Israel/Palästina

Israel on Thursday vowed that Hamas will be disarmed under the US-backed Gaza peace plan, rejecting a proposal by senior Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who said the group might accept a weapons "freeze" but not full disarmament.

The “yellow line” that divides Gaza under Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan is a “new border” for Israel, the country’s military chief told soldiers deployed in the territory. … Palestinians were forced out of this eastern portion of Gaza by Israeli attacks and evacuation orders. Almost all the surviving population, over 2 million people, are now crowded into a narrow zone of coastal sand dunes that is smaller than Washington DC.

The United nations General Assembly on Tuesday passed two resolutions directing Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza as well the Syrian Golan Heights. Both texts were adopted with large majorities opposing Israel's current territorial stance.

Israel has announced it will open the key Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt in the coming days to allow Palestinians to leave the territory. … However, Egypt denied it was co-ordinating with Israel to reopen the Rafah crossing.

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, has condemned an Israeli raid on the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in the occupied West Bank, warning that pressure on Palestinian civil society has reached alarming levels. 

Lebanon and Israel, for the first time, sent civilian representatives to a meeting of a previously military-only ceasefire monitoring mechanism. The mechanism was set up after the latest war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah ended over a year ago.

Delegations from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, the mediators of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip along with the US, met on Tuesday in Cairo to discuss the second phase of the deal, Egyptian state-linked media reported.

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on Monday announced the end of its mission in the war-torn Palestinian enclave. The US- and Israeli-backed organisation controversially took over aid distribution at the height of Israel's military operation in Gaza blocking out traditional aid organisations including the UN.

The ceasefire in Gaza is largely holding but recent violence by Israel and Palestinian militants put the truce at risk, the UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council on Monday. 

The EU has called on the Palestinian Authority to speed up reforms to get European funding. But as long as Hamas controls half the territory and refuses to disarm, the EU's bid to help rebuild Gaza faces big obstacles.