People walk amid the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, on February 18, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

President Donald Trump’s plans for resolving the Israel-Palestine crisis by ethnic cleansing or “relocating” Palestinian population of Gaza to other Arab states is expected to face strong opposition as Saudi Arabia prepares to host a mini Arab summit in Riyadh this weekend.

Apart from the summit, the region is also tense over the funeral, in Beirut, of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in a missile attack in the Lebanese capital on 27 September 2024. The funeral is expected to be a show of strength for the Shia crescent from Iran to Lebanon.

Israel-Palestine conflict: Full coverage

The summit of the five Arab powers was earlier planned for Thursday (February 20, 2025) but has now been pushed to Friday (February 21, 2025) and expanded where all the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Oman and Qatar) will be joined by Egypt and Jordan to brainstorm over the U.S.-Israel plans.

While the mainly Arab Muslim nations will display unity of purpose, the funeral of Nasrallah is expected to showcase the people power of the Iran-Lebanon Shia crescent that can heat up further in case Israel, now armed by the U.S.-made 2000-pound bunker buster bombs, carries out an attack on Iran in the coming weeks.

Also Read | Israel to begin negotiations on second phase of Gaza ceasefire deal, Minister says

Diplomats participating in the dialogues told The Hindu that the impact of President Trump’s Gaza plans will play out in the region over a span of the next six months and the latest round of talks being held in Riyadh is an attempt to stop sudden escalation from breaking out.

Analysts pointed out that the solution that President Trump has been suggesting is inherently weak as it is part of the ‘America First’ policy which does not take into consideration interests of other stakeholders like the European powers, who are expected to face the blowback if the Arab bloc chooses to form a common front in support of the two-state solution for the Palestinians.

Also Read | Rubio says Hamas must be eradicated, casting further doubt on shaky ceasefire in Gaza

Najib Saab, Secretary General of Beirut-based Arab Forum for Environment and Development said that the the just concluded meeting between U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has shown that the Trump-Vance administration is not giving importance to the opinion of the European Union.

Najib Saab did not rule out an Arab pushback as a U.S.-Israel led attempt to relocate Palestinian population from Gaza Strip could destabilize Egypt and Jordan triggering existential concerns across the major states of the region.

Also Read | Netanyahu signals he’s moving ahead with Trump’s idea to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza

On the sidelines of the Saudi Media Forum, a media conclave being held parallel to the peace talks on Ukraine and Gaza here, Mr. Saab told The Hindu that President Trump’s Gaza plans are supported by the fact that he does not have to worry about disruption of energy supplies to the U.S. as the U.S. is now energy sufficient.

“However the same is not true for Europe which remains dependent on the Gulf for energy supplies and Europe will face energy disruption if President Trump’s Gaza formula destabilizes the region,” he said.

Also Read | Israel prepares to receive bodies of youngest Gaza hostages on Feb 20

The Arab powers that will meet in Riyadh this weekend also have to contend with the fact that any display of weakness by them will give opportunity to the Shia front that will carry out a show of strength on Sunday (February 23, 2025) as people from Iran, Iraq, Syria and other places are flying into Beirut to attend the funeral of Nasrallah.

To counter any such impression, UAE’s President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Wednesday (February 19, 2025) hosted U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Abu Dhabi and opposed proposals for displacing Palestinians from Gaza.

Mr Saab pointed out that Abu Dhabi has followed the plan as laid down by Saudi Arabia which had quickly opposed Mr. Trump’s plans in the first week of February. “The Arab position is more or less clear that without an independent Palestine, Israel will not get to normalize relation with major Arab powers,” said Mr. Saab.

If the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal goes according to the current draft, then fighting will stop in Gaza for 42 days, and dozens of Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will be freed. In this first phase Israeli troops will pull back to the edges of Gaza, and many Palestinians will be able to return to what remains of their homes as stepped-up aid flows in.

The question is if the ceasefire will survive beyond that first phase.

That will depend on even more negotiations meant to begin within weeks. In those talks, Israel, Hamas, and the U.S, Egyptian and Qatari mediators will have to tackle the tough issue of how Gaza will be governed, with Israel demanding the elimination of Hamas.

Read the full article here

A truck driver picks up humanitarian aid designated for Gaza, as reporters tour the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing where aid is awaiting pickup, on December 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Just 12 trucks distributed food and water in northern Gaza in two-and-a-half months, aid group Oxfam said on Sunday (December 22, 2024), raising the alarm over the worsening humanitarian situation in the besieged territory.

“Of the meagre 34 trucks of food and water given permission to enter the North Gaza Governorate over the last 2.5 months, deliberate delays and systematic obstructions by the Israeli military meant that just twelve managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians,” Oxfam said in a statement, in a count that included deliveries through Saturday (December 21, 2024).

“For three of these, once the food and water had been delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was then cleared and shelled within hours,” Oxfam added.

Also Read | Winter is hitting Gaza and many Palestinians have little protection from the cold

Israel, which has tightly controlled aid entering the Hamas-ruled territory since the outbreak of the war, often blames what it says is the inability of relief organizations to handle and distribute large quantities of aid.

In a report focused on water, New York-based Human Rights Watch on Thursday (December 19, 2024) detailed what it called deliberate efforts by Israeli authorities “of a systematic nature” to deprive Gazans of water, which had “likely caused thousands of deaths… and will likely continue to cause deaths.”

They were the latest in a series of accusations levelled against Israel — and denied by the country — during its 14-month war against Palestinian Hamas militants.

The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that claimed the lives of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Also Read | U.N. General Assembly asks court to say what Israel needs to provide in Gaza

‘Access blocked’

Since then, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Oxfam said that it and other international aid groups have been “continually prevented from delivering life-saving aid” in northern Gaza since October 6 this year, when Israel intensified its bombardment of the territory.

“Thousands of people are estimated to still be cut off, but with humanitarian access blocked it’s impossible to know exact numbers,” Oxfam said.

“At the beginning of December, humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza were receiving calls from vulnerable people trapped in homes and shelters that had completely run out of food and water.”

Also Read | Human Rights Watch says Israel’s restriction of water supply in Gaza amounts to acts of genocide

Oxfam highlighted one instance of an aid delivery in November being disrupted by Israeli authorities.

“A convoy of 11 trucks last month was initially held up at the holding point by the Israeli military at Jabalia, where some food was taken by starving civilians,” it said.

“After the green light to proceed to the destination was received, the trucks were then stopped further on at a military checkpoint. Soldiers forced the drivers to offload the aid in a militarized zone, which desperate civilians had no access to.”

The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Thursday (December 19, 2024) asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to assess Israel’s obligations to assist Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to take to the witness stand on Tuesday (November 10, 2024) for the first time in his trial on corruption allegations, a pivotal point in the drawn-out proceedings that comes as the leader wages war in Gaza and faces an international arrest warrant for war crimes charges.

At home, Mr. Netanyahu is on trial for accusations of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate affairs. Mr. Netanyahu denies wrongdoing, but his appearance on the witness stand will be a low point in his decades-long political career, standing in contrast to the image of a sophisticated, respected leader he has tried to cultivate.

The trial will take up a chunk of Mr. Netanyahu’s time at a crucial point for Israel. While he makes his case for weeks from the stand, he will still be tasked with managing the war in Gaza, maintaining a fragile ceasefire with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and keeping tabs on threats from the wider West Asia, including Iran.

It will be the first time an Israeli Prime Minister has taken the stand as a criminal defendant, and Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly sought to delay the proceedings, citing the ongoing Gaza war and security concerns. The judges ordered the trial to resume on Tuesday (December 10, 2024), moving the proceedings to an underground chamber in a Tel Aviv court as a security precaution.

Mr. Netanyahu’s appearance in the courtroom will also draw attention to other legal issues in the Israeli leader’s orbit. Close advisers in his office are embroiled in a separate series of scandals surrounding leaked classified information and doctored documents. While Mr. Netanyahu is not suspected of direct involvement in those, they could weaken his public image.

Here is a look at the ongoing trial

The trial, which began in 2020, involves three separate cases in which prosecutors say Mr. Netanyahu exchanged regulatory favours with media titans for favourable press coverage and advanced the personal interests of a billionaire Hollywood producer in exchange for lavish gifts.

Prosecutors have called roughly 140 witnesses to the stand — fewer than the 300 initially expected to testify.

Those witnesses have included some of Mr. Netanyahu’s closest former confidants who turned against him, as well as a former prime minister, former security chiefs and media personalities. Lawyers have submitted thousands of items of evidence — recordings, police documents, text messages.

A new documentary, “The Bibi Files,” has shined new light on the cases by obtaining footage of Mr. Netanyahu being questioned by police, as well as interrogations of his wife and some key witnesses. In a glimpse of what can be expected in the courtroom, Mr. Netanyahu appears both combative and anxious at times, accusing police of unfairly picking on him and denigrating other witnesses as liars.

The prosecution called to the stand its final witness over the summer, bringing to an end three years of testimony and setting the stage for the defense to lay out its case, with Mr. Netanyahu its first witness. Mr. Netanyahu’s appearance will give Israelis a chance to see the long-serving Israeli leader answer to the charges before the three-judge panel.

The prosecution has sought to portray Mr. Netanyahu as media-obsessed, to push its narrative that he would break the law for favorable coverage.

Witness accounts have shed light not only on the three cases but also on sensational details about Mr. Netanyahu’s character and his family’s reputation for living lavishly on the backs of taxpayers and wealthy supporters.

One former aide and a key prosecution witness called him a “control freak” over his image. Another witness described expensive gifts for Mr. Netanyahu and his wife.

Arnon Milchan, an Israeli producer of Hollywood blockbuster films such as “Pretty Woman,” took the stand last year via videoconference, describing how he routinely delivered tens of thousands of dollars of champagne, cigars and other gifts requested by the Israeli leader.

One key witness, a former top aide to Mr. Netanyahu, stunned prosecutors by backtracking from his earlier claims against the prime minister, opening the door for the defence to erode his credibility as a witness. The trial was jolted by Israeli media reports that police used sophisticated phone-hacking software to spy on this witness.

The prosecution formally rested its case in July, and the court recessed for the summer and fall. The defense has repeatedly asked for delays in Mr. Netanyahu’s testimony, which have mostly been denied.

Like other witnesses, Mr. Netanyahu will testify three days a week, for hours at a time, and his testimony is expected to last weeks. The defence will seek to depict Mr. Netanyahu as a law-abiding leader who was a victim of careless and biased police investigations.

Mr. Netanyahu’s critics have sought to draw a clear line between the cases and the war in Gaza. They say the allegations led Mr. Netanyahu to promote a contentious judicial overhaul plan last year that bitterly divided the country and created an image of weakness that encouraged the October 7 Hamas attack that triggered the war.

Mr. Netanyahu’s critics, including families of hostages held by Hamas, now accuse him of dragging out the conflict — and risking the lives of their loved ones — to avoid an embarrassing investigation and new elections that could force him from power.

If he is eventually voted out of power, being away from the prime minister’s seat would make it harder for Mr. Netanyahu to rail against the justice system and delegitimize the verdict in the eyes of the public.

A verdict isn’t expected until 2026 — at least — and then Mr. Netanyahu can choose to appeal to the Supreme Court. Israel’s courts are notoriously sluggish, and the case was further delayed last year when courts went on hiatus for two months after war broke out following Hamas’ October 7 attack.

Once the defense rests, each side will summarize their cases before judges convene to deliberate over Mr. Netanyahu’s fate.

Men carry on a stretcher the body of a victim that was rescued from the rubble following Israeli bombardment on the four-storey Muqat family house in the Zarqa neighbourhood in the north of Gaza City on October 26, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The World Health Organization chief warned Saturday (October 26, 2024) of a disastrous situation in the north of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, with “intensive military operations unfolding around and within healthcare facilities”.

“The situation in northern Gaza is catastrophic,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, warning that “a critical shortage of medical supplies, compounded by severely limited access, are depriving people of life saving care”.

He pointed in particular to the situation at Kamal Adwan, northern Gaza’s last functioning hospital, which was stormed by Israeli forces on Friday, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Ministry charged that the raid on the facility in the Jabalia camp, where Israel launched a major operation earlier this month, left two children dead.

And it accused the Israeli forces of detaining hundreds of staff, patients and displaced people during the raid.

The Israeli military said its forces were operating around Kamal Adwan, but was “not aware of live fire and strikes in the area of the hospital”.

Israel attacks Iran: LIVE updates on October 26, 2024

Mr. Tedros said Saturday (October 26, 2024) that the Gaza Health Ministry had informed WHO, which had temporarily lost contact with its staff at the hospital amid the chaos, that the siege had ended.

“But it came at a heavy cost,” he said.

Late Friday (October 25, 2024), WHO said three health workers and another employee were injured in the assault and that dozens of health workers were detained at the hospital, where around 600 patients, health workers and others were sheltering.

“Following the detention of 44 male staff members, only female staff, the hospital director, and one male doctor are left to care for nearly 200 patients in desperate need of medical attention,” Mr. Tedros said Saturday (October 26, 2024).

“Reports of the hospital facilities and medical supplies being damaged or destroyed during the siege are deplorable,” he said.

Mr. Tedros lamented that “the whole health system in Gaza has been under attack for over a year”, since Hamas’s October 7 attacks inside Israel last year sparked the war.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Dozens of hostages seized on that day are still held by militants in Gaza.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 42,924 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.

“WHO cannot stress loudly enough that hospitals must be shielded from conflict at all times,” Mr. Tedros said, stressing that “any attack of healthcare facilities is a violation of international humanitarian law”.

“The only path to safeguarding what remains of Gaza’s collapsing health care system is an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.”

Israel and Hezbollah exchanged more fire ahead of the first anniversary of the Hamas attack, which triggered a war in Gaza and further escalated tensions in the Middle East.

Israeli soldiers inspect the entrance to a reported tunnel, where the Israeli Army said Palestinian militants killed six hostages, in Rafah in the Gaza Strip on September 13, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian militant groups. Photo taken during a controlled tour and subsequently edited under the supervision of the Israeli military.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Israeli military on Sunday (September 15, 2024) said there was a “high probability” an Israeli air strike was responsible for the deaths of three hostages who were killed in Gaza in November.

The bodies of the three hostages, Corporal Nik Beizer, Sergeant Ron Sherman and French-Israeli Elia Toledano, were brought back to Israel in December following their deaths the previous month.

“The findings of the investigation suggest a high probability that the three were killed as a result of a byproduct of an IDF air strike, during the elimination of the Hamas Northern Brigade commander, Ahmed Ghandour, on November 10th, 2023,” the military said in a statement, referring to the three captives.

“This assessment is based on the location of where their bodies were found in relation to the strike’s impact, performance analysis of the strike, intelligence findings, the results of the pathological reports, and the conclusions of the Forensic Medicine Institute.”

“This is a high-probability assessment based on all of the available information, but it is not possible to definitively determine the circumstances of their deaths,” the military said.

The bodies of the three hostages were recovered on December 14.

The military said its investigation revealed that the three captives had been held in a tunnel complex from which Ghandour operated.

“At the time of the strike, the IDF did not have information about the presence of hostages in the targeted compound,” the military said.

“Furthermore, there was information suggesting that they were located elsewhere, and thus the area was not designated as one with suspected presence of hostages.”

This aerial view shows tents used as temporary shelters for displaced Palestinians along a street covered with stagnant wastewater in the central Gaza Strip on July 19, 2024. Polio has been detected in samples of sewage that is starting to take over Gaza, in the grip of a devastating war
| Photo Credit: AFP

The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, that polio had been detected in Gaza and warned that children in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave would soon be infected by the disease if preventative measures were not quickly taken.

A day after the WHO said there were “very likely” polio cases among Gaza’s population, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus took to social media platform X to flag concerns about the human cost of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“The detection of polio in Gaza is another reminder of the dire conditions the population is facing,” Tedros wrote on X. “The persistence of the conflict hampers efforts to identify and respond to preventable threats such as polio.”

Tedros linked his post to an article he had written in French newspaper Le Monde, published late on Tuesday, in which he said poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples in Gaza.

In the article, the WHO chief wrote that although no cases of polio had yet been recorded, “unless immediate action is taken, it is only a matter of time before the disease reaches the thousands of unprotected children” there.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the faecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis and death in young children.

Polio cases have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts to eradicate it.

The WHO is sending more than a million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered in the coming weeks to prevent children from becoming infected with the disease, Tedros said.

Palestinians carry mock large keys during a mass ceremony to commemorate the Nakba Day, Arabic for catastrophe, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Wednesday, May 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

As Israel keeps up its campaign against Hamas, Arab leaders are mapping out ways to support post-war Gaza, placing one major condition on their involvement: a pathway to Palestinian statehood.

Major obstacles lie ahead in gaining the support of both U.S. President Joe Biden and the Israeli government, which is currently led by hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a staunch opponent of the two-state solution.

Also read: Israel’s Netanyahu rejects UN backing of Palestinian statehood bid

But the Arab quintet of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt have made clear that their financial and political support, which would be crucial to the future of the shattered Gaza Strip, comes at a cost.

“We have coordinated on this closely with the Palestinians. It needs to be truly a pathway to a Palestinian state,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told a World Economic Forum meeting in Riyadh last month.

“Without a real political pathway… it would be very difficult for Arab countries to discuss how we are going to govern.”

It is not the first time Arab leaders have come together to chart a path towards a two-state solution, the cherished goal that they believe could defuse tensions in West Asia and help usher in a period of prosperity.

But with the Israel-Hamas war hobbling regional economies and spilling over into neighbouring countries, there is both urgency and opportunity.

Last month, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, European and Arab Foreign Ministers met to discuss how to advance the two-state solution.

Gaza will also be top of the agenda when leaders from the 22-member Arab League meet in Bahrain on Thursday.

Two goals

Arab countries are “pressuring the United States to achieve two things: establish a Palestinian state and recognising it in the United Nations”, said an Arab diplomat who is familiar with the talks.

“What is currently hindering these intensive efforts is the continuation of the war and Netanyahu’s intransigent rejection,” said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Arab leaders “have been trying to work with the Biden administration to mutually support the so-called day after” plan, said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Britain’s Chatham House think tank.

Central to their plan is the reform of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to clear the way for a reunified administration in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The PA has had almost no influence over Gaza since Hamas militants wrestled control of the territory from the Fatah movement of President Mahmud Abbas in 2007.

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European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. File
| Photo Credit: AP

The European Union on Wednesday urged Israel to end its military operation in Gaza’s Rafah “immediately”, warning that failure to do so would undermine ties with the bloc.

“Should Israel continue its military operation in Rafah, it would inevitably put a heavy strain on the EU’s relationship with Israel,” said the statement issued in the EU’s name by its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

“The European Union urges Israel to end its military operation in Rafah immediately,” the statement said, warning it was “further disrupting the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza and is leading to more internal displacement, exposure to famine and human suffering.”

The bloc — the main aid donor for the Palestinian territories and Israel’s biggest trading partner — said more than a million people in and around Rafah had been ordered by Israel to flee the area to other zones the UN says cannot be considered safe.

“While the EU recognises Israel’s right to defend itself, Israel must do so in line with International Humanitarian Law and provide safety to civilians,” it said.

The law requires Israel to allow in humanitarian aid, the statement stressed.

The EU also condemned a Hamas attack on the Kerem Shalom border crossing which blocked humanitarian relief supplies.

“We call on all parties to redouble their efforts to achieve an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas,” it said.

Israel’s military operations in Gaza were launched in retaliation for Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israeli which killed more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, and saw around 250 hostages taken.

Israel’s military has conducted a relentless bombardment from the air and a ground offensive inside Gaza that has killed more than 35,000, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Israel’s main allies, the United States and the EU, as well as the United Nations, have all warned Israel against a major operation in Rafah given that it would add to the civilian toll.