Middle East

Summoned last minute by the president of the United States, the world’s most powerful leaders dropped their schedules to fly to Egypt on Monday, where they idled on a stage awaiting Donald Trump’s grand entrance.

They were there to celebrate a significant U.S. diplomatic achievement that has ended hostilities in Gaza after two brutal years of war. But really, they were there for Trump, who took a victory lap for brokering what he called the “greatest deal of them all.”

“Together we’ve achieved what everyone said was impossible, but at long last, we have peace in the Middle East,” Trump told gathered presidents, sheikhs, prime ministers and emirs, arriving in Egypt after addressing the Knesset in Israel. “Nobody thought it could ever get there, and now we’re there.”

“Now, the rebuilding begins — the rebuilding is maybe going to be the easiest part,” Trump said. “I think we’ve done a lot of the hardest part, because the rest comes together. We all know how to rebuild, and we know how to build better than anybody in the world.”

The achievement of a ceasefire in Gaza has earned Trump praise from across the political aisle and from U.S. friends and foes around the world, securing an elusive peace that officials hope will endure long enough to provide space for a wider settlement of Mideast tensions.

Trump’s negotiation of the Abraham Accords in his first term, which saw his administration secure diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, were a nonpartisan success embraced by the succeeding Biden administration. But it was the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and the overwhelming response from Israel that followed, that interrupted efforts by President Biden and his team to build on their success.

The Trump administration now hopes to get talks of expanding the Abraham Accords back on track, eyeing new deals between Israel and Lebanon, Syria, and most of all, Saudi Arabia, effectively ending Israel’s isolation from the Arab world.

Yet, while the current Gaza war appears to be over, the greater Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains.

Trump’s diplomatic success halted the deadliest and most destructive war between Israelis and Palestinians in history, making the achievement all the more notable. Yet the record of the conflict shows a pattern of cyclical violence that flares when similar ceasefires are followed by periods of global neglect.

The first phase of Trump’s peace plan saw Israeli defense forces withdraw from half of Gazan territory, followed by the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas since Oct. 7 in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.

The next phase — Hamas’ disarmament and Gaza’s reconstruction — may not in fact be “the easiest part,” experts say.

“Phase two depends on Trump keeping everyone’s feet to the fire,” said Dennis Ross, a veteran diplomat on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who served in the George H.W. Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations.

“Israeli withdrawal and reconstruction are tied together,” he added. “The Saudis and Emiratis won’t invest the big sums Trump talked about without it. Otherwise they know this will happen again.”

While the Israeli government voted to approve the conditions of the hostage release, neither side has agreed to later stages of Trump’s plan, which would see Hamas militants granted amnesty for disarming and vowing to remain outside of Palestinian governance going forward.

An apolitical, technocratic council would assume governing responsibilities for an interim period, with an international body, chaired by Trump, overseeing reconstruction of a territory that has seen 90% of its structures destroyed.

President Trump speaks during a summit of world leaders Monday in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

(Amr Nabil / Associated Press)

The document, in other words, is not just a concession of defeat by Hamas, but a full and complete surrender that few in the Middle East believe the group will ultimately accept. While Hamas could technically cease to exist, the Muslim Brotherhood — a sprawling political movement throughout the region from which Hamas was born — could end up reviving the group in another form.

In Israel, the success of the next stage — as well as a long-delayed internal investigation into the government failures that led to Oct. 7 — will likely dominate the next election, which could be called for any time next year.

Netanyahu’s domestic polling fluctuated dramatically over the course of the war, and both flanks of Israeli society, from the moderate left to the far right, are expected to exploit the country’s growing war fatigue under his leadership for their own political gain.

Netanyahu’s instinct has been to run to the right in every Israeli election this past decade. But catering to a voting bloc fueling Israel’s settler enterprise in the West Bank — long the more peaceful Palestinian territory, governed by an historically weak Palestinian Authority — runs the risk of spawning another crisis that could quickly upend Trump’s peace effort.

And crises in the West Bank have prompted the resumption of war in Gaza before.

“Israelis will fear Hamas would dominate a Palestinian state, and that is why disarmament of Hamas and reform of the PA are so important. Having Saudi leaders reach out to Israeli public would help,” Ross said.

“The creeping annexation in the West Bank must stop,” Ross added. “The expansion of settlements must stop, and the violence of extremist settlers must stop.”

In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, Netanyahu faced broad criticism for a yearslong strategy of disempowering the Palestinian Authority to Hamas’ benefit, preferring a conflict he knew Israel could win over a peace Israel could not control.

So the true fate of Trump’s peace plan may ultimately come down to the type of peace Netanyahu chooses to pursue in the heat of an election year.

“You are committed to this peace,” Netanyahu said Monday, standing alongside Trump in the Knesset. The Israeli prime minister added: “I am committed to this peace.”

Joy turned to devastation for many after Israel added a twist to its release of almost 2,000 imprisoned Palestinians as part of the ceasefire deal. It’s sending 154 into exile, refusing to let them back into Gaza or the occupied West Bank.

US President Donald Trump has made a last-minute trip to the Middle East in the wake of the Gaza ceasefire deal. 

He landed in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh late on Monday after flying in from Israel, where he addressed the Israeli Knesset.

The first phase of Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan has now been completed, with Hamas releasing all 20 living Israeli captives in Gaza and Israel freeing Palestinian prisoners in the occupied West Bank.

So will this deal finally bring peace to the region?

And what does Trump’s plan mean for the broader Middle East?

Presenter: Neave Barker

Guests:

Sarah Eltantawi – Professor at Fordham University in New York City; political analyst and writer

Yezid Sayigh – Senior fellow at the Malcolm H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut

Kenneth Katzman – Senior fellow at The Soufan Center and former senior analyst with the US Congressional Research Service

“Cigars and champagne, who cares about that?” US President Donald Trump urged Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial in three corruption cases. In one case, Netanyahu’s accused of accepting gifts including cigars, jewellery and champagne from businessmen.

US President Donald Trump told Israel’s parliament that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had often asked him for weapons during the Gaza war, including “some I’d never heard of.” More than 67,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Last week, a ceasefire was announced after two years of genocide in Gaza. The bombs have stopped falling, but the devastation remains. The majority of homes, schools, hospitals, universities, factories, and commercial buildings have been reduced to rubble. From above, Gaza looks like a grey desert of rubble, its vibrant urban spaces reduced to ghost towns, its lush agricultural land and greenery wiped out.

The occupier’s aim was not only to render the Palestinians of Gaza homeless but also unable to provide for themselves. Uprooting the dispossessed and impoverished, those who have lost their connection to the land, is of course much easier.

This was the goal when Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered my family’s plot of land in the eastern part of Maghazi refugee camp and uprooted 55 olive trees, 10 palms and five fig trees.

This plot of land was offered to my refugee grandfather, Ali Alsaloul, by its original owner as a place to shelter in during the Nakba of 1948. Ali, his wife, Ghalia, and their children had just fled their village, al-Maghar, as Zionist forces advanced on it. Al-Maghar, like Gaza today, was reduced to rubble; the Zionists who perpetrated the crime completed the erasure by establishing a national park on its ruins – “Mrar Hills National Park”.

Ali was a farmer and so were his ancestors; his livelihood had always come from the land. So when he settled in the new location, he was quick to plant it with olive trees, palms, figs and prickly pears. He built his house there and raised my father, uncles and aunts. My grandfather eventually bought the land from its generous owner, by paying in installments over many years. Thus, my family came into the possession of 2,000 square metres (half an acre) of land.

Although my father and his siblings married and moved out of their family home, this plot of land remained a favourite place to go, especially for me.

It was just two kilometres away from our house in Maghazi refugee camp. I enjoyed doing the 30-minute walk, part of which went through a complete “jungle”: a stretch of green populated with clover, sycamore, jujube and olive trees, colourful birds, foxes, leashed and unleashed dogs and many beehives.

Every autumn, in October, when the olive picking season began, my cousins, friends and I would gather to collect the olives. It was an occasion that brought us closer together. We would get the olives pressed and get 500 litres (130 gallons) of olive oil from the harvest. The figs and dates were made into jams to have for breakfast or for suhoor during Ramadan.

The rest of the year, I would often meet my friends Ibrahim and Mohammed between the olive trees. We would light a small fire and make a kettle of tea to enjoy under the moonlight, while we talked.

When the war started in 2023, our land became a dangerous place to go. The farms and olive groves around it were often bombed. Our plot was also hit twice at the beginning of the war. As a result, we could not harvest the olives in 2023 and then again in 2024.

When the famine took hold of Gaza in the summer, we started sneaking into the plot to get some fruit and some firewood for cooking, since a kilo of that cost $2. We knew that Israeli tanks might storm in at any moment, but we took the risk anyway.

Seven families – we, friends and neighbours – benefited from the fruit and wood of that land.

One day in late August, a friend of mine called me with a terrible rumour he had heard: the Israeli tanks and bulldozers had advanced into the eastern part of Maghazi and levelled it all, uprooting trees and burying them. I gasped; our lifeline was gone.

Days later, the rumour was confirmed. The Israeli army had uprooted more than 600 trees in the area, mostly olive trees. Those who had fled from the area shared what they had seen. What was once a lush green stretch of land had been bulldozed into a yellow, lifeless desert.

Earlier in August, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported that 98.5 percent of Gaza’s agricultural land had been damaged or made inaccessible. I guess the destruction of our plot shrank that 1.5 percent remaining land even further.

As Israel was completing the erasure of Palestinian agricultural land, it started allowing commercial but not aid trucks into Gaza. The markets were flooded with products with packaging covered in Hebrew.

Israel was starving us, destroying our ability to grow our own food, and then making us buy their products at exorbitant prices.

Ninety percent of people in Gaza are unemployed and can’t afford to buy an Israeli egg for $5 or a kilo of dates for $13. It was yet another genocidal strategy that forced the two million starving Palestinians in Gaza to choose between two horrible options: dying from hunger or paying to support the Israeli economy.

Now, aid is finally supposed to start coming into Gaza under the ceasefire agreement. This may be a relief to many starving Palestinians, but it is not a solution. Israel has rendered us fully dependent on aid, and it is the sole power that determines if, when and how much of it enters Gaza. Per the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, 100 percent of Palestinians in Gaza experience some level of food insecurity.

Much of Gaza’s agricultural land remains out of reach, as Israel has withdrawn from just a part of the Gaza Strip. My family will have to wait for the implementation of the third phase of the ceasefire deal – if Israel agrees to implement it at all – to see the Israeli army withdraw to the buffer zone and regain access our land.

We have now lost our land twice. Once in 1948 and now again in 2025. Israel wants to repeat history and dispossess us again. It must not be allowed to convert more Palestinian land into buffer zones and national parks.

Getting back our land, rehabilitating and planting it is crucial not just for our survival, but also for maintaining our connection to the land. We must resist uprooting.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Families of many of the Palestinian prisoners being released by Israel under an exchange deal say their long-awaited freedom is bittersweet after they learned their loved ones would be deported to third countries.

At least 154 Palestinian prisoners being freed on Monday as part of the swap for Israeli captives held in Gaza will be forced into exile by Israel, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office said.

Those to be deported are among a larger group of Palestinians being released by Israel – 250 people held in Israeli prisons along with about 1,700 Palestinians seized from the Gaza Strip during two years of Israel’s war, many of whom were “forcibly disappeared”, according to the United Nations. For its part, Hamas and other Palestinian groups released 20 Israeli captives under a Gaza ceasefire agreement.

There are no details yet about where the freed Palestinians will be sent, but in a previous prisoner release in January, dozens of detainees were deported to countries in the region, including Tunisia, Algeria and Turkiye.

Observers said the forced exile illegally breaches the citizenship rights of the released prisoners and is a demonstration of the double standards surrounding the exchange deals.

“It goes without saying it’s illegal,” Tamer Qarmout, associate professor in public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“It is illegal because these are citizens of Palestine. They have no other citizenships. They’re out of a small prison, but they’re sent to a bigger prison, away from their society, to new countries in which they will face major restrictions. It’s inhumane.”

Families shocked by deportations

Speaking to Al Jazeera in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, relatives of Palestinian prisoner Muhammad Imran said they were shocked to learn he was among those Israel had decided to force into exile.

Raed Imran said the family had previously received a call from an Israeli intelligence officer, confirming that his brother, 43, would be released home and asking where he would stay on his release.

But on Monday, the family was dismayed to learn that Muhammad, who was arrested in December 2022 and sentenced to 13 life terms, would be deported.

“Today’s news was a shock, but we are still waiting. Maybe we’ll get to see him somehow,” Imran said. “What matters is that he is released, here or abroad.”

The exile means his family might be unable to travel overseas to meet him due to Israel’s control of the borders.

“We might be looking at families who will be seeing their loved ones deported and exiled out of Palestine but have no way of seeing them,” said Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, who has reported extensively from the occupied West Bank.

‘A win-win for Israel’

According to Qarmout, the deportations are intended to deprive Hamas and other Palestinian groups of being able to claim any symbolic win from the exchange and to remove the deported prisoners from any involvement in political or other activities.

“Exile means the end of their political future,” he said. “In the countries they go to, they will face extreme constraints, so they will not be able to be active in any front related to the conflict.”

He said the deportations amounted to forcible displacement of the released prisoners and collective punishment for their families, who would either be separated from their exiled loved ones or forced to leave their homeland if they were permitted by Israel to travel to join them.

“It’s a win-win for Israel,” he said, contrasting their experiences to those of the released Israeli captives, who will be able to resume their lives in Israel.

“It’s more double standards and hypocrisy,” he said.

Additional reporting by Mosab Shawer in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank

US President Donald Trump wrote of a ‘new beginning’ as he signed a visitor book at Israel’s parliament, ahead of a speech there on the Gaza peace deal and the freeing of Israeli captives.

Israeli officials have confirmed that all 20 living captives have been released in Gaza. Under the terms of Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, this should trigger the release of almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Cheering broke out among in Tel Aviv it was announced that Hamas had released seven Israeli captives into the custody of the Red Cross, the first to be released as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.

US envoy Steve Witkoff and members of President Donald Trump’s family spoke to nearly half a million people in Tel Aviv who had gathered to celebrate the imminent return of Israeli captives. The crowd booed every time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was mentioned, who they blame for prolonging the war.

Hope for peace

TODAY marks the dawn of a new era of hope for the Middle East.

As US Vice-President JD Vance said yesterday, a truce brokered by Donald Trump has brought the region to “the cusp of true peace”.

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While other world leaders postured and bewailed, the US President used his extraordinary power of persuasion to force Hamas and Israel to strike a deal to end two years of bloodshed.

It means thousands of Palestinians will return to what is left of their homes and get the food and medical aid they need, and Israelis can welcome back loved ones taken hostage during the terrorist massacre which started the conflict.

The 19th Century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once said that politics is “the art of the possible”.

But hard-nosed businessman President Trump has proved it can also be “the art of the deal”.

The path to lasting peace is still littered with pitfalls.

Hamas must be made to disarm and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu will have to be persuaded to drop his opposition to a future, self-ruling Palestinian state.

More tears will be shed in the days to come.

Much trauma awaits Israeli families whose loved ones return alive but emaciated or, tragically, in body bags.

There will also be anger if terrorist killers are freed as part of the deal.

Yet despite these hurdles, this is the brightest glimmer of hope the region has seen in a generation.

And if, one day, it leads to a lasting peace, the whole world will rejoice.

Win for justice

THE phrase “justice must be seen to be done” is as relevant today as when it was first uttered in court a century ago.

That is why The Sun challenged an order banning a child rapist from being identified as an asylum seeker.

In a shocking example of two-tier justice, both the prosecution and the offender’s lawyer had opposed our attempt to report his status.

But this newspaper chalked up a landmark victory for open justice and Press freedom by fighting to have the order overturned.

Judge Maria Lamb gave an instant ruling that we were right.

The jury took just two-and-a-half hours to convict the serial offender.

A double triumph for common sense.

Silly Mili

ED Miliband’s fixation with Net Zero gets more desperate and costly by the day.

The Energy Secretary is targeting well-off families with £7,500 “bribes” to fit green heat pump systems most of us can’t afford.

His barmy campaign confirms what we already knew about Mr Miliband’s obsession with meeting unrealistic carbon emission targets.

It’s a waste of money — and he is a waste of space.

In a shifting world order, New Zealand’s foreign policy faces new tests, from Gaza to the Pacific.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters speaks to Talk to Al Jazeera about why his government has stopped short of recognising a Palestinian state, how small nations can stay neutral amid the United States-China rivalry, and whether multilateralism still protects the weak from the will of the powerful.

Oxfam’s Chris McIntosh explains Israel’s war on Gaza has left Palestinians there with little purchasing power, as aid trucks remain stalled at the border despite a ceasefire.

Families in Palestine and Israel await the return of their loved ones as the Israeli-Hamas truce continues to hold.

Israel says it expects to receive all its remaining living captives from Gaza early on Monday, a key step in the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas now in effect.

Speaking on Sunday, government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian said that Israel anticipates all 20 living captives will be returned together early on Monday.

As in previous exchanges during Israel’s two-year war on Gaza, the captives will first be handed over to the Red Cross, which will transport them to an Israeli military base inside Gaza for initial medical checks before they proceed to Israel to reunite with their families.

A Hamas source told Al Jazeera Arabic that the captives have been moved to three locations in the enclave ahead of their transfer to Red Cross officials.

Once Israel has confirmed all its captives are inside Israeli territory, it will begin releasing Palestinian prisoners, Bedrosian said.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel is to release about 2,000 Palestinians it holds in detention, many without charge. The prisoners include 250 Palestinians serving life sentences. Imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, whose release Palestinians have long sought, will not be among them, Israel has said.

Some detainees will be released in the occupied West Bank, where relatives have been instructed by Israel not to hold celebrations or speak to the media.

Israel is also preparing to receive the bodies of 28 captives confirmed to have died in captivity, according to Bedrosian.

Speaking in a televised address on Sunday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped the captives’ release would be a moment of unity for the country, despite controversy over his handling of the war.

“This is an emotional evening … because tomorrow, our children will return to our borders,” said Netanyahu, quoting a biblical verse. “Tomorrow is the beginning of a new path – a path of rebuilding, a path of healing and, I hope, a path of united hearts.”

Some of the families of captives have criticised Netanyahu for allegedly prioritising military victory over their release. On Saturday, when the US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, praised Netanyahu’s leadership at a rally in Tel Aviv, many in the crowd booed.

‘Trump’s show’

The planned exchange comes three days after Israel’s government approved the first phase of a deal aimed at ending the war in Gaza, and just as United States President Donald Trump, who spearheaded the agreement, visits Israel before a summit in Egypt.

Trump left for Israel from the Joint Base Andrews near Washington on Sunday afternoon, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CIA chief John Ratcliffe accompanying him on Air Force One.

“This is going to be a very special time,” said Trump on Sunday afternoon before boarding the flight. “Everybody’s cheering.”

On board Air Force One, the US president told reporters that the captives may be released “a little early”, that his relationship with Netanyahu was good, and that Qatar deserved credit for the role it had played in mediating the ceasefire.

“The war is over. You understand that,” Trump added.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, Jordan, because the network is banned in Israel, said: “It is Trump’s show.”

“He will be arriving in Israel, meeting with the families of captives, addressing the Knesset, and then going to Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, where he has summoned the leaders of more than 20 countries.”

As part of the Trump-led ceasefire agreement, Israeli forces have withdrawn from parts of Gaza, including Gaza City and other northern areas, although they still control more than half of its territory.

Palestinians returning to the combat zones they were displaced from have found widespread devastation, or “wastelands” where their neighbourhoods once stood, Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili reported from Gaza City.

Humanitarian aid has begun to trickle into the enclave as part of the ceasefire, with dozens of trucks arriving on Sunday. But distribution remains slow for a population that has endured months of extreme deprivation, said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary.

“People are not waiting only for food, but also for tents, mobile shelters, solar panels and desperately-needed medical equipment and medicines – items largely unavailable for the past two years,” Khoudary said from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. “Most people have lost their savings, have no access to bank accounts, and are completely dependent on humanitarian aid to survive.”

Leaders to convene in Egypt

The Gaza summit, scheduled for Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh, will be co-chaired by Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

More than a dozen world leaders are expected to attend, including United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi said that neither he nor Iran’s president would accept an invitation to the summit because they could not “engage with counterparts who have attacked the Iranian People”, in reference to the US and its strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this year.

Although both Israel and Hamas said they would not participate, Cairo has hailed the summit as a “historic” event that will seek “to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East”.

Egypt said that a “document ending the war in the Gaza Strip” is also expected to be signed at the summit.

‘Hard work’ to come

Despite the ceasefire progress, many details on phase two of the deal, which is still to be negotiated, need to be ironed out, including the exact makeup of a post-war administration for Gaza and the fate of Hamas.

The second phase is expected to involve a phased Israeli withdrawal, Hamas’s disarmament, the establishment of new security and governance arrangements, and reconstruction.

“After the big day tomorrow for Trump, after the release of the hostages… then comes the hard work,” Adnan Hayajneh, professor of international relations at the University of Qatar, told Al Jazeera. “If you look at the situation in Gaza, it’s like an earthquake happened… There’s no government. There’s no schools. There’s nothing there.”

US Vice President JD Vance appeared to acknowledge on Sunday that the road to stability would be difficult. “It is going to take consistent leverage and consistent pressure from the president of the United States on down,” he told US broadcaster CBS.

In a separate interview with ABC, Vance said that the 200 US troops reportedly being sent to Israel to monitor the ceasefire are not intended to have a combat role and will not deploy to Palestinian territory.

“The idea that we’re going to have troops on the ground in Gaza, in Israel, that that is not our intention, that is not our plan,” said Vance.

Sources say the 28-year-old was killed by members of an Israel-linked ‘militia’ fighting Hamas in the Sabra neighbourhood.

Palestinian journalist Saleh Aljafarawi has been killed during clashes in Gaza City, just days after Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources told Al Jazeera Arabic that the 28-year-old, who had gained prominence for his videos covering the war, was shot and killed by members of an “armed militia” while covering clashes in the city’s Sabra neighbourhood.

Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency verified footage published by reporters and activists showing his body – in a “press” flak jacket – on what appeared to be the back of a truck. He had been missing since Sunday morning.

Palestinian sources said clashes were taking place between Hamas security forces and fighters from the Doghmush clan in Sabra on Sunday, although this has not been confirmed by local authorities.

A senior source in Gaza’s Ministry of Interior told Al Jazeera Arabic that the clashes in Gaza City involved “an armed militia affiliated with the [Israeli] occupation”.

The source said security forces imposed a siege on the militia, adding that “militia members” killed displaced people as they were returning from southern Gaza to Gaza City.

Despite the recent ceasefire, local authorities have repeatedly warned that the security situation in Gaza remains challenging.

‘I lived in fear for every second’

Speaking to Al Jazeera in January, several days before the start of a temporary ceasefire in the war at the time, Aljafarawi talked about his experiences being displaced from northern Gaza.

“All the scenes and situations I went through during these 467 days will not be erased from my memory. All the situations we faced, we will never be able to forget them,” Aljafarawi said.

The journalist added that he had received numerous threats from Israel due to his work.

“Honestly, I lived in fear for every second, especially after hearing what the Israeli occupation was saying about me. I was living life second to second, not knowing what the next second would bring,” he said.

In the deadliest-ever conflict for journalists, more than 270 media workers have now been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s war in October 2023.

Aljafarawi’s death comes as the current ceasefire in Gaza has held for a third day, ahead of an expected hostage-prisoner exchange.

United States President Donald Trump is set to gather with other world leaders on Monday in Egypt’s Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh for a Gaza summit co-hosted by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

It aims “to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security and stability”, according to the Egyptian president’s office.

During the “historic” gathering, a “document ending the war in the Gaza Strip” is set to be signed, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday. Neither Israel nor Hamas will have representatives at the talks.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are held in Israeli jails – most of them without charge.

And as the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel is centred on the release of detainees, about 2,000 of them are due to be released.

But the mistreatment of detainees by Israeli forces has been documented for decades.

So in addition to international law, is Israel breaking its own laws in its arrest and treatment of prisoners? Why did it arrest and torture so many people during its war on Gaza? And is it using mass detention to maintain its occupation?

Presenter: Neave Barker

Guests:

Naji Abbas – Director of the Prisoners & Detainees Department at Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

Ubai Aboudi – Executive director at Bisan Center for Research and Development, held in administrative detention in Israel without trial

Milena Ansari – Israel and Palestine assistant researcher at Human Rights Watch

From deadly antigovernment protests in Madagascar to military parades celebrating the 80th founding anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang, here is a look at the week in photos.