens the possibility” of a two-state solution. Smotrich’s stated goal is “blocking the establishment of a Palestinian state,” the BBC said, and surging violence in the West Bank is “heightening fears that settlement expansion could entrench Israel’s occupation.”

The “unrelenting violent campaign” by Israeli settlers includes “brutal harassment, beatings, even killings,” The New York Times said, while the Israeli military “forces Palestinians to evacuate or orders the destruction of their homes once settlers drive them to flee.” Israel’s military said Sunday it is reviewing the shooting death Saturday of a 16-year-old boy “suspected of hurling a block” at soldiers in the West Bank town of Qabatiya. Video of the incident showed an Israeli soldier shooting the youth at “point blank range,” CNN said, and “nothing appears to be thrown from the alley the Palestinian teenager comes from.”

What next?

The “Israeli onslaught has all but vanquished a free Palestinian existence in the West Bank,” the Times said, and the “desperation among Palestinian villagers and farmers as they watch the takeover of their lands at a pace never seen before” is exacerbated by “fear that the changes are already becoming irreversible.”

Police in London and Manchester will take a “more assertive” approach to protesters who call for intifada, according to a joint statement from the two forces following antisemitic attacks in Australia and in the UK. Officers have arrested two people for racially aggravated public order offences after they allegedly chanted “globalise the intifada” at a pro-Palestinian protest in London.

What is an intifada?

Intifada is an Arabic word derived from a verb meaning “to shake off”. It’s used to describe “two major uprisings” against the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, said the Institute for Middle East Understanding.

Both periods of intifada saw Palestinians participate in peaceful protest and acts of civil disobedience, but were also marked by violent clashes with the Israeli security forces and deadly terrorist attacks within Israel. More than 1,000 Israelis and about 5,000 Palestinians died in such incidents between the start of the first intifada in 1987 and the 2005 Sharm El Sheikh summit that brought the second intifada to an end.

How did ‘globalise the intifada’ become a rallying cry?

“Globalise the intifada” is a slogan that has been used to advocate for international support of Palestinian resistance against Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories.

First popularised at solidarity rallies around the world during the second intifada, it has become a common rallying cry at pro-Palestine demonstrations since Israel launched its military operations in Gaza following the 7 October attacks.

The global intifada is the “‘shaking off’ of colonial dynamics of racism, violence, dehumanisation and division”, said Chloe Skinner for the Institute of Development Studies. The violence in Gaza and the West Bank is rooted in “global systems of power”, and so the struggle against them must be “globalised”.

Why do some people consider it antisemitic? 

As the “most prominent expressions” of intifada have involved “violence”, said the American Jewish Committee, “globalising the intifada” is often understood to mean “encouraging violence” against Israelis and Jews more broadly, even if the “intent of the person saying this phrase may be different”.

It’s “helpful to possess a lexicon of what is typically intended” behind the “vocabularies” used in support of the Palestinian cause, said David Frum in The Atlantic. “Globalise the intifada means shooting or bombing people in Sydney, London, Paris, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York City”, as well as in Israel.

The BBC recently corrected an article on its website that defined intifada as “largely unarmed and popular”. After complaints, the corporation amended the article, saying that the word intifada was regarded by some as a “call for violence against Jewish people”.

But Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal said the Met Police and Greater Manchester Police joint statement marked “another low in the political repression of protest for Palestinian rights”. Intifada is about “uprising against injustice”, he said, and the “implication” that language used to “support the liberation of the Palestinian people” is “only open to interpretation” by pro-Israel groups is “deeply problematic”.

What happened

The United Nations Security Council Monday voted 13-0 to endorse President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for peace in Gaza. Russia and China abstained, saying the U.S. resolution did not adequately pave the way for Palestinian self-determination, but they did not veto the plan. Hamas objected, saying the disarmament mandate of the newly authorized international stabilization force “strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation.”

Who said what

The U.S. resolution “enshrines” Trump’s “complete plan in international law,” The Washington Post said. Its “vaguely defined Board of Peace, headed by Trump with membership chosen by him,” will “control virtually every aspect from security and governance to reconstruction of Gaza” through at least 2027.

The board will supervise a “technocratic, apolitical committee of competent Palestinians” to run “day-to-day operations” in Gaza, the resolution said. It will also establish an international force to take over security in the half of the enclave not occupied by Israel, and ensure the “process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip” and the “permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.”

Israel is instructed to withdraw from Gaza in stages, but the plan “is — in short — a hornet’s nest,” Tim Lister and Nic Robertson said at CNN. “The sequencing will be hard to manage” and disarming Hamas will be “complex.” The “Muslim and Arab countries expected to send soldiers to Gaza — Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates” — said they first needed U.N. Security Council authorization to ensure “their troops would not be viewed by their own populations as occupiers in Gaza,” The New York Times said.

What next?

In a social media post, Trump offered his “congratulations to the World on the incredible Vote” and said it “will go down as one of the biggest approvals in the History of the United Nations” and “lead to further Peace all over the World.” It was a “significant diplomatic victory for Trump’s ambitions to bring peace to the Middle East,” The Wall Street Journal said. But the resolution “still leaves questions about the future of Gaza unanswered, including whether there is a credible path to Palestinian statehood.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog this week condemned the latest outbreak of settler-instigated violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, decrying a recent arson attack near the city of Tulkarm as “shocking and serious” in some of his most high-profile public statements on the longstanding trend to date. Herzog’s comments come during the seasonal olive harvest that brings Palestinian farmers into their neighboring fields, often setting the stage for attacks from groups of Israeli settlers. According to United Nations monitors, settler violence against Palestinians has reached a record high, with some 1,500 incidents recorded this year.

‘Act decisively to eradicate the phenomenon’

While the olive harvest has always been a time for heightened settler violence against Palestinians, this year’s “situation on the ground is out of control,” said Anton Goodman, Partnership Director of Rabbis for Human Rights, to the Haaretz podcast. The group, which monitors rights abuses in the occupied territories, has never seen “such a peak moment of violence” impacting “so many communities” in the West Bank as they have this season, said Goodman. In the latest of such instances, “dozens” of Israeli settlers attacked the Deir Sharaf Bedouin village and Al-Juneidi dairy factory near Tulkarm on Tuesday, “brandishing clubs and setting fire to parked vehicles,” said CNN.

This attack “crosses a red line,” Herzog said on X, urging Israeli officials to “act decisively to eradicate the phenomenon.” In doing so, he offered a “rare and powerful voice” to the ordinarily “muted criticism by top Israeli officials of the settler violence,” said The Associated Press. Rights groups have long criticized the Israeli government’s alleged tendency to “turn a blind eye to the violence,” including by dispatching Israeli Defense Force soldiers to incidents, only for them to “frequently leave without detaining the assailants or arrest only Palestinians,” said The New York Times.

Bad apples ‘tarnish a law-abiding public’

Within the Israeli Defense Forces, the uptick in West Bank violence against Palestinians has been pinned on “fringe anarchist teenagers” who need “intervention from welfare and education institutions,” said a briefing from IDF Central Command obtained by Haaretz. Those responsible are a “criminal minority tarnishing a law-abiding public” whose actions “violate our values, cross a red line and divert forces’ attention from their mission,” said IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir on Wednesday during a training exercise in the West Bank. That mission is “protecting settlements and carrying out offensive operations.”

Speaking in “closed discussions,” IDF Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, who leads the country’s central command, has “demanded expanded legal powers” to “tackle the growing wave of settler violence,” said YNet News. The ask comes amid “mounting pressure from field commanders” to reinstate “administrative detention orders for Jewish extremists” that were canceled one year ago. The extremists’ goal, said left-wing Israeli Knesset member Gilad Kariv, is to “ignite a third intifada” that will draw in the IDF in a way “reminiscent of the operation in Gaza.”

Noting that military officials are “already speaking openly about this danger,” Kariv said on X that the violence against West Bank Palestinians is not “isolated pogroms” but are the “initial stages of implementing the nationalist right’s plan.”

What happened

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday ordered “powerful strikes” on Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the Oct. 10 ceasefire by firing on Israeli troops, killing one, and delaying the return of hostage bodies. Gaza hospital officials said at least 81 Palestinians were killed in the overnight strikes. Hamas said it had “no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah and affirms its commitment to the ceasefire agreement.”

Who said what

The new rounds of violence were “likely the most serious challenge to the tenuous ceasefire deal in Gaza since it came into force,” The Associated Press said. The Israeli Defense Forces said the ceasefire was back in effect after its heavy airstrikes, but it would “respond firmly” to any violations.

Israeli “should hit back” when its troops are fired upon but “nothing’s going to jeopardize” the ceasefire, President Donald Trump said on Air Force One en route to South Korea. “Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East,” and “if they’re not good, they’re going to be terminated.” Israel considers the return of hostage bodies a “key plank” of the deal and accused Hamas Tuesday of staging the discovery of a hostage’s partial remains, said The New York Times. Hamas has blamed “conditions on the ground” in war-ravaged Gaza for the slow returns.

What next?

Tuesday’s “skirmishes” weren’t the “first time the ceasefire has been tested,” The Wall Street Journal said, and they “underscore how fragile the deal is” and “demonstrate the challenges for the next steps,” which “call for Hamas to disarm and for an international force to help stabilize Gaza.”

What happened

Israel and Hamas completed the first phase of President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan Monday, with Hamas freeing the final 20 living Israeli hostages it seized two years ago and Israel releasing about 1,700 Palestinian detainees and some 250 serving life sentences. Trump flew to the region Monday to speak before Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, and meet with Arab and European leaders at a Gaza “peace summit” in Egypt that neither Israel nor Hamas attended.

Who said what

“This long and difficult war has now ended,” Trump told the Knesset. “You know, some people say 3,000 years, some people say 500 years — whatever it is, it’s the granddaddy of them all.” This isn’t “only the end of a war,” he added. “This is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.” Most of his speech “drew raucous cheers from Israeli lawmakers,” The Associated Press said, but his suggestion that Israel pursue a peace deal with Iran “elicited a muted response.”

The release of prisoners and hostages prompted "cheering, hugging and weeping” among waiting crowds in Tel Aviv and Gaza, Reuters said. Yet “even as Israelis and Palestinians reveled in split-screen scenes of tearful reunions with pale and frail-looking loved ones, many pitfalls and questions remained over the future of the Gaza Strip,” The New York Times said. Notably, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “did not join” Trump in “declaring that the war in Gaza was over.”

The Gaza agreement “represents a significant diplomatic triumph” for Trump and a “vindication of his unorthodox” brand of diplomacy, The Wall Street Journal said. But now that Monday’s whirlwind “victory lap” is over, his “ability to pursue a broader regional settlement will be tested by his own instinct to move on now that the fighting in Gaza has been halted.”

What next?

The “fragile ceasefire in Gaza” may have been the “easiest part” in the “long and tortuous” process, the AP said. “Key details of the peace plan” remain unclear, including “how and when Hamas is to disarm,” when Israel will withdraw from Gaza and what the proposed security force and future government will look like.

Joyous scenes have greeted the release of 20 Israeli hostages by Hamas, and the arrival of the first batch of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees released by Israel, under Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan.

The US president declared the two-year war in Gaza “is over” and, to a standing ovation in the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, said today is "a day of profound joy and soaring hope” and “the historic dawn of a new Middle East".

Who are the released Israeli hostages?

The 20 Israeli hostages, released in two batches this morning, are all men and more than half of them had been taken seized by Hamas at the Nova desert festival on 7 October 2023.

They included Evyatar David, who was shown emaciated, and digging what he said was his own grave, in a video released over the summer by Hamas that “rattled many people", including Trump, said Bloomberg. Also released was Nvidia employee Avinatan Or: a photo of him on 7 October being torn away from his partner Noa Argamani (who was also taken hostage and released last year) “became an iconic image of the day’s horrors”.

Among the other released hostages were twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman, brothers Ariel and David Cunio, Omri Miran, who was abducted from his kibbutz in front of his wife and children, and Matan Angrest, an Israeli Defense Force soldier who was captured from his burning tank near the Gaza perimeter fence.

What about those hostages who have died?

There are 28 dead Israeli hostages whose bodies are also due to be returned to Israel under the terms of the peace deal.

This is “the much tougher phase” and “everyone is on edge”, Rotem Cooper, who is waiting to receive the body of his father Amiram, told the BBC. The Israeli Hostage and Missing Families Forum have posted on X that they have learned “only four deceased hostages” will be returned today.

“The act of burial is highly important in Jewish tradition,” said The Times, and “must be returned to the earth as quickly as possible after death”. The absence of a body “has left many hostage families unable to begin the Jewish mourning process”.

What about the Palestinian prisoners?

Under the terms of the peace deal, some 250 Palestinian prisoners serving sentences in Israeli jails, and 1,700 detainees from Gaza, including 22 children, are to be released.

Earlier today, the mood on the Palestinian side was “less one of open celebration, more of confusion”, said Lucy Williamson, the BBC's Middle East correspondent. Waiting relatives “say the speed of this deal means the list of Palestinian prisoners set for release today has been constantly changing overnight”.

At least one bus carrying released Palestinians has already arrived in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. But it’s thought that the majority of prisoners, rather than detainees, on the list “are to be sent into exile”, rather than returned to Gaza or the West Bank, said The New York Times. It’s not clear in which country “exile” would be.

Thought to be included on the list of prisoners to be released is Iyad Abu al-Rub, an Islamic Jihad commander convicted of orchestrating suicide bombings in Israel that killed 13 people in the early 2000s, and Eham Kamamji, who was arrested in 2006 and has been serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and murder of an Israeli settler. Writer Basem Khandaqji, winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, who was sentenced by Israel to three life terms for his involvement in the Carmel Market suicide bombing in 2004, was also on the list to be freed.

Despite frantic last-minute negotiations, Hamas was unable to secure the release of six “high-profile” Palestinian prisoners, said Middle East Eye. Chief among these is Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences after Israel convicted him in 2004 of multiple counts of murder. Once secretary general of the Fatah political faction, he is “currently the most popular Palestinian political figure, according to numerous polls”, and would be a “shoo-in for the Palestinian presidency if elections were held and he were able to run for office”.

A source close to Barghouti told the news site that, although US envoy Steve Witkoff had signed off on his release, “the Israeli prime minister’s office unilaterally removed his name from the prisoner exchange list at the last minute”.

Israel confirmed today that the proposed Gaza ceasefire – the first of the 20 points in the agreement – has gone into effect, with the Israel Defense Forces beginning its withdrawal from parts of the strip.

If the peace plan is successful, it would be a “massive blow to Joe Biden’s legacy”, said The Independent. Few Democrats still defend his administration’s “hug Bibi closer” strategy, and recent developments appear to have validated Donald Trump’s “brash, demanding approach” towards Benjamin Netanyahu.

What did the commentators say?

If this agreement holds, it could stand as the “signature achievement” of Trump’s second term, said the BBC. Where Biden’s relationship with Netanyahu was more “tenuous”, Trump’s friendship with Israel’s prime minister and popularity with Israeli voters allowed him to put “pressure” on Netanyahu after the strikes on Iran and Qatar. Trump’s close ties to the Gulf states, business agreements with Qatar and the UAE, and presidential visits to Saudi Arabia have all won favour with leaders in the region.

Though much of the diplomacy has been conducted far outside the US, near-unconditional party support at home played a significant part, said Gerard Baker in The Times. In the last 50 years, no Republican president has “enjoyed such a level of trust” from his administration. With the party becoming something of a “personality cult”, if Trump “wants to move diplomatic mountains, he faces no resistance” from within.

That was an advantage certainly not shared by his Democrat predecessor, said the BBC. While Trump’s “solid Republican base” has allowed him “room to manoeuvre”, “every step Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support”, due to split opinion on the Gaza conflict within the Democratic Party and voter base.

Trump’s diplomacy skills may even be evolving, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. In addition to his familiar “imperious”, “go-it-alone” personality, the president arguably displayed “more flexibility and cooperation than are typical of him” by involving Middle Eastern partners like Turkey, Egypt and Qatar in diplomatic discussions.

The “boldness” of the president’s recent tactics left little room for “interagency”, Joel Braunold, managing director at the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, told Lawfare. But Trump’s “just try and get it done” attitude – “there’s something to be said for that”. Of course, Trump is no stranger to an eye-catching announcement, so the “proof will be in the pudding” as to whether his unique brand of diplomacy creates fair and lasting change.

“There are many unresolved details” and a degree of scepticism is in order, said Baker in The Times. The recent past is “littered with too many ceasefires, accords and peace deals” in the Middle East, and it would be misguided “to express any confidence now that this latest one will endure”.

What next?

The history of political turbulence in the region suggests that there is a long road ahead, said The New York Times. Questions over the proposed interim “technocratic” leadership in Gaza overseen by the US, and the extent of Palestinian Authority involvement, have yet to be answered satisfactorily.

Working out peace deals in the region is “a little like cleaning up after volcanic eruptions: There is a certainty it will happen again. It is just hard to know when, or how ferociously.”

What happened

Israel and Hamas Wednesday agreed to exchange hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for all remaining Israeli hostages as Israel’s military pulled back in Gaza. President Donald Trump, who had pushed both sides to negotiate, announced that they had signed on to the “first phase” of his 20-point peace plan at ongoing Gaza negotiations in Egypt. Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the news, though each side focused on different aspects of the agreement.

Who said what

“The whole world came together around this deal,” Trump told Fox News Wednesday night. He called Wednesday's breakthrough a “historic” victory that will bring “peace in the Middle East,” and said the remaining Israeli hostages would be freed “probably Monday.” Officials said the 20 hostages believed to still be alive would be returned as soon as Sunday, while the remains of the 28 deceased Israelis would be handed over as they are located.

The hostage-for-prisoner swap “marks a breakthrough in what had been eight months of stalled negotiations after he took office, bringing Trump closer to a top foreign-policy goal of ending the war in Gaza,” The Wall Street Journal said. But Hamas’ statement on the deal “hinted at major details yet to be worked out, and Egyptian officials said mediators were working to hash out a final agreement that could still get derailed.”

If “Trump can hold this deal together” to the end, he “may have as legitimate a claim to that Nobel as the four American presidents who have who have won the peace prize,” David Sanger said at The New York Times. But this first step toward ending the Gaza war is probably the easiest part, and the “history of the region suggests that working out peace accords to end conflicts is a little like cleaning up after volcanic eruptions: There is a certainty it will happen again. It is just hard to know when, or how ferociously.”

What next?

Netanyahu said he would present the agreement to his cabinet for approval today. Trump told Axios he was “likely going to Israel in the coming days” to address Israeli lawmakers.

What happened

Israel said its military Wednesday morning intercepted a flotilla of nine boats bound for Gaza with 145 activists aboard along with medical and food aid. Organizers of this latest attempt to break Israel’s 18-year naval blockade of Gaza called the detentions in international waters “arbitrary and unlawful.”

The interception came three days into high-stakes Israeli-Hamas peace talks in Egypt, and a week after Israel commandeered a 42-boat convoy headed to Gaza.

Who said what

“Another futile attempt to breach the legal naval blockade and enter a combat zone ended in nothing,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on social media today. Last week’s interception of the larger flotilla “drew widespread condemnation and sparked large protests in several major cities and a one-day strike across Italy,” The Associated Press said. Israel has already deported most of the 479 lawmakers and activists aboard, including Greta Thunberg, and some “described mistreatment at the hands of Israeli guards, claims that Israel denies.”

The aid flotillas aim to deliver much-needed supplies to Gaza or at least draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in the embattled Palestinian enclave. Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry says “at least 460 Palestinians have died from the effects of malnutrition since the start of the war,” the BBC said.

What next?

The newly seized activists, doctors, politicians and Turkish lawmakers are “safe and in good health,” the Israeli government said, and are “expected to be deported promptly.” President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are en route to join the Egypt peace talks today, and as “architects” of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, officials told The New York Times, their presence should “signal progress.”

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu shrugged off the world’s criticisms as he prosecuted his country’s war in Gaza. But with a peace deal possibly at hand, it’s clear there is one person he cannot ignore: President Donald Trump.

Netanyahu was “strong-armed by Trump” into going along with the president’s peace proposal, said The New York Times. While the prime minister presented the potential deal as a joint American-Israeli effort, Trump suggested otherwise to reporters. Netanyahu has “got to be fine” with a deal to end the war, Trump said. “He has no choice.” Netanyahu now has a “delicate balancing act” to perform, said the Times. His political survival depends on “appeasing his far-right coalition partners” who will not approve a deal that lets Hamas survive. At the same time, he knows that fighting Trump “will hurt Netanyahu, not Trump,” said Al-Monitor’s Mazal Mualem.

The draft peace deal offers a pathway, “however vague,” to a future Palestinian state, said the Financial Times. Netanyahu has built a career on his opposition to such a state. But Trump reminded Netanyahu that “Israel was propped up by billions of dollars in U.S. aid.” And the president is eager to bring the war to an end. The “rule of thumb is Donald Trump’s interests come first,” said Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to America.

What did the commentators say?

“Trump is successfully bullying Netanyahu,” Yair Rosenberg said at The Atlantic. If the war is to come to an end, “he’ll need to do more of it.” The prime minister is facing a “mutiny” from far-right members of his coalition government who want to “ethnically cleanse” Gaza and fill it with Israeli settlers. Trump is the “only actor who can provide a counterweight to these radicals.” The president has “incredible leverage” over Netanyahu. “He just needs to use it.”

Netanyahu “consistently placed spokes in the wheels” when the Biden administration pressed him, Amos Harel said at Haaretz. Now he has “concluded that he can no longer block Trump’s moves.” Netanyahu is selling the proposed Gaza deal to his voters as a “tremendous diplomatic achievement” that was possible only because of the “prime minister’s stubbornness.” One key date: The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced October 10. If Trump gets Hamas to free Israeli hostages, “he probably deserves the prize he so covets.”

What next?

Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas began Monday in Egypt, said Axios. Trump “wants to see a deal as soon as possible,” and his team is pushing for “implementation of the deal without delay.” The process has a “really good chance” of producing peace after two years of war, the president said Monday.

Hamas leaders believe Trump “is the only person who can pressure Netanyahu into a deal,” said NBC News. But the war is not over until it is over. “We will return to fight” if the talks do not succeed, said Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, Israeli Defense Forces’ chief of staff.

What happened

Hamas negotiators arrived in Egypt Sunday for indirect negotiations with Israel prompted by President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Gaza war. Hamas accepted the general terms of the plan on Friday, including the release of all remaining hostages, living and dead. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address Saturday that he hoped to announce the hostages’ release “in the coming days.”

Who said what

These negotiations are “expected to be among the most consequential since the start of the war,” the BBC said, and Hamas’ willingness to “enter the talks without explicit conditions” may be a “recognition of its limited leverage after nearly two years of war.” Netanyahu “took much personal credit” for the emerging plan, The New York Times said, but it was “abundantly clear to Israelis, and to Palestinians and others in the region,” that Trump was “calling the shots.”

“I said, ‘Bibi, this is your chance for victory.’ He was fine with it,” Trump told Axios’ Barak Ravid on Saturday. “He’s got to be fine with it. He has no choice.” Trump “doesn’t threaten Netanyahu; he orders him,” Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in Sunday's Yedioth Ahronoth, a mainstream Hebrew daily, per the Times.

What next?

The “messages from Hamas and Israeli leaders” suggested “both sides were under more pressure than at any point in recent months,” The Washington Post said. But “there remained substantial gaps between their positions and a significant possibility that the fragile détente would break down.” Israel said its negotiators are traveling to Egypt today, and Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to join the talks later this week.

‘Why HHS is wrong to bring back the stigmatizing monkeypox name’

Nikki Romanik and Demetre Daskalakis at Time

The monkeypox name “carried stigma and confusion, making people less likely to get vaccinated, tested or seek treatment,” say Nikki Romanik and Demetre Daskalakis. The “modernized name, mpox, offered something rare in a health crisis — clarity and dignity for those over-represented in the outbreak.” HHS has “conveyed its intent to return to the old name, ‘monkeypox,’” but this “name was more than inaccurate, it was one of the foundational barriers to stopping the outbreak.”

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‘Insurers use cancer patients as leverage’

Selwyn M. Vickers and Scott M. Stuart and The Wall Street Journal

Despite “record profits, major insurers are using the threat of network termination as a bargaining chip in contract disputes with providers,” say Selwyn M. Vickers and Scott M. Stuart. The “negotiation tactic puts patients in the middle of corporate standoffs during serious, often life-threatening, illnesses.” Insurers “respond not with good-faith engagement but with delay tactics, public attacks and abrupt notices that force thousands of cancer patients to worry that they could soon lose access to their doctor.”

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‘“The Smashing Machine” is Dwayne Johnson’s big Oscar play, but it’s no typical biopic’

Dana Stevens at Slate

“‘The Smashing Machine’ deliberately sets out to subvert the expectations of audiences,” says Dana Stevens. It’s a “study of a flawed but admirably dedicated athlete.” The film is a “showcase for its star Dwayne Johnson, whose own history as a pro wrestler is an inextricable part of the screen persona he’s created.” But the film “winds up playing its cards too close to the vest, never really giving the star, or the movie, a chance to strut his stuff.”

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‘Why Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war simply won’t work’

Michael Ratney at Haaretz

Donald Trump’s “20-point plan for the end of the Gaza war includes some positive aspects,” but “none of the comments made by President Trump or Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday should suggest that the plan will actually be implemented,” says Michael Ratney. And they “certainly shouldn’t be seen as a fundamental shift in the trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The deal is “decidedly unpalatable to other, critically important partners in this process: regional governments in the Middle East.”

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What happened

President Donald Trump Monday released a 20-point plan to end Israel’s war in Gaza, following a two-hour White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who backed the proposal. Under the plan, Israel would halt its attacks and withdraw in stages as Hamas released all Israeli hostages, disarmed and gave up any governing role in the Palestinian enclave. Gaza would be run by apolitical Palestinian technocrats overseen by a “Board of Peace” chaired by Trump, with security provided by an Arab-led international force and Palestinian police, until a reformed Palestinian Authority could take control.

Who said what

Trump called the unveiling of his proposal for “eternal peace in the Middle East” a “historic day.” If Hamas did not agree, he added, he would give Israel “full backing” to destroy the militant group. Hamas “faces a bitter tradeoff,” The Associated Press said, as the plan demands it “effectively surrender” in return for humanitarian aid for Gazans, an end to the fighting and a “vague promise that some day, perhaps, Palestinian statehood might be possible.”

Netanyahu said he backed Trump’s plan. But he “peppered his support” with “conditions” that appeared aimed at reassuring his “far-right coalition partners who don’t want him to stop the war,” The Washington Post said, and he “hedged with details that could make it difficult for Arab nations to sign on.”

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar jointly said they have confidence in Trump’s “ability to find a path to peace” based on a “two-state solution,” though they did not back his specific plan. The Palestinian Authority also welcomed Trump’s “sincere and determined efforts” for peace and agreed to pursue his reforms. Hamas said it wasn’t consulted on the plan but would consider it.

What next?

Trump “deserves the credit he craves” for this plan, which “laid a strong foundation” for eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace, David Ignatius said in the Post. “If you are a betting person,” the odds are it fails, Thomas Friedman said in The New York Times. But “if you are a hoping person, hope that this time will be different,” because “this really is the last train” to anywhere in the Mideast but the “gates of hell.”

‘“One Battle After Another” is much more than the movie of the movement’

Alyssa Rosenberg at MSNBC

The new film “One Battle After Another” has been “quickly hailed as the movie of the moment,” says Alyssa Rosenberg. But it’s “something more subtle and perhaps more important: an argument about the risks of turning politics into an aspect of personality rather than a serious means of pursuing change.” The film “concludes that while it’s important to keep hope alive, politics are no substitute for stable personalities or familial love.” That’s “not an argument for retreat.”

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‘Why trying to hide history of World War II Japanese American imprisonment is an affront to liberty’

Karyl Matsumoto at the San Francisco Chronicle

At the Japanese-American concentration camp Mananzar, visitors are being “asked to report all but the rosiest and most charitable historical accounts of the injustices that occurred there,” says Karyl Matsumoto. This is “not a simple case of bureaucratic overreach or a good-faith historical debate.” It’s a “coordinated effort to whitewash our history, to muzzle the stories of those who suffered in the service of a flawed ideal of national unity. It is nothing less than historical censorship.”

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‘The world recognizes Palestine, yet it treats the Palestinians as stateless’

Ayah Najadat at Al Jazeera

The “vast majority of the world accepts the Palestinians have a state,” but “they continue to be treated as if they do not, with many experiencing the soul-crushing reality of statelessness at borders,” says Ayah Najadat. For “Palestinians, especially from Gaza, borders are not merely lines on a map — they are walls of steel.” The “dream of freedom and dignity collapses into fluorescent-lit detention centers, and deportation becomes a journey not towards safety but towards another closed door.”

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‘Stop the political hijacking of Miami-Dade’s future for a presidential library’

Miguel B. Fernandez at the Miami Herald

Florida’s government “announced plans to take control of a critically important parcel of land in downtown Miami, land secured years ago by Miami Dade College,” and officials “want to transform this valuable public asset into the future site of the Trump Presidential Library,” says Miguel B. Fernandez. This is “not just a land dispute. It’s a direct theft of educational opportunity for political gain.” What “benefit will come from turning over land meant for education into a political shrine?”

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“A battle is brewing over who will run the wasteland” of Gaza, as we approach the two-year anniversary of the 7 October attacks, said The Economist. “By rights, no one should want” Gaza, nor the task of running it after being reduced to a “hellscape”, where “half a million” people were forced out of Gaza City last week.

But the figure who has emerged as a serious, if controversial, candidate for post-war leadership is the 72-year-old former British prime minister Tony Blair. Under plans reportedly backed by the US, Blair would take charge of a “supervisory body” called the Gaza International Transitional Authority, to serve as the “supreme political and legal authority” for up to five years, said The Independent.

The former PM has been drafting a “plan for the days after a ceasefire in Gaza with Jared Kushner”, Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Blair met Kushner, along with the US president and his special envoy Steve Witkoff at the White House in August to discuss matters, said The Times. According to reports, this plan involved Blair heading a secretariat of up to 25 people “running the territory”.

What did the commentators say?

With years of experience in the region, acting as a Middle East peace envoy for the “Quartet” (the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia), Blair and his plan “may be Gaza’s best hope”, said The Telegraph.

His position is unique. Critics believe his involvement in the Iraq invasion means he “may not be the obvious name to turn to”, but he is “one of the few international figures to be respected by both sides”. This could be a “fitting final chapter” for Blair, who has long been searching for a “meaningful role” since his time in office ended in 2007.

However, Blair’s impact in the region is far from untainted. His decision to commit British forces to Iraq in 2003 was “heavily criticised” in the official inquiry, revealing that he acted on “flawed intelligence”, carrying out offensives “without certainty about the production of weapons of mass destruction” in the region, said the BBC.

The plan is not without opposition and it will “face an uphill battle getting the extreme-right members of Israel’s cabinet on board”, said The Independent.

Reports suggest the “Blair plan” is “anchored on the dismantling of Hamas”. The Palestinian Authority (PA) would “have a role” in the transitional administration, “albeit a diminished one at the start”.

However, both European and Arab states are against “international trusteeship” in Gaza, fearing it could “marginalise the Palestinians and lack legitimacy in the eyes of Gazans”, said the Financial Times. Instead, Gazans seek a committee run by “Palestinian technocrats”.

What next?

Echoes of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 still ring, said The Economist. Then, British forces “conquered Gaza, quickly… and stayed there for 30 years”. Some Palestinians fear “Britain is repeating the exercise”.

With a reputation that “hardly endears” Blair in the region, gaining approval from PA President Mahmoud Abbas “will be hard”, as authorities anticipate that “another occupation beckons”.

The Blair plan is based on the presumption that there will “be no further Israeli annexations in the West Bank”, said The Guardian. To complicate matters further, “much might rest on the definition of annexation”: unless this can be achieved, we may be left with a “diplomatic mirage” instead of an international “breakthrough”.

What happened

Britain, Canada, Australia and Portugal Sunday formally recognized the state of Palestine, calling the move a way to preserve fading hopes for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. About 150 other nations already recognize Palestinian statehood, and more are expected to do so this week, including France, as Israel’s war in Gaza and West Bank annexation threats sap support from Tel Aviv’s traditional Western allies.

Who said what

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a video statement that recognizing Palestine statehood was intended to “revive the hope of peace for the Palestinians and Israelis” and was “not a reward for Hamas,” because it meant the “brutal terror organization” can “have no future, no role in government, no role in security.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the move “in no way legitimizes terrorism,” but the “current Israeli government is working methodically to prevent the prospect of a Palestinian state from ever being established.”

The “leaders who are recognizing a Palestinian state” are “rewarding terror with an enormous prize,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “And I have another message for you: It’s not going to happen. A Palestinian state will not be established west of the Jordan River.” Hamas, which also rejects a two-state solution, partially applauded the move. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said recognition was a step toward allowing the "State of Palestine to live side by side with the State of Israel in security, peace and good neighborliness."

Britain’s decision “carried particular symbolism given its major role in Israel’s creation as a modern nation in the aftermath of World War II,” Reuters said. “But without the United States coming on board with the idea of a Palestine,” Burcu Ozcelik at London’s Royal United Services Institute told The Associated Press, “I think very little will change on the ground.”

What next?

Sunday’s announcements fired the “starting gun on a week that will bring a watershed moment in international relations between Israel and major international powers” at the U.N. General Assembly, The Wall Street Journal said. Once France recognizes Palestine, the U.S. will be the “sole permanent member of the Security Council with veto power that is holding out,” The New York Times said.

What happened

Israel’s assault on Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide, a team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council said yesterday. The panel’s 72-page report was released as Israeli forces launched a major ground assault on Gaza City, forcing thousands of Palestinians to flee south. 

Who said what

The three-member commission’s “deeply documented” and “painstaking legal analysis” found that Israeli leaders had committed “four of the five ‘genocidal acts’” prohibited under the U.N. Genocide Convention, The Associated Press said. “Genocide accusations are especially sensitive in Israel,” where “memories of the Holocaust” — the Nazi genocide against the Jews that prompted the 1948 convention — “are important in the country’s national identity.”

Israel’s government vehemently rejected the genocide accusation, calling the report “fake” and “libelous.” The panel “does not speak for the U.N.,” The Washington Post said, but its finding “echoes assessments by a growing group of governments and Israeli and international human rights organizations,” including the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

What next?

The international community’s “obligation to prevent genocide wherever it occurs” is “not optional,” commission chair Navi Pillay, a former judge on the Rwanda genocide tribunals, said at The New York Times. It “requires action,” including “halting the transfer of weapons” used in genocidal acts and “using all available diplomatic and legal means to stop the killing.” Pillay’s panel has no power to act, the AP said, but its findings “could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court or the U.N.’s International Court of Justice,” which is currently “hearing a genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel.”

More than 200 journalists have died during Israel's assault on Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country "values the work of journalists" but new evidence suggests that Palestinian reporters are being deliberately targeted.

It's part of Israel's mission to silence Palestinian newsgathering and to control what information the rest of the world receives from the war zone, said independent Israeli-Palestine media outlet +972 Magazine. The deaths of journalists – and the intimidation of living ones – are then justified through a shadowy process of "legitimisation" by an intelligence unit that scours those journalists' lives for any link, however tenuous, to Hamas.

What is the 'Legitimisation Cell'?

According to +972, the Israeli military established a special unit called the Legitimisation Cell after the 7 October attacks, and tasked it with gathering intelligence that would burnish Israel's international reputation. It was also told to identify Gaza-based journalists that it could present to the world as undercover Hamas operatives.

"The key task of the Legitimisation Cell is to undermine the work done by Palestinian journalists and provide the excuse to kill them," political scientist Ahron Bregman told France 24.

One high-profile journalist targeted in this way was Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif, who was killed along with four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike earlier this month. After his death, the Israeli army quickly circulated documents claiming he had been a Hamas operative since 2013. "Yet even if taken at face value, the files showed his last contact with Hamas was in 2017 – years before the current war," said France 24.

How does it operate?

The discrediting of reporters working in Gaza has three key effects: it undermines the impact of their stories, photos and information; it puts their lives at risk by establishing them as targets in the eyes of the IDF, and it serves to rationalise their killing to the local and international media after a strike.

Any vagueness or lack of detail in the "intelligence" offered up is explained by the fact that sensitive information must be protected.

An anonymous journalist working in Gaza told France 24 that the Legitimisation Cell's tactics are "alarming": "We already work under constant fear – air strikes, losing colleagues, being silenced. Now the threat is also reputational, stripping us of international support and protection."

What does Israel say?

Israel has repeatedly said that its operations do not intentionally target Palestinian journalists, asserting that air strikes are aimed solely at militants and military infrastructure. But Israel continues to strictly regulate reporting from other journalists by only allowing access to reporters embedded with its own forces. The Israeli authorities have also never commented on the existence of a Legitimisation Cell.

Following a recent hospital strike that killed five journalists, the army's chief of staff ordered a preliminary inquiry, stressing that the IDF "does not in any way target journalists as such".

But press freedom groups say that reporters are smeared as militants, then killed in strikes justified by those same allegations. This is about "controlling the narrative Israel wants the world to believe in. It has nothing to do with security and military operations," Bregman told France 24. "It's about Hasbara."

"Hasbara" is a Hebrew word that roughly translates as "explaining" or "public diplomacy". It's what's pejoratively called "propaganda". Nowadays, it's used widely to refer to all manner of communications and PR activities undertaken to enhance Israel's reputation abroad.

What happened

Israel Monday struck Nasser hospital in southern Gaza, killing two people, then hit it again minutes later, killing at least 18 others, including rescuers and journalists who had rushed to the scene. The five journalists killed worked for The Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye, a U.K.-based outlet.

Who said what

In a joint letter to Israel, the AP and Reuters said they were "outraged" that freelance journalists Mariam Dagga and Moaz Abu Taha, Abu Aziz, Hussam al-Masri and Mohammed Salama "were among the victims of this strike on the hospital, a location that is protected under international law." It appears Israel met "none" of the legal conditions to attack a hospital, Adil Haque, an expert on the law of armed conflict at Rutgers University, told The Washington Post. And it's "rarely lawful to carry out 'double-tap' strikes on the same target in a populated area."

Israel has "attacked hospitals multiple times throughout the war," often asserting without evidence that "Hamas embeds itself in and around the facilities," the AP said. Gaza's remaining hospitals "have been overwhelmed by the dead, wounded and now by increasing numbers of malnourished," the subject of Dagga's recent reporting.

The Israel Defense Forces said it "regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and does not target journalists as such." According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Israel has killed 189 Palestinian journalists in its Gaza campaign, some deliberately. The United Nations says more than 1,500 health workers have been killed.

What next?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel "deeply regrets the tragic mishap" and was investigating the strikes.

The world's gaze is fixed on Gaza, said Luc Bronner in Le Monde (Paris), but some 30 miles away, Israel's far-right is waging a quieter, less visible and more "methodical" war.

For the past three years, the ultra-nationalist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who thinks Jews have a divine right to all the land that makes up biblical Israel, has driven his own personal offensive in the West Bank – approving the development of hundreds of illegal new settlements (29 have been authorised as recently as May), and occupying and demolishing swathes of several refugee camps.

Armed militias from Jewish settlements roam numerous areas of the territory, harassing and assaulting Palestinians, and seizing their land. Settler violence has surged in the first half of this year, during which the UN has recorded 757 attacks on Palestinians and their property.

And now Smotrich has revived a deeply controversial plan to build more than 3,000 apartments in Ma'ale Adumim, in the so-called E1 area – essentially cutting off the West Bank from East Jerusalem, the presumptive capital of any future Palestinian state. Mindful of fierce US objections to this, Israel had for more than a decade frozen construction plans there, said The Jerusalem Post. But Smotrich, who claims he has the cabinet's blessing, is just ploughing ahead, pointedly citing his initiative as "the final nail in the coffin for the concept of a Palestinian state".

"Smotrich has never made a more accurate prediction," said Haaretz (Tel Aviv). The E1 apartments "would cut the West Bank in two" – separating north from south – while strangling the three central Palestinian cities of Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. That would be "a death sentence" for any two-state solution.

And as if that were not bad enough, Smotrich and his gang are also pushing for Israel to officially annex the West Bank, or "Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley" as they prefer to call it. In July, the Knesset voted 71-13 to approve a measure which recognises "Israeli sovereignty" over the area. The resolution was "largely symbolic", said The National (Abu Dhabi), but it shows how far Israeli public sentiment has shifted. A poll in February found that 35% of Israelis favour a "Jewish-only state, from the river to the sea". The fact that annexation is now an established vote-winner in the Knesset only "makes its success as (eventual) national policy much likelier".

And the pro-annexation movement also has the backing of several prominent Republicans in the US, said The Economist. On a visit this month to West Bank settlements, where he had dinner with Israel's PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mike Johnson, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, reportedly proclaimed that the "mountains of Judea and Samaria" belong to the Jewish people "by right". In fact, today the Republican Party (including much of the Trump administration) doesn't just back Israel's right to exist; it endorses the ethno-nationalist policies of Netanyahu and his hard-right cabinet – and that includes formal annexation of the West Bank.

People talk of the prospect of annexation as if it's yet to come, said Tamar Megiddo in Haaretz, as if Israel's illegal takeover of the West Bank requires some sort of "official announcement" or legal mechanism to change the status of the territory. In reality, "through quiet, consistent, humdrum bureaucratic activities" that have created irreversible facts on the ground, annexation has already occurred.

Bit by bit, the government has transferred power from the military apparatus that for decades governed the West Bank to Israel's civilian ministries: by accelerating licensing processes; by developing infrastructure in favour of the settlements; through the wording of administrative documents, it has effectively claimed sovereignty over the area, cutting Palestinians out of its administration in the process. Knesset votes and other declarations are a "smokescreen"; the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal.

As it begins its controversial assault on Gaza City with a depleted and demoralised full-time force, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is calling up 60,000 part-time reservists.

Another 20,000 reservists currently serving will have their terms extended to prop up the nation's "exhausted military" for the "takeover and occupation" of the city in northern Gaza, said CNN.

Does the IDF have enough soldiers?

Israel has a "relatively small" standing army of about 169,000, said Middle East analyst Ian Parmeter on The Conversation. The IDF needs another 10,000 to 12,000 full-time soldiers to reach optimal staffing levels, including 7,000 additional combat troops. During times of military need, it relies on more than 400,000 reservists, Israelis who have completed their military service but can be called back if required.

What problems is the IDF facing?

Morale is a growing issue. A recent survey from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reported in The Times of Israel, found that close to 40% of serving reservists felt slightly or significantly less motivated than they did at the beginning of the conflict. Almost half said they disapproved of the government's handling of the war.

"Draft-dodging" is also depleting numbers. An arrangement made at the founding of the Israeli state exempted the Haredi (or ultra Orthodox) from military service, but that exemption was rescinded last year. However, resistance to conscription remains high and there are currently an estimated 14,600 "refuseniks" in the Haredi community, said Ynetnews.

Relying on reservists brings its own problems, because taking reservists from their normal jobs for long periods has "adverse effects on the economy and harms Israel in the long term", said Parmeter. Even with the reservists, Israel doesn't have enough personnel to deploy its strategy for the entire strip, and it also needs soldiers in the West Bank.

How is the IDF boosting numbers? 

Refusing military service is a criminal offence punishable by jail time in Israel, but the government is offering an amnesty in an attempt to boost enlistment among the haredi community. Dubbed "Starting Anew", it will see draft-dodgers escape punishment if they voluntarily enlist now.

The IDF is also said to be considering swelling its ranks from the international Jewish diaspora. The army is "exploring the possibility" of recruiting approximately 600-700 additional soldiers a year from outside Israel, with a focus on the United States and France, said The Jerusalem Post.

The army is also continuing to move more female soldiers into combat roles to plug gaps on the frontline. Women can serve as infantry troops in mixed battalions, as well as in tank crews, frontline artillery and air defence. Ten years ago, there were just 500 female soldiers in combat roles, said The Jerusalem Post, but there are now more than 5,000, accounting for one in five of the IDF's total combat strength.

What happened

Israel Wednesday said its forces have pushed into the outskirts of Gaza City and it will activate 60,000 reservists for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned operation to seize the whole city. Netanyahu's government also gave final approval Wednesday to a controversial settlement project in the West Bank that would effectively cut the occupied Palestinian territory in two. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said approval of the settlements meant the "dangerous idea" of a Palestinian state was "being erased from the table."

Who said what

The Israeli Defense Forces "have begun preliminary operations and the first stages of the attack on Gaza City" and Hamas' "battered and bruised" fighters, Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told reporters. But Israel's "exhausted military may face a manpower problem," CNN said. In a "country of fewer than 10 million people," The Associated Press said, the large call-up of reservists "carries economic and political weight."

Israel is "bucking international criticism" and "growing support" for Palestinian statehood in moving ahead with its Gaza City invasion and West Bank settlements, The New York Times said. The two moves suggest that Netanyahu is "bending to the ideologies of extremists" in his government, "even at the cost of isolating Israel internationally." In a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, 58% of Americans said they believed every country in the United Nations should recognize Palestine as a nation.

In Gaza, residents are "bracing for the worst," said Al Jazeera. Israel's assault "will just create another mass displacement of people who have been displaced repeatedly," U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters. The situation in Gaza is "nothing short of apocalyptic reality for children, for their families and for this generation," Save the Children regional director Ahmad Alhendawi told the AP.

What next?

Israel said it would warn Gaza City residents before a full-scale attack and give civilians a chance to evacuate. The IDF reservists won't have to report for duty until next month, "an interval that gives mediators some time to bridge gaps between Hamas and Israel" over a ceasefire proposal Hamas endorsed earlier this week, Reuters said.

What happened

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis joined a rally in Tel Aviv Sunday evening following a day of nationwide strikes and protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza and a return of the remaining hostages held by Hamas. In the U.S., the Trump administration said it was suspending all visitor visas from Gaza, a day after far-right activist Laura Loomer criticized medical visas for injured Gazan children as a "national security threat."

Who said what

Sunday's Tel Aviv rally was "one of the largest and fiercest" in 22 months of war, The Associated Press said. At least one protester "carried a photo of an emaciated Palestinian child from Gaza," a "once rare" sight in Israel that is increasingly common as "outrage grows over conditions in the territory after more than 250 malnutrition-related deaths."

Loomer "wields extraordinary power in shaping Trump administration decisions over personnel and policy despite not having an official role in government," said The New York Times. She told the paper she spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday night about her concerns with the Gaza visas and an "Islamic invasion."

What next?

Rubio told CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday that he halted the Gaza medical-humanitarian visas after "outreach from multiple congressional offices" about the visas and the groups bringing the injured kids to the U.S. for treatment. "There was just a small number of them issued to children," he said, "but they come with adults accompanying them."

As Israel ramps up its war in Gaza with plans to occupy Gaza City, the escalation may worsen the humanitarian crisis and isolate Israel internationally.

Gaza City is "one of the last areas of the territory not yet under full military occupation," said NPR, and is home to "tens of thousands" of refugees from the war, as well as Gaza's "last partially functioning hospitals." The occupation aims to "root out Hamas," said Axios. "We intend to control all of Gaza," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the operation could backfire: Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir warned that it might "trap the military within the enclave and put the remaining hostages at risk," said CNN.

Taking control of Gaza City risks ending in a "strategic dead-end," said Patrick Kingsley at The New York Times. Israel ultimately intends to hand Gaza to "Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us," said Netanyahu. But Israel's army is "depleted" after fighting the "longest high-intensity war in the country's history." Fewer reservists are reporting for duty while munitions and spare parts are "running down." By overriding his generals, Netanyahu has again "prioritized his political needs by choosing to extend the war."

'Complete dismantling' of Hamas

The only way to prevent Hamas' resurgence is its "complete dismantling as the effective ruling entity in the Gaza Strip," said Kobi Michael and Yossi Kuperwasser at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies. "The aim is to convince Gaza's public that Hamas will not return." Until that happens, "no real reconstruction process in the area can begin." The burden on Israel's army, though, would be "substantial."

Netanyahu should heed the IDF's warnings and "avoid the Gaza occupation swamp," said The Jerusalem Post editorial board. The prime minister asserts the "full occupation" of the Palestinian territory would "signal the end of Hamas," but "experience and military analysis suggest otherwise." Occupation would allow Hamas to "go underground and regroup" in an asymmetric fight, bogging Israel down in a "costly, open-ended war with no end in sight." That would be a "long-term disaster for Israel."

'Self-inflicted injury'

Hamas and Netanyahu "both want to keep the Gaza war going," said Jonathan D. Strum at The Hill. The prime minister and his "ultra-nationalist" backers are following a "vision of a Palestinian-free Gaza," which is why they continue the war despite military advice that further fighting serves "no military purpose." Hamas, meanwhile, wants to survive as a "political force" and can best do that while Israel continues the "self-inflicted injury" of a prolonged war.

Occupying Gaza could be a "political tactic to pressure Hamas" for ceasefire negotiations, said PBS NewsHour. Netanyahu has set out an "ambitious goal," said David Makovsky, the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Project on Arab-Israel Relations. But the dynamic could prove tricky if Hamas does not return to negotiations. "We just don't know yet."

What happened

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet this morning approved a proposal for the Israeli Defense Forces to take over Gaza City, the largest population center in the embattled Gaza Strip. "We intend to" take over all of Gaza, but "we don't want to keep it" or "govern it," Netanyahu said on Fox News Thursday. "We want to hand it over to Arab forces" after defeating Hamas.

Who said what

The resolution approved by the security cabinet "appeared to stop short of Netanyahu's proposal" but "also did not explicitly rule out or reject" the idea, The Washington Post said. A full Gaza takeover would be a "gamble that defies international pressure to end the war and lacks broad domestic support," The Wall Street Journal said. Polls show "most Israelis want the war to end in a deal that would see the release of the remaining hostages," Reuters said.

"What Netanyahu is offering is more war, more dead hostages" and "tens of billions of taxpayer shekels poured into the delusions" of his hawkish right-wing allies, opposition leader Yair Lapid said. As the security cabinet met Thursday night, "thousands, including freed hostages," protested across Israel against expanding the war, Ha'aretz said.

In pushing forward with the "pivotal and risky" incursion, Netanyahu is also "bucking the advice of the Israeli military," The New York Times said. The IDF's chief of staff, Lt. Gen Eyal Zamir, has "pushed back against the plan," citing concerns about the "exhaustion and fitness of reservists" and "becoming responsible for governing millions of Palestinians."

What next?

The resolution still needs approval "by the full cabinet, which may not meet until Sunday," Reuters said, citing two government sources. If the plan is approved, the Times said, the military would likely need "days, at least, to call up reserve forces" and "allow time for the forced evacuation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the new areas of combat."

Occupying Gaza is the only way to ensure Israel's security and wipe out Hamas, claimed Benjamin Netanyahu as he announced that the Israeli army will "take control of Gaza City".

The UN said that the move risks "catastrophic consequences" for Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages, and there has also been condemnation from world leaders, the Israeli military and relatives of the hostages.

Who owns Gaza?

Before Israel was established in 1948, the area now known as Gaza was "part of the large swathe" of the Middle East that was under British colonial rule, said South China Morning Post.

Upon the foundation of Israel, 700,000 Palestinians either fled or were forced from their homes. Tens of thousands of them "flocked" to the "strip of land wedged between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea", which was handed to the control of the Egyptian army.

During the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel took control of Gaza from Egypt and began to build settlements on the land. Then, after Israel and the Palestinians agreed the Oslo Accords in 1993, control of Gaza was handed to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

In 2005, Israel performed a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, uprooting all of its troops and thousands of settlers. Within months, Hamas won parliamentary elections in Gaza and aggressively seized control of the territory from the PA. In response, Israel imposed a strict blockade on Gaza, which some argued was another form of occupation.

What is the legal definition of 'occupation'? 

According to Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations a territory is considered occupied "when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army". Israel is not a party to the Fourth Hague Convention but it's "considered customary international law" and, therefore it "still binds Israel", said Atlantic Council.

What might happen next?

There are fears that settler movements may seize the opportunity to try and return to Gaza, said Leonie Fleischmann on The Conversation. Since Israel began its "onslaught" in the strip, settler groups have been calling for the resettlement of Gaza and although it's "not yet clear" whether Netanyahu plans to allow the establishment of civilian settlements there, "historical precedent makes this a very real possibility".

Some have speculated, however, that the "threat of full occupation" is just part of a "strategy" to pressure Hamas to make concessions in "stalled talks", said Hugo Bachega, the BBC's Middle East correspondent. "We don't want to govern it. We don't want to be there as a governing body," Netanyahu has said. We "want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life."

How these aims are realised is less than clear, as Jonathan Sacerdoti noted in The Spectator. "Politically", the notion of "long-term Israeli security control over Gaza" without annexation or direct governance presents an "unsolved riddle: who will take responsibility for civil life once the guns fall silent"?

For much of the 21st century, American political support for Israel has been a bipartisan exercise, cutting across the aisle to become one of the few universally agreed-upon subjects in Washington, D.C. However, as Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip nears the two-year mark, that broad support has eroded significantly.

Not only are Democrats increasingly willing to criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ultranationalist government, but certain conservative circles are, too. While President Donald Trump had made the vociferous backing of Israel a key feature of his administration, some members of his MAGA coalition have begun publicly breaking from the party orthodoxy and speaking out against Israel's conduct in Gaza.

'Growing skepticism' over Israel from the right

While the Trump White House has been "measured" in its criticism of Israel, its "cautious approach" contrasts with the "ascendance of a loud wing of the president's base that has sharply criticized Israel," said Politico. While "plenty" of Republicans, including "MAGA loyalists," are still "backing Israel," the party's right flank is growing "increasingly frustrated" with support for a war they see as "politically noxious" and a "moral stain on the country's reputation."

Writing on X that the situation in Gaza amounted to "genocide, humanitarian crisis and starvation," Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) became the "first Republican in Congress" to describe the situation in Gaza as a "genocide" — an "indication of growing skepticism on the right about Israel's conduct of the war," said The New York Times. That Trump himself broke with Netanyahu recently by affirming mass starvation was happening across Gaza is "creating space for a GOP realignment on Israel," Axios said. While "America First" MAGA supporters have been historically skeptical of U.S. foreign aid, Trump had "carved out an exception for Israel," the consensus for which has "eroded at a stunning rate" recently.

While the majority of mainstream Republicans still support Israel's war on Gaza "virtually unconditionally," conservatives willing to speak against the Gaza war are "becoming more influential online and outside Washington," said Responsible Statecraft. That's true "particularly among conservatives under 30."

Republicans willing to speak out about Israel's wartime conduct are likely "reading the tea leaves in terms of public opinion," said Northeastern University Political Scientist Costas Panagopoulos at Newsweek. Lawmakers have been "getting pressure from constituencies about what's going on in Gaza" and are being asked to "hold Israel to account."

Violence that hits 'significantly closer to home'

MAGA's "increasing unease" about Trump's Gaza policy has both put "a spotlight on the administration's close ties with Israel" while raising "additional questions" about Trump's plans moving forward, said The Hill. Escalating violence in both Gaza and the West Bank "hits significantly closer to home" for many of Trump's more "traditionally" conservative supporters who may be "less swayed by flashy controversies" than they are by "harm to Christians" living in those communities, Haaretz said.

"My people are starting to hate Israel," Trump reportedly told a Jewish donor recently, according to a "Middle East expert who speaks regularly with the administration," said the Financial Times. Even so, it's important to avoid "overstating the impact of critics on the far right."

"I don't think" the MAGA frustrations will lead to a "blow-up with Israel and Trump," said the expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But "there are people in the White House who are watching this narrative develop in the right wing, in the MAGA world, that is very anti-Israel, very anti-Jewish.”

The United Kingdom took a major diplomatic step this week by announcing its intention to recognize Palestinian statehood unless Israel and Hamas reach a ceasefire. While much of the world still does not recognize Palestinian sovereignty, there are currently 147 countries that do consider Palestine an independent nation, including some major global powers. Here are a few of them.

France

French President Emmanuel Macron announced that his country will "recognize an independent state of Palestine in September at the U.N. General Assembly," said The Washington Post. This will make France perhaps the most notable nation yet on the world stage to recognize Palestine, as France will be the "largest Western power and the first member of the Group of Seven to recognize Palestinian statehood."

The "move marks a significant shift for France, whose policy has walked a diplomatic tightrope since the October 2023 Hamas-led attacks in Israel," said France24. It is part of a continual change in relations between France and Middle Eastern countries.

Norway

Norway recognized Palestinian independence in 2024, becoming the latest Scandinavian country to do so. Norway took the step because it felt Palestinians have a "fundamental, independent right to self-determination and that both Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live in peace and security in their respective states," said Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gare Store in a Politico op-ed.

Norway's "position on the Israel-Palestine conflict has been steady," said Al Jazeera. Norwegian officials have been "quick to demand a ceasefire after the latest conflict erupted."

Spain

Spain recognized Palestinian statehood at the same time Norway and Ireland did. Spain "considers the decision to be vital for peace and reflects the position of the international community and Spanish society," the Spanish government said in a press release.

Recognizing Palestine as a country is an "act of justice towards the Palestinian people, an essential measure to guarantee Israel the security it rightfully demands and the only viable path to peace in the region," the government said.

Mexico

Mexico recognized a Palestinian state in March after announcing its intention to do so last year. Mexico showed "support for a comprehensive and definitive two-state solution to the conflict," the Mexican government said. It had remained neutral during prior wars in the Middle East.

This decision for recognition was supported by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who is Jewish. We "condemn the aggressions that are being experienced and also consider that the state of Palestine must be recognized in its entirety," Sheinbaum said during a press conference. This has been Mexico's "position for many years."

Ireland

Ireland has long been one of the most pro-Palestinian countries due to historic similarities and recognized Palestine's independence at the same time as Norway and Spain. The country "recognizes Palestine as a sovereign and independent state and agreed to establish full diplomatic relations between Dublin and Ramallah," the Irish government said in a statement.

The "decision of Ireland is about keeping hope alive," Simon Harris, Ireland's then-Taoiseach, or head of government, said in the same statement. A "two-state solution is the only way for Israel and Palestine to live side by side in peace and security."

Brazil

Brazil has recognized a Palestinian state since 2010 during President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's first term. The country has long pushed for Palestine's advancement and also "assumed the presidency of a United Nations working group focused on advancing Palestinian statehood recognition," said Brazilian outlet The Rio Times.

By recognizing Palestine, Brazil "hopes international pressure will highlight the growing isolation of the U.S. and Israel on Palestinian recognition while advancing concrete steps toward implementing the long-sought two-state solution," said the Times.

South Africa

South Africa has recognized Palestine as a state since 1995, making it one of the first countries to do so. South Africans have often "compared the restrictions Israel placed on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with the treatment of Black South Africans during apartheid," said The Associated Press.

South Africa also brought a case against Israel, alleging genocide at the International Court of Justice. The case remains one of the more notable legal actions taken against Israel's government.

After nearly two years of horrific violence that has paralyzed the Middle East and captivated the world, two Israel-based human rights organizations have publicly condemned their government for committing what they deemed "genocide" against Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. By invoking the charged term, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel have not only reopened an acrimonious global debate over Israel's wartime conduct but raised the prospect that Israeli civil society may have reached a tipping point over the conflict. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nationalist governing coalition struggles to maintain control amid increasing global isolation, are these domestic allegations of genocide a sign that Israel's support for its war in Gaza is weakening?

What did the commentators say?

The conclusions of human-rights focused B'Tselem in its "Our Genocide" report and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel in its "A Health Analysis of the Gaza Genocide" position paper have added fuel to a "passionately fought international debate" over whether Israel's conduct in Gaza has "crossed a moral red line," said The New York Times. The joint reports are "another milestone in the human rights community's efforts" to hold Israeli officials accountable for their "crimes against Palestinians," said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard in a statement.

"Nothing prepares you" for the realization that "you are part of a society committing genocide," said B'Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak in a statement accompanying the report. "This is a deeply painful moment for us." While Israel's right-wing government has "angrily rejected" allegations of genocide, their "remonstrations" have not "deterred Israel's fiercest critics from using the word," said The Washington Post.

The latest allegations come as "pressure mounts" on Israel over the "catastrophic situation in Gaza," CNN said. At the same time, Netanyahu is "under pressure from all sides domestically," with anti-war protests "growing in strength and frequency" and right-wing ministers "threatening to collapse the government" if he ends the violence in Gaza.

Despite being considered on the "political fringe" domestically, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel are "prominent and respected internationally," and their conclusion "shatters a taboo in a society that has been reticent to criticize" its handling of Gaza, said NPR. As one of Israel's "most prominent human rights organizations," B'Tselem's use of the term "genocide" is "bound to draw criticism of the group in Israeli society," Al Jazeera said. Many Israeli critics of the Gaza war have already faced "brutal denunciations from their compatriots."

What next?

While the groups' reports are focused primarily on conduct in the Gaza Strip, both organizations are keenly aware that their allegations of genocide may not be so geographically limited in the future. The authors of B'Tselem's assessment "link" their allegations of genocide in Gaza to the "rise in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and even within Israel," said Haaretz, "expressing deep concern that the genocide could spread to other areas where Palestinians live."

After publishing their findings, both groups say they expect pushback from across Israeli society. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has been "under pressure for months" and expects "stronger backlash" now that it has released its report, Reuters said. "We've looked into all of the risks that we could be facing," said B'Tselem International Director Sarit Michaeli to the outlet. "These are legal, reputation, media risks, other types of risk, societal risks and we've done work to try and mitigate these risks." Still, with international pressure mounting and domestic opposition to the war finding traction, it wouldn't be unreasonable "to expect this issue, which is so fraught and so deeply contentious within Israeli society and internationally, to lead to an even greater reaction."

What happened

President Donald Trump Monday acknowledged that there is "real starvation" in Gaza and suggested that Israel could be doing more to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians. His assessment, delivered during a press conference alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland, contradicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement Sunday that "there is no starvation in Gaza."

Who said what

"Based on television," the Gaza "children look very hungry," Trump said. "Some of those kids are — that's real starvation stuff. I see it, and you can't fake that." He said the U.S. and other allies would "set up food centers" in Gaza where "people can walk in and no boundaries" will keep them from getting aid. But Netanyahu has "got to sort of like run it," Trump added. "I want him to make sure they get the food."

It "wasn't immediately clear whether Trump was referring to a new American effort" or the violence-plagued Israeli-backed program in place since Netanyahu partially lifted an aid blockade in May, The Wall Street Journal said. The White House said details would be "forthcoming."

Trump is "seemingly recalibrating his stance on Gaza as images of emaciated children" spark "renewed worries" about malnutrition and starvation, The Associated Press said. His "rare" and "sharper-than-usual criticism" of Netanyahu follows "growing condemnation" of Israel's Gaza war domestically and from some of America's "closest allies," Politico said. Starmer said at Monday's news conference that "people in Britain are revolted at seeing what they are seeing on their screens."

What next?

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the leading global authority on food crises, said Tuesday morning that the "worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip," and predicted "widespread death" without immediate action.

What happened

Israel announced Sunday it will pause military activity in Gaza City, Al-Mawasi and Deir al-Balah from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. "every day until further notice." The Israel Defense Forces also said "secure routes" for food and medical aid delivery would be established from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

The announcement came as the World Health Organization warned malnutrition had reached "alarming levels" in the region.

Who said what

"Nearly one in five children under five in Gaza City is now acutely malnourished," the WHO said, blaming "deliberate" efforts to block and delay aid. The "tactical pause" would refute this "false claim," the IDF said. Hamas said Israel was "whitewashing its image before the world."

What next?

"The volume of aid needed is huge," said CNN, and "thousands of trucks" are waiting at Gaza's border crossing points. With long wait times expected, United Nations aid groups will need Israel to give trucks "really fast clearances and approvals" in order to "take advantage of these pauses," Ross Smith, the director of emergencies at the World Food Program, told Reuters. Both Israel and Hamas vowed to continue their respective military campaigns.

What happened

Foreign ministers from 28 countries, including Australia, France, Japan and the U.K., released a joint statement Monday condemning Israel's ongoing attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza and its "inhumane killing of civilians."

The "suffering" of the population in the densely occupied territory has "reached new depths," said the statement. It also called for the "immediate and unconditional" release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Who said what

The declaration is "notable for its candor" and reflects both "Western frustration at Israeli intransigence" and the "growing political pressure" to act that "many governments are feeling," said James Landale at the BBC. A "key paragraph" of the statement says signatories "support a ceasefire and political pathway to security and peace" in what is "code for recognizing a state of Palestine" — something many of the countries have done but "not all." In particular, the statement criticizes Israel's "tightly controlled aid distribution method," accusing the Israeli government of "drip feeding" aid into the beleaguered Gaza Strip, said CBS News. While both Israel and the U.S. have dismissed the international declaration, "key mediator Egypt, however, endorsed the message," said Le Monde.

What next?

Despite "international outcry" and "mounting demands" for an immediate ceasefire, there's little to suggest any "imminent breakthrough in ongoing negotiations for a truce," said CBS. Monday's statement was released one day after Israel "said it was again expanding its ground war in Gaza."

What happened

Israeli troops opened fire Sunday on a crowd of hungry Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip as they awaited a United Nations aid convoy. At least 67 were killed and dozens wounded, according to the Gaza health ministry. Another 32 people were killed Saturday near a separate aid site.

The U.N. estimates that at least 875 people have died in the war-torn region while trying to access food in recent months, and most of those deaths occurred near sites run by the Israeli and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Who said what

The civilians were "anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies" from the U.N. World Food Program on Sunday when they came under fire from "Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire," the WFP said in a statement, adding: "There should never, ever, be armed groups near, or on, our aid convoys."

The Israeli military said it had fired "warning shots" to "remove an immediate threat." It disputed the death toll reported by Gazan authorities but did not give specific figures of its own, saying the incident was under review.

What next?

The "mounting deaths and the hunger crisis" could hinder ceasefire talks happening in Qatar, a Hamas official told Reuters. Meanwhile, Israel is expanding its offensive into Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, which is "one of the few parts of the Palestinian enclave where it has not yet deployed ground forces," said the Financial Times. The army issued an evacuation order for the densely-populated city Sunday. More than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed during the 21 months of Israeli military operations in Gaza.

What happened

Israel's military has said a "technical error" with munitions was behind an air strike on a water distribution point in central Gaza that killed at least 10 people, medics claim, including six children.

Who said what

The Al-Awda Hospital said that the bodies of the victims, and more than a dozen wounded people, were taken from the Nuseirat refugee camp to its facility on Sunday. The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged that a strike intended for an "Islamic Jihad terrorist" had missed its target, and said it was aware that casualties had been reported. "The incident is under review," it said.

The attack comes as "famine spreads in the besieged enclave and food and water supplies remain at critically low levels," said Al Jazeera.

What next?

This is "one of several deadly incidents in the territory" taking place as "ceasefire talks in Doha falter," said CNN. "Hopes had been high for the latest negotiations," but both sides have since "accused each other of blocking an agreement" and "on the ground, there has been no let-up in Israel's military campaign."

'The Viennese paradox: Urban superstar and right-wing whipping boy'

Lee Hockstader at The Washington Post

Vienna is an "enviable success story," but the "Viennese paradox is that the city has been seized on by antimigrant forces who paint it as a polyglot pariah," says Lee Hockstader. "'Othering' multicultural cities is a familiar page from the populist playbook," but the "difference is that those cities, like many major U.S. metropolises, struggle with real dysfunction." Vienna's "problems are trivial by comparison." But Vienna's "integration project has run up against Austria's daunting obstacles to naturalization."

Read more

'Crypto renaissance means it's time to protect banks'

Bloomberg editorial board

With the "price of digital assets testing the boundaries of plausibility, and Congress promising legislation to boost the industry further, now might be a good time for bank regulators to take notice," says the Bloomberg editorial board. Before the "traditional banking system gets further intertwined with the blockchain-based economy, regulators should make some prudent adjustments." When it "comes to the risks posed by this chaotic industry, no one should assume that this time is different."

Read more

'Trump's authoritarian manipulation of language'

Renée Graham at The Boston Globe

Some people "couldn't help but notice how quickly a president casually using profanity has become normalized," says Renée Graham. Donald Trump's "public use of profanity without apology or repercussions points to how he has upended language over his decade in the political spotlight — a hallmark of authoritarianism." When "Trump swears, he isn't just coarsening language. It becomes yet another way of torching the decorum once expected of presidents." Authoritarianism "leaves its stain on everything, including language."

Read more

'There is still only one way out for Israel and Iran'

Hillel Schenker at The Nation

The "only way to end the possibility that the Iranians will decide to go nuclear" is "by a negotiated agreement with Iran," says Hillel Schenker. The "deal would have to include clear and verifiable inspection elements, as well as a commitment from both sides to stop threatening each other's existence." If "that is not achieved, the danger is that the Iranians may choose the North Korean option and rapidly race toward the completion of nuclear weapons."

Read more

When Donald Trump announced in February that the US should take "ownership" of Gaza and develop the battered enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East", he caused outrage across the Middle East – but not in Israel.

Standing alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, the US president suggested forcibly relocating two million Palestinian residents to a "good, fresh, beautiful piece of land" elsewhere, cheered by many far-right ministers in Netanyahu's coalition government.

Now, the Israeli prime minister is back at the White House to discuss a possible US-brokered ceasefire with Hamas (and to nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize). Meanwhile, his defence minister, Israel Katz, has laid out another controversial proposal: to force Palestinians into what he termed a "humanitarian city" in Gaza.

What is the plan?

Katz told reporters yesterday that he had instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare to establish a new zone in southern Gaza, on the rubble where the city of Rafah once stood.

Katz said the idea was for the IDF to control the perimeter of the site, which would initially accommodate about 600,000 displaced Palestinians who have mostly been living in the coastal al-Mawasi area. They would go through "security screening" before entering – but once inside, they would not be allowed to leave.

Eventually, the whole population of Gaza will be moved there in what he called "the emigration plan", said Haaretz. But the IDF would not run the site or distribute aid, Katz added.

Work on the "humanitarian city" could start during the 60-day ceasefire currently under negotiation, Katz said, adding that Netanyahu is leading efforts to find countries willing to "take in" Palestinians.

Katz's words contradict what the IDF's chief of staff said on Monday, in response to claims that the Israeli military had commanded troops to "mobilise" and "concentrate" civilians in Gaza. Eyal Zamir's office told Israel's High Court that the army "does not impose forced population expulsions inside or outside the Gaza Strip", said Haaretz.

An official told the paper that Israel does not expect the plan to proceed, and that no countries approached by Israel had agreed to receive Palestinian refugees.

What else do we know?

Reuters reported yesterday that it had seen a proposal – bearing the name of a "controversial US-backed aid group" – describing "a plan to build large-scale camps called 'Humanitarian Transit Areas' inside – and possibly outside – Gaza".

The $2 billion proposal, created after 11 February and carrying the name of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), outlined "a vision of replacing Hamas' control over the population in Gaza". The plan describes the camps as "voluntary" places where Palestinians could "temporarily reside, deradicalise, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so".

The proposal said that one camp would "house 2,160 people, along with a laundry, restrooms, showers and a school". But a source said the project envisages eight camps, capable of housing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. The facilities would be used to "gain trust with the local population" and facilitate Trump's "vision for Gaza". The proposal was "submitted to the Trump administration" this year, two sources told Reuters, and "recently discussed in the White House".

The GHF denied it had submitted the proposal, adding that the presentation seen by Reuters was "not a GHF document". A senior US official said "nothing of the like is under consideration", and the US State Department declined to comment.

In May, The Washington Post also reported that the GHF was planning to build housing compounds for Palestinians.

What has the reaction been?

"There is no such thing as voluntary displacement amongst a population that has been under constant bombardment for nearly two years and has been cut off from essential aid," Jeremy Konyndyk, president of the Refugees International advocacy group and former senior US Agency for International Development official, told Reuters.

Legal experts and academics described the plan as "a blueprint for crimes against humanity", said The Guardian. It also breaks international law, said Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer. "While the government still calls the deportation 'voluntary', people in Gaza are under so many coercive measures that no departure from the strip can be seen in legal terms as consensual."

Driving someone out of their homeland during a war is a "war crime". And "done on a massive scale", like what Katz has described, "it becomes a crime against humanity".

The defence minister has laid out plans for "a concentration camp", said Amos Goldberg, a Holocaust historian and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "It is neither humanitarian nor a city."

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 40.

Following Israel's Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's first formal order was to announce the establishment of an official army for the new nation: the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Founded on 26 May, This organisation combined several military groups and militia, and went on to acquire a status of superiority to rank as one of the world's most effective fighting forces.

Membership of the IDF included not only armed personnel from Jewish military groups active during World War II, but also Europeans who had survived the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. From 1948, the IDF superseded all other Jewish armed forces.

At Israel's birth, the IDF played a key role in Israeli society. These forces were a direct outcome of the dissolution and assimilation of the previously active Jewish underground militias and the IDF was formed in a conservative effort to withstand the later threat of Arab armies.

The IDF became determined to give expression to Zionist values and to commit itself to the protection of Israel. Between 1949 and 1956, the IDF concentrated on developing itself into a modern army and air force. Tensions between the Arabs and Jews persisted and the divisions between the two groups are still ingrained into the contemporary fabric of Middle Eastern religious and political life.

Roots of the Israel Defence Forces

The transformation of a series of disorganised underground militias to the formation of a national defence corps was a complex and haphazard affair. Various activists had to be compelled into unification, and to accept the importance of forming a single state entity to defend Israel and its borders.

The newly created Israeli government recognised the need to absorb and consolidate the armed elements that had operated during the years of the Mandate, when there was administrative and political control imposed by the British. The IDF then came about after the dismantling of all other Jewish armed forces.

The unravelling of events prior to Ben-Gurion's first order indicates that the formation of the IDF pre-dated a military struggle, at the centre of which was the Haganah – a Zionist military organisation that sought to repel Arab forces in Palestine and to defend Jewish settlements. Underpinning what in its early days was a 'softer' approach, the Haganah emphasised an adherence to principles of 'self-restraint'.

While the Haganah itself operated before the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the origins of the IDF can be traced back more than 100 years. Modern Jewish settlements in Palestine were around in the 1870s and their safety depended on protection against bandits and thieves.

At the beginning of the 20th century, these settlers increasingly drew upon the services of vigilantes to protect their colonies, and established self-defence units. These, often found in the north of Israel, consisted of a motley collection of inexperienced and unprofessional men and women.

During World War I, the Zionist Movement lobbied the British government to mobilise three battalions of Jewish soldiers. These went on to be known as the Jewish Legion, which itself was followed by the introduction of other splinter groups such as the First Judean Battalion. The desire for autonomy, in order to deter external threats, culminated in the creation of the Haganah.

In the run-up to the formation of the Haganah, many Jews in the region had begun adopting an ideological commitment to counter the rise of anti-Semitism since the 1920s. Those Jews who joined the Haganah received training and were supportive of Zionist principles.

The military units that were to underscore the roots of the group could be distinguished by their knowledge of modern warfare and theories following attendance of an array of courses that were available, even though systematic and organised training programmes proved difficult to run.

The effective use of tuition was also limited, as personnel had to be in place all over Palestine and could not be detracted from their primary military role. Yet evidence of such training among the Haganah troops, albeit on a minor scale, is available as far back as the mid-1920s when, for example, 20 men attended a commanders' course in the woods on Mount Carmel, near to Haifa.

In 1941, similar programmes were still held: at Juara, for example, an isolated district near to Esdraelon where several future IDF chiefs of staff attended. Other training was sporadic yet often entailed intensive tutelage in sniping, reconnaissance and explosives. Such military education was not really tolerated by the British, but the Palestinian Jews ignored any unwanted criticism.

Jewish forces in World War II

The outbreak of World War II prompted the fragmented Jewish defence groups to bring about better organisational cohesion, though these changes were not as pronounced as was the case after 1945. Even so, during the war, Haganah reorganised and several fringe groups split into a number of self-defence forces.

At the outset, the British made it clear that it wanted Palestinian Jews to engage with them and to join in the fight within their existing armed forces. These Jews attached themselves to the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and other recognised branches of the British military. There were even units composed solely of Palestinian Jews, and of Arabs and Jews, such as the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps which was quickly despatched to France in 1940.

It was during the summer of 1940 that the Haganah set about organising itself into an effective fighting force in readiness for any Axis threat that could scupper the plans of the Yishuv (the Palestinian Jews). The Axis forces were thereby added to the list of enemies who could thwart the wishes of those wanting the creation of a Jewish state.

In the absence of being able to impose a national taxation system, financing a defence force became a problem. Voluntary contributions were not adequate to fund the activities of the Haganah and associated paramilitary groups. To some extent the Kibbutz movement, an autonomous Jewish community, was not slow in coming forward to assist, and introduced a work programme to aid the troops.

During the course of World War II, 15 Jewish groups of Palestinian Jews joined the British and they became known as the Palestine Regiment. This in turn led to the creation of the Jewish Brigade. Ben-Gurion wanted to maximise the value of these volunteers and the British promised him a force based on the model of the WWI battalions.

The British were slow to act, but eventually conceded that the brigade could be formed and it was established on 3 July 1944. Ben-Gurion's desire to form the brigade was also a reaction against a White Paper issued by the British government in 1939, which almost put an end to Jewish hopes for their own state in Palestine.

The British wanted to remove the tension and dispel attention on the Middle East in order to focus as much as possible on the imminent European crisis. This entailed pacifying the Arab majority in Palestine and reducing the military intervention there, when troops and equipment were far more in need in Europe.

Even so, the Jewish Brigade provided military backup to the British in Iraq, Syria, Italy and North Africa, and from this diverse background, the Haganah elite companies came into existence.

The Jewish Brigade served in Europe until 1946, and after the war launched itself into securing the safe passage of European refugees and contributed to the Jewish self-defence movement.

Special care and aid by the brigade was also given to survivors of concentration camps and ghettos, so its role went beyond that of merely a military outfit. However, largely because of persistent conflict with the British, the brigade was disbanded. It later became what is recognised today as the 'foundation' of the IDF.

Resistance to British rule

In the wake of Allied victory , the Haganah numbered 30,000 active personnel. The backbone of this organisation was the Palmach, which consisted of 2,000 members. At the outset, Palmach was formed to act against the onslaught of a German invasion, should the British decide to evacuate Palestine.

Preparations were also put in place to stockpile arms and military equipment to use at a later stage in the conflict. The self-defence movement also busied itself by amassing additional arms and these were smuggled into Palestine in varying degrees of risk and uncertainty; in some cases, they were illegally bought or stolen from the British.

The Jews were able to seize vital armaments such as hand grenades, rifles and mortars. Occasionally British soldiers came across workshops organised by the Haganah and they would dismantle and destroy these facilities.

It is no surprise that after the end of World War II, the Haganah saw that its main threat was not wholly Arab forces, but rather the British Army. The British were hostile to the Haganah's primary aims and there followed an engagement between the two sides that was both aggressive and violent.

The British reaction was temporarily to define the actions of the Haganah as dangerous and 'illegal'. Where its members were found to be in possession of firearms without licence, they were arrested and sentenced to jail.

While there was some tolerance of the Haganah by the British, it was more the case that the British forces were not extensive enough to police the whole of Palestine. In some instances, the British turned a blind eye to some of the Haganah's activities.

The British position in Palestine was precarious by this time, and in places the Haganah was allowed a free rein to do as it pleased. The Haganah and the British engaged in a conflict designed by the latter to impose severe restrictions on immigration and to prevent constraints on the Jews, even though evidence was fast emerging of the trauma of thousands of potential immigrants who had escaped German concentration camps.

Records show how 100 members of the Palmach invaded a stronghold at Atlit, south of Haifa, and freed 200 illegal immigrants. Such actions resulted in the death of an occupant of a British police car. The Haganah had initially wanted a bloodless struggle and it was intent on minimising the number of deaths of both British and Arab forces.

To fulfil this aim, it confined itself to damaging and sabotaging Palestine's railway network. The softer approach to attacking Arabs and the British may partly explain the label of 'semi-legal' in the Haganah's moves to effect resistance.

How the IDF was founded

The IDF's origins were based on the inclusion of men and women who had served in the Haganah and the Palmach, and these, along with other underground manpower and survivors of World War II, collectively formed the sole legal armed force in Israel.

The theme of combining both Arab and Jewish groups was later extended to the IDF after Christian and Muslim Arabs joined. The IDF assimilated these elements without compromising the Zionist standpoint of the army in any significant way. As well as those from the Haganah and Palmach, the military group referred to as Irgun was absorbed into the IDF, and another militia known as the Stern Gang.

In the months following the end of World War II, these military factions made plans to effectively co-ordinate, and the distinctive co-operation between Irgun and the Stern Gang led some to believe that these militias had joined forces at a time pre-dating the official launch of the IDF.

Both paramilitary organisations were determined to evict the British from Palestine and to form a Jewish state. From 1946 to 1947, there was a proliferation of incidents involving these paramilitary forces.

The British drew upon every aspect of their experience of colonial rule to maintain law and order, but they could not break the strong determination of the Palestinian Jews to work towards the founding of an independent Jewish state.

The British Army was criticised for the rough treatment of those who had escaped the Holocaust, some of whom were killed in their attempts to fight for independence.

Impeded by a British military interventionist presence, the Jewish underground groupings were limited in their ability to demonstrate professional competence. Yet collectively, the Haganah, Irgun and the Stern Gang attacked Arab settlements and exercised considerable violence in the town of Jaffa, villages in Galilee and northern parts of Palestine.

1948: The Battle for Jerusalem

From January 1948, Jerusalem, due to the military resistance of the Arabs, became virtually cut off from the rest of Palestine. Access to the city was only possible by the use of convoys of trucks, whose safety was put into jeopardy by opposition from Arab troops who blockaded the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Any progress to reach Jerusalem was only really feasible by the intervention of Palmach, whose members escorted the trucks in their dangerous mission to supply food and provisions to the city. As the convoys proceeded to climb the hills of Judea, the Jews were subjected to hostile Arabs armed with rifles who had constructed road blocks in readiness to resist the advancing vehicles laden with supplies.

Palestinian Arabs ambushed the convoys in actions that became more regular and 'sophisticated'. The Haganah received orders to launch Operation Nachshon to clear the way for the convoys to pass along the last few miles before reaching Jerusalem.

Fierce fighting between Jews and Arabs took place. After the British pulled out of Palestine, the two sides were left to fight each other and the battle for Jerusalem continued. By February 1948, Jerusalem was still locked in battle, and the Arab strongholds in the surrounding hills still posed a major threat to the convoys that tried to break through.

The British accompanied some of the trucks en route, but this support dwindled when the Haganah made it clear that it wanted to take full responsibility for its own security. Soon a secret passage was secured, providing a safe opening for the delivery of ample supplies.

By July 1948, 8,000 trucks reached Jerusalem, putting an end to fears that the Jews there would perish through starvation. A truce ensued, and the Haganah claimed victory, but it was not fully achieved owing to the sharing of Jerusalem between both Jews and Arabs.

Meanwhile, preparatory moves were taking place to dismantle the Stern Gang and Irgun (all Irgun members merged with Haganah and the Stern Group, apart from those based in Jerusalem) and to place their activist members to constitute a national force in the form of the IDF; this objective was realised by 31 May 1948.

The Stern Gang's leadership in the wake of integration received amnesty from prosecution in respect of its record of rebellion and conflict. As to Irgun members, they became integrated into the IDF at the beginnings of the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, and the process of absorbing all military organisations into the IDF was well underway at this time.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 40. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price!

"The government is engaging in absolute evil. They are enabling genocide in Palestine by sending money and arms to Israel. They are contributing to the murder of billions to keep the fossil fuel profits flowing."

That is the founding claim of Youth Demand, the UK's latest activist movement "taking up the mantle of public disruption" from Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain and, most recently, Just Stop Oil, said The Times.

Who are they and what do they want?

The group emerged last year out of the youth wing of Just Stop Oil, which recently announced it would end its programme of civil disobedience having achieved its goals after the government pledged to stop issuing new licences for oil and gas exploration and production.

Made up predominantly of students and young people in their 20s, Youth Demand has two main aims: to end all trade with Israel and "make the rich pay". It says the latter must be achieved by raising £1 trillion by 2030 from the "fossil fuel elite to pay damages to countries harmed by fossil fuel burning".

"Until these demands are met," the group said, "we will be in nonviolent resistance against this rigged political system and the people with blood on their hands."

What tactics do they use?

The group first hit the headlines last spring after spray-painting the Labour Party's HQ and Ministry of Defence buildings. In protest over Gaza, it has laid child-sized body bags outside the home of Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and hung a banner covered with red hand prints reading "Starmer stop the killing" outside the home of the PM.

Like Just Stop Oil, it has positioned itself as a "non-violent civil-resistance group" that aims to cause maximum disruption and provoke a reaction from the authorities. Dozens of members were arrested in April after they attempted to "shut London down" with more than 70 roadblocks.

This is an example of the group's signature "swarm" protest, said The Times. This involves "blocking busy roads with a line of people holding banners, flares and flags for about 10 minutes, disrupting traffic and attracting attention, then dispersing before police arrive and repeating the process in another location".

Its activists also target high-profile sporting and cultural events. At the London Marathon they threw red powder paint in front of the men's race, while two members attempted to get on stage during Israel’s performance at this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Basel.

What does the future hold?

The group – which says it has 25,000 people on its mailing list – is planning to "ramp up their activities over the summer" to create a "sustained wave of resistance" in support of the Palestinian people, said The i Paper.

Yet its ambitions extend beyond what William Sitwell in The Telegraph called the "two couture lines of protest: pro-Palestine and anti-fossil fuel".

Youth Demand is just one of four sub-groups in the 'Umbrella' coalition. It also includes Just Stop Oil, Assemble, which aims to create a House of the People representative of the UK public through a lottery to discuss fixing the "broken system", and Robin Hood, which will engage in "civil resistance" in relation to socioeconomic challenges such as food poverty and housing.

"We are going to build a movement that is going to take control of the British state," said co-founder Sam Holland.

This proposition may be "easily dismissed as the delusions of a fringe group," said The i Paper, but Youth Demand is "convinced that 'a revolution' to dismantle centuries of political institutions is just around the corner, and they are the ones who are going to tip it over the edge".

What happened

Israel Tuesday deported Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and three fellow passengers on a boat seized Monday while trying to deliver a symbolic amount of food and medical aid to the Gaza Strip to highlight Israel's longtime blockade of the Palestinian enclave and the growing humanitarian crisis there. Eight other shipmates refused to sign deportation documents and were being held in an Israeli prison awaiting court hearings.

Who said what

Israel committed "an illegal act by kidnapping us on international waters and against our will, bringing us to Israel," Thunberg, 22, said after landing at a Paris airport Tuesday. Spanish activist Sergio Toribio, deported to Barcelona, called Israel's commandeering of the British-flagged yacht the Madleen a "pirate attack in international waters." Israel dismissed the aid mission as a "selfie yacht" publicity stunt.

President Donald Trump on Monday called Thunberg a "young angry person" and dismissed her abduction claim, telling reporters that "Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg." Thunberg responded yesterday: "I think the world needs a lot more young angry women."

What next?

Another 36 Palestinians were killed while trying to access food aid in Gaza Tuesday, the Palestinian Health Ministry and local hospitals said. In all, "at least 163 people have been killed and 1,495 wounded in a number of shootings near aid sites" set up by the controversial U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation after Israel eased its full aid blockade last month, The Associated Press said. Israel's military has "acknowledged firing warning shots."

What happened

The Justice Department and police in Boulder, Colorado, said Monday that the man arrested for Sunday's attack on a local Jewish group had admitted to throwing Molotov cocktails at the "Zionists" in a plot to kill them. The suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, faces state attempted murder charges and a federal hate crime charge. Two of the 12 people burned by his incendiary devices are still hospitalized, police said.

Who said what

Soliman, 45, said he brought 18 incendiary devices to kill Jewish participants in a weekly "Run for Their Lives" hostage-awareness walk, according to a police affidavit. "He said he had to do it, he should do it and he would not forgive himself if he did not do it," but only threw two of the Molotov cocktails "because he got scared and had never hurt anyone before." Soliman intended to use his gas-filled backpack sprayer on himself "because he had planned on dying," police said.

Soliman admitted he planned the attack for a year and "wanted them all to die, he had no regrets and he would go back and do it again," acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell said at a news conference. He wanted to use guns but "could not purchase them because he was not a legal citizen." U.S. officials said Soliman, an Egyptian citizen, entered the U.S in 2022 on a since-expired tourist visa and later applied for asylum. His still-pending asylum claim put his immigration status in a legal "gray area," The New York Times said.

What next?

Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty said the state charges carried a maximum sentence of 384 years. Grewell said the federal case could mean life in prison, "and these charges are the first step." Soliman's next court appearance is Thursday.

At least 27 Palestinians are reported to have been killed and dozens injured in Israeli attacks on an aid distribution site in Rafah run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

It is the third consecutive day of such incidents after Israel imposed a new aid distribution regime on the Gaza Strip after a weeks-long blockade of the region.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for an independent investigation into the shooting of Gazans seeking aid at GHF sites, which has happened with alarming regularity since the Israel and US-backed group started its operations on 27 May.

While the killings have been difficult to verify independently – international news organisations are banned by Israel from entering Gaza – a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross told Reuters that its field hospital in Rafah received 184 casualties; 19 of those were declared dead on arrival and eight subsequently died of their wounds.

What is the GHF?

GHF is the "linchpin" of a new aid distribution system designed to "wrest distribution away" from UN aid organisations, which have done most of this work in the region since the war began in 2023, said The Associated Press.

Food distribution is now limited to a small number of hubs run by the group, which employs armed contractors, ex-military officers and humanitarian aid officials. There are currently four hubs, "all close to Israeli military positions", said AP.

GHF is backed by Israel and the US but it is not clear who is funding the group. It claims to have "more than $100 million in commitments from a European Union government", but has not named the country, while the US and Israel have denied they are the source of funding.

The foundation said in an email on Monday that it had distributed nearly 6 million meals during its first week of operations. "It proves our model is functional and is an effective means to deliver life-saving assistance to the Gazan people under emergency conditions," wrote John Acree, the American former US Agency for International Development official who was named last week as the GHF’s interim director.

Why is it controversial?

Aid distribution operations were handed to GHF after Israel demanded an alternative plan for delivering aid, accusing Hamas of siphoning off a significant portion of the aid entering Gaza.

The UN has denied that there has been any significant diversion of aid to the proscribed terrorist group and rejects the use of GHF, arguing it allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and is ineffective at delivering aid.

Other humanitarian organisations operating in Gaza have also refused to work with the group. "We cannot take part in a system that violates humanitarian principles and risks implicating us in serious breaches of international law," said Shaina Low, from the Norwegian Refugee Council.

How has it distributed aid?

Aid distribution points run by GHF have been chaotic and, for dozens of Gazans, deadly. Al Jazeera journalist Hind Khoudary, reporting from Gaza, said there was "chaos" at the site in Rafah where 27 Palestinians were reportedly killed. There was "no process" and "no system" in place to distribute food aid. It was the third day of deadly shootings at aid sites.

"You just need to run first to be able to get the food," Khoudary said. "The Israeli forces just opened fire randomly, shooting Palestinians … using quadcopters and live ammunition." A "very limited amount" of "flour, oil, lentils and other canned food" is being distributed.

GHF had denied reports of violence in or around the sites, while the Israeli military said it was looking into the reports of casualties.

Can GHF stop famine in Gaza?

The group has said its four hubs will serve meals for 300,000 people, and will eventually be able to feed 2 million as it creates additional hubs over the next 30 days.

But there are no hubs currently in northern or central Gaza, where the majority of displaced Gazans now are. It means most Gazans have to cross Israeli military lines and checkpoints to reach hubs near Rafah.

There are also concerns over the meals that GHF is distributing. They contain only about 1,750 calories, far below the 2,100-calorie-per-day standard for meals in emergency situations used by UN humanitarian groups.

The UN has said it does not believe GHF can meet the needs of Gaza's starving population, warning that the entire population is at "critical risk" of famine.

What happened

Eight people were hospitalized with burns Sunday after a man threw Molotov cocktails at a Jewish group in Boulder, Colorado, at the end of their weekly walk to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas, authorities said. The alleged attacker, who was arrested at the scene, also used a "makeshift flamethrower" and was heard yelling "Free Palestine," said Mark Michalek, the FBI agent in charge of the Denver office. The FBI is investigating this clear "targeted act of violence" as "an act of terrorism," he said.

Who said what

The victims ranged in age from 52 to 88 and at least one was in critical condition, officials said. Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said the 45-year-old suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman of Colorado Springs, was believed to have acted alone. He was also briefly hospitalized, police said. Witnesses told The Associated Press the attacker had removed his shirt and what looked like a bulletproof vest after accidentally setting himself on fire.

Israel's war in Gaza has "spurred both an increase in antisemitic hate crime" and an effort "led by President Donald Trump to brand pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic," Reuters said. Sunday's attack came less than two weeks after a gunman yelling "Free Palestine" killed two Israeli embassy workers outside a Jewish event in Washington D.C. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) said it was "unfathomable that the Jewish community is facing another terror attack here in Boulder."

What next?

Soliman was booked in the Boulder County jail. County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said authorities would decide in coming days which charges to file in what courts to "hold the attacker fully accountable."

A pair of longtime allies, France and Indonesia, are weighing in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At a press conference on May 28, the leaders of both countries pushed for an end to the war in Gaza via a two-state solution, but their proposal has gotten mixed reactions from the global community.

French President Emmanuel Macron has backed calls for a two-state solution that would recognize both Israel and Palestine. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, has supported a similar stance, with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto saying his country will open diplomatic ties with Israel if it recognizes a Palestinian state. But some are worried that the nations' next steps could get complicated.

Macron's shifting stance

While Indonesia and France have both expressed interest in a two-state solution, the latter has been "forced to downgrade expectations" about an upcoming Middle East conference it is hosting with Saudi Arabia, said Politico. The Arab nations "want sanctions not statehood," a European diplomat told the outlet, referring to potential embargoes placed on Israel to end the war. For years, French officials have said Paris was "on the brink of recognizing" Palestinian statehood, but "always cautioning it would only make that move if it advances the peace process."

France, which is "home to Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities, would become the first Western heavyweight to recognize a Palestinian state," said Reuters. This could possibly give "greater momentum to a movement hitherto dominated by smaller nations that are generally more critical of Israel." If "France moves, several [European] countries will follow," said Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide to Reuters.

While Macron's "stance has shifted amid Israel's intensified Gaza offensive," said Reuters, Indonesia's view has largely remained the same: pushing for Palestinian state recognition. But Indonesia has now "made the rare pledge of recognizing Israel if it allowed for a Palestinian state," said France24. This could mark a turning point for the two countries' relations, given that Indonesia has "no formal ties with Israel and support for the Palestinian cause runs high there."

Not the 'right thing to do'

Israel has condemned France's and Indonesia's remarks, as the "Israeli government is unequivocally opposed to Palestinian statehood," said The Times of Israel. A Palestinian state would be a "huge prize for terror," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Some lawmakers in the Israeli "opposition have also expressed opposition in recent weeks, though some left-wing politicians have criticized them for it," said the Times.

Israel has also "recently warned some key European nations that any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state could prompt Jerusalem to extend sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria," said the Jewish News Syndicate. The French-Indonesian initiative is not the "right thing to do," said Benny Gantz, the head of Israel's opposition National Unity Party, to the outlet. Israel "must remember the security considerations we have around us, they were there before Oct. 7, and they are definitely there after Oct. 7," he said, referencing the 2023 Hamas terror attack that precipitated the conflict.

Even as France and Indonesia are pushing for an end to the war, both nations have made "efforts to deepen cooperation through joint training and capacity-building for Indonesian troops," said the South China Morning Post, and Indonesia has said it would be willing to send weapons to the Middle East. But while the two nations have both pitched in, "stopping the violence in the Gaza Strip and to a lesser extent, the West Bank, depends on what the United States, Israel's closest ally and largest military backer, decides to do," said Politico.

What happened

A controversial Gaza food aid operation backed by the U.S. and Israel descended into chaos Tuesday as thousands of Palestinians overwhelmed the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's sole functioning distribution center. Nearby Israeli troops and tanks fired warning shots and helicopters shot flares as "desperate Palestinians" broke through a fence to get food, The Associated Press said.

Who said what

GHF said that after the number of Palestinians swelled at the Rafa hub, its staff "fell back" to "allow a small number of Gazans to take aid safely and dissipate," in line with established safety protocols. "There was some loss of control momentarily," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, but "happily, we brought it under control."

The United Nations and other aid groups are boycotting GHF, saying it "won't be able to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.3 million people and allows Israel to use food as a weapon to control the population," the AP said. They also oppose the group's "use of facial recognition to vet recipients." Tuesday, "desperation for food" after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade trumped Gazans' "concern about biometric and other checks," Reuters said.

What next?

GHF said it handed out 8,000 food boxes Tuesday, its second day of operation, but that constitutes "a mere trickle of assistance" given the vast need, The New York Times said. Meanwhile, unease over the war is building in Israel. "What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of extermination: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians," former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert wrote in Haaretz. "Israel is committing war crimes."

What happened

Britain said Tuesday it was suspending talks with Israel on expanding their free-trade agreement due to the "egregious policies" of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Gaza and the West Bank. The European Union's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said a "huge majority" of EU members supported reconsidering the bloc's trade deal with Israel. The United Nations Wednesday said no food aid had reached its Gaza warehouses despite Netanyahu allowing in a few dozen trucks after an 11-week blockade of humanitarian aid.

Who said what

Tuesday's "steps by London and Brussels" signaled the "shifting attitudes among longtime supporters of Israel" as Netanyahu escalates the assault on Gaza, The Washington Post said. The announcements followed a "rare public reprimand" on Monday from Britain, France and Canada, The New York Times said. The three countries threatened "concrete actions" unless Israel ended its "wholly disproportionate" and "egregious actions" in Gaza.

Netanyahu called the warning a "huge prize" for Hamas. But British Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the U.K. Parliament Tuesday that "opposing the expansion of a war that has killed thousands of children is not rewarding Hamas." He called Israel's aid blockade "cruel and indefensible" and said "the world is judging" Netanyahu's government. Israeli opposition lawmaker Yair Golan told Israeli public radio Tuesday that unless it starts "behaving like a sane country" again, "Israel is on the path to becoming a pariah state."

What next?

The "mounting pressure from Israel's allies including the U.S." has left Netanyahu "with a dilemma," The Wall Street Journal said: "End the end the conflict and risk the collapse of his government, or plow on and sacrifice international support."