Conflict

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.

“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.

Talks progressing, but major challenges remain

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.

More Israeli strikes reported

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.

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”.

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.

Yemen’s Southern Transition Council has declared itself in control of the country’s south, raising fears they will declare independence. Members of the internationally-backed government have fled. So what is the STC? Soraya Lennie explains.

Israel says it targeted Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon, adding pressure to a US-brokered ceasefire.

Israel’s military has carried out waves of air attacks in southern Lebanon, causing damage to several homes, according to Lebanese state media, as anger mounts over repeated Israeli violations of a ceasefire with Hezbollah agreed upon last year.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported late on Monday that Israeli jets targeted Mount Safi, the town of Jbaa, the Zefta Valley, and the area between Azza and Rumin Arki in “several waves”.

There was no immediate report of casualties.

The Israeli military, in a post on X, said it struck several sites linked to Hezbollah, including a special operations training compound used by its elite Radwan Force.

The military said several buildings and a rocket-launching site were also hit.

The attacks come days after Israel and Lebanon dispatched civilian envoys to a military committee tasked with overseeing their ceasefire, a step towards a months-old demand by the United States, which has been urging the two countries to broaden their talks.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Friday that his country “has adopted the option of negotiations with Israel”, and that the talks were aimed at stopping Israel’s continued attacks on his country.

The current ceasefire, brokered by Washington in 2024, ended more than a year of clashes between Israel and Hezbollah.

But Israel has continued to strike Lebanon on a near-daily basis.

A United Nations report released in November said that at least 127 civilians, including children, have been killed in Lebanon since the ceasefire went into effect. UN officials have warned that the strikes amount to “war crimes”.

Tensions spiked further last week when Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing Hezbollah’s top military commander, Haytham Ali Tabtabai.

The group, still weakened after last year’s conflict, has yet to respond.

Israel has accused Lebanon of not doing enough to compel Hezbollah to relinquish its arsenal across the country, a claim the Lebanese government denies.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said last week that Lebanon wanted to see the ceasefire monitoring mechanism play a more robust role in verifying Israel’s claims that Hezbollah is rearming, as well as the work of the Lebanese army in dismantling the armed group’s infrastructure.

Asked whether that meant Lebanon would accept US and French troops on the ground as part of a verification mechanism, Salam said, “Of course”.

The continued Israeli strikes have raised fears in Lebanon that the Israeli military could expand its air campaign further.

Hezbollah has said it is unwilling to let go of its arms as long as Israel continues its strikes on Lebanese territory and its occupation of five points in the country’s south.

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:

Who is Ghassan al-Duhaini?

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).

Did he really take over after Abu Shabab?

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.

Has he always been against Hamas?

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.

What is the Popular Forces militia?

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.

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.

Relationship strained over Gaza

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.”

No reciprocal visit on cards

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.

Germany ‘must stand up’ for Israel

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.

German support resolute despite criticism

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”.

At least 153 students and 12 teachers taken from a Catholic school last month remain in captivity.

Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 100 children who were among hundreds kidnapped from a Catholic school in northern Nigeria last month, officials and local media have reported.

The 100 children arrived in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and are set to be handed over to local government officials in Niger State on Monday, an unnamed United Nations source told the AFP news agency.

“They are going to be handed over to Niger State government tomorrow,” the source told the AFP news agency.

Nigeria’s The Guardian newspaper reported on Sunday that the rescued children were receiving medical evaluations and would be reunited with their families after a debriefing.

Presidential spokesman Sunday Dare also confirmed reports to the AFP that 100 children were being freed.

Armed gunmen kidnapped 303 students and 12 teachers from St Mary’s School in the Papiri community of Niger State’s Agwara district on November 21.

They included both male and female students aged between 10 to 18 years, according to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

Fifty of the students escaped captivity in the days after they were kidnapped, returning home to their families. Following the release of 100 students on Sunday, 153 students and 12 teachers are believed to remain in captivity.

Days earlier, gunmen abducted 25 schoolgirls from the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in the neighbouring Kebbi State’s Maga town,170km (106 miles) away.

“We have been praying and waiting for their return. If it is true, then it is a cheering news,” said Daniel Atori, spokesman for Bishop Bulus Yohanna of the Kontagora diocese, which runs the school.

“However, we are not officially aware and have not been duly notified by the federal government.”

The latest abductions are the worst seen in Nigeria since more than 270 girls from Chibok town were snatched from their school in 2014.

In total, more than 1,400 Nigerian students have been kidnapped since 2014, in almost a dozen separate incidents.

The most recent kidnappings came soon after United States President Donald Trump said that Nigeria’s Christians are facing genocide, a claim that has been questioned by local officials and Christian groups, who say that people from different faiths have been caught up in ongoing violence in parts of the country.

Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa, a spokesman for Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Al Jazeera last month that people of all faiths have been affected by the ongoing violence.

“We’ve continuously made our point clear that we acknowledge the fact that there are killings that have taken place in Nigeria, but those killings were not restricted to Christians alone. Muslims are being killed. Traditional worshippers are being killed,” Ebienfa said.

“The majority is not the Christian population.”

Trump has threatened military intervention in Nigeria, alleging that the country is failing to protect Christians from persecution. He has also threatened to cut aid to Nigeria.

Nigeria, a country of more than 200 million people, is divided between the largely Muslim north and mostly Christian south.

According to Pew Research Center estimates, Muslims make up 56 percent of Nigeria’s population, while Christians make up just more than 43 percent.

Armed groups have been engaged in a conflict that has been largely confined to the northeast of the country, which is majority Muslim, and has dragged on for more than 15 years.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has confirmed deploying fighter jets and ground troops to neighbouring Benin to help foil a coup attempt by a group of Beninese soldiers.

In a statement on Sunday, Tinubu’s office said Nigeria’s military intervened in Benin after President Patrice Talon’s government issued two requests for help, including for “immediate Nigerian air support”.

Tinubu first ordered Nigerian fighter jets to enter Benin and “take over the airspace to help dislodge the coup plotters from the National TV and a military camp where they had regrouped”, the statement said.

Nigeria’s military sent in ground troops later, after Benin’s government asked for their support in “the protection of constitutional institutions and the containment of armed groups”, it said.

Tinubu praised his troops and said they had helped “stabilise a neighbouring country”.

The Nigerian statement came shortly after Talon, the president of Benin, appeared on national television and said his security forces had successfully blocked the attempt to overthrow his government.

Talon promises punishment

Talon said forces loyal to him “stood firm, recaptured our positions, and cleared the last pockets of resistance held by the mutineers”.

“This commitment and mobilisation enabled us to defeat these adventurers and to prevent the worst for our country,” he said. “This treachery will not go unpunished.”

The Benin president added that his thoughts were with the victims of the coup attempt as well as with a number of people who have been held by the fleeing mutineers.

He did not give details.

The unrest was the latest threat to democratic governance in the region, where militaries have in recent years seized power in Benin’s neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as in Mali, Guinea and, only last month, Guinea-Bissau. But it was an unexpected development in Benin, where the last successful coup took place in 1972.

A government spokesperson, Wilfried Leandre Houngbedji, said that 14 people had been arrested in connection with the coup attempt as of Sunday afternoon, without providing details.

One security source told the AFP news agency that all the detainees were soldiers in active service, except one who was ex-military. It was not clear if Lieutenant Colonel Pascal Tigri, the coup leader, had been apprehended.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Olushegun Adjadi Bakari told the Reuters news agency that the soldiers had only managed to briefly take control of the state TV network.

While gunfire had been heard in some locations of the country’s commercial hub, Cotonou, during the coup attempt, the city has been relatively calm since early afternoon, according to residents.

ECOWAS to send troops

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc and the African Union also condemned the coup attempt.

In a statement later on Sunday, ECOWAS said it had ordered the immediate deployment of elements of its standby force to Benin, including troops from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast and Ghana.

It said the troops would help the Beninese government and army “preserve constitutional order and the territorial integrity of the Republic of Benin”.

The coup attempt came as Benin prepares for a presidential election in April, which is expected to mark the end of Talon’s tenure.

Last month, Benin adopted a new constitution, creating a Senate and extending the presidential mandate from five to seven years. Critics have described the reforms as a power grab by the governing coalition, which has chosen Minister of Economy and Finance Romuald Wadagni as its candidate.

The opposition Democrats party, founded by Talon’s predecessor, Thomas Boni Yayi, has meanwhile seen its proposed candidate rejected because of what a court ruled was insufficient backing from lawmakers.

Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, deputy director of the Sahel Project at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that the coup bids in Benin and other African countries have been partly driven by governments rejecting their democratic responsibilities.

“In recent days and recent months, we have all been holding our breath about what could happen in many countries that are either facing security situations that are bad, or are coming to an election, where there is no clarity on whether the rulers will be respecting the rules of the democratic game,” Yahaya said.

“That is a good part of the story [in Benin]. President Talon has accepted to step down in a context where many other leaders are trying to add new terms. We saw it in Cote d’Ivoire, we saw it in Cameroon recently, and many other cases. But the less positive part of the story is that the leader of the opposition’s candidacy has been invalidated in Benin,” he added.

Lawmakers in the United States have urged the release of a video of a controversial double-tap strike on a vessel in the Caribbean amid growing scrutiny of the legality of Washington’s militarised anti-drug trafficking campaign.

The bipartisan calls on Sunday came amid mounting controversy over revelations that military officials ordered a follow-up strike in the September 2 operation targeting a suspected drug-smuggling vessel, killing two survivors of the initial attack.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers watched footage of the strikes last week in a closed-door briefing with military officials, but emerged from the screening with substantially different accounts of what happened.

Reactions to the footage split along partisan lines, with Democrats expressing deep concerns about the legality of the strikes and Republicans insisting they were justified.

Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’s armed services committee, said the targeted vessel had been “clearly incapacitated” in the initial strike, and the survivors were unarmed and without any means of communication.

“They ought to release the video. If they release the video, then everything that the Republicans are saying will clearly be portrayed to be completely false, and people will get a look at it, and they will see,” Smith said in an interview with the ABC News programme This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

“It seems pretty clear they don’t want to release this video because they don’t want people to see it because it’s very, very difficult to justify,” Smith added.

Jim Himes, who leads the Democrats on the House’s intelligence committee, said the American public should have the chance to judge the video for themselves.

“Look, there’s a certain amount of sympathy out there for going after drug runners, but I think it’s really important that people see what it looks like when the full force the United States military is turned on two guys who are clinging to a piece of wood and about to go under just so that they have sort of a visceral feel for what it is that we’re doing,” Himes told CBS News’s Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.

Several Republicans said they would support the release of the video, even as they defended the strikes.

Senator Tom Cotton, whose account of the survivors trying to “flip” the boat and continue their voyage has been disputed by Democrats, said he would not object to the video’s release, but would defer to the judgement of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon.

“I didn’t find it distressing or disturbing. It looks like any number of dozens of strikes we’ve seen on Jeeps and pickup trucks in the Middle East over the years,” Cotton, who chairs the intelligence committee in the Senate, told NBC News’s Meet the Press.

John Curtis, a Republican senator from Utah, also suggested that he would support the video’s release, saying officials should “err on the side of transparency”.

“The American people, they like to make decisions too based on facts, not just on what we tell them,” Curtis told CNN’s State of the Union.

President Donald Trump, whose administration has carried out at least 22 strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific, said last week he would have “no problem” with releasing the footage.

Hegseth on Saturday struck a more cautious note during an appearance at a defence forum in California, telling a Q&A that officials were reviewing the possibility, but needed to make a “responsible” decision.

Scrutiny of the strikes has mounted since The Washington Post reported last month that US military officials carried out a second attack on two people clinging to the vessel’s wreckage after Hegseth directed commanders to leave no survivors.

Hegseth has repeatedly denied the report, which cited two unnamed sources, labelling it “fake news”, “fabricated” and “inflammatory”.

Legal scholars have argued that both the double-tap strike and the Trump administration’s military campaign against suspected drug traffickers more generally are illegal.

“The United States is not currently operating in a context of armed conflict in its strikes in the Caribbean. For that reason, this is not a context in which war crimes apply,” Tom Dannenbaum, an expert in the laws of war at Stanford University, told Al Jazeera.

“Instead, all of the strikes qualify as murder in violation of domestic criminal law, and extrajudicial killings in violation of international human rights law.”

At least 87 people have been killed in the strikes, which the Trump administration began in September.

The Trump administration has yet to make public any evidence to back its claims that the boats were carrying narcotics, were headed to the US, or that they were being commandeered by members of proscribed cartels.

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.

“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.

‘Sense of insecurity around me’

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.”

Western hesitance

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.”

Is international law still relevant?

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.

“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.

Vague plan

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.

Israeli army says yellow line ‘new border’

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.