Keeponstalin

Almost immediately after the Hamas attack on October 7, Weiss and the rest of the settler movement set their sights on Gaza. Against the backdrop of Israel’s massive bombardment and ethnic cleansing of the territory’s north, they ramped up their efforts to re-establish Jewish settlements there, broadcasting their intentions loudly and bluntly — and with the knowledge that they could count on significant support within the governing coalition.

This past December, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionism party and functions as the overlord of the West Bank, declared (not for the first time) on Israeli public radio, “We must occupy Gaza, maintain a military presence there, and establish settlements.” Many in Smotrich’s camp wanted to prolong the war, reasoning that the longer Israel continued to brutalize Gaza, the greater the likelihood that settlers would succeed in installing an outpost — the germ of a settlement — in the Strip.

The announcement of a ceasefire agreement, which went into effect on Jan. 19, has slowed the Gaza resettlement movement’s momentum, but it has not stalled it.

The ceasefire is fragile, dangerously so: there is no guarantee that it will last beyond the initial six-week phase, which involves only a partial Israeli withdrawal from the territory. And there have already been reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to keep his hard-right government together, has conceded to Smotrich’s demand that Israel restart the war after the first phase ends and gradually assert full Israeli control over the Gaza Strip. Whether that happens will depend largely on the Trump administration’s willingness to exert continuous pressure on Netanyahu to carry out the subsequent stages of the ceasefire agreement — which would very likely jeopardize the survival of Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

Amid this uncertainty, the settler movement has continued to press its eliminationist vision of resettling Gaza. The night before the ceasefire went into effect, Nachala led several dozen activists back to the Black Arrow memorial to stage a protest against the agreement. The settlers are openly praying for its failure, while a handful of the more militant among them remain camped within sprinting distance of the separation barrier.

If and when the ceasefire collapses and Israeli ground troops return to the Strip in full force, the settlers will be prepared to renew their push, even more determined to establish new settlements there. In that scenario, there will be frighteningly little standing in their way.

Almost immediately after the Hamas attack on October 7, Weiss and the rest of the settler movement set their sights on Gaza. Against the backdrop of Israel’s massive bombardment and ethnic cleansing of the territory’s north, they ramped up their efforts to re-establish Jewish settlements there, broadcasting their intentions loudly and bluntly — and with the knowledge that they could count on significant support within the governing coalition.

This past December, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionism party and functions as the overlord of the West Bank, declared (not for the first time) on Israeli public radio, “We must occupy Gaza, maintain a military presence there, and establish settlements.” Many in Smotrich’s camp wanted to prolong the war, reasoning that the longer Israel continued to brutalize Gaza, the greater the likelihood that settlers would succeed in installing an outpost — the germ of a settlement — in the Strip.

The announcement of a ceasefire agreement, which went into effect on Jan. 19, has slowed the Gaza resettlement movement’s momentum, but it has not stalled it.

The ceasefire is fragile, dangerously so: there is no guarantee that it will last beyond the initial six-week phase, which involves only a partial Israeli withdrawal from the territory. And there have already been reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to keep his hard-right government together, has conceded to Smotrich’s demand that Israel restart the war after the first phase ends and gradually assert full Israeli control over the Gaza Strip. Whether that happens will depend largely on the Trump administration’s willingness to exert continuous pressure on Netanyahu to carry out the subsequent stages of the ceasefire agreement — which would very likely jeopardize the survival of Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

Amid this uncertainty, the settler movement has continued to press its eliminationist vision of resettling Gaza. The night before the ceasefire went into effect, Nachala led several dozen activists back to the Black Arrow memorial to stage a protest against the agreement. The settlers are openly praying for its failure, while a handful of the more militant among them remain camped within sprinting distance of the separation barrier.

If and when the ceasefire collapses and Israeli ground troops return to the Strip in full force, the settlers will be prepared to renew their push, even more determined to establish new settlements there. In that scenario, there will be frighteningly little standing in their way.

US President Donald Trump has doubled down on comments about displacing Palestinians in Gaza to Jordan and Egypt, escalating tensions with the Hashemite Kingdom and possibly leaving King Abdullah II “vulnerable to geopolitical blackmail”, experts warned.

Analysts believe that if Trump leverages aid, Jordan could be forced to rethink its alliances and look to Arab Gulf states, Russia, China, or the European Union to fill funding gaps.

It could also “[force] them to … implement deeply unpopular austerity measures that predictably lead to protests”, said Geoffrey Hughes, author of the book Kinship, Islam and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy.

Much of Jordan’s population, which includes many Palestinians with Jordanian nationality and more than two million Palestinian refugees, was frustrated with the government’s unwillingness to cut ties.

“What might help Jordan is the old-school, and bipartisan, consensus wing in Washington that sees the Hashemites as indispensable to US foreign policy in the region, remembers the help that Jordan has given for decades to various US wars and interventions, and regards this ‘oasis of moderation’ as not worth destabilising in the long run,” Yom said.

“Trump will need to walk back this completely unrealistic proposition,” Toukan said. “If this was to become official American policy, it would undermine not only Jordan’s stability but that of the entire region, including Egypt’s.”

the Democratic National Committee will begin a multi-round election to choose its new chair. Former President Joe Biden’s appointee, Jamie Harrison, is on his way out, and an array of party insiders and outsiders are competing to replace him.

The DNC’s 448 voting members include hundreds of Democrats elected and selected through state parties, along with smaller numbers of appointees, elected officials, and representatives from party groups like the Young Democrats of America. They will cast ballots for a new chair at a time when the Democratic Party itself is adrift, with no clear leader and no strategy for fighting the Trump agenda or regaining power. As one DNC member told me, “The DNC is not really talking about what went wrong and what we did wrong.”

In writing this piece, I reached out to 427 of the DNC’s 448 voting members and interviewed 19 of them. Those who spoke with me came from ideologically, geographically, and racially diverse backgrounds. They included Democrats from rural and urban communities, grassroots party members, elected officials, and party insiders and critics alike. Most agreed to speak on the condition their names wouldn’t be used.

What emerged from these conversations is a picture of a DNC that is built to be an undemocratic, top-down institution, unable to truly leverage the wisdom and guidance of the DNC members who hail from local and state networks across the country. This is especially true when those local and state members disagree with the DNC’s posture or strategic choices

Members said their meetings don’t feel like a place for participation or governance. They described these gatherings as a combination of party presentations and social time, as opposed to real debates or discussions. During Covid, for instance, one member said that meetings were held via web conference, with the chat function turned off. And while the potential for real decision-making can occur at the DNC committee level, “committees are completely rigged, with the chair appointing whoever they want,” one DNC member told me.

In some ways, the race for DNC chair has itself become a microcosm of this tension between money, transparency, and winning elections. Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party Chair Ken Martin and Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler are considered the front-runners based on their declared, though likely inflated, DNC vote counts. But neither has disclosed how much money they have raised for their campaigns, who their donors are, or how much they have spent.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are dead. So too are scores of aid workers and journalists. Entire communities have been turned to rubble, leaving residents displaced or homeless.

Israel is more isolated than ever. Europe has turned against free speech. And despite a campus protest movement that rivals the opposition to Vietnam War, the U.S. government remains steadfast in its support for Israel’s war machine.

In all likelihood, the ceasefire agreement will hold to the pattern of past Israeli deals with the Palestinians: immediate concessions for Israel and then a slow-rolling of the rest of the plan — the rebuilding and anything else that might significantly improve the position of the Palestinians, especially in Gaza.

Since the establishment of the state of Israel, Gaza has only ever been an open-air prison, or a collection of mass graves.

There is little doubt that Israel will become more politically isolated from its neighbors, and that it will need to maintain a forever war. Its position is still buoyed by American support. The global protest movement against the war and crimes in Gaza may lose intensity, but the young people traumatized by them will not forget — and the ongoing suffering of Palestinians will not let them.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are dead. So too are scores of aid workers and journalists. Entire communities have been turned to rubble, leaving residents displaced or homeless.

Israel is more isolated than ever. Europe has turned against free speech. And despite a campus protest movement that rivals the opposition to Vietnam War, the U.S. government remains steadfast in its support for Israel’s war machine.

In all likelihood, the ceasefire agreement will hold to the pattern of past Israeli deals with the Palestinians: immediate concessions for Israel and then a slow-rolling of the rest of the plan — the rebuilding and anything else that might significantly improve the position of the Palestinians, especially in Gaza.

Since the establishment of the state of Israel, Gaza has only ever been an open-air prison, or a collection of mass graves.

There is little doubt that Israel will become more politically isolated from its neighbors, and that it will need to maintain a forever war. Its position is still buoyed by American support. The global protest movement against the war and crimes in Gaza may lose intensity, but the young people traumatized by them will not forget — and the ongoing suffering of Palestinians will not let them.

Israeli forces detained Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan hospital, after setting the health facility in northern Gaza on fire with doctors and patients inside, according to health officials.

The hospital was stormed by Israeli troops on Friday, following nearly three months of a suffocating blockade and constant air strikes on its departments and their vicinity.

The bombing caused several departments to catch on fire, killing and wounding Palestinian medical workers and patients, according to Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.

All remaining medical staff, patients, and their relatives were taken out of the hospital at gunpoint, forced to strip down to their underwear, and transferred to an unknown location.

At the time of the raid, there were 350 people in the hospital, including 180 medical workers and 75 wounded people, according to the Gaza-based Government Media Office

“In 2024, Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza reached catastrophic proportions. Relentless aerial bombardments, ground invasions, and siege tactics deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians, leaving children to suffer the most,” DCIP’s report says.

The number of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons also reached a record high in 2024, the group said.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers and settlers killed one Palestinian child every four days this year, “an escalation made possible by decades of impunity,” the group said.

Israel’s violence included using children as human shields “systematically” this year, as DCIP has documented throughout the genocide.

This includes an incident in March in which Israeli tanks surrounded a group of Palestinian children waiting in line for aid in Gaza City. Soldiers stripped the children and tied them up, depriving them of food and water and forcing them for an entire day to walk in front of tanks and in front of buildings that the military wanted to enter, as DCIP found.

Israeli forces’ weaponization of starvation, meanwhile, has put children, especially newborns and children with disabilities, at heightened risk, with babies as young as two months old starving to death, the group said; in August, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found that Israel killed 210 newborn babies a month on average in Gaza since the beginning of the genocide.

“In 2024, Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza reached catastrophic proportions. Relentless aerial bombardments, ground invasions, and siege tactics deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians, leaving children to suffer the most,” DCIP’s report says.

The number of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons also reached a record high in 2024, the group said.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers and settlers killed one Palestinian child every four days this year, “an escalation made possible by decades of impunity,” the group said.

Israel’s violence included using children as human shields “systematically” this year, as DCIP has documented throughout the genocide.

This includes an incident in March in which Israeli tanks surrounded a group of Palestinian children waiting in line for aid in Gaza City. Soldiers stripped the children and tied them up, depriving them of food and water and forcing them for an entire day to walk in front of tanks and in front of buildings that the military wanted to enter, as DCIP found.

Israeli forces’ weaponization of starvation, meanwhile, has put children, especially newborns and children with disabilities, at heightened risk, with babies as young as two months old starving to death, the group said; in August, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found that Israel killed 210 newborn babies a month on average in Gaza since the beginning of the genocide.

Over the past four months, nearly 19,000 children in Gaza were hospitalized for acute malnutrition due to Israel’s starvation campaign, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has reported.

This is almost double the number of acute malnutrition cases among children in Gaza in the first six months of 2024, the agency reports; at that time, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) head had said that northern Gaza was under a “full-blown famine” because of Israel’s brutal humanitarian aid blockade.

UNRWA reported on Sunday that one of their only remaining functional health centers has only six boxes of baby formula left to distribute, despite thousands of babies in need — and that was the first shipment of baby food the agency reviewed in three months, the group said.

“It has been 14 months. People here really are surviving on bread, lentils, food in tin cans. We are not seeing fruit and vegetables around. We are not seeing people with families and children get the nutrients that they need,” said UNRWA emergency officer Louise Wateridge last week.

Israel’s aid blockade is causing health effects that will compound for decades to come. The UN Population Fund for Palestine recently reported that there are 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza who lack essentials like food, water and hygiene supplies. According to the group, 8,000 of these women are among the 345,000 people in Gaza facing “famine-like conditions.”

We speak with the husband and sister of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish American activist killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September, who have criticized the Biden administration for failing to independently investigate her death. The recent University of Washington graduate was fatally shot in the head after taking part in a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita, which she attended as an international observer. Witnesses say she was shot by an Israeli sniper after the demonstration had already dispersed. Members of Eygi’s family spoke with Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week but left the meeting with little hope the U.S. would hold Israel accountable. “Accountability starts with an investigation by the U.S. of the killing of one of its own citizens by an ally,” says Eygi’s husband Hamid Ali. “The answer to the question of why my wife is not getting justice is because Israel enjoys this level of impunity throughout its existence that no other country, no other state in the world enjoys.”

We speak with the husband and sister of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish American activist killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September, who have criticized the Biden administration for failing to independently investigate her death. The recent University of Washington graduate was fatally shot in the head after taking part in a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita, which she attended as an international observer. Witnesses say she was shot by an Israeli sniper after the demonstration had already dispersed. Members of Eygi’s family spoke with Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week but left the meeting with little hope the U.S. would hold Israel accountable. “Accountability starts with an investigation by the U.S. of the killing of one of its own citizens by an ally,” says Eygi’s husband Hamid Ali. “The answer to the question of why my wife is not getting justice is because Israel enjoys this level of impunity throughout its existence that no other country, no other state in the world enjoys.”