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Hamas’s Leadership Change Is a Message
Hamas will try to put a new face on this Ramadan. It will announce a new leader, reportedly one of two: Khalil al-Hayya, a Sharia scholar from Gaza, or Khaled Meshal, a veteran fundraiser with extensive regional connections. When it happens, you “will” hear about an election, and that will not be accurate. Hamas follows…
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The Security Gap at the Heart of Gaza’s Future
Trump’s Board of Peace has a plan to stabilize Gaza. Experts say it may be built on sand. The “Comprehensive Plan to End the Conflict in Gaza” contains gaps that are alarming experts and observers, particularly in the security files, which appear disconnected from reality on the ground. At the heart of these concerns is the challenge of disarming armed…
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Board of Peace: Money Pledged, Weapons Unresolved
The real test of Trump’s Gaza plan is not reconstruction. It is disarmament. On Feb. 19, President Donald Trump will convene leaders from more than 20 countries to formalize pledges totaling some $5 billion for Gaza’s reconstruction. But behind the headlines lies the unresolved question that will determine whether any rebuilding can last: What happens to Hamas’ weapons? A senior State Department official told MBN Washington Bureau Chief…
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Reconstruction of Gaza Amid Unsettled Property Ownership
The “New Gaza” plan promoted by President Trump’s administration presents the enclave as a reconstruction and investment project, but it sidesteps a fundamental question: Who owns the land? In Gaza, roughly half of all land is privately owned by Palestinian families holding historically registered legal deeds. Yet the plan makes no reference to ownership, nor…
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“Not Reconstruction”: Netanyahu Sets the Course for the Next Phase in Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has laid out a new political framework for the war in Gaza by linking the completion of the return of all hostages to a transition to what he described as the next phase. In a speech delivered at the Knesset, on the sidelines of a visit by Albanian Prime Minister…
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Trump’s Board of Peace: What It Built and What It Changes
The Board of Peace was signed in Davos as a Gaza initiative. It landed as something larger: a transatlantic rupture. A U.S. State Department official told MBN that Washington views the Board as a workaround, not a replacement, for stalled multilateral processes. “The UN framework wasn’t delivering outcomes,” the official said. “This is about speed,…
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Gaza: Phase Two’s Real Deadlock
The complication in Phase Two of the Gaza plan is not reconstruction or governance. It is disarmament, and the absence of any mechanism capable of delivering it. Washington now expects Hamas to disarm as part of the transition to technocratic rule, a demand reiterated publicly by U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. Israeli intelligence assessments, meanwhile,…
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Year of Unfinished Endings: How 2025 Reset the Middle East’s Fault Lines
2025 began as yet another chapter in what has felt like a perpetual decade of conflict in the Middle East. The war in Gaza continued unabated, sectarian tensions once again threatened to plunge Syria into chaos, clashes persisted between Hezbollah and Israel along the Lebanese border, and a brief but intense conflict erupted between Israel and Iran. As the…
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A Struggle Over the Treasures of the Eastern Mediterranean
Despite the rapid developments unfolding behind its borders with Libya, Sudan, and the Gaza Strip, Egypt has continued to focus primarily on its maritime frontiers. For that reason, the issue of maritime boundaries with Libya in the Mediterranean Sea figured prominently in the discussions held by Libyan Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar during his visit to…
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Israel Fears Turkish Squeeze
As international efforts intensify to shape the day after the Gaza war, Israel is taking a firm position on one of the most sensitive issues: the deployment of foreign or international forces in the Strip. The stance is resolute, grounded in a mix of security calculations, experience, and a political agenda that leaves little doubt…