Palestinians

Displaced Gaza City residents recount being chased by Israeli quadcopters after being forced to flee their shelters.

At least 76 killed in Gaza City alone as 450,000 flee Israeli attacks on the coastal enclave’s main urban centre.

At least 91 Palestinians have been killed across the Gaza Strip since dawn, where Israeli forces continue to heavily bomb Gaza City, the main urban centre in the besieged enclave.

Medical sources across Gaza hospitals told Al Jazeera on Saturday that at least 76 Palestinians were killed in Gaza City alone, where the Israeli army has been trying to forcibly expel the entire population in recent weeks.

In the area’s Tuffah neighbourhood, at least six people were killed in an Israeli drone attack. In western Gaza City’s Shati camp, at least five people, including two girls, were killed in an Israeli assault, an ambulance source told our Al Jazeera colleagues on the ground.

The Israeli military estimates it has demolished up to 20 tower blocks over the past two weeks in the area.

According to the Gaza Civil Defence, some 450,000 – or about half the urban centre’s population – have fled Gaza City since Israel in August announced its decision to capture and occupy it.

 Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from central Gaza, said Israeli forces were attacking people as they fled following Israel’s forced expulsion orders.

“The army is using quadcopters to kill people trying to escape their neighbourhoods and using these robots with residents saying every time they explode it feels like an earthquake,” she reported.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s ruling entity Hamas released on Saturday what it called a “farewell picture” of 48 Israeli captives held in Gaza.

Hamas has persistently warned that intensifying Israeli attacks and a ground invasion would endanger the lives of the captives; some have already been killed by Israeli bombs.

The armed Palestinian group also claims that captives are “scattered throughout the neighbourhoods” of besieged Gaza City.

Situation in al-Mawasi ‘heartbreaking’

While the Israeli army has intensified its deadly bombing and destruction of Gaza City, it said it is also continuing military operations in the south.

At least three of the dead were aid seekers killed by Israeli forces at a distribution centre near Rafah in southern Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Khoudary said the al-Mawasi area in southern Gaza, touted by the Israeli army as a so-called “safe zone” and where Palestinians in the north were told to flee from, was “overcrowded”, leaving many with few alternatives.

“We’re seeing some tents on the sides of the streets. People have literally pitched their tents in places where there’s no water, electricity or infrastructure,” she said.

“That’s because Palestinians do not have any other option.”

Michail Fotiadis from medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says the situation in al-Mawasi is “heartbreaking”.

“Everybody is looking for a place to pitch a tent, but the materials are not available. The situation is really dire for the population. Access to water is very difficult,” Fotiadis told Al Jazeera from al-Mawasi, described by Israel as a “humanitarian zone”.

He said more Palestinians continue to arrive from northern Gaza with nothing after escaping Israel’s military onslaught.

“Usually, in a situation like this, survival prevails. But Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have had to endure so many different displacements, so many situations of fear. They are beyond desperation.”

This is what Palestinians in Gaza City are facing as Israeli forces relentlessly bomb the area as part of the ‘second phase’ of their plan to capture it.

An Israeli strike targeted a vehicle carrying displaced Palestinians who were evacuating Gaza City to the south under Israeli forced displacement orders on Tuesday. Injured women and children were filmed being carried away from the burning car, while authorities said multiple people were killed.

The Israeli army has subjected Gaza City to its most punishing attacks in two years of war, sending thousands of residents fleeing under bombs and bullets amid fears they might never return, with the United Nations chief calling the offensive “horrendous”.

“Gaza is burning,” Israeli Minister of Defence Israel Katz said on X, as columns of vans and donkey carts laden with furniture, and people on foot carrying the last of their worldly possessions, steamed down the coastal al-Rashid Street against a backdrop of black smoke rising from the destroyed city.

Many had pledged to stay in the early days of Israel’s takeover plan. But as the military accelerated the pace of its deadly bombing campaign, turning high-rises, homes and civilian infrastructure to rubble, those able to afford the journey are heading south, with no guarantees of a safe zone for shelter.

On Tuesday, the army killed at least 91 people in the city, with health authorities reporting that one of its bombs hit a vehicle carrying people about to escape on the coastal road.

At least 17 of the city’s residential buildings were destroyed, including Aybaki Mosque in the Tuffah neighbourhood to the east, which was targeted by an Israeli warplane.

As the bombs rained down, the Israeli army continued to destroy areas in the north, south and east of the city with explosive-laden robots.

Earlier this month, the rights group Euro-Med Monitor said the army had deployed 15 of these machines, each one capable of destroying up to 20 housing units.

Tanks push into the city

About 1 million Palestinians are known to have returned to Gaza City to live among the ruins after the initial phase of the two-year war, but reports on how many remain vary.

An Israeli army official estimated on Tuesday that approximately 350,000 had fled. But Gaza’s Government Media Office said 350,000 had been displaced to the centre and the west of the city, with 190,000 leaving it altogether.

Either way, those who left faced a bleak future in the south, where the already cramped al-Mawasi camp, filled with people forcibly displaced from the eastern parts of Rafah and Khan Younis, has itself been hit by Israeli strikes.

The Government Media Office noted a trend of reverse displacement, saying on Tuesday that 15,000 had returned to Gaza City after witnessing the dire conditions at al-Mawasi.

As people fled, the Israeli military released aerial footage showing a large number of tanks and other armoured vehicles pushing further into Gaza City.

The Israeli army admitted on Tuesday that it would take “several months” to control Gaza City.

“No matter how long it takes, we will operate in Gaza,” army spokesman Effie Defrin said, as fighting raged in the enclave’s largest urban hub.

At least 106 people were killed across Gaza since dawn on Tuesday, according to medical sources.

‘Specific intent’ to destroy Palestinians

Amid the brutal offensive, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Tuesday concluded that Israel’s war on Gaza is a genocide, a landmark moment after nearly two years of war that has killed at least 64,964 people.

Among its findings, it drew on the public statements of Israeli officials to show that Israel had the “dolus specialis” of genocide, or the “specific intent” to destroy Palestinians as a people.

Palestine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the report. “The situation in Gaza today portends a humanitarian catastrophe that cannot tolerate any leniency or delay,” it said on X.

International criticism of Israel is growing, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday calling the war morally, politically and legally intolerable.

France’s Foreign Ministry urged Israel to stop its “destructive campaign, which no longer has any military logic, and to resume negotiations as soon as possible”.

Irish President Michael D Higgins condemned “those who are practising genocide, and those who are supporting genocide with armaments”.

“We must look at their exclusion from the United Nations itself, and we should have no hesitation any longer in relation to ending trade with people who are inflicting this on our fellow human beings,” he said.

Israel has launched a ground offensive to occupy Gaza City, forcing thousands of residents to flee with whatever they can carry or transport.

Israeli attacks on civilians and infrastructure continue across Gaza as Qatar hosts Muslim, Arab world leaders.

JERUSALEM — Palestinian Oscar-winning director Basel Adra said Israeli soldiers conducted a raid at his home in the occupied West Bank over the weekend, searching for him and going through his wife’s phone.

Israeli settlers attacked his village Saturday, injuring two of his brothers and one cousin, Adra told the Associated Press. He accompanied them to the hospital. While there, he said that he heard from family in the village that nine Israeli soldiers had stormed his home.

The soldiers asked his wife, Suha, of his whereabouts and went through her phone while his 9-month-old daughter was home. They also briefly detained one of his uncles, he said.

Adra spent the night outside the village, unable to get home and check on his family because soldiers were blocking the village entrance and he was scared of being detained, he said.

Israel’s military said soldiers were in the village after Palestinians had thrown rocks, injuring two Israeli civilians. It said its forces were still in the village, searching the area and questioning people.

Adra said settlers attacked the Palestinians on their land, and denied throwing rocks or seeing anyone from the village do so.

Videos recorded by Adra’s cousin and viewed by the AP showed settlers attacking a man Adra identified as his brother, Adam, who was hospitalized with bruising to his left hand, elbow and chest, according to hospital records shared with the AP.

In another video, a settler chases a solidarity activist through an olive grove, tackling her to the ground.

Adra has spent his career as a journalist and filmmaker chronicling settler violence in Masafer Yatta, the southern reaches of the West Bank where he was born. After settlers attacked his co-director, Hamdan Ballal, in March, he told the AP that he felt they were being targeted more intensely since winning the Oscar.

He described Saturday’s events as “horrific.”

“Even if you are just filming the settlers, the army comes and chases you, searches your house,” he said. “The whole system is built to attack us, to terrify us, to make us very scared.”

Another co-director, Yuval Abraham, said he was “terrified for Basel.”

“What happened today in his village, we’ve seen this dynamic again and again, where the Israeli settlers brutally attack a Palestinian village and later on the army comes, and attacks the Palestinians,” Abraham said.

“No Other Land,” which won an Oscar this year for best documentary, depicts the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages. Ballal and Adra made the joint Palestinian-Israeli production with Israeli directors Abraham and Rachel Szor.

The film has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, such as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theater that screened the documentary.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East War, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for a future state and view Jewish settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.

Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to more than 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.

The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouins, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards, and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.

During the war in Gaza, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank during wide-scale military operations. There has also been a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians, as well as a surge in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

Frankel writes for the Associated Press.

As Israel displaces thousands from the north of the enclave, concerns are growing about worsening conditions in the south.

Thousands of Palestinians are being displaced each day by Israel’s indiscriminate carpet bombing of Gaza City, which is killing dozens of civilians daily, with families fleeing south towards an uncertain fate in the repeatedly attacked and overcrowded al-Mawasi.

More than 6,000 people were forced to leave the besieged city on Saturday, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence, as the Israeli army continued its relentless bombardment of the area.

Some 900,000 Palestinians are currently left in the city, but the number is decreasing rapidly.

“Gaza City is being emptied building by building, family by family,” Al Jazeera’s Hamza Mohamed said.

“Soon, what remains might not be a city, just the memory of one,” he added.

Khalil Matar, a displaced Palestinian fleeing south, said: “We keep moving. There are sick people with us, and we don’t know where to go. There are no safe zones.”

Many of those who are leaving the north are heading on the forced evacuation threats of the Israeli army to al-Mawasi camp, where conditions have been described as beyond dire, crowded, and under-resourced even before the latest mass displacements.

Reports from al-Mawasi, which is often struck by Israeli strikes despite being a so-called “safe zone”, suggest that new arrivals are struggling to find space to pitch their tents.

‘Famine is devouring us too’

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from the al-Mawasi, said the scenes there were “very chaotic” as more and more families arrived, with their belongings placed by the side of the road.

“For almost a whole week, we’ve been trying to figure out a place to shelter in. I have a large family, including my children, my mother and my grandmother,” one displaced Palestinian man told Khoudary.

“Not only are missiles pouring down on our heads, but famine is devouring us too,” he said.

The man added that his family’s tent was not fit for purpose after two years of use, and that he was unsure where they would take shelter.

“Displacement is as painful as eviscerating one’s soul out of the body. We don’t know where to take refuge,” he said. “I’m taking my family into the unknown.”

Speaking from al-Mawasi, displaced journalist Ahmed al-Najjar said the camp was not safe.

“It’s called a safe zone, but we have been living here for months and we know for sure that it’s not safe,” he stressed.

“How can I call it safe when Israel killed and bombed my own sister within this ‘safe zone’?”

Al-Najjar also described being woken up by the “cries and horrific sounds of people being burned alive in a nearby tent”.

Given such dangers as well as the lack of space, some displaced Palestinians have told Al Jazeera that they will be returning to Gaza City from al-Mawasi, in an apparent trend of reverse displacement.

Faraj Ashour, a displaced Palestinian who lost his legs in an Israeli attack, is one of those considering the return journey.

“I went to al-Mawasi, but the costs were too high … and it was almost impossible to find a proper spot without paying extra,” Ashour said.

The Israeli offensive on Gaza City is displacing thousands of starving Palestinians.

Israeli forces have rounded up and arrested Palestinians en masse in the occupied West Bank’s Tulkarem. The operation is being described as “collective punishment” after several Israeli soldiers were injured in an attack.

Israeli action in Tulkarem city comes as Palestinians have been subjected to ‘collective punishment’ in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces have detained more than 100 Palestinians in raids on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem and have imposed a curfew, Al Jazeera Arabic reports, as the Israeli offensive in Gaza City has forced more than 200,000 Palestinians to flee the largest urban center in the enclave.

As reported earlier, Israel’s military has been conducting raids in Tulkarem after it said two Israeli soldiers were wounded when their vehicle was “hit by an explosive device“.

Soldiers stormed shops and cafes, detaining patrons, as well as residents in their vehicles, forcing them to march in line towards an Israeli military checkpoint, a WAFA correspondent reported.

Israeli forces launched a campaign of violence in the occupied West Bank after six people were killed in a shooting attack in occupied East Jerusalem earlier this week. Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the shooting, in which both suspects were killed.

In response, Israel ordered the demolition of the homes of the two suspects, as well as sanctions on their family members and residents of their towns, Qatanna and al-Qubeiba, northwest of Jerusalem in the West Bank.

“There has been a complete siege and lockdown of these areas,” Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said on Tuesday following the shooting. “Collective punishment is in full swing in the occupied West Bank.”

Israel’s growing crackdown in the West Bank

Israel has launched a crackdown on the occupied West Bank since it launched its devastating war on Gaza, killing more than 1,000 Palestinians, arresting thousands, and demolishing hundreds of homes and civic infrastructure. Even before the October 7, 2023, attack inside Israel by the Hamas-led Palestinian groups, Israeli military and settler violence was at its highest in years.

Israel’s military operation has fuelled the forced displacement of more than 40,000 Palestinians.

“Israel’s deadly military operation in the occupied West Bank, unfolding in the horrific shadow of its ongoing genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip, has had catastrophic consequences for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians who are facing a rapidly escalating crisis with no foreseeable prospects of return. Unlawful transfer of protected persons is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime,” Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, said in a statement on June 5.

As well as the Israeli military actions against Palestinians, violence by Israeli settlers spiked during the war on Gaza. At least 1,860 incidents of settler violence in the occupied West Bank were recorded between October 7, 2023, and December 31, 2024, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The rise of far-right leaders to power has pushed Israel further towards right, with politicians at the highest levels, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, openly indulging in anti-Palestinian rhetoric.

“We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us,” Netanyahu reiterated at an event in Maale Adumim, an illegal Israeli settlement just east of Jerusalem, on Thursday.

“We are going to double the city’s population.”

All the settlements are considered illegal under international law and are considered the biggest hurdle in the resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Last September, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling on Israel to end its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories within a year. Still, Israel has since expanded its settlements in complete disregard of international laws and norms.

Israel’s latest forced displacement order for Gaza City is one too many for Nahd al-Rafati. He is refusing to leave, weary of what seems like a never-ending cycle of expulsion.

In recent months, the small East African coastal region of Somaliland has been making international headlines after several high-profile Republicans in the United States endorsed a bill to recognise it as an independent state.

The question of Somaliland’s independence from Somalia has long divided the region. While the territory declared its sovereignty in the 1990s, it is not recognised by Mogadishu or any other world government.

Recently, Republicans in the US House of Representatives, including Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Representative Pat Harrigan of North Carolina, and other key conservative heavyweights, have backed the push for recognition.

“All territorial claims by the Federal Republic of Somalia over the area known as Somaliland are invalid and without merit,” said the text of the bill introduced in June, calling for the US to recognise Somaliland “as a separate, independent country”.

At around the same time, media reports surfaced that said Israel had reached out to Somaliland as a possible location to resettle Palestinians it plans to expel from Gaza.

Human rights advocates from Somaliland have voiced concern that the forced resettlement of Palestinians could “render Somaliland complicit in the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza”, with worries that countries who previously sympathised with Somaliland may potentially “withdrawing their support”.

During a news conference at the White House in early August, US President Donald Trump addressed the issue. “We’re looking into that right now,” he said in response to a question about whether he supported recognition of Somaliland if it were to accept Palestinians. “Good question, actually, and another complex one, but we’re working on that right now,” he added, without giving a clear answer.

Less than a week later, Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas penned a letter to Trump calling for Somaliland’s recognition. One of the key justifications stated in the letter by Cruz, who has received nearly $2m in funding from multiple pro-Israel lobby groups, including the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was that Somaliland “sought to strengthen ties with Israel, and voiced support for the Abraham Accords.” The accords are a set of agreements normalising diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab states.

In response to Cruz’s letter, Somalia’s ambassador to the US released a statement warning that any infringement of Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would empower armed groups and “destabilise the entire Horn of Africa region”.

Al Jazeera reached out to the ministers of foreign affairs and information of Somaliland for comment on the plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians and whether they were engaging in talks with the Israelis about this, but did not receive a response.

Somaliland has not commented on the forced relocation of Palestinians, but officials have openly stated that it welcomed US consideration for its recognition, with the spokesperson for the region’s presidency thanking US Senator Cruz for his advocacy and stating that “recognition of this established fact [Somaliland] is not a question of if, but when”.

Recognition plus armed groups: A recipe for disaster?

In Somaliland, a region with traditionally strong support for the Palestinian cause, many people are hopeful about one half of the plan and concerned about the other.

Those who spoke to Al Jazeera shared concerns about the ramifications and possible dangers that could arise from potential Israeli plans to force Palestinians to relocate to Somaliland.

Ahmed Dahir Saban, a 37-year-old high school teacher from the town of Hariirad in Awdal, a province in the far northwest bordering Djibouti, said Palestinians would always be accepted with open arms in Somaliland, but that any attempts to forcibly relocate them from Palestine would never be accepted. He cautioned the authorities in Somaliland about the deal.

“The people of Palestine cannot be forced from their blessed homeland. What the Americans and Israelis are doing is ethnic cleansing, and we in Somaliland want no part of it,” he said.

Ahmed said, aside from the move being morally wrong and inhumane, he believes it would “risk violence from [armed] groups” and have serious ramifications for the region.

“Al-Shabab and Daesh [ISIL/ISIS] could carry out attacks throughout Somaliland if the authorities went through with accepting forcibly relocated Palestinians. Even here in Awdal, we wouldn’t be safe from the violence.”

Ahmed fears that if Somaliland accepts expelled Palestinians, the armed groups will exploit public anger against such a move to expand their sphere of influence and possible territorial control in the region.

Armed groups like al-Shabab maintain a presence in the Sanaag province, which is partially administered by the Somaliland government.

Analysts who spoke to Al Jazeera share similar concerns.

Jethro Norman, a senior researcher with the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), believes the US and Israel’s meddling in Somaliland under the pretext of relocating Palestinians would create significant opportunities for armed groups.

“Al-Shabab and IS-Somalia [ISIL Somalia] have consistently framed their struggle in terms of resisting foreign interference and protecting Somali sovereignty, but they’ve also spent years perfecting narratives about Western-backed dispossession and ‘Crusader-Zionist’ intrigue,” he remarked.

When Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, al-Shabab held protests in areas they govern in support of Palestine. Large crowds also came out in support of the Palestinian cause in rebel-controlled territory in Somalia.

“A Palestinian relocation programme, especially one perceived as externally imposed and aligned with Israeli wishes, would provide these [armed] groups with an unbelievably potent propaganda tool, allowing them to position themselves as defenders of both Somali unity and Palestinian dignity against what they could characterise as a cynical Western-Israeli scheme,” Norman told Al Jazeera.

Peace at what cost?

Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 after the country descended into civil war. In the years since, the administration in the capital, Hargeisa, has been able to create a de facto state within Somalia’s borders. Schools, security and stability emerged, but Somaliland has yet to secure international recognition.

However, some of the decades-long gains have come at a cost to many who call Somaliland home.

Dissent and freedom of expression have come under fire in Somaliland. This has affected the press, civilians and marginalised communities alike, with media outlets raided and journalists arrested.

Members of the public are routinely arrested for having the Somali flag in an attempt to silence unionist voices, which make up a significant portion of the Somaliland populace.

More recently, entire communities have fallen victim to scorched-earth policies implemented by Hargeisa. Nowhere is this more visible than in the city of Las Anod in Sool province. For years, local clans complained of marginalisation by the centre, which led to a public uprising. Security forces responded by killing civilian protesters in December 2022. Somaliland authorities then laid siege to the city for nine months; hundreds of people were killed in the violence, almost 2,000 were injured, and 200,000 were displaced.

Somaliland eventually lost control of Las Anod and the vast majority of its eastern region – about one-third of the territory it claims – to pro-unionist communities who have recently formed the semiautonomous Northeast regional state.

As a result of the siege, rights groups such as Amnesty International released a damaging report in 2023 accusing Somaliland of indiscriminately shelling homes, schools, mosques, densely populated civilian neighbourhoods, and even hospitals in Las Anod, which is a war crime under international law.

The Somaliland administration became the only local actor in Somalia to be accused of war crimes since al-Shabab, which was accused of committing war crimes by Human Rights Watch in 2013.

But now talk of possible Israeli plans to forcibly relocate Palestinians has heightened fears of further violence in Somaliland.

“You can hear the whispers of something,” said Mohamed Awil Meygag in the city of Hargeisa. The 69-year-old witnessed how conflict devastated the region in the 1980s and fears another uncertain path for Somaliland.

Mohamed adamantly supports the recognition of Somaliland as an independent state, but is wary of reports about forcibly relocating Palestinians from Gaza. He also feels the authorities in Hargeisa have not been sufficiently transparent.

“When Americans talk about recognising Somaliland, they [Somaliland’s government] always welcome it, and it’s right, but when it’s about Palestinians being brought here by force and the role of Israel, you don’t get the same kind of response. They’re quiet,” he said.

“Relocating Palestinians forcefully here, no matter what is given in return, even if it’s recognition, is not worth it. We [Somaliland] will have the blood of fellow Muslims on our hands, and no Muslim should support such a thing,” Mohamed added.

“They [the US and Israel] don’t have good intentions and we cannot risk jeopardising our country.”

For analysts, the possible forced relocation plan is also just one part of broader international interests at play in the region.

“This so-called ‘relocation plan’ is part of a wider architecture of power that extends far beyond the interests of US and Somaliland officials,” noted Samar al-Bulushi, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, who said that more foreign alliances in the region could help fuel political instability.

Al Jazeera reached out to the US Department of State for comment. In response, they directed us to the government of Israel. Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli embassy in the US for comment on the plans to relocate Palestinians to Somaliland, but they did not respond to our queries.

Uncharted waters

Amid reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is in contact with at least four countries to explore the forced transfer of Palestinians, Israel’s Channel 12 reported recently that “progress has been made” in talks with Somaliland over the issue.

On September 2, US Representatives Chris Smith and John Moolenaar also wrote a letter to Secretary of State Marc Rubio, urging the removal of Somaliland from its travel advisory on Somalia, citing Hargeisa as a strategic partner in containing China, actively engaging and supporting US interests, as well as “growing ties with Israel through its solid support for the Abraham Accords”.

“The pro-Israel networks sit in the same Washington ecosystem as Red Sea security hawks and China sceptics, and you can see some sponsors explicitly pairing Somaliland recognition with closer Israeli ties and anti-China rhetoric. Ted Cruz’s August letter urging recognition is a clear example of that framing,” said analyst Norman.

However, if the Trump administration were to recognise Somaliland, it would lead to catastrophic ripple effects in Somalia and beyond its borders, he feels.

“It would risk turning a smoulder into open flame,” the DIIS researcher said.

For al-Bulushi, the deal that is reportedly on the table says more about the region’s lack of global power than its growing influence.

“The very act of entering into such a compact with the US and Israel speaks to the lingering power asymmetries between African leaders and global powers,” she said. “[It] symbolises a lack of independence on the part of Somaliland leaders – ironically at the very moment when they are seeking recognition as a sovereign state.”

Egypt says forced Palestinian displacement a ‘red line’ as Qatar calls it a ‘extension’ of Israel’s policy of violating Palestinian rights.

Egypt and Qatar have expressed strong condemnation over remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the displacement of Palestinians, including through the Rafah crossing.

In a statement on Friday, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the comments as part of “ongoing attempts to prolong escalation in the region and perpetuate instability while avoiding accountability for Israeli violations in Gaza”.

In an interview with the Israeli Telegram channel Abu Ali Express, Netanyahu claimed there were “different plans for how to rebuild Gaza” and alleged that “half of the population wants to leave Gaza”, claiming it was “not a mass expulsion”.

“I can open Rafah for them, but it will be closed immediately by Egypt,” he said.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry reiterated its “categorical rejection of forcibly or coercively displacing Palestinians from their land”.

“[Egypt] stresses that these practices represent a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and amount to war crimes that cannot be tolerated,” the ministry added.

The statement affirmed that Egypt will never be complicit in such practices nor act as a conduit for Palestinian displacement, describing this as a “red line” that cannot be crossed.

‘Collective punishment will not succeed’

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry also fiercely criticised Netanyahu’s remarks, calling them an “extension of the occupation’s approach to violating the rights of the brotherly Palestinian people”.

“The policy of collective punishment practised by the occupation against the Palestinians … will not succeed in forcing the Palestinian people to leave their land or in confiscating their legitimate rights,” it said in a statement.

It stressed the need for the international community to “unite with determination to confront the extremist and provocative policies of the Israeli occupation, in order to prevent the continuation of the cycle of violence in the region and its spread to the world”.

The war of words comes as Egypt and Qatar continue to lead mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel, seeking to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the coastal enclave.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, said Netanyahu’s comments were “incredibly controversial” since it’s the Israeli government which has outlined that “it wants the Palestinians out of Gaza”.

“The condemnation from both Qatar and Egypt is essentially telling Israel this is all a part of its larger plan, that Israel is the one that waged war on the Gaza Strip, that the continuation of crimes against the Palestinian people and the total closure of the Rafah border crossing is the reason why they’re imprisoned in Gaza, not because of anything else,” she said.

“It is Israel that single-handedly created this policy.”

Hundreds of Palestinians have fled Gaza City, piling their few remaining possessions onto pick-up trucks and donkey carts as Israel’s deadly bombings and forced displacement campaign intensifies in the area.

Families fleeing the Israeli military’s relentless bombardment have begun setting up makeshift tents amid miserable conditions in an area west of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, to the south of Gaza City near Deir el-Balah.

Most of them have been forced to leave their homes more than once.

“We are thrown in the streets, like what would I say? Like dogs? We are not like dogs. Dogs are [treated] better than us,” Mohammed Maarouf, 50, told The Associated Press news agency, standing in front of his tent.

Maarouf and his family of nine had already been displaced from the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. “We have no homes. We are on the streets,” he said.

Ahmad Saadeh, originally from Beit Hanoon, also in Gaza’s north, told AP that Palestinians were suffering from hunger, sickness and a lack of shelter in the coastal enclave, where famine was confirmed earlier this month.

“We suffer from many things,” he said. “We suffer that our children are ill.”

Israeli forces have carried out a sustained bombardment on Gaza City since early August as part of a deepening push to seize the city and displace about one million Palestinians living there.

On Friday, the Israeli military said it had begun the “initial stages” of its offensive, declaring the largest urban centre in the territory a “combat zone”.

The new operation could forcibly displace one million Palestinians to concentration zones in southern Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned.

At least 71 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Saturday, hospital sources told Al Jazeera.

Of that, 41 people were killed in Gaza City alone, including at least 11 Palestinians who were killed while queueing for bread from ovens serving communities of displaced people.

At least seven Palestinians also were killed in a series of Israeli attacks on a residential apartment block in a densely populated area of the city. Rescuers were seen digging through the rubble to retrieve bodies and try to find any survivors.

“The Israeli army has been intensifying its attacks across Gaza City. Homes and community centres have been reduced to rubble, eroding the foundations of civilian life in the area,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported.

“This is happening while people are going through famine, enforced starvation and dehydration. Things are leading to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.”

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Saturday also questioned Israel’s plans for a forced mass expulsion.

“It is impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City could ever be done in a way that is safe and dignified under the current conditions,” ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger said in a statement, describing the plan as “not only unfeasible but incomprehensible”.

Yet while Israel’s push to seize Gaza City has drawn international condemnation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has shown no signs of halting the military offensive.

Gideon Levy, a columnist with Israeli news outlet Haaretz, told Al Jazeera that Israel’s overarching plan for Gaza amounts to ethnic cleansing.

“The plan is to push all the inhabitants of Gaza out of their houses, then lock them in those concentration camps and then give them two choices, either to live in those camps forever or to leave the Gaza Strip,” Levy said.

Describing the Israeli government’s policy as “outrageous”, Levy added that Israel will only halt its offensive if US President Donald Trump decides that “enough is enough” and applies pressure on the country.

The US has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance since its war on Gaza began in October 2023. Washington has also shielded its top ally from calls for accountability at the UN and other international arenas.

In February, Trump suggested removing all Palestinians from Gaza – a plan that would amount to ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity.

Palestinians in Gaza City are facing new threats to their lives after Israel announced the suspension of ‘humanitarian pauses’ in its assaults. Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim Al-Khalili has been to Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, where displaced people are preparing to leave under fire.

The al-Mawasi area in southern Gaza where Israel has told displaced people to go is among places targeted this morning.

MINNEAPOLIS — Ken Martin is in the fight of his life.

The low-profile political operative from Minnesota, just six months on the job as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is charged with leading his party’s formal resistance to President Trump and fixing the Democratic brand.

“I think the greatest divide right now in our party, frankly, is not ideological,” Martin told The Associated Press. “The greatest divide is those people who are standing up and fighting and those who are sitting on the sidelines.”

“We’re using every single lever of power we have to take the fight to Donald Trump,” he said of the DNC.

And yet, as hundreds of Democratic officials gather in Martin’s Minneapolis hometown on Monday for the first official DNC meeting since he became chair, there is evidence that Martin’s fight may extend well beyond the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Big Democratic donors are unhappy with the direction of their own party and not writing checks. Political factions are fragmented over issues such as the Israel-Hamas war. The party’s message is murky. Key segments of the Democratic base — working-class voters and young people, among them — have drifted away.

And there is deep frustration that the Democratic Party under Martin’s leadership is not doing enough to stop the Republican president — no matter how tough his rhetoric may be.

“There are no magic fixes,” said Jeanna Repass, the chair of the Kansas Democratic Party, who praised Martin’s performance so far. “He is trying to lead at a time where everyone wants it to be fixed right now. And it’s just not going to happen.”

At this week’s three-day summer meeting, DNC officials hope to make real progress in reversing the sense of pessimism and frustration that has consumed Democrats since Republicans seized the White House and control of Congress last fall.

It may not be so easy.

Confidence questions and money trouble

At least a couple of DNC members privately considered bringing a vote of no confidence against Martin this week in part because of the committee’s underwhelming fundraising, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation who was granted anonymity to share internal discussions. Ultimately, the no confidence vote will not move forward because Martin’s critics couldn’t get sufficient support from the party’s broader membership, which includes more than 400 elected officials from every state and several territories.

Still, the committee’s financial situation is weak compared with the opposition’s.

The most recent federal filings reveal that the DNC has $14 million in the bank at the end of July compared with the Republican National Committee’s $84 million. The Democrats’ figure represents its lowest level of cash on hand in at least the last five years.

Martin and his allies, including his predecessor Jaime Harrison, insist it’s not fair to compare the party’s current financial health with recent years, when Democratic President Joe Biden was in the White House.

Harrison pointed to 2017 as a more accurate comparison. That year, the committee struggled to raise money in the months after losing to Trump the first time. And in the 2018 midterm elections that followed, Harrison noted, Democrats overcame their fundraising problems and won the House majority and several Senate seats.

“These are just the normal pains of being a Democrat when we don’t have the White House,” Harrison said. “Ken is finding his footing.”

Martin acknowledged that big donors are burnt out after the last election, which has forced the committee to turn to smaller-dollar donors, who have responded well.

“Money will not be the ultimate determinant in this (midterm) election,” Martin said. “We’ve been making investments, record investments, in our state parties. … We have the money to operate. We’re not in a bad position.”

Gaza debate could get ugly

While Martin is broadly popular among the DNC’s rank and file, internal divisions may flare publicly this week when the committee considers competing resolutions about the Israel-Hamas war.

One proposed resolution would have the DNC encourage Democratic members of Congress to suspend military aid to Israel, establish an arms embargo and recognize Palestine as a country, according to draft language reviewed by the AP. The measure also states that the crisis in Gaza has resulted in the loss of over 60,000 lives and the displacement of 1.7 million Palestinians “at the hands of the Israeli government.”

The DNC leadership, led by Martin, introduced a competing resolution that adds more context about Israel’s challenges.

One line, for example, refers to “the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis” and notes the number of Israelis killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Martin’s version calls for a two-state solution, but there is no reference to the number of Palestinians killed or displaced, nor is there a call for an end to military aid or an arms embargo.

Meanwhile, another proposed resolution would reaffirm the DNC’s commitment to “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Many Democrats, businesses and educational institutions have distanced themselves from DEI programs after Trump and other Republicans attacked them as Democrats’ “woke” policies.

Ultimately, Martin said the party needs to focus its message on the economy.

“There’s no doubt we have to get back to a message that resonates with voters,” he said. “And focusing on an economic agenda is the thing that brings all parts of our coalition and Americans into the conversation.”

“We have work to do for sure,” he added.

Presidential prospects on the agenda

The DNC is years away from deciding which states vote first on the 2028 presidential primary calendar, but that discussion will begin in earnest at the Minneapolis gathering, where at least three presidential prospects will be featured speakers: Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

Martin said the DNC is open to changes from the 2024 calendar, which kicked off in South Carolina, while pushing back traditional openers Iowa and New Hampshire. In recent days, Iowa Democrats have publicly threatened to go rogue and ignore the wishes of the DNC if they are skipped over again in 2028.

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws committee this week is expected to outline what the next calendar selection process would look like, although the calendar itself likely won’t be completed until 2027.

“We’re going to make sure that the process is open, that any state that wants to make a bid to be in the early window can do so,” Martin said.

Peoples writes for the Associated Press.