Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Israel and Hamas have begun to implement the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s twenty-point peace deal. Under the agreement’s terms, Hamas has released all living hostages and promised to release the remains of others it holds, while Israel has freed about two thousand Palestinian prisoners held in Israel and withdrawn its forces to a predetermined line, leaving it in control of 53 percent of the Gaza Strip. The United Nations has also drastically scaled up aid to the territory. The status of other challenging issues, however, including the disarmament of Hamas and Gaza’s future governance structure, remains unclear.
Background on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The movement for a Jewish state gained traction in the nineteenth century, as Jews increasingly migrated to Ottoman Palestine to escape antisemitism in Europe and return to a land intimately linked to Jewish religion, culture, and history. That trend developed new urgency in the 1930s due to Nazi persecution and after the Holocaust during World War II, in which Nazi Germany killed six million Jews. In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which sought to divide what had become British-controlled Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, with areas of religious significance in Jerusalem remaining under international control. The Jewish Agency accepted Resolution 181, but the Arab League and Palestinian leaders rejected it. Leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine declared the State of Israel’s independence on May 14, 1948. A day later, Israel was attacked by five Arab states, sparking the first Arab-Israeli War. The war ended in 1949 with Israel’s victory and 750,000 Palestinians displaced, in what is referred to as the Nakba, meaning “the catastrophe” in Arabic. Egypt maintained control of the Gaza Strip, Jordan took over the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and roughly 750,000 Jews from across the region were forced out of their own countries and moved to Israel.
Over the following years, tensions rose in the region, particularly between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. In the years following the 1956 Suez Crisis and Britain, France, and Israel’s joint invasion of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria signed mutual defense pacts in anticipation of a possible mobilization of Israeli troops. After Egyptian President Abdel Gamal Nasser ordered the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from the Sinai Peninsula, closed the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and threatened war, Israel preemptively attacked Egyptian and Syrian air forces, starting the Six Day War in June 1967. Israel gained territorial control over the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Later that year, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242, calling for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied during the war and affirming the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of every state in the region, referring primarily to Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Although the resolution was never fully implemented, the land-for-peace principle became the basis for later efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Six years later, in what is referred to as the Yom Kippur War or the October War, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise two-front attack on Israel to regain their lost territory. The conflict did not result in significant gains for Egypt, Israel, or Syria. Still, Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat declared the war a victory, as it enabled Egypt and Syria to negotiate over previously lost territory. In 1979, following a series of ceasefires and peace negotiations, representatives from Egypt and Israel signed the U.S.-brokered Camp David Accords, which culminated in a peace treaty that ended the thirty-year conflict between the two countries.
Although the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was intended to initiate negotiations over Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the question of Palestinian self-determination and self-governance remained unresolved. In 1987, tens of thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip rose up against the Israeli government in what is now commonly called the first intifada or “uprising.” The 1993 Oslo I Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA), setting up a framework for the Palestinians to govern themselves in the West Bank and Gaza, and also enabled mutual recognition between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israeli government. In 1995, the Oslo II Accords expanded on the first agreement, adding provisions that mandated the complete withdrawal of Israel from six cities and four hundred fifty towns in the West Bank.
In September 2000, fueled in part by the collapse of U.S. President Bill Clinton’s effort to reach a final political resolution of the conflict, Palestinian grievances over Israel’s control of the West Bank, and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to the al-Aqsa mosque—the third-holiest site in Islam—Palestinians launched the second intifada, which lasted until 2005. The second intifada was characterized by an escalation in terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings carried out by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups targeting Israeli civilians. In response, the Israeli government approved the construction of a barrier wall around the West Bank in 2002, despite opposition from the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
Factionalism among the Palestinians intensified when Hamas won the PA’s parliamentary elections in 2006, gaining a plurality over Fatah, the political party that had dominated the PA since its establishment. The United States and European Union, among others, refused to work with Hamas after its electoral victory, as Western governments designated the group a terrorist organization in the late 1990s. Violence broke out between Hamas and Fatah after their leaders failed to establish a joint governing arrangement. The primary disagreements stemmed from the groups’ stances toward Israel and their competing claims to lead the Palestinian national movement. Fatah recognizes the State of Israel, whereas Hamas’s 1988 covenant calls for the destruction of Israel and rejects a negotiated settlement to the conflict. Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007, and Israel and Egypt subsequently placed a blockade on the territory.
A cycle of escalatory violence between Hamas and Israel ensued in the following years, leading to worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza. After Hamas refused to renew a six-month ceasefire and increased rocket fire toward southern Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a three-week ground invasion of Gaza in December 2008. The operation marked Israel’s first military engagement in Gaza since its 2005 withdrawal. Sparked by an increase in rocket fire, an anti-tank missile attack on an Israeli patrol, and Israel’s targeted killing of Hamas military chief Ahmad al-Jabari, Israel launched intensive air strikes in Gaza in 2012.
In the summer of 2014, Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, setting off clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police. Hamas then fired nearly three thousand rockets at Israel, and Israel retaliated with a major offensive in Gaza; 2,251 Palestinians and 73 Israelis were killed. In March of 2018, Israeli troops killed 183 Palestinians and wounded 6,000 others after some demonstrators breached the perimeter fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel and threw rocks during an otherwise peaceful protest. Just months later, Hamas militants fired more than one hundred rockets into Israel, and Israel responded with strikes on more than fifty targets in Gaza during a twenty-four-hour flare-up.
The Trump administration helped broker the 2020 Abraham Accords, under which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel, becoming only the third and fourth countries in the region—following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994—to do so. Morocco [PDF] later joined. PA leader Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah rejected the accords because they did not condition regional normalization on progress toward Palestinian statehood. Hamas also condemned the accords.
In early May 2021, after a court ruled in favor of the eviction of several Palestinian families from East Jerusalem properties, protests erupted, with Israeli police employing force against demonstrators. After several consecutive days of violence, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups launched hundreds of rockets into Israeli territory, including Jerusalem, and Israel responded with artillery bombardments and air strikes. The fighting killed more than 250 Palestinians and at least 13 Israelis, wounded nearly 2,000 others, and displaced 72,000 Palestinians.
Clashes in the West Bank
In late December 2022, a coalition government including three far-right parties led by then-opposition leader Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu was inaugurated. The coalition government has prioritized expanding and developing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, fueling violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinians. The United Nations estimated that in the first fourteen months of the Israel-Hamas war, there were at least 1,860 recorded incidents of violence in the West Bank, mostly concentrated in Nablus, Ramallah, and Hebron. In January, Israel launched Operation Iron Wall, a major military action employing air strikes and ground force operations against militant groups in the northern West Bank. The United Nations reported that the operation has caused the longest and largest displacement crisis in the West Bank since 1967, with 30,000 Palestinians displaced and 126 killed.
Israel-Hamas War in Gaza
On October 7, 2023, Iran-backed Hamas fighters fired rockets into Israel and stormed southern Israeli communities across the border of the Gaza Strip in a surprise attack, killing more than 1,300 people, injuring 3,300, and taking hundreds of hostages. One day after the attack, the Israeli cabinet formally declared war against Hamas, followed by a directive from the defense minister to the IDF to carry out a “complete siege” of Gaza. It has been the most significant escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in several decades.
Israel launched a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip on October 27 to return all the hostages and dismantle Hamas. A weeklong ceasefire agreement was reached in late November 2023, during which Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages and prisoners. Israeli forces then launched a ground offensive targeting Hamas in the city of Khan Younis, which ultimately became a siege. Israel launched an offensive in Rafah from May to July 2024 to gain control of the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egyptian border, further isolating Gaza. Israel’s next major offensive was in October 2024 in northern Gaza, specifically in the Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Lahiya, where Israel imposed a siege to establish a deeper security buffer along the northern border. Israeli forces expanded their operations to Beit Hanoun in November 2024.
Israel has cited military successes, including the June 2024 rescue of four living hostages in central Gaza and the elimination of Hamas’s top leadership, including the group’s leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, military chief Mohammed Deif, and Deif’s deputy Marwan Issa. In January 2025, the United States, Egypt, and Qatar announced that they had mediated a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Israel later broke the ceasefire, citing Hamas’s refusal to release more hostages, and renewed its offensive in March 2025, launching a major military campaign across the territory, including in Gaza City, Khan Younis, and Rafah.
The war has led to more than seventy thousand Gazan deaths, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry. Israel has argued in many cases that its actions were necessary because Hamas’s guerrilla warfare tactics often involve fighters embedding themselves in civilian areas. Since the start of Israeli operations in 2023, numerous reports have documented the targeting of journalists, schools, and Israeli-designated humanitarian zones. Israel maintains that Hamas continues to use civilian buildings, notably hospitals, for military purposes, including storing weapons and accessing its extensive, miles-long tunnel network. At least 94 percent of Gaza’s hospitals are damaged or destroyed, and there are only two thousand available hospital beds across the Gaza Strip. Similarly, Israel’s two-month total blockade of humanitarian aid, justified by Israeli officials as necessary to prevent Hamas from controlling its distribution, has led to famine-like conditions and a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, according to the United Nations. In August 2025, 1.9 million Gazans—about 90 percent of Gaza’s population—were displaced and facing acute or catastrophic food shortages.
In October 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire agreement as part of a broader twenty-point peace framework that aims to end the war, disarm Hamas, and reconstruct Gaza under a new civilian government. As part of the truce, Hamas agreed to release all Israeli hostages still held in Gaza within three days, though it has yet to return the bodies of several slain hostages. Israel, meanwhile, eased restrictions on aid convoys entering the strip, leading to a surge in humanitarian deliveries. Since Trump’s announcement, both Israel and Hamas have traded accusations of ceasefire violations, causing skirmishes that have led to over two hundred casualties. Despite periodic flare-ups, the ceasefire has largely held.
Since the start of the ceasefire, mediators, including the United States, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, have pushed for talks on implementing the second phase of the twenty-point framework to bring a formal end to the war and address postwar reconstruction. In early November, Turkey convened several Muslim-majority states to discuss a draft UN resolution that would grant the United States and partner countries a mandate to govern Gaza and provide security through an international force. Following the expiration of the mandate in 2027, the draft resolution proposes granting a reformed Palestinian Authority control over Gaza.
The conflict has exacerbated regional tensions across the Middle East. The IDF launched a ground invasion of Lebanon following months of cross-border skirmishes with Hezbollah, which began striking northern Israel following Hamas’s October 7 attack. Yemen’s Houthi rebels have fired missiles at Israel, and commercial ships in the Red Sea, and other Iran-backed groups have launched dozens of attacks on U.S. military positions in Iraq and Syria. Iran’s support for Hamas and other regional militant groups threatening Israel, combined with concerns over the regime’s nuclear program, culminated in Israel’s decision to preemptively strike Iran in June 2025, initiating a twelve-day conflict that also led to the United States bombing the most hardened Iranian nuclear facilities. (For more on the direct confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah, visit the “Conflict With Hezbollah in Lebanon” page. For more on Iran, visit the “Iran’s Conflict With Israel and the United States” page.)
Trump’s International Board of Peace Meets to Discuss Gaza
While at least twenty-seven nations are officially members of the board, envoys from some forty-five countries attended the first meeting, underscoring Trump’s significant role in orchestrating the postwar plans for the enclave; besides the United States, no other permanent member of the UN Security Council is on the board (TIME). Trump said countries will pledge at least $7 billion toward Gaza’s reconstruction (AP). The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are each expected to pledge $1.2 billion of that total, an unnamed U.S. official told Reuters (Reuters). Trump said the United States will contribute an additional $10 billion (WaPo). The Board’s top representative for Gaza, Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, said that recruitment is underway for a local police force that will be deployed inside the territory in two months, as a complement to the larger international stabilization force envisioned in Trump’s Gaza peace plan (Anadolu Agency). Outstanding questions still loom about the next steps of Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, including how Hamas’s demilitarization could unfold (CFR).
Israeli Airstrikes Kill Eleven
Palestinian officials announced that Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip killed eleven Palestinians; the IDF stated that the strikes were in response to ceasefire violations by Hamas (Reuters). Since Israel partially opened the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt earlier this month, the UN and partner agencies have helped medically evacuate at least 108 patients, while at least 269 people returned to Gaza, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said; it added that a handful of planned humanitarian missions in Gaza this month have been blocked by Israel or security risks on the ground (OCHA).
Indonesia Says Peacekeeping Troops Ready by June
Indonesia’s military announced that up to eight thousand troops are expected to be ready by June to deploy to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peace mission (AP).
Israeli Foreign Minister to Attend First Board of Peace Meeting
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar will attend the January 19 first Board of Peace meeting; U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce plans for a multibillion-dollar reconstruction of Gaza and a UN-authorized stabilization force (Reuters).
Trump and Netanyahu Discuss Gaza in White House Meeting
U.S. President Donald Trump and Netanyahu discussed their approaches toward Iran and Gaza during a White House meeting today (Times of Israel). Beyond the meeting, Trump expressed his criticisms of Israeli President Isaac Herzog for not issuing a pardon to Netanyahu; the comments come amid Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial (Axios). Washington’s consideration of military action or a nuclear deal with Tehran prompted Netanyahu to move up his visit, which was initially slated for later this month; he has taken at least six trips to the United States since Trump returned to office last year (NYT).
Indonesia Preps Gaza Troops
Indonesia has preliminary plans to send between five and eight thousand troops to Gaza as part of an international peacekeeping force, its army chief of staff said; Indonesia is the first country to openly pledge troops for the mission (Times of Israel/Reuters). President Prabowo Subianto has said that as the world’s most-populous Muslim country, Indonesia should help stabilize Gaza and promote an eventual two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (BBC). The U.S. draft plan demands Hamas surrender all weapons capable of striking Israel as part of the second phase of Trump’s Gaza peace plan, but at least initially allows the group to keep some small arms, the New York Times reported; spokespeople for Netanyahu and Hamas did not immediately comment (NYT). Meanwhile, health officials reported that Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed five individuals; while the Israel Defense Forces did not directly comment on the situation, it stated that it carried out attacks on Hamas militants in response to militants opening fire on troops on Monday (Reuters).
Pushback to West Bank Steps
A White House official told reporters that Trump “does not support Israel annexing the West Bank” following the Israeli security cabinet’s decision Sunday to expand Israeli authority in the territory (Times of Israel). The measures facilitate land purchases by Jewish settlers and assume Israeli control of certain administrative roles previously prescribed to the Palestinian Authority (NYT). Israeli ministers said the changes would “increase transparency and facilitate land redemption”; the steps are widely deemed to be violations of international law and of Israel’s agreements under the Oslo accords (BBC).
Israel to Expand Control in West Bank
Israel’s security cabinet approved measures that would expand Israeli control over the West Bank, a move criticized by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Reuters). The measures include canceling the prohibition of the sale of West Bank land to Israeli Jews, transferring construction planning for religious and sensitive sites in Hebron to Israel, approving Israeli enforcement of archaeological and environmental issues in Palestinian-administered areas, and declassifying land registry records; the measures also would revive a committee with the ability to make “proactive” land purchases in the West Bank (AP). According to a Saudi Foreign Ministry statement, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates strongly condemned the measures (Al Jazeera). Meanwhile, in Gaza, a senior Hamas official rejected any surrendering of weapons, though Israel insists demilitarizing Gaza is a non-negotiable step for the peace process (Times of Israel).
Israeli Strikes on Gaza Hospital Kills Twenty-One
Palestinians Wait at Rafah Border Crossing
More Palestinians gathered at both the Egyptian and Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing after its reopening on Monday; only approximately twelve returnees were allowed across the border on Monday amid delays and confusion over who was allowed to cross (AP).
Israel Partially Reopens Rafah Border Crossing
The reopening of the crossing—the only route in or out of Gaza for most residents—was an unmet requirement of the first phase of President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the territory (CFR). Israel had delayed the reopening until it recovered the final hostage body from Gaza, which occurred last week (Reuters). Until Israel’s takeover in a May 2024 offensive, Rafah was the only Gaza border crossing not controlled by Israel; the crossing was not immediately opened for goods (AP). Having only partially withdrawn from Gaza in accordance with the peace plan, Israel still controls the area that is home to the crossing (NYT). Fifty Palestinians are expected to enter Gaza through the crossing today, while around fifty will be allowed to exit, an unnamed Palestinian source told Reuters (Reuters). The progress came even as strikes that Israel said targeted Hamas militants and weapons sites killed more than thirty people in Gaza over the weekend, exposing ongoing obstacles to Trump’s peace plan (WaPo).
Israel to Open Rafah Border on Sunday
The Israeli government stated the Rafah border crossing will be opened on Sunday; Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories did not state how many Palestinians would be permitted to cross the border per day (Reuters).
Israel Returns Fifteen Palestinian Bodies
Israel returned the bodies of fifteen Palestinians killed in the Gaza war three days after recovering the remains of its last hostage, a step mediators hope will advance the next phase of a U.S.-backed peace plan (Reuters).
Hamas Seeks Police Role in Gaza
Hamas is pushing to fold its roughly ten thousand police officers into a new U.S.-backed Palestinian administration for Gaza, a move Israel is likely to oppose as the group weighs whether to give up its weapons (Reuters).
Final Hostage Body Returned
The body of Ran Gvili, the last remaining Israeli hostage taken to Gaza in Hamas’s 2023 attack, has been returned to Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said (Israeli PMO). The return of all hostage bodies was a key tenet of the first phase of Trump’s Gaza peace plan and paves the way for the second phase to proceed with Israel’s participation (Times of Israel). In line with the peace plan, Netanyahu’s office also announced that it will reopen the Rafah crossing into Gaza for pedestrians (Israeli PMO).
Israel Conditions Opening of Rafah Crossing to Recovery of Last Hostage
Israel will open Gaza’s Rafah Crossing with Egypt only after its military completes an operation to locate and recover the remains of the last Israeli hostage; once the operation concludes, Israel plans to allow limited pedestrian passage through the crossing under a full Israeli inspection mechanism (Reuters).
UNRWA Warns West Bank Training Center Faces Imminent Closure
Israeli authorities may close a UNRWA vocational center in the West Bank within days by expropriating its land, threatening education and job training for 350 Palestinian students, the agency says (Reuters).
Officials From Twenty Countries Sign Onto Board of Peace
They included several Muslim-majority and Central Asian countries as well as Argentina and Paraguay; Bulgaria and Hungary were the only EU countries to join, and no other permanent member of the UN Security Council beyond the United States has confirmed membership (NBC). Israel is joining the board but did not attend the ceremony (CNBC). Trump said he envisioned the board playing a role in conflicts beyond Gaza but that it would work “in conjunction with the United Nations” (Reuters). At the same ceremony, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner said the next phase of the Gaza truce would focus on providing aid, funding for reconstruction, and demilitarizing Hamas; according to a slide in Kushner’s presentation, Hamas members who cooperate will receive “amnesty and reintegration, or safe passage” (Times of Israel). Joining the Davos ceremony by video, the newly minted head of Gaza’s technocratic governing committee, Ali Shaath, said the enclave’s Rafah border crossing would reopen in the coming days (Reuters).
Israeli Demolitions at UN Compound
Israel bulldozed structures at a United Nations (UN) compound in East Jerusalem that previously housed the UN agency for Palestinian refugees; UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the demolition as a violation of international law (Reuters). Israeli forces seized the compound and ordered a halt to the agency’s operations last year, alleging bias and accusing its staff of taking part in the October 7 attacks (AP). The agency still operates in East Jerusalem, which the UN considers territory under Israeli occupation (CNN).
Leaders Consider Trump’s Proposed Board of Peace
The leaders of countries including Argentina, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Morocco, and Vietnam said they would join Trump’s proposed so-called Board of Peace to oversee the next phase of the Gaza peace plan—and potentially other world conflicts; additional leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, are debating whether to accept the invitation (AP). Macron was among those invited, but Paris does not plan to join due to the concerns the proposal raises about undermining the United Nations, an unnamed French official told reporters (Reuters). Trump threatened to impose 200 percent tariffs on French wine and champagne if Macron did not join the board (White House).
Israel Objects to Gaza Executive Board
The Israeli prime minister’s office issued a statement calling the proposed executive board contrary to Israeli policy, without going into detail (DW). Israel previously rejected a possible role for Turkey in postwar Gaza (Guardian).
White House Announces Executive Board for Gaza
The proposed Gaza Executive Board would coordinate with the enclave’s new technocratic governing committee; it includes Turkey’s foreign minister, senior Qatari and Emirati officials, and an Israeli businessman, but no Israeli officials (NYT). Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff are also members (White House).
Gaza Peace Plan Enters Second Phase
U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff announced on social media that Trump’s Gaza peace plan has moved into a second phase of “demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction” (X). Mediators Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey said that former Palestinian Authority official Abdel Hamid Shaath would head a fifteen-person technocratic committee charged with managing Gaza day-to-day; the composition of the rest of the committee was not yet announced, though a U.S. official who briefed reporters said that the full list would be released this week (Reuters). The official added that invitations were sent out to world leaders for membership in a Board of Peace meant to supervise the technocratic government (Times of Israel). It will be headed by Trump, with Bulgarian diplomat and former UN official Nickolay Mladenov as its director-general (AP). Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told the Washington Post that Hamas will support the transfer of “all governmental and official functions” to the new technocratic committee, including security (WaPo). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called the establishment of a technocratic committee a “declaratory move” in a statement and said that Israel’s focus remained on the return of the final deceased hostage body still in Gaza, an unfinished tenet of the peace plan’s first phase (Israeli PMO). The move to phase two of the peace plan comes despite strikes continuing during the truce that defined phase one; while Witkoff said phase two would include “the disarmament of all unauthorized personnel,” Israel has repeatedly voiced skepticism about Hamas’s willingness to disarm (Telegraph). Washington will work to bridge the gaps between Israel and Hamas on demilitarization, a U.S. official told reporters (Times of Israel). Trump’s peace plan also envisions the deployment of an international security force in Gaza, though few countries have voiced willingness to be a part of it (CFR).
NYT: Israel Has Demolished 2,500 Buildings in Gaza Since Ceasefire
According to satellite data analyzed by the New York Times, most of the demolitions occurred in Israeli-controlled parts of the territory, though dozens are in parts of the enclave where Israel had pledged to withdraw and halt military operations; Israel said the demolitions are necessary to demilitarize Gaza (NYT).
Israel-Somaliland Ties
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar visited Somaliland after Israel became the first country in the world to officially recognize the breakaway territory’s independence last month; Saar said that Israel would soon open an embassy in Somaliland (AP). Abdirahman Dahir Adan, Somaliland’s foreign minister, denied reports that Somaliland had been approached by Israel about receiving Palestinians from Gaza (Al Jazeera).
Azerbaijan Vetoes Troops for Gaza
Azerbaijan will not send troops to Gaza as part of an international peacekeeping force after questioning the United States about the nature of the operation, President Ilham Aliyev told local media (Reuters). An international peacekeeping force is part of Trump’s plan to maintain a ceasefire in Gaza, but few details have been confirmed since the UN Security Council endorsed the peace plan in November (CFR).
Winter Storm Deaths in Gaza Reach at Least Seventeen
Storm Byron caused at least thirteen homes to collapse and flooded or swept away twenty-seven thousand tents, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office (CNN).
Israeli Cabinet Approves Nineteen West Bank Settlements
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the move brings the total number of new settlements over the past three years to sixty-nine; the latest approvals include two settlements that were previously evacuated during a 2005 disengagement plan (AP). Separately, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Turkey expects the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal to begin early in 2026 (Reuters).
Mediators Meet in Miami to Advance Phase Two of Ceasefire
U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff met with officials from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey in Miami to discuss the Gaza peace plan (Times of Israel).
Israeli Strike in Gaza City Kills Five, IDF Investigating
The Israel Defense Forces said it was investigating a strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City; the IDF said troops spotted several suspects in structures on the western side of the Yellow Line and fired at them following their identification, but did not specify if they were armed or how they posed a threat (Times of Israel). Gaza’s civil defense agency said most of the victims were children (Reuters).
Sanctions on ICC Judges
The U.S. State Department announced sanctions on two International Criminal Court (ICC) judges for targeting Israel without Israel’s consent (State). Israel argues the ICC cannot target it in part because it is not a party to the court’s statute; the Palestinian territories are a member (ICC). The ICC called the sanctions “a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution” (ICC). Washington had sanctioned six other ICC judges involved in cases against Israel earlier this year (Times of Israel).
Strike on Hamas Leader
Israel’s military said that it killed Hamas leader Ra’ad Sa’ad in a Gaza airstrike; the military said Sa’ad was “heavily involved” in planning Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack and blamed him for violations of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire (IDF). Hamas confirmed Sa’ad’s death and said that the Israeli airstrike that killed him was a ceasefire violation (WaPo).
Flooding in Gaza
Israel is blocking emergency supplies to reinforce flooded tents from entering Gaza, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM); Israel maintains it is meeting its obligations to allow aid into the enclave (Reuters). At least twelve people are dead or missing, and tens of thousands of tents were flooded following heavy rains yesterday, Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said (NBC).
New West Bank Settlements
Israel approved 764 housing units across three West Bank settlements, drawing condemnation from the Palestinian Authority, which urged Washington to pressure Israel to halt expansion, as the current government accelerates construction of settlements (New Arab). Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Trump administration officials are debating whether to apply terrorism-related sanctions on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency over alleged ties to Hamas (Reuters). Several State Department staff officials warned that a designation could trigger major legal and humanitarian fallout, while UNRWA rejected the accusations as baseless and “unprecedented” (Reuters).
Hamas Places Conditions for Second Ceasefire Phase
Hamas said it will not enter the next stage of the U.S.-brokered truce unless Israel halts strikes, opens Rafah to two-way traffic, and increases aid flows, arguing Israel has not met first-phase commitments; Israel says Hamas is delaying by withholding a final hostage’s remains and insists its limited strikes target militants near the Yellow Line, which separates Israeli-controlled territory from other areas of Gaza (AP). Israel today reopened the Allenby Crossing between Jordan and the West Bank, restarting the flow of aid and goods under stricter security conditions, following the killing of Israeli soldiers near the crossing in September (Reuters).
Israeli Police Raid UN Office in East Jerusalem
Israel said it collected 11 million shekels in unpaid municipal taxes during a raid on the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency; UN officials condemned the move as a violation of the inviolability of UN premises (Reuters). Separately, Israeli drone strikes killed two Palestinians accused of crossing into Israeli-controlled territory in Gaza (Times of Israel).
Hamas Expresses Openness to Disarmament
A senior Hamas official said the group is open to “freezing or storing or laying down” its arms as part of the next phase of the ceasefire; Naim, who is based in Qatar, suggested a long-term truce of five to ten years for such talks to take place and said that Hamas would oppose an international force carrying out the disarmament (AP). That could pave the way forward for one of the most sensitive and controversial elements of the U.S.-backed peace plan (CNN). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the first phase of the truce was “almost” complete, noting that Hamas still needs to return the body of one Israeli hostage; Netanyahu said he would discuss the next phase of the truce with Washington this month (Israeli MoFA). Separately, Israel’s military chief called the withdrawal line in Gaza—behind which Israeli troops moved as part of the first phase—“a new border,” a move that would effectively split Gaza in half if formalized; the second phase of the peace plan stipulates Israel’s further withdrawal from that line (FT). Hamas official Bassem Naim’s comments to the Associated Press came as Axios reported that envoys from the United States, Israel, and Qatar—home to Hamas’s political bureau—held talks in New York (Axios). Meanwhile, in Gaza, health authorities announced that Israel had killed at least seven Palestinians, though the Israeli military suggested it fired at militants who approached Israeli forces, killing three (Reuters).
Clashes in Gaza and West Bank
Israeli forces fired at Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, suggesting that individuals had again attempted to cross into Israeli-controlled territory; the military also killed a man in Nablus, as part of expanded Israeli raids across the West Bank (Al Jazeera). Separately, officials from mediating countries said that the Board of Peace, a transitional authority proposed as part of the U.S. vision for Gaza, would likely be announced by the end of this month, in conjunction with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States; one of the officials added that the International Stabilization Force, which the U.S. proposal envisions as providing security in Gaza, would be announced at a later date (AP).
Anti-Hamas Gazan Leader Dies
Yasser Abu Shabab, the Bedouin head of the Popular Forces group, was killed while attempting to resolve a family dispute, his militia said, though the precise circumstances of his death remain unclear; the death is a setback to Israel’s effort to empower local rivals as an alternative to Hamas rule (Reuters). Hamas, which has worked to crack down on rival groups since the Gaza truce, referred to Abu Shabab as a traitor but did not claim involvement in his killing (BBC). Separately, Israel confirmed that the body delivered by Hamas earlier this week belonged to Thai hostage Sudthisak Rinthalak, leaving a single hostage body that is yet to be returned (BBC). On the battlefield, Israeli forces fired at an alleged terrorist who tried crossing into Israeli-controlled territory, marking another instance of clashes despite the truce (Times of Israel).
Fighting in Gaza
Gaza Hostage Transfer
Hamas said it would hand over the body of an Israeli hostage today after Israel noted the remains Hamas turned in yesterday were misidentified (Reuters). Israeli officials later said the remains did not belong to either of the two remaining hostage bodies in Gaza, despite assertions from Hamas; the exchange unfolded against a backdrop of continued Israeli strikes in the enclave, with Gazan health authorities reporting the death of a freelance journalist (Reuters; Times of Israel). An outstanding condition of the current Gaza truce is the transfer of the bodies of two deceased hostages (BBC). Separately, Israel said today it would allow the Rafah crossing to Egypt to reopen in the coming days for people who need to exit the territory for medical care (WaPo).
Trump Invites Netanyahu to Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump extended the invitation in a phone call, paving the way for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fifth visit during Trump’s second term; the leaders also discussed Gaza’s post-war security arrangements and Israel’s relations with Syria (Reuters). Earlier, Trump warned Israel that its actions could undermine Syrian reconstruction, asking Netanyahu to slow military operations in the country (Al Jazeera). In Gaza, meanwhile, Israel said its forces killed forty Hamas militants who were stuck in a Rafah tunnel, despite efforts by mediators to negotiate safe passage for them (New Arab).
Netanyahu’s Pardon Request
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested that President Isaac Herzog grant him a pardon in his ongoing corruption trial, saying it would help heal national rifts; Herzog said he would seek expert opinions before making a decision (Haaretz). Normally, a pardon follows the conclusion of legal proceedings, and Netanyahu vowed earlier this month he would not request a pardon if it meant admitting guilt (Times of Israel).
Gaza Death Toll Passes 70,000
The toll was reported by Gazan health authorities; meanwhile, Israeli drone strikes killed two Palestinian children, per hospital staff, though Israel suggested the attack targeted individuals who had crossed into Israeli-controlled Gazan territory, as international efforts to advance the ceasefire continue (AP).