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Palestine

August 3, 2026

Ramallah 11:25 pm

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Palestinian Hamas militants arrive to secure the area as Egyptian workers accompanied by members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), search for the last two remaining bodies of hostages -an Israeli soldier and a Thai national- from under the rubble of the Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern of Gaza Strip on Dec. 1, 2025.

Analysis

How Hamas disarmament deal may test Iran's regional strategy

A possible Hamas decision to disarm would represent more than a Gaza development, testing Iran's decades-old strategy of projecting power through regional allies.

A correspondent in Tehran

By A correspondent in Tehran

In Tehran, reporting on politics

Flags of Spain and Argentina

Culture

How Argentina-Spain World Cup final became debate over Israel, Palestine

Governments and fans alike have turned teams and players into symbols of political division.

Latest News

Explainer

What does Hamas' move to dissolve its Gaza government mean?

Government Media Office Director Ismail Thawabteh (R) and Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem (L) speak at a press conference.

Interview

Ayman Odeh says Arab parties could back Bennett or Eisenkot to block Netanyahu

Joint List Party leader Ayman Odeh attends a meeting on April 5, 2021 in Jerusalem, Israel.

Ayman Odeh

Head of the Knesset's Hadash-Ta'al faction

Who is Melat Kiros, the pro-Palestinian who unseated a longtime Democrat?

Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

Amnesty International accuses Israel of state-led ethnic cleansing in West Bank

Israeli security forces attempt to disperse Palestinians who had gathered to protest the reported burning of land by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian village of Idna, west of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, on June 5, 2026.

Beatrice Farhat

Associate Editor (Lebanon)

In Beirut, reporting on regional news, culture, conflict

Daoud Kuttab

Palestine Columnist

In Amman, reporting on Palestinian politics

Rasha Abou Jalal

In Gaza City, reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Abeer Ayyoub

In Istanbul, reporting on Palestine

Naima Morelli

In Rome, reporting on Middle East culture

Fatima AbdulKarim

In Ramallah, reporting on the West Bank

Palestinian militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP) take part in a military show in Gaza City September 2, 2014. An open-ended ceasefire between Israel and Hamas-led Gaza militants, mediated by Egypt, took effect on August 26 after a seven-week conflict. It called for an indefinite halt to hostilities, the immediate opening of Gaza's blockaded crossings with Israel and Egypt, and a widening of the territory's fishing zone in the Mediterranean.
REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA

Gazans reject Israel's calls to disarm

Gaza's factions appear to be united in rejecting Israel's demand that the area should become a weapons-free zone.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (L) sits next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as leaders gathered to deliver a joint statement on Middle East Peace talks in the East Room of the White House in Washington September 1, 2010. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS IMAGES OF THE DAY) - RTR2HTF7

Bibi uses Gaza as wedge between Abbas, Hamas

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will accept Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' entry into Gaza, but only if the unity government is dissolved.

Israeli soldiers from the Givati brigade return to Israel from Gaza August 3, 2014. An Israeli air strike killed at least 10 people and wounded about 30 others on Sunday in a U.N.-run school in the southern Gaza Strip, a Palestinian official said, as dozens died in Israeli shelling of the enclave and Hamas fired rockets at Israel. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reported attack, the second to hit a school in less than a week. Israeli media, on the 27th day of the fighting, reported that mo

Why Israelis saw the Gaza war differently

The Israeli public reacted to a war that dragged on without a clear victory and showed unprecedented solidarity with the troops without the peace protests present during previous conflicts.

Palestinians gather around the remains of a commercial center, which witnesses said was hit by an Israeli air strike on Saturday, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip August 24, 2014. Egypt called on Israel and the Palestinians on Saturday to halt hostilities and resume peace talks, but both sides kept up attacks, including an Israeli air strike which destroyed a residential tower block in the centre of Gaza City. Hamas militants also fired rockets at Israel, hitting the southern city of Beersheba, where two

Israel gained upper hand in final days of war

Israel’s withdrawal of ground forces, and focus on air power, gave it the upper hand in pressuring the Palestinian resistance factions to a truce.

An Israeli policeman surveys a building damaged from a Palestinian mortar salvo in a community outside the central Gaza Strip August 21, 2014. Israel killed three senior Hamas commanders in an air strike on the Gaza Strip on Thursday, the clearest signal yet that Israel is intent on eliminating the group's military leadership after a failed attempt on the life of its top commander this week. After six weeks of conflict in which more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, Israeli a

After Gaza, Israel sees new type of war, diplomacy

A changing Middle East reality confronts the Israel Defense Forces with new fighting methods and targets while diplomatic opportunities have emerged with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas presides over a meeting with Palestinian leadership in the West Bank city of Ramallah August 26, 2014. Israel has accepted an Egyptian proposal for a Gaza ceasefire, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday. Egyptian and Palestinian officials said the truce was to take effect at 7 pm (1600 GMT). REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman (WEST BANK - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR43V6J

Gaza cease-fire might lead to indirect Egypt involvement

After a cease-fire was finally reached, the Palestinian Authority could return to the Gaza Strip where Egypt might be playing an indirect role in the future.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor (L) during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem January 17, 2010. REUTERS/Gali Tibbon/Pool (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR28YSN

Meridor: Israelis will back diplomatic initiative

In an interview with Al-Monitor, former Likud Minister Dan Meridor contends that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes the diplomatic route instead of the status quo, 70% of the Israelis will back him.

Hamas Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh holds a gun as he appears for the first time since the start of a seven-week conflict during a rally by Palestinians celebrating what they said was a victory over Israel, in Gaza City August 27, 2014. An open-ended ceasefire in the Gaza war held on Wednesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced strong criticism in Israel over a costly conflict with Palestinian militants in which no clear victor emerged. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem (GAZA - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT

Zahar, Haniyeh pressured Meshaal into cease-fire

The cease-fire between Israel and Hamas signals the opening of a great battle over the movement's leadership, between Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal in Qatar and Gaza leaders such as Mahmoud al-Zahar.

Protesters chant during a pro-Gaza demonstration outside the Israeli embassy in London August 1, 2014. Israel launched its Gaza offensive on July 8 in response to a surge of rocket attacks by Gaza's dominant Hamas Islamists. Hamas said that Palestinians would continue confronting Israel until its blockade on Gaza was lifted. REUTERS/Neil Hall (BRITAIN - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT) - RTR40YDH

Anti-Israelism, not anti-Semitism, voiced in Europe

Does the sometimes virulent criticism of Israel in Europe, and around the world, reflect a rise in anti-Semitism or anti-Israelism?

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv August 10, 2014. Israel said on Sunday it would not return to Egyptian-mediated ceasefire talks as long as Palestinian militants in Gaza kept up cross-border rocket and mortar fire. The head of the Palestinian delegation in Cairo said earlier that it would pull out unless Israeli negotiators, who flew home from the Egyptian capital on Friday hours before a three-day ceasefire expired, came back to the talks. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

Was Bibi's image damaged by cease-fire agreement?

The Israeli public does not seem convinced by declarations that the cease-fire agreement is an achievement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a defeat for Hamas.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal talks during a news conference in Doha July 23, 2014. Meshaal said he was ready to accept a humanitarian truce in Gaza where the Islamist group is fighting an Israeli military offensive, but would not agree to a full ceasefire until the terms had been negotiated. REUTERS/Stringer (QATAR - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT MILITARY) - RTR3ZVT6

No winners in Israel-Hamas cease-fire

To justify the deaths and devastation in Gaza, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal needed an achievement, and so did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose approval ratings continue to drop from one week to the next.

Omar Odeh, a Palestinian refugee from from the Yarmuk refugee camp in Damascus who fled Syria some two months ago, sits with his daughters as he looks at his laptop in the livingroom of their rented apartment in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on April 16, 2013. Odeh who fled Syria last year, was followed by his Palestinian mother, Syrian wife Basma and their children in February transiting through Egypt to reach the Gaza Strip. Finding no work, they are living off donated aid and help from fam

Syrian refugees in Gaza suffer second war

Palestinian refugees from Syria and Syrian refugees who came to the Gaza Strip to escape the war in Syria are caught in Israel’s war on Gaza.