Rescuers pulled bodies from under the rubble of a collapsed house in Gaza’s Beit Lahiya after heavy rain and winds brought the heavily damaged building crumbling to the ground. At least 12 people have died over the last 24 hours as Storm Byron inflicts further damage on the remnants of Israel’s genocide war.
Published On 12 Dec 202512 Dec 2025
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In the large displacement camps of Gaza, rows upon rows of makeshift tents blanket debris, empty lots and what remains of flattened neighbourhoods. With Storm Byron descending upon the enclave, a sense of terror has seized a population already exhausted from two years of Israel’s genocidal war with its unrelenting bombardment, starvation and chaos.
For the 1.5 million Palestinians living under plastic sheets and tattered tarps, the storm means something more than just bad weather. It’s another danger piled on top of the current battle for survival.
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For several days, meteorologists have warned that heavy rainfall and strong winds could hit the strip today, tomorrow and over the weekend, risking flash flooding and significant wind damage. What is certain, though, is that Gaza is not facing this storm with ready infrastructure, stocked shelters or functioning drainage systems.
It faces it with tents propped up with pieces of scrap metal, paths that become mud rivers after only one night of rain and families who have nothing left to protect.
In the camps of Gaza City, the scenes of vulnerability are everywhere. Most tents are constructed from aid tarpaulins, pieces of plastic salvaged from rubble and blankets tied to recycled wooden poles. Many sag visibly in the middle; others are erected inadequately, so much so that they quiver and flap violently under the slightest breeze.
“When the wind starts, we all hold the poles to keep the tent from falling,” said Hani Ziara, a father sheltering in western Gaza City after his home was destroyed months ago.
His tent was flooded last night in the heavy rain, and his children had to stay outside in the cold. Hani wonders painfully what else he can do to protect his children from the rain and strong winds.
In many camps, the ground was already soft from previous rainfall. Wet sand and mud stick to shoes, blankets and cooking pots as people shuffle through. Trenches dug by volunteers to divert water often collapse within hours. With nowhere else to go, families who live in low-lying areas are preparing for the worst: that floodwaters will be pushed directly into their tents.
Stocking up on food, storing clean water and securing shelter are the most basic steps when people prepare for a storm, but that is considered a luxury for the displaced of Gaza.
Most families receive scant water deliveries, going sometimes days without enough to cook or wash. Food supplies are equally strained, and while irregular aid distributions provide basics like rice or canned beans, the quantities seldom last more than a few days. Preparing for a storm by cooking ahead, gathering dry goods or storing fuel is simply not possible.
“We could not sleep last night. Our tent was flooded with rainwater. Everything we had was flushed out by water. We want to prepare, but how?” asked Mervit, a mother of five children displaced near the Gaza port. She added, “We barely have enough food for tonight. We can’t save what we don’t have.”
Despite poverty, solidarity has become Gaza’s strongest survival strategy. Neighbours, with whatever they have, help secure the tents. Young men go through the rubble and scavenge for metal and wood remains to serve as temporary posts. The women organise collective cooking so that hot meals can be distributed to families in need, particularly those with young children or elderly family members, whenever possible.
These unofficial networks become more active the closer a storm gets. Volunteers trudge from tent to tent, helping families raise sleeping areas off the ground, patch holes in canopies with plastic sheets, and dig drainage channels. Crowds try to move those who are in precarious, extremely exposed areas to other locations, sharing information about safer places.
Beyond physical danger, the psychological impact is deep. After months of displacement, loss and deprivation, another crisis – this time, not war, but forces of nature – feels overwhelming.
“Our tents were destroyed. We are exhausted,” said Wissam Naser. “We have no strength left. Every day there is a new fear: hunger, cold, disease, now the storm.”
Many residents describe the feeling of being sandwiched between the sky and the ground, exposed on both ends and unable to protect their families from either.
As clouds mass along Gaza’s shore, families prepare to take a hit. Some weigh down tent walls against the wind with rocks and sandbags. Others push children’s blankets to the driest corner, hoping a roof will last. Most don’t have a plan. They just wait.
The storm will not be another single-night affair for the displaced in Gaza. It would be a further reminder of how fragile life has become, how survival depends not on preparedness but rather on endurance.
They wait because they have no alternative. They prepare with what little they have. They pray that this time, the winds will be merciful.
Storm Byron is threatening to heap new miseries on Palestinians in Gaza, with families making distress calls from flooded tents and hundreds of others fleeing their shelters in search of dry ground as the fierce winter storm lashes heavy rains on the besieged territory.
Officials warned Wednesday that the storm was forecast to bring flash floods, strong winds and hail until Friday, conditions expected to wreak havoc in a territory in the grip of a humanitarian crisis, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people live in tents, temporary structures, or damaged buildings after two years of Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
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Humanitarian workers said Israeli restrictions on the entry of tents, tools to repair water and sewage systems have left Gaza poorly equipped to respond to the storm, and called on the international community to pressure the Netanyahu government to urgently allow in supplies.
In the southern city of Rafah, the Palestinian Civil Defence said its teams had already received distress calls from displacement camps, with families reporting “flooded tents and families trapped inside by heavy rains”.
“Despite limited resources and a lack of necessary equipment, our teams are working tirelessly to reach those in need and provide assistance,” the rescue agency said on Telegram.
Footage posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera showed Palestinians shovelling a ditch around tents in a desperate attempt to create barriers that would prevent them from flooding.
Nearly 850,000 people sheltering in 761 displacement sites face the highest risk of flooding, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Flooding has previously been recorded at more than 200 of the highest-risk sites, affecting more than 140,000 people, the office said.
Previous storms had contaminated displacement sites with sewage and solid waste, swept away families’ tents and driven them out of makeshift shelters.
Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said that UN agencies and local authorities were warning that any significant rainfall could have devastating consequences for Gaza’s population, with the displacement camps built on barren, open terrain that would be highly susceptible to flooding.
The tents available to people were typically flimsy, unreinforced and often torn, he said, offering negligible protection from heavy rains, which were likely to seriously damage whatever possessions families had left.
Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs network, said Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid and equipment had left Gaza ill-equipped to deal with the storm.
He said only 40,000 tents, out of a needed 300,000, had been allowed in, while tools that would likely be needed to repair sewage systems and water networks were also restricted.
Flooding would bring a serious risk of sewage and solid waste contaminating drinking water or food supplies, raising the risk of diseases in the densely populated Strip, where 2.2 million people are crammed into just 43 percent of the territory, while the remaining 57 percent remains under Israeli military control.
“If Israel were to allow the entrance of supplies, things would be different. But for now, it has done all it can to make life more complicated for Palestinians,” Shawa said.
Oxfam humanitarian response adviser Chris McIntosh agreed, telling Al Jazeera that the people of Gaza were bracing for a “very tragic situation”.
“Persistent bureaucracy prevented us from bringing in adequate dwellings for people in Gaza,” McIntosh said. “The Israelis have not permitted tents to enter Gaza for many months. The only thing they’re allowing at this point is some tarpaulin, which isn’t going to do much for people who need proper shelter.”
He said Palestinians were being forced to live in “deplorable conditions”, with well more than 50 percent of the population living in tents.
He anticipated many would attempt to find dry ground inside bombed-out buildings that were at heightened risk of collapse amid the forecast heavy rains and winds.
Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, warned that vulnerable groups, including newborn children, are at particular risk from the incoming winter storm.
About 200 families were expected to arrive at a new displacement site in eastern Khan Younis in the south of the Strip, fleeing a heightened risk of flooding in their present location, he said.
“These households made the decision to move given the impact of the frequent rains and the risk of flooding,” he said.
Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, told Al Jazeera that about 288,000 Palestinian families were without shelter as Storm Byron bore down on the enclave, and issued a call to the international community to pressure Israel to allow in supplies to help respond to the storm.
“We are issuing an urgent appeal to the world, [United States] President Trump and the [United Nations] Security Council to pressure the Israeli occupation,” he said.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, condemned global inaction as families in Gaza braced for the storm.
“Palestinians in Gaza are literally left alone, freezing and starving in the winter storm,” she posted on X.
“I keep asking how we became such monsters, [i]ncapable of stopping this nightmare.”
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, Israeli fire since the start of the ceasefire has killed at least 377 people.
Hamas has said the ceasefire cannot move forward while Israel continues its violations of the agreement, with Gaza authorities saying the truce has been breached at least 738 times since taking effect in October.
Husam Badran, a Hamas official, called on mediators to increase pressure on Israel to fully implement its existing commitments.
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“The next phase cannot begin as long as the [Israeli] occupation continues its violations of the agreement and evades its commitments,” Badran said.
“Hamas has asked the mediators to pressure the occupation to complete the implementation of the first phase,” he added.
The ceasefire, which came into effect on October 10, focused on the exchange of captives held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
But details of the next phase, including Gaza’s future governance, the potential deployment of an international stabilisation force, and the establishment of what has been termed a “board of peace”, remain unresolved.
Meanwhile, anger continues to rise among Palestinians and the international community as Israeli attacks persist. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, Israeli attacks since the start of the ceasefire have killed at least 377 people and wounded 987.
A United States official told Al Jazeera Arabic that negotiations on the next phase of the ceasefire are advancing, but key obstacles still need to be overcome.
The official said Washington expects the first deployment of an international stabilisation force to begin in early 2026.
Talks are currently focused on which countries would contribute to such a force, how it would be commanded and what its rules of engagement would be.
It comes as former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair has reportedly been dropped by the “board of peace”, a panel envisioned by the US to oversee redevelopment in Gaza.
The official said the US-backed ceasefire plan, endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, clearly stipulates Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas’s disarmament.
They added that discussions are under way to form a police force drawn from the local population in Gaza.
The US is also aware of the increasing demands for humanitarian access, the official said, and is working to remove barriers to aid delivery.
Meanwhile, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric responded to a claim by Israeli Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir that the so-called “yellow line”, currently marking Israeli-held territory inside Gaza, constitutes a “new border”.
Israeli forces have remained in about 58 percent of Gaza since a partial withdrawal to the yellow line. Under the ceasefire plan, Israeli forces are meant to withdraw fully from the territory, although there is no timeframe for a withdrawal in the agreement.
The Israeli military has launched an air strike and artillery attacks on areas of Khan Younis still under its control. There have been no reports of casualties.
In northern Gaza, the Israeli army has continued building demolitions in Beit Lahiya.
“These actions constitute a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and a deliberate undermining of the essence of the ceasefire and the provisions of its attached humanitarian protocol,” Gaza authorities said in a statement.
Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza has killed at least 70,366 Palestinians and wounded 171,064 since October 2023, according to Gaza health authorities.
At least of 1,139 people were killed during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli statistics, and more than 200 others were seized as captives.
Blair was the only figure named for the board when Donald Trump announced a 20-point plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza.
Published On 9 Dec 20259 Dec 2025
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Tony Blair has been dropped from consideration for a role on a proposed US-led “board of peace” for Gaza after objections from Arab and Muslim governments, the Financial Times (FT) newspaper has reported.
Blair was the only figure named for the board when Donald Trump announced a 20-point plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza in September, with the US president describing the former UK prime minister as a “very good man”.
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Blair praised the plan as “bold and intelligent” and signalled he was willing to serve on the board, which would be chaired by Trump himself.
But diplomats from several Arab and Muslim states objected to Blair’s involvement, the FT reported on Monday.
As British Prime Minister, Blair strongly supported the US-led so-called “war on terror” and sent tens of thousands of British troops to join the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which was launched based on false claims that Iraq’s then leader, Saddam Hussein, had developed weapons of mass destruction.
In the Middle East region, Blair remains widely viewed as partially responsible for the war’s devastation.
Since leaving office in 2007, he has set up the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), which has worked with governments accused of repression to help improve their image.
His institute was also involved with a project, led by Israeli business figures, developing “day-after” plans for Gaza alongside Israeli business figures.
The project included proposals for a coastal resort dubbed the “Trump Riviera” and a manufacturing hub named after Elon Musk – ideas critics said ignore human rights and threaten Palestinians with displacement.
There was no immediate comment from Blair’s office. An ally quoted by the FT rejected claims that opposition from regional governments had forced him out of Trump’s planned “peace board”, insisting discussions were ongoing.
Another source said Blair could still return in “a different capacity”, noting he is favoured by both Washington and Tel Aviv.
Trump’s Gaza plan led to a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, with Israeli forces continuing attacks across the besieged territory. At least 377 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire took effect in October, according to Gaza authorities. More than 70,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza in October 2023, according to Gaza health authorities.
As the chapter closes on Yasser Abu Shabab, 32, the “Popular Forces” militia leader who appeared in Rafah during the war and was widely viewed as a collaborator with Israel, Ghassan al-Duhaini has been named his successor.
Soon after Abu Shabab was killed last Thursday, reportedly during a family dispute mediation, al-Duhaini, who was said to be injured in the same altercation, appeared in a video online dressed in military fatigues and walking among masked fighters under his command.
But who is Ghassan al-Duhaini? Has he just appeared, or was he there all along? Here’s what we know:
Palestinian media sources say al-Duhaini, 39, has long been the group’s de facto leader, despite being officially the second-in-command.
They argue that his experience and age made him the operational head, while Abu Shabab, the figure publicly recruited by Israel, served as the face of the militia.
Al-Duhaini was born on October 3, 1987, in Rafah, southern Gaza. He belongs to the Tarabin Bedouin tribe, one of the largest Palestinian tribes that extends regionally and to which Abu Shabab belonged.
He was a former officer in the Palestinian Authority security forces, where he held the rank of first lieutenant.
Then he later joined Jaysh al-Islam, a Gaza-based armed faction with ideological ties to ISIL (ISIS).
The militia announced al-Duhaini as its new commander on its official Facebook page on Friday.
Al-Duhaini pledged to continue the group’s operations against Hamas.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, comments later reported by The Times of Israel on Saturday, al-Duhaini insisted he had no fear of Hamas.
“Why would I fear Hamas when I am fighting Hamas? I fight them, arrest their people, seize their equipment … in the name of the people and the free,” he said.
On Friday, the militia published a promotional video on an affiliated Facebook page showing al-Duhaini inspecting a formation of armed fighters.
He told Channel 12 that the footage was intended to demonstrate that the group “remains operational” despite the death of its leader.
“His absence is painful, but it will not stop the war on terrorism,” he declared.
Hamas lists al-Duhaini among its most wanted figures, accusing him of collaborating with Israel, looting aid, and gathering intelligence on tunnel routes and military sites.
Little information is available on why he left the security forces.
Al-Duhaini has been increasingly active on social media, recently appearing prominently in a video showing the militia capturing and interrogating several Hamas members from a tunnel in Rafah.
Abu Shabab’s group claimed the detentions were conducted “in accordance with the applicable security directive and in coordination with the international coalition”.
He also appeared in a social media post beside what appeared to be several bodies, the caption saying they were Hamas men who had been “eliminated” as part of the group’s “counterterrorism” operations.
Hamas has attempted to assassinate al-Duhaini twice, killing his brother in one operation and narrowly missing al-Duhaini in another, when a booby-trapped house east of Rafah was detonated.
A Hamas source said al-Duhaini survived the blast “by sheer luck”, while four members of the attacking unit were killed and others wounded.
The Popular Forces militia first came to prominence in 2024 under the leadership of Abu Shabab. It has an estimated 100 to 300 fighters who operate only metres from Israeli military sites, moving with their weapons under direct Israeli oversight.
The militia is primarily based in eastern Rafah, near the Karem Abu Salem crossing, the only entry point through which Israel currently permits humanitarian aid into Gaza.
A second unit is in western Rafah, near the notorious US-Israeli GHF aid distribution point, where hundreds of Palestinians have been shot as they sought aid.
Security sources told Al Jazeera Arabic that the Israeli army oversaw the arming of Abu Shabab and that he leads “criminal gangs specialising in intercepting aid convoys coming from the [Karem Abu Salem] crossing in southern Gaza and firing on civilians”.
Israeli newspaper Maariv reported in June that Israel’s intelligence agency, Shin Bet, was behind the recruitment of Abu Shabab’s gang, its chief Ronen Bar advising Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to enlist and arm the group.
The so-called “pilot project” involved supplying the militia a limited and monitored number of rifles and handguns, the paper said.
Shin Bet’s idea, Maariv continued, was to use the gang to test whether it could impose a form of “alternative governance” to Hamas in a small, contained area of Rafah.
Still, some Israeli security officials, it added, do not view the group as a credible replacement for Hamas.
Abu Shabab’s name later appeared in an internal United Nations memo in late 2024 that identified him as a central figure behind the systematic and large-scale looting of humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
Reports about the group’s finances and operations suggest a pattern of systematic profiteering from Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has affirmed support for the creation of a Palestinian state, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has again rejected such a move, during the German leader’s inaugural visit to the country.
At a joint press conference on Sunday following a meeting in Jerusalem, the two leaders spoke of their respective priorities for Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
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Merz’s trip is playing out under the shadow of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza – although Merz, leader of one of Israel’s staunchest supporters, does not consider it a genocide.
Merz told the news conference that Germany, one of Israel’s most unwavering allies, wanted a new Middle East that recognised a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.
“Our conviction is that the prospective establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel presumably offers the best prospect for this future,” the German chancellor said.
But he said his government had no intention of recognising a Palestinian state “in the foreseeable future”.
“The German federal government remains of the opinion that recognition of a Palestinian state should come at the end – not the beginning – of such a process (peace negotiations),” he said, putting Germany at odds with several other key European nations, including France, Spain and the Untied Kingdom, who have all confirmed formal recognition.
But Netanyahu said that the Israeli public was opposed to any two-state solution, and that the political annexation of the occupied West Bank – a concern raised by Merz and also rejected by the administration of United States President Donald Trump – remained a subject of discussion, although the status quo was expected to remain for the foreseeable future.
“The purpose of a Palestinian state is to destroy the Jewish state,” Netanyahu claimed without expanding.
The Israeli premier added that the first phase of Trump’s Gaza plan was nearly completed, and that he would be having “very important conversations” at the end of December on how to ensure the second phase would be achieved.
He would also meet Trump later this month, he added.
The war on Gaza has tested the traditionally strong ties between Israel and Germany, for whom support for Israel is a core tenet of its foreign policy, built in during decades of historical guilt over the Third Reich’s Holocaust.
In August, Israel’s actions in Gaza drove Germany – Israel’s second-largest arms supplier after the US – to restrict sales of weapons for use in Gaza. At the time, Merz said – in a public criticism of Israel that was rare for a German leader – that his government could no longer ignore the worsening toll on civilians in the besieged and bombarded enclave.
Netanyahu expressed his anger at the restrictions, which were lifted two weeks ago.
Speaking at the news conference, Merz said the decision to restrict weapons sales had changed nothing “in our very basic attitude towards Israel and Israel’s security, in our support of Israel, in our military support of Israel as well.”
Merz’s visit – coming seven months since he assumed power – has come relatively late in his tenure as chancellor compared to his predecessors, with Olaf Scholz having visited Israel after three months and Angela Merkel after two.
Speaking at the press conference in Jerusalem, Merz said the leaders did not discuss a visit by Netanyahu – who faces an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Gaza from the International Criminal Court (ICC) – to Berlin.
“We did not discuss the possibility of Prime Minister Netanyahu travelling to Germany. There is no reason to discuss this at the moment,” Merz told reporters.
“If time permits, I would issue such an invitation if appropriate. But this is not an issue for either of us at the present time.”
Earlier this year, Merz vowed to invite the Israeli leader and assured him he would not be arrested on German soil.
In the meantime, back in Germany, activists in the capital Berlin held a demonstration to condemn Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, to demand a halt to arms exports to Israel, and to express their support for Palestine.
There has also been criticism from the political opposition in Germany to Merz making the trip at all to meet a leader with an ICC arrest warrant hanging over him.
Prior to meeting Netanyahu, Merz had visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, where he reiterated Berlin’s enduring support.
During the visit, he said “Germany must stand up for the existence and security of Israel,” after acknowledging his country’s “enduring historical responsibility” for the mass extermination of Jews during World War II.
On his arrival in Israel on Saturday, Merz was met at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who called Merz “a friend of Israel”. He then met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem later that evening.
Reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said the relationship between Germany and Israel remained “very strong”, despite recent strains over Gaza.
Not only had Germany resumed arms exports to Israel following a short-lived partial suspension, but it had recently signed a $4.5bn deal for an Israeli-made missile defence shield, reportedly the largest arms export agreement in Israeli history.
Speaking at Sunday’s news conference, Netanyahu said the deal reflected a “historical change” in Israel’s relationship with Germany.
“Not only does Germany work in the defence of Israel, but Israel, the Jewish state, 80 years after the Holocaust, works for the defence of Germany,” he said.
Odeh said Germany’s support had proven controversial at home and abroad, and had seen Germany being accused of complicity in genocide for its military support to Israel, before judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled against issuing emergency orders to stop German arms exports.
“The visit itself is quite controversial given that Germany is a member of the International Criminal Court and is obliged to hand over Netanyahu to the court, not meet with him,” Odeh noted.
She said Israel had little tolerance for criticism from Germany, but understood that its occasional comments taking issue with its actions had little bearing on Berlin’s policy response.
“The Israeli political system … understands that even that criticism … doesn’t really amount to much in terms of policy,” she said, describing Berlin as acting as “a brick wall at the European Union against any criticism, any action, any sanctions against Israel”.
After the US government placed sanctions on the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, her life turned upside down.
Credit cards stopped working, she told Al Jazeera. A hotel reservation booked by the European Parliament was cancelled. Medical insurance was denied. For Albanese, the consequences of her work on Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza were not just professional — they were personal, too.
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“We are turned into non-persons,” she said at the Doha Forum, calling the sanctions imposed against her “unlawful” under international law.
“But again, for me, it’s important that people understand the extent … the United States, Israel and others would go to silence the voice of justice, the voice of human rights,” Albanese said.
As leaders, diplomats, and legal experts gathered in Qatar’s capital for the Doha Forum this weekend under the theme “Justice in Action: Beyond Promises to Progress”, the crisis in Gaza dominated discussions.
Allegations of genocide against Israel, repeated vetoes blocking UN ceasefire resolutions, and growing pressure on international justice mechanisms have made Gaza a test case for the rules-based international order, raising questions about whether international law is capable of providing justice.
According to Albanese’s legal assessments, Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza constitutes a genocide, a term that prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s B’Tselem have also used.
When announcing the sanctions on Albanese, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused her of waging a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel”. She says the allegation is baseless.
“I have been subjected to smear campaigns,” she said, adding that US officials have accused her of being an anti-Semite, of supporting violence, and of failing to condemn the crimes committed on October 7 against Israeli civilians.
“It has created a sense of insecurity around me. I have received threats from all corners,” Albanese said.
In addition to targeting Albanese, the US imposed sanctions in August on nine judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC), including two European citizens, after the court began investigating alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
“This is mafia-style intimidation that we are subjected to, just for doing our job,” Albanese noted, warning that sanctions and intimidation of legal experts set a dangerous precedent.
“There will be that pressure [on ICC judges and legal experts] that, if I go on this route, this is going to be scrutinised. This is the idea, to make it impossible for the organisation, for the ICC to work,” she cautioned.
“Imagine that every US person interacting with us, someone who works in the US or is a citizen, could go to jail for up to 20 years. It creates a chilling effect.”
In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “war crimes”.
The US called the move “outrageous”, and while the United Kingdom and Canada said they would adhere to international law, they did not make clear if they would uphold the warrant.
Many Western countries have not described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide and have continued to send the country arms, despite growing allegations of war crimes occurring in Gaza.
Albanese emphasised that nations continuing to transfer arms are failing in their legal obligations.
“They have the obligation to prevent a genocide that has already been recognised as plausible in January 2024 by the International Court of Justice,” she said.
Janine Di Giovanni, co-founder of the Reckoning Project, which documents war crimes in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, said the position of many Western states reeked of a glaring “double standard”.
“There is one set of laws and rules that pertain to Ukraine … and another set for brown and Black people,” she said, pointing to the ICC’s historical focus on African leaders and the failure of Western powers to hold Israel accountable.
Di Giovanni directed her criticism at European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, saying the former Estonian prime minister had been “negligent” when it came to Gaza.
“She points out over and over again what [Russian President] Putin has done in Ukraine, but not a word about Gaza,” she added.
“She’s the EU foreign policy chief. She has a responsibility to point out Israel’s criminality.”
With multilateral institutions and the international law system coming under growing pressure from nation-states, Albanese said that international law does work and that “we need to make it work”.
“I often make the example, if a cure doesn’t work, would you trash all medicine? No,” she asserted.
“This is the first genocide in history that has awakened a conscience, a global conscience, and has the potential to be stopped.”
Meanwhile, Reckoning Project’s Di Giovanni said the UN General Assembly could be “activated to work at a higher level and a more effective level than what they’re doing, while the Security Council is blocked”.
“But maybe this shows us that we need to have a greater reform for how the Security Council works,” she said.
Di Giovanni added that it was crucial to address the “extraordinary heinous crimes that Netanyahu and others” have committed, or else it would send a message that “impunity is rampant”.
“Without accountability, there is no global security,” she said.
As Israel and Hamas prepare to move towards phase two of a United States-led blueprint to end Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, disagreements loom over the as-yet undefined role of an international stabilisation force in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said on Sunday that the US draft required “a lot of clarifications”. While the group was ready to discuss “freezing or storing” weapons during the ongoing truce, he said it would not accept that an international stabilisation force take charge of disarmament.
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“We are welcoming a [United Nations] force to be near the borders, supervising the ceasefire agreement, reporting about violations, preventing any kind of escalations,” he said, adding that Hamas would not accept the force having “any kind of mandates” on Palestinian territory.
His comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier in the day that he would meet with Donald Trump to discuss entering a new phase of the US president’s plan at the end of the month. The focus of the meeting, he said, would be on ending Hamas governance in Gaza and ensuring it fulfilled its “commitment” to the plan, which calls for demilitarisation of the enclave.
“We have a second phase, no less daunting, and that is to achieve the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarisation of Gaza,” Netanyahu said during a news conference with visiting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
It was not clear whether Naim’s comments on the group freezing or storing arms would satisfy Israel’s demands for full disarmament. The Hamas official said the group retained its “right to resist”, adding that laying down arms could happen as part of a process leading to a Palestinian state, with a potential long-term truce lasting five to 10 years.
The US-drafted plan for Gaza leaves the door open to Palestinian independence, but Netanyahu has long rejected this, asserting that creating a Palestinian state would reward Hamas.
Trump’s 20-point plan offers a general way forward on such plans as the establishment of the stabilisation force and the formation of a technocratic Palestinian government operating under an international “board of peace”, but does not offer concrete details or timelines.
US officials have said they expect “boots on the ground” early next year, but while countries like Indonesia have agreed to contribute troops, there is no roadmap for setting up the force, and its exact makeup, command structure and responsibilities have not been defined.
Netanyahu appeared to recognise the plan’s vagueness. “What will be the timeline? What are the forces that are coming in? Will we have international forces? If not, what are the alternatives? These are all topics that are being discussed,” he said on Sunday.
The Israeli prime minister said that phase two of the plan, which will be set in motion once Hamas returns the last Israeli captive, a policeman killed in the October 7 attack on southern Israel, would be “more difficult”.
Stage one of the plan has already proven challenging, with Israel continuing to bomb Gaza throughout the ceasefire, killing more than 370 Palestinians, according to health officials. Meanwhile, it has accused Hamas of dragging out captive returns.
The plan’s initial steps saw Israeli forces withdraw to positions behind a so-called yellow line in Gaza, though the Israeli military remains in control of 53 percent of the territory. The Israeli military said on Sunday that the line of demarcation was a “new border”.
“We have operational control over extensive parts of the Gaza Strip, and we will remain on those defence lines,” said Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir. “The yellow line is a new border line, serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity.”
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani warned at the Doha Forum on Saturday that the truce was at a “critical moment” and could unravel without rapid movement towards a permanent deal.
He said a true ceasefire “cannot be completed unless there is a full withdrawal” of Israeli forces, alongside restored stability and freedom of movement for Palestinians, which has so far not transpired under phase one of the plan. He did not allude to the yellow line in his comments.
Amid growing momentum for a move to phase two of the peace plan, Israeli and Qatari officials met with US counterparts in an effort to rebuild relations after Israel’s air strike on Doha in September, Axios reported, citing unnamed sources.