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Palestinians protest to demand an end to war, chanting anti-Hamas slogans, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, on March 26, 2025.
Palestinians shake fists at Hamas
These protests in the town of Beit Lahia in Gaza’s north were triggered by an Israeli order to evacuate large parts of the town after Islamic Jihad gunmen launched rockets at Israel on Tuesday.
Though limited in numbers, these hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets confident that they would be met, as in the past, by masked and armed Hamas fighters who would denounce them as traitors and assault those slowest to disperse.
It’s a reminder that once the war ends, there will be a reckoning among Gaza’s Palestinians over control of their future. For now, the nearly two-month Gaza ceasefire is over, and Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets resumed on March 18, killing hundreds. But once the war is finally settled, and Israel and outside powers begin to prepare and debate plans for Gaza’s future, the anger many Palestinians feel toward Hamas will likely crest.
President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Jordan's King Abdullah attend a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, on Feb. 11, 2025.
Trump and Jordan talk Gaza, ceasefire hinges on hostage release
As for the rest of the population, the monarch said he would “wait for Egypt,” which has been leading negotiations so far, to weigh in. “I think we have to keep in mind there is a plan from Egypt and the Arab countries,” Abdullah said. “I think the point is, how do we make this work in a way that is good for everybody?”
Trump had threatened to withhold aid from Egypt and Jordan unless they receive Palestinians but suggested on Tuesday that “I do think we’re above that.” Trump’s vision for the territory remains unchanged, however: “[W]ith the United States being in control of that piece of land … you’re going to have stability in the Middle East for the first time.”
Meanwhile, in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet unanimously endorsedTrump’s deadline for the release of the remaining hostages: The US president said Monday that all hostages must be returned by Saturday, or “Let all hell break out; Israel can override it.” Trump’s deadline came in response to Hamas saying it would delay the next hostage release, set for Saturday, and accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire.
Who’s gained ground – and who’s lost? According to Eurasia Middle East analyst Greg Brew, Jordan’s placating of Trump was “a win for Abdullah, who depends on US aid, and who has adamantly rejected the idea of displacement. This doesn't mean Trump has given up, only that we shouldn’t expect mass displacement of Gazans to Jordan any time soon.”
And despite Trump’s stark message about the hostages, Brew believes there is still room to maneuver. “It’s possible Hamas and Israel get through this latest impasse,” he says, “but it points to the fragile nature of the ceasefire and the unpredictable role Trump is playing.”
Silhouettes of soldiers stand in front of a computer screen displaying an image of President Donald Trump, alongside a Palestinian flag, on Feb. 05, 2025.
Trump aides scramble to clarify Gaza proposal amid backlash
Unsurprisingly, much of the world reacted with horror to US President Donald Trump’s call on Monday, at a press conference with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, for the deportation of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million people and a US takeover of the enclave.
But the Trump administration was forced to reckon with blowback in Washington too as lawmakers, even within the Republican Party, questioned the cost and wisdom of the plan.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified that despite Trump’s pledge to make Gaza “the Riviera of the Middle East,” the US does not intend to spend money on any Gaza reconstruction projects and that Trump’s plans did not entail “boots on the ground” in the enclave.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly fielded a barrage of questions about these issues during a closed-door session with GOP lawmakers on Wednesday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lauded Trump’s willingness to “think outside the box” but said only that the Pentagon would “look at all options.”
Sec. of State Marco Rubiosaid Trump had made a “generous” offer and contradicted his boss’s resettlement proposal by saying that the displacement of Gazans would be “temporary.”
Notably, no administration officials ruled out the core of Trump’s proposal, which was the forced removal of the entire Gazan population. According to legal scholars, this would amount to a “straightforward” crime against humanity under international law.
On Thursday, notably, the Israeli defense minister asked the army to formulate a plan under which Palestinians could “voluntarily” leave Gaza by land, air, or sea. And Trump posted to his social platform Thursday morning that the Gaza Strip will “be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting.”
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are returning to northern Gaza for the first time since the early weeks of Israel’s 15-month war with Hamas.
Northern Gaza: After return, reconstruction?
Coupled with a lack of running water and electricity, the destruction means that Gazans will depend on outside assistance for the foreseeable future – but it is not guaranteed. Last week, the UNcalled for $4.1 billion in aid for Palestinian territories this year, with 90% allocated for Gaza, but only 3.6% of the target has been funded so far.
UNRWA out? Israel is also set to close the East Jerusalem office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, on Thursday, due to the alleged collaboration of some of its employees in Hamas’ brutal invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. This, together with a ban on UNRWA dealing with Israelis, will make it impossible for it to operate in Gaza. According to Sam Rose, its acting director of emergency operations, UNRWA currently distributes half of the food sent into the territory, even that donated by other organizations, and shutting it down will leave “a gaping hole.”
Hamas makes a reconstruction proposal. While US President Donald Trump’s suggestion to “clean out” Gaza and relocate its population to Egypt and Jordan to facilitate reconstruction has beenroundly rejected, Hamas has publishedits own proposal, which may receive a warmer welcome from regional powers that do not want to take in refugees.
“Gaza Phoenix” includes formalizing displacement camps, repairing hospitals, clearing rubble, restoring law and order, as well as long-term goals including a tourism-focused economy, a green belt, and even Dubai-style artificial islands. However, its “wartime resilience” section suggests constructing “an underground connecter” between all Gaza cities – likely a nonstarter for Israel, due to the use by Hamas of its previous tunnel network in its invasion and kidnapping of Israeli hostages, eight more of whom Israel has now learned are dead.
Residents of south Lebanon, who were displaced during the war, tried to return to their villages still occupied by Israel despite the expiration of the 60-day ceasefire implementation period. These Lebanese Muslim Shiite women inspect their destroyed house in the southern Lebanese border village of Ayta ash-Shaab after returning to their devastated hamlet.
Refugee returns begin after Trump suggests Gaza exodus
Hostilities continued on Sunday in southern Lebanon, where more than 22 Lebanese civilians were killed and over 124 wounded by Israeli forces, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Officials say that displaced residents were attempting to return home in defiance of military orders and that the Israeli military was “procrastinating” on withdrawing from the area, despite a deadline for them to do so having passed on Sunday.
Israel had also stopped thousands of Palestinians from returning to Gaza after accusing Hamas of changing the order of hostages released this week, in violation of the parties’ ceasefire agreement. Civilian Arbel Yehoud was supposed to have been freed before the four IDF soldiers were released on Saturday. But an agreement was reached early Monday to release Yehoud and two other hostages before Friday, ending the delay. In turn, Israel opened routes into north Gaza, allowing some 200,000 Palestinians to begin returning home. But they are returning to a world of destruction – nearly three-quarters of the buildings are destroyed or badly damaged in Gaza City alone.
Where should Gazans go during the rebuild? President Donald Trump’s suggestion Saturday that Palestinian refugees be transferred to Jordan and Egypt to “clean out” the territory while it undergoes reconstruction has been met with a hard “no” from Amman. On Sunday, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said his country’s rejection of any displacement of Palestinians is “firm and unwavering.” Hamas officials similarly refused the idea while Cairo has yet to comment. At the same time, Trump also announced that the US will resume shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, which had been halted under the administration of President Joe Biden..
Palestinians gather to receive aid outside an UNRWA warehouse earlier this month in Gaza.
Israel bans main Gaza aid agency despite warnings from US
The Israeli Parliament on Monday voted to ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from operating in its territory — despite warnings from the Biden administration that doing so could impact US policy toward Israel. The Knesset even voted to designate UNRWA a terror group and to prohibit Israeli authorities from having contact with the agency.
UNRWA is the main humanitarian agency in Gaza, and this could impact millions of people who depend on it for aid. Critics of the legislation, which includes allies of the Jewish state, have expressed concern it will exacerbate the already dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the local health ministry now says over 43,000 Palestinians have died amid the war over the past year. Foreign ministers from Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the UK on Monday expressed “grave concern” over the Israeli move.
This comes roughly two weeks after Washington told Israel it had 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or risk cuts to military support from the US.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Millersaid Monday that the US urges Israel not to implement the legislation, underscoring that UNRWA is playing an “irreplaceable role right now in Gaza, where they’re on the front lines of getting humanitarian assistance to the people they need it.” Miller said there’s nothing that can replace UNRWA amid the current crisis.
Israel accuses UNRWA of involvement in the Oct. 7 attack, which killed roughly 1,200 in Israel and saw hundreds of hostages taken. A UN investigation that concluded in August said nine UNRWA employees may have been involved in the attack and all were fired. Several countries suspended funding to UNRWA over the allegations, but most have since restored funding, but not the US.
We’ll be watching to see how this legislation, which won’t take effect for 90 days, impacts the US-Israel relationship.
Meanwhile, across the border, Hezbollah has elected Naim Kassem to succeed Hassan Nasrallah as secretary general after Nasrallah was killed in September.
Kassem was already one of the group's leading spokesmen, often conducting interviews with foreign media. Critics say he lacks his predecessor's gravitas, but the man considered most likely to succeed Nasrallah, Hashem Safieddine, was also killed in recent weeks as Israel ramps up its efforts to dismantle Hezbollah.
An Israeli infantry soldier inside a Jewish home in Kibbutz Be’eri that was destroyed by Hamas in their October 7, 2023 infiltration of southern Israeli communities. This community was attacked by Hamas infiltrators who killed some 100 people out of 1000 who lived in this community on October 7, 2023.
Seven key consequences of the Oct. 7 attack
A year ago today, Hamas militants shot and paraglided their way out of the Gaza Strip and went on a rampage through southern Israel, murdering more than 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages.
The attack set off a geopolitical earthquake in a region that a top US official had described, just a week earlier, as “quieter today than it has been in two decades.”
The noise ever since has been deafening.
Israel responded by unleashing a ferocious air and ground campaign in Gaza that sought to destroy Hamas and liberate the hostages. About half of them have been freed, the majority of those in a prisoner swap deal. Ninety-seven hostages are still in Gaza.
Israeli forces have weakened Hamas as a fighting force in a campaign that has killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza, according to local, Hamas-run health authorities. The dead include thousands of children. Close to two million Gazans, or nearly 90% of the pre-war population, have been displaced from their homes, and Israel has faced accusations of war crimes, including genocide, in international courts.
Meanwhile, months of cross-border clashes with Iran-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon have recently escalated – Israel last week assassinated the group’s leader and launched an invasion of Lebanon.
Tensions between Israel and Iran are reaching a crescendo as well. Iran recently fired hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel, which has vowed to respond, potentially by striking Iranian oil facilities, in a move that could rock oil markets and the global economy.
We take a brief look at how the past year has shaped prospects for seven key players in this story:
1. The Palestinians. Their plight is most certainly back on the global agenda after years of being overlooked as Israel moved toward normalizing its relations with more Arab powers – especially Saudi Arabia – in deals that paid only lip service to eventual Palestinian statehood. Global sympathy for the Palestinian cause has risen, particularly among young people in the West. But Gaza has suffered immense destruction, and the occupation of the West Bank has only deepened over the past year. Support for a Palestinian state among Israelis, already waning in recent years, has plummeted, while the forces most hostile to that outcome in Israel are on a roll these days.
2. Benjamin Netanyahu. Before Oct. 7, 2023, the Israeli prime minister was on the ropes, facing corruption trials and mass protests over his judicial reforms. Then, the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust occurred on his watch, cratering his support further. For months, he seemed to be on borrowed time, an unloved leader kept in power only by Israelis’ reluctance to change horses in mid-war. He faced criticism at home over failure to secure the release of more hostages, but also from far-right ministers who wanted to see even harsher reprisals in Gaza. Shifting the focus to defeating longtime foe Hezbollah, a policy 90% of Israelis support, has paid dividends: He is rising in the polls again. Just how far an emboldened Netanyahu is willing to go now is a big question in a region on fire.
3. Hamas. The terror group has lost thousands of its fighters and two of its most senior officials over the past year. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar may still be alive, likely confined to a tunnel beneath the rubble of Gaza. Still, he miscalculated if he thought that global pressure would force Israel to negotiate a cease-fire, or that Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel from the North would cause Netanyahu to ease up on Gaza in the South. Still, it’s hard to imagine that the idea of Hamas, as an ideology of armed resistance against Israel, has been defeated, especially after the destruction that the IDF has visited upon the Palestinians over the past year. Over the next year, it will be crucial to see if the remainder of Hamas can shape any aspect of a post-war Gaza and whether it reconstitutes itself in any way.
4. Iran. Did Iran miscalculate too? Surely in the days after Oct. 7, Tehran didn’t expect that a year later Israel would be going on an offensive like this, smashing Iran’s No. 1 proxy in the region (Hezbollah) and mulling a major strike on Iran itself. That puts Iran in a tricky spot. As the leader of the “axis of resistance” against Israel, it has to keep resisting via its proxies. But with those proxies getting rolled up by Israel now, “Iran is exposed,” says Cliff Kupchan, head of research at Eurasia Group. “Iran misjudged power dynamics and sentiment in Israel. The IDF killed Nasrallah and severely degraded Hezbollah. Iran’s forward deterrence is gone.” That, he says, means Iran is likely to lean more heavily into its nuclear program now. That program, of course, is something Netanyahu is famously eager to try to destroy.
5. United States. The Biden administration has been largely unwavering in its rhetorical, military, and financial support for Israel, although it has also occasionally angered Israel and Israel supporters by pushing – ineffectively – for a cease-fire, or by raising concerns about the civilian death toll in Gaza. Partisan splits over Israel’s action in Gaza won’t be central to the upcoming presidential election – it will be decided by concerns about the economy, abortion access, and immigration. But the issue could affect the vote at the very margins, with some progressives and Arab-American voters in key swing states pledging not to vote at all in protest of the Biden administration’s support for Israel. The outcome of the election itself will matter on the ground: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are both strong supporters of Israel, but Trump would give Netanyahu a much freer hand in dealings with the Palestinians, with Hezbollah, and with Iran.
6. Russia. It certainly hasn’t hurt Vladimir Putin to see so much of the world’s attention drawn away from his invasion of Ukraine. And to the extent that the US gets wound into an intractable conflict in the Middle East, so much the better from his perch, especially if regional jitters push up oil prices. But the Kremlin has to be careful. If Israel severely weakens Hezbollah, it could shake things loose in Syria, where the group’s fighters are a major ground force for Russia’s protégé, Bashar Assad. And if a wider Israel-Iran war erupts, Moscow could get drawn more deeply into a messy situation than it likes – after all, Putin’s already fighting a war of his own closer to home.
7. The Arab world. Popular opinion is strongly critical of Israel and the US. That has been a particular challenge for regimes in Egypt and Jordan, which have peace treaties with Israel and are close partners of the US. In Jordan, for example, even in a recent tightly controlled election, Islamist opposition parties that support Hamas surged in the polls. Saudi Arabia, arguably the preeminent Arab power now, is warily watching as Israel-Iran tensions escalate. Saudi Arabia and Iran are longtime rivals, but ties have been improving recently, and Riyadh has no interest in a wider war as it tries to move ahead with an ambitious domestic economic and social modernization drive. But Israel may yet have other ideas.Are Israel and Hezbollah on the brink of all-out war?
While the cross-border fire forced about 60,000 Israelis and 100,000 Lebanese from their homes, neither side was inclined to escalate the skirmishes and risk a full-scale war, knowing the destructive consequences of such a showdown. Israel had little appetite to open a second front against Iran’s most formidable proxy while it was actively fighting a grinding war in Gaza. Meanwhile, neither Hezbollah – under growing domestic pressure amid public discontent with Lebanon’s enduring economic crisis – nor its patrons in Tehran – now betting on regional de-escalation to obtain sanctions relief and bolster the regime’s stability – had an interest in going to war on behalf of Hamas.
But after nearly a year of contained clashes, something shifted in Israel’s strategic calculus that led it to dramatically raise the stakes and expand the confrontation with Hezbollah last week.
First came the attacks on Sept. 17 and 18 using remotely detonated Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies, which not only killed dozens and injured thousands of the organization’s members but also crippled its communications network. Two days later, the IDF assassinated Hezbollah’s top military commander, Ibrahim Aqil, along with the entire chain of command of the group’s elite Radwan unit while they were holding an in-person meeting in a residential building in Beirut. (Aqil’s predecessor, Fuad Shukr, had been killed by an Israeli strike in the same Beirut neighborhood back in July.)
Then, on Monday, Israel launched a massive aerial campaign targeting Hezbollah strongholds across the country – primarily in southern Lebanon but also in the eastern Bekaa Valley and southern Beirut’s Dahiyah suburb – and destroying tens of thousands of rocket launchers and weapons depots. More than 550 people (including at least 50 children) were killed that day alone – nearly half the total number of Lebanese fatalities during the entire 2006 war with Israel. One of yesterday’s airstrikes also took out the commander in charge of Hezbollah's rocket and missile division.
As many as half a million Lebanese have already fled for the north as Israel looks set to intensify its bombardments over the coming days and weeks, threatening to expand the conflict even further.
What changed? What is Israel’s new endgame? And will Israel’s actions or Hezbollah’s response trigger an all-out war?
Two fronts, no more
Here’s what didn’t change: Some 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes for almost a year. That may not sound like a lot, but in proportional terms, it’s the equivalent of the entire population of the state of New Mexico (2.2 million) being evacuated for a year.
These people have grown frustrated at their inability to sleep in their own beds – or send their children to their schools – and they’ve become a thorn in the side of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Although the Israeli government regularly vowed to do something to allow them to return home, everyone understood that confronting Hezbollah was a distraction Israel couldn’t afford while the fight against Hamas was still ongoing.
But major military operations in Gaza are now winding down. While a negotiated cease-fire remains out of reach, the Israelis have so thoroughly degraded Hamas’ offensive capabilities, destroyed its tunnels, and decapitated its leadership that there’s not much more left for them to accomplish in the Strip. The IDF is accordingly withdrawing most troops from Gaza, freeing them to be deployed elsewhere (read: to the north) if needed.
Moreover, while most Israelis blame their government for the failure to secure the release of the hostages held by Hamas, there is widespread public support for a campaign to return displaced residents to the border areas threatened by Hezbollah. This is critical for the embattled Netanyahu, who can leverage the opportunity to galvanize his fragile coalition, boost his popularity amid mounting domestic tensions, and extend his tenure in office. He also has a chance to rewrite his legacy and become the prime minister who neutralized the threats from Hamas and Hezbollah, instead of the one who oversaw the worst intelligence and military failure in the country’s history.
Escalate to de-escalate
Despite its expansion of the bounds of escalation, Israel’s government does not appear to be trying to provoke a full-fledged war, destroy Hezbollah, or occupy any (let alone all) sovereign Lebanese territory. Its goal, made official last week, is more limited: to fulfill its promise to return the approximately 60,000 displaced residents of the northern border communities to their homes and prevent Hezbollah from threatening their safety in the future.
The problem is that since Oct. 8, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has publicly insisted on conditioning a cease-fire in northern Israel to a cease-fire in Gaza, and the odds of the latter being agreed to anytime soon are slim to none (with Netanyahu and Hamas honcho Yahya Sinwar sharing the blame).
Israel is accordingly seeking to force Nasrallah to decouple Lebanon from Gaza, stop Hezbollah’s attacks on its northern communities, and move its troops and weapons stockpiles away from Israel’s border in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Established at the end of the 2006 war, this resolution calls for the withdrawal of all armed forces in the 18-mile stretch between Israel’s border and Lebanon’s Litani River.
The big question is whether Israel’s escalations over the past week are a prelude to a ground invasion to secure this buffer zone in southern Lebanon or a pressure campaign intended to compel Nasrallah to stand down without said invasion.
My take? Israel would strongly prefer not to have to resort to a large-scale ground incursion. The full-fledged war that it would cause entails much higher costs and risks than Israel wants, and Netanyahu is gambling the devastating show of force will render it unnecessary. Having said that, if the coming days and weeks of escalating military pressure fail to get Nasrallah to fold or trigger an unacceptably retaliatory escalation from Hezbollah (e.g., successful strikes on military installations, critical infrastructure, or cities, mass civilian casualty attacks, assassinations of military or political leaders, etc.), Israel would probably be willing – and certainly ready – to go all the way to achieve its objective.
Hezbollah’s dilemma
Nasrallah made a strategic blunder when he tied Hezbollah’s fate to a Gaza cease-fire. Again and again, he doubled down by publicly insisting on this linkage. Now his organization has been dealt the worst blow in its history, and he’s stuck with no good options to respond.
There’s no doubt that Nasrallah feels compelled to reciprocate Israel’s escalations, but Hezbollah has no effective means to do so without risking all-out war against an overwhelmingly superior adversary. Unlike the bounded confrontation we’re currently seeing, a full-scale war would entail intensive and sustained strikes by both sides on each other’s critical and state infrastructure (including electricity and energy assets, ports, and airports) as well as densely populated civilian areas. It would also feature Israeli tanks and boots battling inside Lebanon.
That is a war Hezbollah knows it can’t possibly win – and one that both the Lebanese public and the group’s Iranian backers desperately oppose. This is especially true after the events of the past week, which have severely degraded the group’s military capabilities, eliminated most of its leaders, dented its morale, and compromised its power to coordinate a response.
At the same time, Nasrallah has no face-saving way to walk back his threats to continue attacking Israel until there’s a Gaza cease-fire. But what good is keeping his word to the Palestinians if Hezbollah gets destroyed in the process?
What I expect, therefore, is neither full capitulation nor full defiance. Nasrallah will keep up his tough rhetoric and refuse to comply with UN Resolution 1701, but Hezbollah will quietly bow to the pressure to let up its attacks against northern Israel. The IDF’s intensifying air campaign, meanwhile, will turn southern Lebanon into a ghost town as civilians and fighters continue to evacuate the area, making it easier for a small contingent of Israeli troops to eventually set up a buffer zone with minimal resistance and allowing the 60,000 displaced to return home. Hezbollah’s deterrence will suffer greatly, but the tip of the Iranian spear in the Levant will live to fight another day.
Danger ahead
Of course, I could be wrong. There’s a lot of uncertainty and it’s ultimately a close call, with lots of room for accidents and unintended escalations.
But even if I’m right and all-out war doesn’t break out between Israel and Hezbollah, the regional situation will still remain exceptionally dangerous. Other Iranian proxies in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen are determined to continue the fight. The two-state solution is all but dead. Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank are being driven to desperation, their prospects of living normal lives deteriorating wildly before our eyes. The powerless Lebanese are watching as their moribund economy takes yet another hit. The impact all of this is having on the Arab public mood, normalization efforts with Israel, and radicalization and extremism cannot be overstated.
All the regional leaders I've met in New York for the UN General Assembly over the last 48 hours have told me that this is the most flammable they’ve seen the Middle East since 1967. They’re right. As I wrote last January, “The region is no longer quiet, and it won't be for ages.”