Palestine

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announcemed the Bulgarian diplomat as the ‘designated’ director-general for Trump’s ‘board of peace’.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that former United Nations Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov will direct a proposed United States-led “board of peace” in Gaza.

Netanyahu made the announcement after meeting Mladenov in Jerusalem on Thursday, referring to the Bulgarian diplomat as the “designated” director-general for the proposed board, a key part of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people of Gaza.

Trump’s Gaza plan led to a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October, but Israeli forces have continued to carry out attacks in the territory on a near-daily basis. Since the first full day of the truce on October 11, 2025, Israeli attacks have killed at least 425 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

In a statement on Thursday, Netanyahu’s office said Mladenov “is slated to serve as Director General of the ‘Peace Council’ in the Gaza Strip”. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog also met Mladenov on Thursday, a spokesperson from his office said, without elaborating.

Under Trump’s plan to end the war, the proposed Board of Peace would supervise a new technocratic Palestinians government, the disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of an international security force, the further pushback of Israeli troops, and the reconstruction of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

Trump is expected to announce appointments to the board next week, according to the Axios news outlet, citing US officials and sources familiar with the matter.

“Among the countries expected to join the board are the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye,” Axios reported.

Mladenov, a former Bulgarian defence and foreign minister, previously served as the UN envoy to Iraq before being appointed as the UN Middle East peace envoy from 2015 to 2020.

During his time as Middle East envoy, Mladenov had good working relations with Israel and frequently worked to ease tensions between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli gunfire killed 11-year-old Hamsa Hosou in northern Gaza, her family says, despite a ceasefire in place for nearly three months. She is among more than 400 Palestinians reported killed since the truce took effect.

Israeli forces raided Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank, firing live ammunition to disperse students during a protest and film screening. At least three students were injured as troops entered the campus and classrooms.

In a small tent overshadowed by the sound of nearby gunfire, seven-year-old Tulin prepares for her first day of school in two years.

For most children, this would be a moment of excitement. For Tulin and her mother, it is a chapter of terror.

The relentless Israeli war has destroyed the vast majority of Gaza’s educational infrastructure, forcing families to create makeshift “tent schools” in dangerous proximity to Israeli forces — an area demarcated by Israel as the “yellow zone” west of the separation line, often just a few metres away from danger.

“Until my daughter gets to school, I honestly walk with my heart in my hand,” Tulin’s mother told Al Jazeera correspondent Shady Shamieh.

“Many times, I find myself involuntarily following her until she reaches the school. I feel there is something [dangerous], but I want her to learn,” she added. “If not for this situation, she would be in second grade now. But we are determined.”

‘Take the sleeping position’

The journey to the classroom is perilous. Walking through the rubble of Beit Lahiya, Tulin admits she is terrified of the open spaces.

“When I go to school, I am afraid of the shooting,” Tulin said. “I can’t find a wall to hide behind so the shelling or stray bullets don’t hit us.”

Inside the tents, protection is nonexistent. The canvas walls cannot stop bullets, yet the students sit on the ground, determined to learn.

Their teacher describes a harrowing daily routine where education is frequently interrupted by the crack of sniper fire.

“The location is difficult, close to the occupation [forces],” the teacher explained. “When the shooting starts, we tell the children: ‘Take the sleeping position.’ I get goosebumps, praying to God that no injuries occur. We make them lie on the ground until the shooting stops.”

“We have been exposed to gunfire more than once,” she added. “Despite this, we remain. The occupation’s policy is ignorance, and our policy is knowledge.”

Among the students is Ahmed, who lost his father in the war. “We come with difficulty and leave with difficulty because of the shooting,” he told Al Jazeera. “But I want to fulfil the dream of my martyred father, who wanted to see me become a doctor.”

‘One of the biggest catastrophes’

The desperate scenes in Beit Lahiya reflect a wider collapse of the education system in the enclave.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic on Monday, Kazem Abu Khalaf, the spokesperson for UNICEF in Palestine, described the situation as “one of the biggest catastrophes”.

“Our figures indicate that 98 percent of all schools in the Gaza Strip have suffered varying degrees of damage, ranging up to total destruction,” Abu Khalaf said.

He noted that 88 percent of these schools require either comprehensive rehabilitation or complete reconstruction.

The human toll is staggering: approximately 638,000 school-aged children and 70,000 kindergarten-aged children have lost two full academic years and are entering a third year of deprivation.

Trauma and speech impediments

While UNICEF and its partners have established 109 temporary learning centres serving 135,000 students, the psychological scars of the war are surfacing in alarming ways.

Abu Khalaf revealed that field teams have observed severe developmental regression among students.

“In one area, [colleagues] monitored that approximately 25 percent of the children we are trying to target have developed speech difficulties,” Abu Khalaf said. “This requires redoubled efforts from educational specialists.”

The ban on books

Beyond the structural destruction and trauma, the education sector faces a logistical blockade. Abu Khalaf confirmed that since the war began in October 2023, virtually no educational materials have been allowed into the Strip.

“The biggest challenge, in truth, is that … almost no learning materials have entered Gaza at all,” he said.

UNICEF is currently preparing to launch a “Back to Learning” campaign targeting 200,000 children, focusing on Arabic, English, maths and science, alongside recreational activities to “repair the children’s psyche before anything else”.

However, Abu Khalaf emphasised that the success of any campaign depends on Israel lifting restrictions.

“We are communicating with all parties, including the Israeli side, to allow the entry of learning materials,” he said. “It is not in anyone’s interest for a child in Gaza not to go to school.”

Israel has launched intense artillery and helicopter attacks on southern Gaza despite a United States-brokered ceasefire, bombing a tent housing displaced Palestinians and killing a five-year-old girl and her uncle, according to officials.

The killings on Monday brought the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since the truce came into effect in October to at least 422, according to Gaza health authorities.

The Nasser Medical Complex in southern Khan Younis said the deadly Israeli strike hit a tent in the coastal al-Mawasi area, and that four others, including children, were also wounded.

Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas fighter who was planning to attack Israeli forces “in the immediate timeframe”. But the military did not provide evidence for the claim, and it was not clear if its statement referred to the tent attack.

Despite the ceasefire, Israeli forces have continued near-daily attacks on Gaza and have maintained restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid. Much of the enclave has been devastated by Israel’s genocidal war, with roughly 88 percent of buildings damaged or destroyed, Palestinian officials say.

Most of Gaza’s two million people are now living in tents, makeshift shelters or damaged buildings in areas vacated by Israeli troops.

The Palestinian Civil Defence said on Monday that another Palestinian home damaged in earlier Israeli strikes collapsed in the central Maghazi camp, killing a 29-year-old father and his eight-year-old son.

But the rescue service said in a subsequent statement that it was unable to respond to requests to remove hazards caused by damaged buildings because of a lack of equipment and continuing fuel shortages.

The Gaza ceasefire, agreed upon after more than two years of Israeli attacks that killed more than 71,000 people, is being implemented in phases. The first stage includes exchanges of captives and prisoners, increased humanitarian aid and the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Hamas has freed all remaining living captives and returned dozens of bodies, except for one, while Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners, including some serving life sentences.

Hopes for Rafah crossing

However, humanitarian groups say that Israeli restrictions continue to hamper aid deliveries, while Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt remains closed. The crossing had long been Gaza’s only connection to the outside world until the Israeli military occupied the Palestinian side in May 2024.

Israel’s Kan broadcaster reported on January 1 that Israeli authorities are preparing to reopen the crossing in “both directions” following pressure from US President Donald Trump.

If confirmed, it would mark a shift from an earlier Israeli policy that stated the crossing would only open “exclusively for the exit of residents from the Gaza Strip to Egypt”. The policy drew condemnation from regional governments, including Egypt and Qatar, with officials warning against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The latest Israeli report has left many Palestinians hopeful.

Tasnim Jaras, a student in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera that it was her “dream that the crossing opens so we can continue our education”.

Moaeen al-Jarousha, who was wounded in the war, said he needed to leave Gaza to receive medical treatment abroad. “I need immediate medical intervention. I live in very difficult conditions,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said Palestinians in Gaza have been waiting for the crossing to open for a long time.

“For many, this isn’t about travel, it’s about survival. Parents are asking about medical access they haven’t been able to obtain over the past two years. Students think of this as an opportunity to continue their education,” he said.

“And for many families, this is an opportunity to reunite with family members who have been separated for too long. But hope here is never simple. People here have heard about these announcements numerous times, and many recall how quickly it shut again,” he added.

Israel, meanwhile, continues to retain control of 53 percent of Gaza, and witnesses on Monday reported continued demolitions of residential homes in the eastern Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City.

The Israeli military also said it attacked a Palestinian who had crossed the so-called “yellow line” – an unmarked boundary where the Israeli military repositioned itself when the truce came into effect – in southern Gaza on Monday with the aim of “removing the threat”. It did not provide evidence for the claim.

Israel also said it had carried out strikes against Hezbollah and Hamas targets in southern and eastern Lebanon.

‘It is my mission to teach Palestinian students, even if I must build a classroom, brick by brick,’ Bader Slaih says.

Bader Slaih is one of many Palestinian scholars from Gaza who had to put down his books amid Israel’s genocidal war on the enclave.

Slaih, who was displaced multiple times from Bureij in central Gaza with his family, started baking bread to feed them during the war, but he still has dreams to enrich the minds of students in Gaza, who have suffered deaths in their families, a loss of their homes and the decimation of their schools and education.

“The war was hard on everyone. We were tormented and humiliated,” he said.

“Out of a dire need, we built a brick oven to make bread for our children,” Slaih told Al Jazeera.

“We had to bake to feed our children and others,” he added.

Palestinians have always been deeply committed to learning.

Before Israel’s war, the education sector in Gaza was thriving, and literacy rates were reported to be among the highest in the world.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the illiteracy rate stood at 2.1 percent among Palestinians aged 15 and older in 2023.

Slaih said he was always committed to his studies since early childhood into adolescence before he got his master’s and doctorate degrees in Egypt, and returned to Gaza to serve his homeland.

“[After I came back] I filed all my certificates with universities, hoping to start my teaching career,” he told Al Jazeera.

“But then disaster struck – the war began.”

Slaih’s wife and son left Gaza for medical reasons as he was left behind during the war.

“It was difficult for me. My son’s medical needs were more important, so I stayed behind with my other family members,” he said.

Educational system devastated

According to a UNICEF report released in November, Gaza’s education system “stands on the brink of collapse”, with more than 97 percent of schools damaged or destroyed.

The report said 91.8 percent of all education facilities require either full reconstruction or significant rehabilitation to become functional again.

All of Gaza’s 12 universities have been totally or partly destroyed and are in unusable condition, according to local reports.

Slaih said he was determined to pursue his career as there was a ceasefire in place in Gaza, adding: “Patience and resolve are part of our DNA.”

“I will serve as a teacher, even in a tent. It is my mission to teach Palestinian students, even if I must build a classroom, brick by brick,” he said.

“With my hopes still high, I am certain I will make my dream come true very soon.”

The Israeli military has spent the past 24 hours expanding the so-called “yellow line” in eastern Gaza, particularly in eastern Gaza City’s Tuffah, Shujayea, and Zeitoun neighbourhoods, according to Al Jazeera teams on the ground, squeezing Palestinians into ever smaller clusters of the enclave.

The Israeli army’s actions on Monday are also pushing it closer to the key artery of Salah al-Din Street, forcing displaced families sheltering near the area to flee as more of them come under intensive threat, as Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza shows no signs of abating.

Israel now physically occupies more than 50 percent of the Gaza Strip.

Since the ceasefire took effect, Israeli attacks have killed at least 414 Palestinians and injured 1,145 in daily truce violations despite the ceasefire deal mediated by the United States on October 10.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said, “The ongoing Israeli attacks on the ground, the expansion of the ‘yellow line’ are meant to eat up more of the territory across the eastern part, really shrinking the total area where people are sheltering.”

“Everyone is cramped here. The population here not just doubled but tripled in many of the neighbourhoods, given the fact that none of these people is able to go back to their neighbourhoods. We’re talking about Zeitoun, Shujayea, as well as Tuffah,” he added.

“It was not until the past few minutes that the sounds of hums, the drones buzzing, faded away, but it had been going on for the past night and all of yesterday. Ongoing explosions that could be heard clearly from here,” Mahmoud said.

Intense artillery bombardment and helicopter fire also resumed on Monday in the areas south of the besieged enclave, north and east of the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.

On Sunday, Israel launched more attacks into parts of Gaza outside its direct military control. At least three Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

A five-storey building belonging to the al-Shana family in the Maghazi camp in central Gaza collapsed. It had been subjected to Israeli bombing at the end of 2023.

Civil Defence teams are searching for missing people under the rubble. The Wafa news agency reported that at least five people were injured.

Israeli push to make Rafah crossing ‘one-way exit’

Expectations have heightened around the possible reopening of the Rafah crossing, fuelling both desperate hope and deep fear.

For many in Gaza, there is some hope it could offer a lifeline, allowing the sick and wounded to access medical care, reuniting separated families, and giving some people a rare chance to move in or out of the Strip. Some also see it as a potential sign of easing restrictions.

But fears remain strong. Many worry the opening will be limited and temporary, benefitting only a few. Others fear it could become a one-way exit, raising concerns about permanent expulsion, effectively Israeli ethnic cleansing, and whether those who leave will be allowed to return.

“Until this moment, there’s nothing on the ground other than the headlines we’ve been reading over the past couple of days, the expectation now that within days the Rafah crossing is going to open and allow for movement in and out of Gaza. So far, we know the Israeli military is pushing for Rafah to be just a one-way exit,” Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud reported.

After months of uncertainty, people in Gaza who have suffered unimaginable loss and destruction are cautious. Even the possibility of relief comes with questions and little trust in what will happen next.

At least 71,386 Palestinians have been killed and 171,264 injured since the start of the war in October 2023, according to the latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health. At least 420 people have been killed since the ceasefire was agreed upon three months ago.

The Israeli military continues to block a large amount of international humanitarian aid amassing at the Gaza crossings, while maintaining that there is no shortage of aid despite testimonies by the United Nations and others working on the ground.

The Israeli military continues to demolish structures in northern Gaza while also blocking the entry of aid.

The Israeli army has launched more attacks into parts of Gaza outside its direct military control, despite the ceasefire deal mediated by the United States in October.

At least three Palestinians were killed on Sunday in separate Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

They included a 15-year-old boy, a fisherman, and a third man shot dead east of Khan Younis.

In the central part of the besieged enclave, Israeli fire injured several people east of the Bureij refugee camp.

In Gaza City to the north, Israeli forces continued to demolish homes and civilian infrastructure within the mostly destroyed Tuffah neighbourhood.

The Israeli army confirmed it was destroying more infrastructure in northern Gaza, but claimed that the target was “terrorist infrastructure above and below ground”, including tunnels in Beit Lahiya.

Israeli drones also dropped explosives on several homes in eastern Gaza City. The Shujayea and Zeitoun neighbourhoods of Gaza City, which have also been extensively attacked during more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war, were hit with artillery shelling.

At least 71,386 Palestinians have been killed and 171,264 others injured since the start of the war in October 2023, according to the latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health. At least 420 people have been killed since the ceasefire was signed less than three months ago.

The Israeli military continues to block a large amount of the international humanitarian aid amassing at the border with Gaza, while maintaining that there is no shortage of aid despite testimonies by the United Nations and others working on the ground.

It has also moved to ban several prominent international aid groups from operating in Gaza, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Norwegian Refugee Council.

As global crises multiply and trust in international institutions erodes, the United Nations faces growing questions about its relevance and authority. Thirty years after pledges to end hunger and reduce inequality, progress is stalling, wars are spreading, and UN Security Council vetoes are paralysing action.

In this episode of Talk to Al Jazeera, UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock reflects on the UN’s credibility, the limits of the UNSC, and whether a more assertive UNGA can drive reform before the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals deadline.

The winter has made a life of relentless suffering worse for the people of Gaza, particularly for the wounded, children and elderly, with hundreds of thousands in the Palestinian territory displaced by Israel’s genocidal war desperately trying to survive on the scant humanitarian aid Israel is allowing in.

Nine-year-old Assad al-Madhna lost his left hand when Israeli fire hit a group of children playing in al-Zuwayda in central Gaza. The same attack also wounded him in the leg.

Now, as winter envelops the besieged enclave, Assad’s pain increases as the metal rods and pins holding his leg in place stiffen in the cold, making every step slower and agonising.

“I can’t play with other children as in winter, my legs and hands hurt a lot,” he told Al Jazeera.

“I haven’t received any prosthetic, struggle to change my clothes, and going to the toilet in this cold is a real challenge,” he said, adding: “Without my parents, I can’t manage it. At night, the severe cold becomes unbearable.”

A truce between Israel and Hamas since October 10 has been fragile, a ceasefire in name only, according to Palestinians and rights groups, after two years of destructive war.

Despite the truce, Palestinians in crowded camps – often in damaged tents and surrounded by mud – still face severe humanitarian conditions, trying to survive with few or no resources, making life the hardest for the most vulnerable.

‘No heating at all’

Eighteen-year-old Waed Murad survived an attack that wiped out her entire family – seven relatives in one strike.

She now lives with a life-altering injury, and when the temperatures drop, her nerve pain intensifies, sleep slips away, and the little recovery she had is threatened.

“I can’t keep myself warm because of the severe cold with the metal bars and pins always freezing,” she told Al Jazeera.

“I am living in a tent with no heating at all. Every time I hear the wind, I feel the pain will get worse, as the cold will affect the metal fixation devices even more.”

In the enclave, temperatures at night have ranged between eight and 12 degrees Celsius (46 and 53 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent days.

Nearly 80 percent of buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to United Nations data.

About 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.

Of more than 300,000 tents requested to shelter displaced people, “we have received only 60,000,” Shawa told the AFP news agency, pointing to Israeli restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid into the territory.

Israel slammed for banning NGOs

Meanwhile, the international community has condemned Israel’s recent announcement of a suspension of the operations of several international nongovernmental organisations in the occupied Palestinian territory.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was deeply concerned and called for the measure to be reversed.

“This announcement comes on top of earlier restrictions that have already delayed critical food, medical, hygiene and shelter supplies from entering Gaza.”

“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general, said in a statement.

Several countries in the Middle East and Asia called on Israel to allow “immediate, full, and unhindered” deliveries of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip as winter storms lash the bombarded Palestinian enclave.

In a statement on Friday, the foreign ministers of Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, Pakistan and Indonesia warned that “deteriorating” conditions in Gaza had left nearly 1.9 million displaced Palestinians particularly vulnerable.

“Flooded camps, damaged tents, the collapse of damaged buildings, and exposure to cold temperatures coupled with malnutrition, have significantly heightened risks to civilian lives,” the statement read.

Earlier this month, Gaza experienced a similar spell of heavy rain and cold.

The weather caused at least 18 deaths due to the collapse of war-damaged buildings or exposure to cold, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.

On December 18, the UN’s humanitarian office said 17 buildings collapsed during the storm, while 42,000 tents and makeshift shelters were fully or partially damaged.

Guterres says pending ban targets groups ‘indispensable to life-saving’ work, undermines ceasefire progress.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Israel to reverse a pending ban on 37 nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

In a statement on Friday, Guterres called the work of the groups “indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work”, according to spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. He added that the “suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire”.

Israel banned the humanitarian groups for failing to meet new registration rules requiring aid groups working in the occupied territory to provide “detailed information on their staff members, funding and operations”. It has pledged to enforce the ban starting March 1.

Experts have denounced the requirements as arbitrary and in violation of humanitarian principles. Aid groups have said that providing personal information about their Palestinian employees to Israel could put them at risk.

The targeted groups include several country chapters of Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym, MSF), the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the International Rescue Committee.

To date, Israel has killed about 500 aid workers and volunteers in Gaza throughout its genocidal war. All told, at least 71,271 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

In his statement, Guterres said the NGO ban “comes on top of earlier restrictions that have already delayed critical food, medical, hygiene and shelter supplies from entering Gaza”.

“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he said.

Nearly all of Gaza’s population has been displaced throughout the war, with many still living in tents and temporary shelters.

Israel had maintained severe restrictions on aid entering the enclave prior to a ceasefire going into effect in October. Under the deal, Israel was meant to provide unhindered aid access.

But humanitarian groups have said Israel has continued to prevent adequate aid flow. Ongoing restrictions include materials that could be used to provide better shelter and protection from flooding amid devastating winter storms, according to the UN.

Earlier on Friday, the foreign ministers of Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, Pakistan and Indonesia warned that “deteriorating” conditions threatened to take even more lives in Gaza.

“Flooded camps, damaged tents, the collapse of damaged buildings, and exposure to cold temperatures coupled with malnutrition, have significantly heightened risks to civilian lives,” they said in a statement.

They called on the international community “to pressure Israel, as the occupying power, to immediately lift constraints on the entry and distribution of essential supplies including tents, shelter materials, medical assistance, clean water, fuel, and sanitation support”.

Palestinian rights advocates are praising New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for revoking pro-Israel municipal decrees within hours of his inauguration, a move that was promptly condemned by the Israeli government.

On Thursday, his first day in office, Mamdani wiped out all the executive orders his predecessor, Eric Adams, implemented after September 26, 2024, the day Adams was charged with bribery.

One of the orders restricted boycotts of Israel and prohibited mayoral appointees from issuing contracts “that discriminate against the State of Israel, Israeli citizens, or those associated” with the US ally.

It was signed by Adams less than a month ago and was seen by critics as an attempt to create controversy for the incoming Mamdani administration.

Another now-nixed decree adopted a controversial definition of anti-Semitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which advocates say can be used to censor and penalise speech critical of Israel.

Nasreen Issa, a member of the Palestine Youth Movement – NYC, said Israel and its supporters have long pushed for the “criminalisation of dissent”.

“So, Mamdani’s rejection of this is a positive step towards protecting the rights of New Yorkers and the dignity of Palestinians,” Issa told Al Jazeera.

Afaf Nasher, the head of the New York chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), also applauded Mamdani for revoking an “unconstitutional order restricting the ability of New Yorkers to criticize the Israeli government’s racism or boycott Israel’s human rights abuses”.

“This unconstitutional, Israel First attack on free speech should have never been issued in the first place,” Nasher said in a statement.

Nasher further slammed the IHRA definition, saying that the “overly broad” guidelines frame disagreement with Zionism as anti-Semitic.

“The order would have also unconstitutionally limited boycotts against only Israel,” Nasher said.

Palestinian rights supporters have long rejected the IHRA definition, which heavily focuses on Israel. The definition provides 11 examples of anti-Semitism, six of which involve Israel.

They include “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “applying double standards” to Israel.

“I think it’s wonderful that Mayor Mamdani took measures on day one to reinforce our rights to free speech, which included our right to criticize and oppose Israeli apartheid and genocide,” said YL Al-Sheikh, a Palestinian-American writer active in the Democratic Socialists of America.

“The IHRA being implemented as government policy isn’t about combatting antisemitism but about stifling dissent and this should be something all Americans oppose.”

Israel weighs in

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs decried Mamdani’s moves on Friday, saying that the newly inaugurated mayor is showing “his true face”.

“This isn’t leadership. It’s antisemitic gasoline on an open fire,” it said in a post on the social media platform X.

Separately, Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs, deployed Islamophobic language to criticise Mamdani’s decision.

He called the mayor a “Hamas sympathiser” and drew a connection between him and the Muslim mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

“When a Muslim Brotherhood Islamist whose slogan is ‘Globalize the Intifada’ takes control of New York City or London, these are exactly the decisions you get,” Chikli wrote on X.

Neither Mamdani nor Khan has any known connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Issa said the intense Israeli response is not about the mayor’s policy moves but is rather aimed at controlling the narrative.

“Israel’s main approach – at the highest level, at the level of the Foreign Ministry – has been to push for the criminalisation of protected speech through these warped definitions of anti-Semitism like the IHRA,” she said.

“Since they’re losing in the court of public opinion, the response now is to push for the criminalisation of dissent.”

Issa also called Chikli’s attack on Mamdani “blatant Islamophobia, racism and disinformation”.

“They’re trying to promote these accusations that have no basis in reality whatsoever,” Issa told Al Jazeera.

“But from their perspective, any support for Palestinians, any opposition to Israel’s genocide or the conduct of its military – whether in Gaza or the West Bank, over the last two years, over the last decades – none of that is acceptable.”

Al-Sheikh said it was “absurd” that Israel is trying to impose its preferences on local policies in New York.

“Even Americans who aren’t Palestinian or pro Palestine can see this is strange and inhibits our rights,” Al-Sheikh said.

“It’s also weirdly counterproductive on Israel’s part since it only makes Mamdani look better. A single policy paper that said you can’t criticise a country was repealed and now they claim it is the end of the world, but ‘you should be allowed to criticise any country you want’ is the universal American position.”

Israel was not alone, however, in denouncing Mamdani’s actions. The administration of President Donald Trump also issued a warning to the Mamdani administration.

Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said her office would be vigilant “to ANY AND ALL violations of religious liberties” in New York.

“We will investigate, sue, and indict as needed,” Dhillon wrote in a social media post.

Palestine solidarity activists often stress that criticising Israeli abuses should not be conflated with attacking Judaism.

Mamdani’s rise

Mamdani has been a vocal critic of Israeli policies against Palestinians, prompting accusations of anti-Semitism from Israel’s supporters.

But he has repeatedly promised to protect Jewish residents. During his inauguration ceremony, he pledged to continue the Mayor’s Office to Combat Anti-Semitism (MOCA), an Adams-era development, and he told reporters his administration would “celebrate and cherish” Jewish New Yorkers.

The new mayor, 34, took the oath of office on a copy of the Quran at the turn of the new year, becoming the first Muslim mayor of America’s largest city.

The Democratic socialist, who formerly served as a state legislator, had minimal name recognition when he first announced his candidacy late in 2024.

But he steadily grew his base of support with a message focused on affordability and housing.

Last June, he defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo to win the Democratic nomination, in one of the most stunning political upsets in recent US history.

Mamdani then defeated Cuomo again in the general elections in November, after the ex-governor relaunched his campaign as an independent with Trump’s support.

Adams was elected as a Democrat in 2021, but his administration faced numerous scandals during its four-year term, including accusations that Adams had entered into a quid pro quo with representatives from the Turkish government.

Earlier in 2024, Trump’s Justice Department dropped the federal bribery charges he faced. Adams had launched a re-election campaign as an independent, but he ultimately suspended his bid and backed Cuomo before the elections.

While Mamdani’s platform was largely focused on local issues, some of his supporters have argued that his vocal support for Palestinian rights helped propel his campaign amid the growing anger at Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Belfast, Northern Ireland — On New Year’s Eve, as fireworks lit the Belfast sky, the city’s streets were abuzz — and not only in celebration.

Hundreds gathered in solidarity with activists from the Palestine Action group who are on hunger strikes in prison. Their chants echoed past murals that do not merely decorate the city, but testify to its troubled past.

Along the Falls Road, Irish republican murals sit beside Palestinian ones. The International Wall, once a rolling canvas of global struggles, has become known as the Palestinian wall. Poems by the late Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer, killed in an Israeli air strike in December 2023, run across its length. Images sent by Palestinian artists have been painted by local hands.

More recently, new words have appeared on Belfast’s famed walls. “Blessed are those who hunger for justice.” Painted alongside long-familiar images of Irish republican prisoners like Bobby Sands are new names now written into the city’s political conscience: the four pro-Palestinian activists currently on hunger strike in British prisons, their bodies weakening as the days stretch on.

“This is not a city that will ever accept any attempt to silence our voice or our right to protest or our right to stand up for human rights,” said Patricia McKeown, a trade union activist who spoke at the protest.

“These young people are being held unjustly and in ridiculous conditions – and they have taken the ultimate decision to express their views … and most particularly on what’s happening to people in Palestine – why would we not support that?” she asked.

A hunger strike reaches Belfast

The protest in Belfast is part of a growing international campaign urging the British government to intervene as the health of four detainees deteriorates behind prison walls. All are affiliated with Palestine Action and are being held on remand while awaiting trial, a process campaigners say could keep them imprisoned for more than a year before their cases are heard. With legal avenues exhausted, supporters say the hunger strike has become a last resort.

The Palestine Action members are being held over their alleged involvement in break-ins at the United Kingdom subsidiary of Elbit Systems in Filton near Bristol, where equipment was reportedly damaged, and at a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire, where two military aircraft were sprayed with red paint. The prisoners deny the charges against them, which include burglary and violent disorder.

The prisoners are demanding release on bail, an end to what they describe as interference with their mail and reading materials, access to a fair trial and the de-proscription of Palestine Action. In July, the British government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer banned Palestine Action under a controversial anti-terrorism law.

Heba Muraisi is on day 61 without food. Teuta Hoxha is on day 55. Kamran Ahmed on day 54. Lewie Chiaramello on day 41. Hoxha and Ahmed have already been hospitalised. Campaigners describe it as the largest hunger strike in Britain since 1981, one they say is explicitly inspired by the Irish hunger strikes.

In 1981, Irish Republican Army and other republican prisoners went on hunger strike in Northern Ireland, demanding the restoration of their political status. Ten men died, including their leader, Bobby Sands, who was elected to the British parliament during the strike. Margaret Thatcher took a hardline public stance, but behind the scenes, the government ultimately sought a way out as public opinion shifted.

One prisoner, 29-year-old Martin Hurson, died on the 46th day. Others, including Raymond McCreesh, Francis Hughes, Michael Devine and Joe McDonnell, died between days 59 and 61. Sands died after 66 days on a hunger strike.

Sue Pentel, a member of Jews for Palestine Ireland, remembers that period vividly.

“I was here during the hunger strike,” she said. “I went through the hunger strikes, marched, demonstrated, held meetings, protested, so I remember the callous brutality of the British government letting 10 hungers die.”

“The words of Bobby Sands, which are ‘Our revenge will be the laughter of our children’. And we raised our families here, and they’re the same people, this new generation who are standing in solidarity with Palestine.”

‘If this continues, some will die’

Standing beneath a mural of Bobby Sands, Pat Sheehan fears history is edging dangerously close to repeating itself. He spent 55 days on a hunger strike before it was called off on October 3, 1981.

“I was the longest on that hunger strike when it came to an end in 1981, so in theory I would have been the next person to die,” he said.

By that stage, he said, his liver was failing. His eyesight had gone. He vomited bile constantly.

“Once you pass 40 days, you’re entering the danger zone,” Sheehan said. “Physically, the hunger strikers must be very weak now for those who have been on hunger strike for over 50 days.”

“Mentally, if they have prepared properly to go on hunger strike, their psychological strength will increase the longer the hunger strike goes on.”

“I think if it continues, inevitably some of the hunger strikers are going to die.”

Sheehan, who now represents West Belfast as an MLA for Sinn Fein, believes that Palestine Action-linked hunger strikers are political prisoners, adding that people in Ireland understand Palestine in a way few Western countries do.

“Ireland is probably the one country in Western Europe where there’s almost absolute support for the Palestinian cause,” he said. “Because we have a similar history of colonisation; of genocide and detention.”

“So when Irish people see on their TV screens what’s happening in Gaza, there’s massive empathy.”

Ireland’s stance

That empathy has increasingly translated into political action. Ireland formally recognised the state of Palestine in 2024 and has joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice, alleging genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel denies.

The Irish government has also taken steps to restrict the sale of Israeli bonds, while Ireland has boycotted the Eurovision Song Contest over Israel’s participation and called for its national football team to be suspended from international competition.

But many campaigners say the government’s actions have not gone far enough. They argue that the Occupied Territories Bill, which seeks to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements, has been stalled since 2018, and express anger that United States military aircraft transporting weapons to Israel are still permitted to pass through Ireland’s Shannon Airport.

Meanwhile, in the northern part of Ireland that remains part of Britain, the war in Gaza has dominated domestic politics.

The Stormont Assembly was thrown into crisis after Democratic Unionist Party education minister Paul Givan travelled to Jerusalem on a trip paid for by the Israeli government, prompting a no-confidence vote amid fierce criticism from Irish republican, nationalist, left-wing and unaligned political groups.

Belfast City Hall’s decision last month to fly a Palestinian flag was also fervently opposed by unionist councillors before it was eventually approved.

For some loyalist and unionist groups, support for Israel has become entwined with loyalty to Britain, with Israeli flags also flying in traditionally loyalist parts of Belfast.

With a legacy of identity rooted along sectarian lines, the genocide in Gaza has at times been recast along the old fault lines of division.

‘Solidarity reaches Palestine’

Yet on the streets of Belfast, protesters insist their solidarity is not rooted in national identity, but in humanity.

Damien Quinn, 33, a member of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, said hunger strikes had always carried a particular weight in Ireland.

“We are here today to support the hunger strikers in Britain. But we are also here for the Palestinian people for those being slaughtered every single day,” he said.

Palestine Action, he said, “made it very clear they have tried signing petitions, they have tried lobbying, they’ve tried everything”.

“So when I see the way they are being treated in prison, for standing up against genocide, that’s heartbreaking.”

For Rita Aburahma, 25, a Palestinian who has found a home in Belfast, the hunger strike carries a painful familiarity.

“My people don’t have the luxury of speaking out, being in Palestine – solidarity matters,” she said.

“I find the hunger strikers are really brave – it’s always been a form of resistance. It does concern me, and many other people, how long it has taken the government to pay attention to them, or take action in any form.

“Nothing will save those people if the government doesn’t do something about them. So it is shocking in a way, but not that surprising because the same government has been watching the genocide unfold and escalate without doing anything.

“Every form of solidarity reaches the people in Palestine.”

Health authorities are warning of yet another potential health threat in Gaza: leptospirosis. Dr. Bassam Zaqout says widespread flooding and lack of basic sanitation make the devastated strip a perfect breeding ground for the bacterial disease also known as swamp or rat fever.

Ban could cut hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza off from essential care, Doctors Without Borders warns.

Israel faces mounting global condemnation as a ban on dozens of international aid organisations working to provide life-saving assistance to Palestinians in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip has come into effect.

On Thursday, a group of 17 human rights and advocacy organisations in Israel condemned the prohibition, saying it “undermines principled humanitarian action, endangers staff and communities, and compromises effective aid delivery”.

“Israel, as the occupying power, has an obligation to ensure adequate supplies to Palestinian civilians. Not only is it failing to fulfil that obligation, but it is also preventing others from filling the gap,” the groups said.

Israel has revoked the operating licences of 37 aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, and the Norwegian Refugee Council, for failing to comply with new government regulations.

The new rules require international NGOs working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to provide detailed information on staff members, as well as their funding and operations.

Israel has defended the move by accusing international organisations that work in Gaza of having links to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – without providing any evidence.

But experts say the requirements contravene humanitarian principles and follow a longstanding Israeli government campaign to vilify and ultimately impede the work of aid groups providing assistance to Palestinians.

“The new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality,” the Israel-based rights groups, including B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, said in Thursday’s statement.

“Conditioning aid on political alignment, penalizing support for legal accountability, and requiring the disclosure of sensitive personal data of Palestinian staff and their families all constitute a breach of duty of care and expose workers to surveillance and harm.”

‘Pattern of unlawful restrictions’

The ban comes as Israel has waged a genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, imposing restrictions on food, medicine and other humanitarian aid deliveries to the coastal territory.

Israeli violence has also soared in the occupied West Bank, with the military forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes in what Human Rights Watch has described as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Against that backdrop, United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said earlier this week that Israel’s NGO ban is “the latest in a pattern of unlawful restrictions on humanitarian access” in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Doctors Without Borders said in a social media post that, as of Wednesday, it was still waiting on the renewal of its registration to operate in Gaza and the West Bank under the new Israeli rules.

“The Palestinian health system is decimated, essential infrastructure is destroyed, and people struggle to meet basic needs. People need more services, not less,” MSF said.

“If MSF and other INGOs lose access, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be cut off from essential care.”

Former UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, who sits on the board of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Al Jazeera he was not optimistic about what will happen next.

“The reality is these agencies are essential to aid delivery – [and] aid delivery in particular in the Gaza Strip,” Griffiths said. “They are the last mile, the phrase used in humanitarian operations to those who actually deliver the aid to the people involved.”

Four members of the Palestine Action group, which has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom, are continuing with their hunger strikes in different prisons around the country.

Four other Palestine Action members have ended their hunger strikes – some after being hospitalised.

Here is what we know about the four remaining hunger strikers.

Why are the Palestine Action protesters on hunger strike?

Imprisoned Palestine Action members have been on hunger strikes in prisons around the UK for more than 50 days.

The Palestine Action members are being held on remand in prisons over their alleged involvement in break-ins at the UK subsidiary of Elbit Systems in Filton near Bristol, where equipment was reportedly damaged, and at a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire, where two military aircraft were sprayed with red paint.

The prisoners deny the charges against them, which include burglary and violent disorder.

Of the four still on hunger strikes, three were imprisoned in November 2024 for their alleged involvement in break-ins at the UK subsidiary of Israeli weapons group Elbit Systems in Filton near Bristol, where equipment was reportedly damaged. One has been in prison since July 2025 for alleged involvement in damage at a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire, where two military aircraft were sprayed with red paint.

Palestine Action, a protest group launched in July 2020, describes itself as a movement “committed to ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime”.

The UK parliament voted in favour of proscribing the group on July 2, 2025, classifying it as a “terrorist” organisation and bringing it into the same category as armed groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS). Critics decried the move, arguing that while members of the group have caused damage to property, they have not committed acts of violence that amount to terrorism.

More than 1,600 arrests linked to support for Palestine Action were made in the three months following the ban’s introduction. The ban has been challenged in court.

The hunger strikers have five key demands: immediate bail, the right to a fair trial – which they say includes the release of documents related to “the ongoing witch-hunt of activists and campaigners” – ending censorship of their communications, “de-proscribing” Palestine Action and shutting down Elbit Systems, which operates several UK factories.

“The UK government has forced their bodies to a breaking point,” pro-Palestine activist Audrey Corno told Al Jazeera Mubasher.

“A promise to the government is that the prisoners’ resistance and the people’s resistance against the genocide [in Gaza], Israel’s occupation and apartheid of genocide will not stop until it ends.”

Who are the remaining hunger strikers?

Heba Muraisi, Kamran Ahmed, Teuta Hoxha and Lewie Chiaramello are the four people, aged between 20 and 31, who are continuing their hunger strikes.

Heba Muraisi

Muraisi, 31, was on day 60 of her hunger strike on Thursday. She is being held in HMP [His Majesty’s Prison] New Hall in Wakefield, a prison in West Yorkshire about 180 miles (290km) north of London.

Muraisi was arrested in November 2024 for her alleged role in an August 2024 raid on the Israel-based Elbit Systems in Bristol, which is believed to have cost the Israeli weapons manufacturer more than $1.34m.

According to social media posts, Muraisi is of Yemeni origin. However, Al Jazeera could not independently verify this.

She was transferred to the West Yorkshire prison in October 2025 from HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, about 18 miles from the UK capital.

“Heba is demanding to be transferred back to HMP Bronzefield. She was transferred very suddenly, very far away from her entire support network and family, which is based in London. She’s been experiencing consistent medical negligence. Her body is, as you’d imagine, increasingly weak,” Corno said.

In a statement shared with Al Jazeera on December 29, Muraisi said: “I’ve been force-fed repression and I’m stuffed with rage and that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing now. I am bringing acute awareness to the unjust application of UK laws by our Government and I’m glad that people can now see this after a year of imprisonment and human rights violations. Keep going, keep fighting.”

Muraisi’s trial is set for June 2026, according to the protest group Prisoners For Palestine.

Kamran Ahmed

Ahmed, 28, was also arrested in November 2024 and is being held in HMP Pentonville in north London. He was also arrested for his alleged involvement in the raid on Elbit Systems in Bristol. Ahmed has been on a hunger strike for more than 50 days.

According to a report by Middle East Eye, Ahmed is a mechanic.

Ahmed was hospitalised for a third time on December 20 after he refused food, his sister, Shahmina Alam, told Al Jazeera.

“We know that he’s rapidly been losing weight in the last few days, losing up to half a kilogramme [1.1lbs] a day,” Alam told Al Jazeera in late December.

Ahmed, who is 180cm (5′11′), entered prison at a healthy 74kg (163lbs), but his last recorded weight was 60kg (132lbs).

“Kamran has been hospitalised for the fourth time recently,” Corno said.

Teuta Hoxha

Hoxha, 29, was on day 54 of her hunger strike on Thursday. She is being held at HMP Peterborough. She was also arrested in November 2024 on allegations of involvement in the Elbit Systems raid.

According to Prisoners for Palestine, Hoxha was moved from HMP Bronzefield on the day UK parliamentarians voted to proscribe Palestine Action – July 2, 2025.

Corno told Al Jazeera that she is in regular contact with Hoxha and that she has been having heart palpitations. “She’s not been able to sleep through the night for weeks on end. I can see her memory start to deteriorate.”

In a statement published on the Prisoners for Palestine website, Hoxha said: “This is a witch hunt, not a fair fight, and that behind the arrests of dissenting voices under counterterrorism powers, holding us on remand without trial for nearly two years and targeting protesters who condemn Palestinian suffering, is the palpably desperate attempt to force us all under the imperial boot of submission.”

Lewie Chiaramello

Chiaramello, 22, has type 1 diabetes and hence, he has been fasting every other day. He is on day 28 of his hunger strike.

He has been held in HMP Bristol since July 2025 in connection with an incident at RAF Brize Norton, according to Prisoners for Palestine, and faces charges of conspiring to enter a restricted area for purposes harmful to the UK’s safety and interests, as well as conspiracy to commit criminal damage. His trial is set for January 18, 2027.

On June 20, a group of Palestine Action activists broke into RAF Brize Norton, the largest Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire, and sprayed two military planes with red paint, causing an estimated $9.4m worth of damage.

“He’s been having to manage his insulin intake on his own with no medical supervision,” Corno said.

Who else has been on a hunger strike?

Four other imprisoned Palestine Action activists have ended their hunger strikes, mostly after being hospitalised.

This includes Qesser Zuhrah, 20 and Amu Gib, 30, who are being held at Bronzefield prison in Surrey. The pair began their hunger strikes on November 2 to coincide with the Balfour declaration of 1917, when Britain pledged to establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

Umar Khalid, 22, who has muscular dystrophy, ended his hunger strike after 13 days. Jon Cink ended his hunger strike after 41 days when he was hospitalised. Qesser Zuhrah ended her hunger strike after 48 days and was hospitalised. Amy Gib was also hospitalised.

Demonstrators in Turkiye demand global pressure on Israel, calling the so-called ceasefire ‘a slow-motion genocide’ against Palestinians.

Hundreds of thousands of people are marching through Istanbul in a sweeping show of solidarity with Palestinians, condemning Israel’s genocide in Gaza and rejecting claims that a ceasefire has brought meaningful relief.

Protesters, many waving Palestinian and Turkish flags, converged on the city’s historic Galata Bridge on Thursday despite freezing temperatures.

The march, organised by civil society groups under the National Will Platform alongside Turkish football clubs, rallied under the slogan: “We won’t remain silent, we won’t forget Palestine.”

More than 400 civil society organisations joined the mobilisation, underscoring the scale of public anger at Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. Several major football clubs urged their supporters to attend, helping turn the rally into one of the largest pro-Palestine demonstrations Turkiye has seen since Israel’s war began.

Galatasaray football club chair Dursun Ozbek described Israel’s actions as a moral reckoning for the world.

“We will not get used to this silence,” Ozbek said in a video message shared on X. “Standing shoulder to shoulder against oppression, we come together on the same side for humanity.”

‘A slow-motion genocide’

Sinem Koseoglu, Al Jazeera’s Turkiye correspondent, reported from the Galata Bridge that Palestine remains a point of national consensus. She said the issue cuts across political lines, uniting supporters of the governing AK Party with voters from major opposition parties.

“Today people are trying to show their support on the very first day of the new year,” Koseoglu said, as crowds packed the bridge and surrounding streets.

Police sources and the Anadolu state news agency said about 500,000 people took part in the march.

The rally included speeches and a performance by Lebanese-born singer Maher Zain, who sang “Free Palestine” to a sea of raised flags.

For many demonstrators, the protest was also a rejection of Israel’s ceasefire narrative.

“These people here do not believe in the ceasefire,” Koseoglu said. “They believe the current ceasefire is not a real ceasefire, but a slow motion of the genocide.”

Turkiye has cut trade with Israel and closed its airspace and ports, but Koseoglu said protesters want sustained international pressure rather than symbolic measures.

“The main idea here is to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people and let the world not forget about what’s going on in Gaza,” she said, warning that many see the ceasefire as “very fragile”.

Turkiye has positioned itself as one of Israel’s sharpest critics and played a role in brokering a ceasefire announced in October by United States President Donald Trump.

Yet the pause in fighting has failed to halt bloodshed, with more than 400 Palestinians killed by Israel since the ceasefire took effect, and aid still being withheld from entering the besieged Strip.

Israel currently occupies the Palestinian side of the crossing, choking Gaza of a vital humanitarian entry point.

Israel is preparing to reopen the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt in both directions after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returns from a visit to the United States, according to Israeli media reports.

Israel’s Kan 11 news reported on Wednesday that the expected decision comes as a result of pressure from US President Donald Trump.

For Palestinians in Gaza, the Rafah crossing had long been the only connection to the outside world.

That was until May 2024, when Israeli forces occupied the Palestinian side of the crossing, destroying its buildings, preventing travel and causing a severe humanitarian crisis, especially for patients.

It marked the first time in 20 years that Israeli forces directly controlled the border crossing as they deployed soldiers in a military buffer zone all across the Philadelphi Corridor, where they remain today.

The first phase of Trump’s 20-point plan – imposed by the US administration in October – to end Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza had called for Israeli authorities to let humanitarian aid into the territory and open “the Rafah crossing in both directions”.

Israel, however, has continued to restrict the entry of aid, while a military unit called Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced in December that the “Rafah Crossing will open in the coming days exclusively for the exit of residents from the Gaza Strip to Egypt”.

The announcement caused concern among mediators, with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates issuing a joint statement that expressed “deep concern” and expressed their “complete rejection of any attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land”.

Israel’s Kan news reported that discussions about reopening the crossing in both directions had been held before Netanyahu met with Trump in the US, but the move was postponed.

It added that an unnamed US source believed that the announcement about the opening of the crossing would take place in the coming days.

Netanyahu has reached the end of his latest trip to the US, with Trump hailing him as a “hero” and saying Israel – and by extension its prime minister – had “lived up to the plan 100 percent” in reference to the US president’s peace plan.

However, reports emerged last week that suggested US officials are growing frustrated over Netanyahu’s apparent “slow walking” of the 20-point ceasefire plan, suspecting that the Israeli prime minister might be hoping to keep the door open to resuming hostilities against the Palestinian group Hamas at a time of his choosing.

Israel is revoking the licenses of 37 international organisations, forcing them to stop operations in Gaza. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud explains how the new restrictions will worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis.

Severe weather warning is issued by the Palestinian Meteorological Department, with heavy rain and hail expected across Palestine.

Deir el-Balah and Nuseirat, Gaza Strip – In her tent made of fabric sheets with a roof covered in white plastic tarp, Sanaa Issa tries to steal a quiet moment with her daughters.

Sanaa spoke to Al Jazeera as the new year approached, and with a ceasefire officially in place in Gaza. But, lying on a wet blanket in a tent with rain pouring down, Sanaa doesn’t have a huge amount to be positive about.

“We didn’t know whether to blame the war, the cold, or the hunger. We’re moving from one crisis to another,” Sanaa told Al Jazeera, describing a harsh year she, and other displaced Palestinians like her, have faced in the Gaza Strip.

Amid worsening humanitarian conditions, the once-ambitious hopes of Palestinians in Gaza, dreams of a better future, prosperity, and reconstruction, are gone. In their place are basic human needs: securing flour, food and water, obtaining tents to shield them from the cold, accessing medical care, and simply surviving bombardments.

For Palestinians like Sanaa, hope for the new year has been reduced to a daily struggle for survival.

Sanaa is a 41-year-old mother of seven, who has been solely responsible for raising her children after her husband was killed in an Israeli strike in November 2024, at the end of the first year of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“Responsibility for the children, displacement, securing food and drink, making tough decisions here and there. Everything was required of me at once,” Sanaa, who fled with her family from al-Bureij to Deir el-Balah, both in central Gaza, said.

Sanaa’s biggest challenge in 2025 was securing “a loaf of bread” and getting her hands on even a kilogram of flour every day for her family.

“During the famine, I slept and woke up with one wish: to get enough bread for the day. I felt I was dying while my children were starving before me, and I could do nothing,” she said bitterly.

The search for flour eventually saw Sanaa decide to go to the US-backed GHF aid distribution points that opened at the end of May across Gaza.

“At first, I was scared and hesitant, but the hunger we live through can force you to do things you never imagined,” Sanaa said, describing her weekly visits to the aid points.

Visiting the sites, which the US and Israel supported as alternatives to long-established aid organisations, was inherently dangerous. More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed in and around GHF sites, according to the United Nations, before the GHF officially ended its mission in late November.

But going to the sites wasn’t just a risk to Sanaa’s life, it was a path that “took away her dignity”, leaving lasting scars.

On one occasion, Sanaa was hit by shrapnel in her arm while waiting for aid at the Netzarim distribution point in central Gaza, and her 17-year-old daughter was injured in the chest at the Morag point east of Rafah.

But her injuries didn’t stop her from trying again, although she began to go alone, leaving her children behind in relative safety.

Desperation

The war in Gaza led to severe interruptions in food and humanitarian aid, the last of which began in late March 2025, eventually leading to the declaration of a famine. It continued until October 2025, gradually easing after the ceasefire announcement.

During this period, the United Nations officially declared a state of famine, confirming that parts of Gaza had entered catastrophic hunger stages, with acute shortages in food, water, and medicine, and high rates of malnutrition among children and pregnant women.

Thousands of residents had to search for food using dangerous methods, including by waiting for long hours at the GHF sites.

“Hunger lasted a long time; it wasn’t a day or two, so I had to find a solution,” Sanaa said. “Each time, people crowded in their hundreds of thousands. Some would spend the night there, hundreds of thousands of displaced people – men, women, children, old and young.”

“The scenes were utterly humiliating. Bombing and heavy gunfire on everyone, not to mention the pushing and fighting among people over aid.”

The crowds meant that Sanaa often returned to her tent empty-handed, but the rare times she brought back a few kilos of flour felt like “a festival”, she recalled.

“One time, I got five kilos [11 pounds] of flour. I cried with joy returning to my children, who hadn’t tasted bread for days,” she added.

Sanaa divided the five kilos over two weeks, sometimes mixing it with ground lentils or pasta dough. “We wanted to recite a spell over the flour so it would multiply,” she said with dark humour.

A heavy silence followed as Sanaa adjusted the plastic tarp over her tent against the strong wind, then said:

“We witnessed humiliation beyond measure? All this for what? For a loaf of bread!” she added with tearful eyes. “If we were animals, perhaps they would have felt more pity for us.”

Despite the hardships she has endured and continues to face, Sanaa has not lost hope or her prayers for Gaza’s future.

“Two years are enough. Each year has been harder than the previous one, and we are still in this spiral,” she added. “We want proper tents to shelter us in winter, a gas cylinder to cook instead of burning wood, we want life and reconstruction.”

“Our basic rights have become distant wishes at year’s end.”

The only survivor

Sanaa’s husband was one of the more than 71,250 Palestinians killed by Israel during the war.

Twenty-year-old Batoul Abu Shawish can count her father, mother, two brothers and two sisters – her whole immediate family – among that number.

Batoul comes into the new year wishing for only one thing: to be with her family.

Her heartbreaking loss came just a month before the end of the year, on November 22.

Despite the ceasefire, an Israeli bomb struck the home her family had fled to in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.

“I was sitting with my two sisters. My brothers were in their room, my father had just returned from outside, and my mother was preparing food in the kitchen,” she recalled, eyes vacant, describing the day.

“In an instant, everything turned to darkness and thick dust. I didn’t realise what was happening around me, not even that it was bombing, due to the shock,” Batoul added, as she stood next to the ruins of her destroyed home.

She was trapped under the debris of the destroyed home for about an hour, unable to move, calling for help from anyone nearby.

“I couldn’t believe what was happening. I wished I were dead, unaware, trying to escape the thought of what had happened to my family,” Batoul said.

“I called for them one by one, and there was no sound. My mother, father, siblings, no one.”

After being rescued, she was found to have severe injuries to her hand and was immediately transferred to hospital.

“I was placed on a stretcher above extracted bodies, covered in sheets. I panicked and asked my uncle who was with me: ‘Who are these people?’ He said they were from the house next to ours,” she recalled.

As soon as Batoul arrived at the hospital, she was rushed into emergency surgery on her hand before she could learn about what had happened to her family.

“I kept asking everyone, ‘Where is my mom? Where is my dad?’ They told me they were fine, just injured in other departments.”

“I didn’t believe them,” Batoul added, “but I was also afraid to call them liars.”

The following day, her uncles broke the news to Batoul that she had lost her mother and siblings. Her father, they told her, was still in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

“They gathered around me, and they were all crying. I understood on my own,” she said.

“I broke down, crying in disbelief, then said goodbye to them one by one before the funeral.”

Batoul’s father later succumbed to his injuries three days after the incident, leaving her alone to face her grief.

“I used to go to the ICU every day and whisper in my father’s ear, asking him to wake up again, for me and for himself, but he was completely unconscious,” Batoul said as she scrolled through photos of her father on her mobile phone.

“When he died, it felt as if the world had gone completely dark before my eyes.”

‘Where is the ceasefire?’

Israel said that it conducted the strikes in Nuseirat in response to an alleged gunman crossing into Israel-held territory in Gaza, although it is unclear why civilian homes in Nuseirat were therefore targeted.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office and the Ministry of Health, around 2,613 Palestinian families were completely wiped out during the war on the Gaza Strip up until the announcement of the ceasefire in October 2025.

Those families had all of their members killed, and their names erased from the civil registry.

The same figures indicate that approximately 5,943 families were left with only a single surviving member after the rest were killed, an agonising reflection of the scale of social and human loss caused by the war.

These figures may change as documentation continues and bodies are recovered from beneath the rubble.

For Batoul, her family was anything but ordinary; they were known for their deep bond and love for one another.

“My father was deeply attached to my mother and never hid his love for her in front of anyone, and that reflected on all of us.”

“My mother was my closest friend, and my siblings loved each other beyond words. Our home was full of pleasant surprises and warmth,” she added.

“Even during the war, we used to sit together, hold family gatherings, and help one another endure so much of what we were going through.”

The understandable grief that has overtaken Batoul leaves no room for wishes for a new year or talk of a near future, at least for now.

One question, however, weighs heavily on her: why was her peaceful family targeted, especially during a ceasefire?

“Where is the ceasefire they talk about? It’s just a lie,” she said.

“My family and I survived bombardment, two years of war. An apartment next to our home in eastern Nuseirat was hit, and we fled together to here. We lived through hunger, food shortages, and fear together. Then we thought we had survived, that the war was over.”

“But sadly, they’re gone, and they left me alone.”

Batoul holds onto one wish from the depths of her heart: to join her family as soon as possible.

At the same time, she carries an inner resignation that perhaps it is her fate to live this way, like so many others in Gaza who have lost their families.

“If life is written for me, I will try to fulfil my mother’s dream that I be outstanding in my field and generous to others,” said Batoul, a second-year university student studying multimedia, who is currently living with her uncle and his family.

“Life without family,” she said, “is living with an amputated heart, in darkness for the rest of your life, and there are so many like that now in Gaza.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reached the end of his latest trip to the United States and appears to have gained what he wants from President Donald Trump.

Trump hailed Netanyahu after their meeting on Monday, calling him a “hero” and saying Israel – and by extension its prime minister – had “lived up to the plan 100 percent” in reference to the US president’s signature Gaza ceasefire.

That is despite reports emerging last week that US officials were growing frustrated over Netanyahu’s apparent “slow walking” of the 20-point ceasefire plan – imposed by the US administration in October – suspecting that the Israeli prime minister might be hoping to keep the door open to resuming hostilities against the Palestinian group Hamas at a time of his choosing.

Under the terms of that agreement – after the exchange of all captives held in Gaza, living and dead, aid deliveries into the enclave and the freezing of all front lines – Gaza would move towards phase two, which includes negotiations on establishing a technocratic “board of peace” to administer the enclave and the deployment of an international security force to safeguard it.

So far, Netanyahu has not allowed in all of the required aid that Gaza desperately needs and is also maintaining that phase two cannot be entered into until Hamas returns the body of the last remaining captive. He has also demanded that Hamas disarms before Israel withdraws its forces, a suggestion fully endorsed by Trump after Monday’s meeting.

Hamas has repeatedly rejected disarmament being forced upon it by Israel, and officials have said that the question of arms was an internal Palestinian matter to be discussed between Palestinian factions.

So is Netanyahu deliberately trying to avoid entering the second phase of the agreement, and why would that be the case?

Here are four reasons why Netanyahu might be happy with things just as they are:

He’s under pressure from his right

Netanyahu’s ruling coalition is, by any metric, the most right wing in the country’s history. Throughout the war on Gaza, the support of Israel’s hardliners has proven vital in shepherding the prime minister’s coalition through periods of intense domestic protest and international criticism.

Now, many on the right, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, oppose the ceasefire, protesting against the release of Palestinian prisoners and insisting that Gaza be occupied.

Netanyahu’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has also shown little enthusiasm for honouring the deal his country committed to in October. Speaking at a ceremony to mark the expansion of the latest of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, Katz claimed that Israel’s forces would remain in Gaza, eventually clearing the way for further settlements.

Katz later walked his comments back, reportedly after coming under pressure from the US.

He doesn’t want an international force in Gaza

Allowing an international force to deploy to Gaza would limit Israel’s operational freedom, constraining its military’s ability to re-enter Gaza, conduct targeted strikes or pursue Hamas remnants within the enclave.

So far, despite the ceasefire, Israeli forces have killed more than 400 people in the enclave since agreeing to halt fighting on October 10.

Politically, agreeing to an international stabilisation force, particularly one drawn from neighbouring states, would broaden what Israel has often seen as a domestic war into an international conflict with many of the strategic, diplomatic and political decisions over that conflict being made by actors outside of its control.

It could also be framed domestically as a concession forced by the US and international community, undermining Netanyahu’s repeated claims of maintaining Israeli sovereignty and strategic independence.

“If Netanyahu allows a foreign military force into Gaza, he immediately denies himself a large degree of his freedom to operate,” Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg said from Berlin. “Ideally, he needs things to remain exactly where they are but without alienating Trump.”

He wants to resist any progress towards a two-state solution

While not explicitly mentioning a two-state solution, the ceasefire agreement does include provisions under which Israel and the Palestinians commit to a dialogue towards what it frames as a “political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence”.

Netanyahu, however, has been arguing against a two-state solution since at least 2015 when he campaigned on the issue.

More recently, at the United Nations in September, he branded the decision to recognise a Palestinian state “insane” and claimed that Israel would not accept the establishment of a Palestinian homeland.

Israeli ministers have also been at work ensuring that the two-state solution remains a practical impossibility. Israel’s plan to establish a series of new settlements severing occupied East Jerusalem – long considered the future capital of any Palestinian state – from the West Bank would make the establishment of a feasible state impossible.

This isn’t just an unfortunate consequence of geography. Announcing the plans for the new settlements in August, Smotrich said the project would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.

A resumption of war would benefit him

Netanyahu faces numerous domestic threats, from his own corruption trial to the potentially explosive issue of forcing conscription on Israel’s ultra-religious students. There is also the public reckoning he faces for his own failures before and during the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, all of which will fall within a critical election year for the prime minister.

Each of these challenges risks fracturing his coalition and weakening his hold on power. All of them, however, could be derailed – or at least politically blurred – by a new conflict either with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon or possibly even with Iran.

Renewed fighting would allow him to once more present himself as a wartime leader, limit criticism and rally both his allies and adversaries around the well-worn flag of “national emergency”.