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President-elect Donald Trump attends a campaign event, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 29, 2024.
Trump threatens military intervention in the Middle East over Israeli hostages
On Monday, President-elect Donald Trumpposted on social media that “if the [Israeli] hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East.”
Quite a threat to issue to an entire region, particularly given Americans’ skepticism of foreign involvement in overseas conflicts. But it’s a low-probability, high-risk sort of scenario, given that Trump did not specify who he would attack or how.
Meanwhile, at least 97 hostages or their remains are still in Gaza, and the Israeli military believes at least 35 of that group are dead. Hamas is also believed to be holding two corpses of Israeli soldiers killed a decade ago, and two living Israelis captured in 2014 and 2015.
While Trump’s threat is unlikely to lead to imminent hostage releases, we’ll be watching for any movement.
A U.S. force aircraft arrives with contractors to build a base for a Kenyan-led international security force aimed at countering gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti May 11, 2024.
Will international aid stabilize Haiti?
Gang violence continues to escalate in Haiti, prompting calls for the dismissal and arrest of the country's National Police Director Frantz Elbé. In the words of Garry Jean-Baptiste, a police union spokesperson, “Monsieur Elbé has failed.” Jean-Baptiste accuses the chief of incompetence and complicity with gangs, noting that 30 police stations have been attacked and burned in recent months.
In the US, representatives of 2.5 million voters of Haitian descent are calling on Washington to grantTemporary Protected Status to Haitian migrants already in the US.
While TPS is complicated by the Biden administration’s attempts to tighten migration policy, last Friday the US began sending $300 million worth of resources and civilian contractors to support a UN-authorized, multinational security force, to be led by 1,000 Kenyan police officers. The goal is to bolster Haiti’s outmatched police force, restore order, and avert a humanitarian disaster. Nearly one and a half million Haitians are on the verge of famine, and many are fleeing to the neighboring Dominican Republic.
In anticipation of the inflow of international assistance, Haiti’s transitional councilrestructured itself to rotate leadership among four veteran politicians every five months and altered its majority decision requirement. The hope is that this will stabilize decision making and enable the country to hold elections by February 2026.Police try to protect residents fleeing the neighbourhood after gangs took over Carrefour Feuilles, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti August 15, 2023.
UN approves Kenyan mission to Haiti
The UN Security Council on Monday authorized a Kenyan-led mission to Haiti that aims to help the nation’s beleaguered police forces re-establish control of the Caribbean country.
Ever since President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in 2021, Haiti has been plunged into anarchy, with gangs controlling the vast majority of Port-au-Prince, the capital. More than 150,000 people have been displaced by gang violence, and thousands have been killed. The police, serving a caretaker government that lacks popular legitimacy, are underfunded and overwhelmed.
Earlier this year, the Haitian government and the UN called for international help. The US has supported the idea, but a checkered history of American interventions in Haiti has made the White House reluctant to get involved directly.
That’s where Kenya comes in. The resolution – which the US supported, and Russia and China abstained from – empowers Nairobi to dispatch 1,000 police officers to Haiti, alongside about a dozen other countries that have pledged to join the mission. It also offers training and logistical support to the countries that pledge to intervene. For more on why Kenya is stepping up to the plate, check out this explainer.
But taming Haiti’s gangs is a tall order, and not everyone is thrilled about an international mission like this. Recent UN interventions in Haiti have resulted in a deadly cholera outbreak and allegations that peacekeepers sexually exploited Haitian women and then abandoned hundreds of children who were born as a result.
Two Haitian-American groups are already lobbying against the Kenyan plan, telling the Biden administration that the intervention will only “exacerbate [Haiti’s] current political crisis to a catastrophic one.”