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Palestine

December 6, 2025

Ramallah 1:25 pm

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A boy sits outside the entrance to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) building complex in Gaza City, on Sept. 6, 2025.

Interview

UNRWA plans Turkey office to boost Gaza, Syria aid as pledges dip

Speaking exclusively to Al-Monitor, UNRWA’s Tamara Alrifai said the upcoming Turkey office would help the agency to expand its operations not only in Gaza but also in Syria.

JERUSALEM - OCTOBER 13: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands and speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, on the day of Trump's address on October 13, 2025 in Jerusalem. President Trump is visiting the country hours after Hamas released the remaining Israeli hostages captured on Oct. 7, 2023, part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza. (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein - Pool/Getty Images)

Analysis

As he stalls Gaza plan, will Netanyahu pick his far-right coalition over Trump?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t publicly go against the Gaza plan of President Donald Trump, but he keeps stalling on discussing the parameters for the implementation of the plan’s second phase.

Rina Bassist

By Rina Bassist

In Paris, reporting on Israeli politics and European affairs

BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images

Turkey’s spy chief holds talks in Egypt over trapped Hamas militants

Turkey’s spy chief met with Qatari, Egyptian officials as the Gaza ceasefire process stalls over Hamas fighters trapped in tunnels.

Latest News

UN Security Council endorses US plan for Gaza security force

UN Security Council votes for US resolution on the Gaza peace plan

Germany lifts Israel arms embargo: What changed in Berlin?

(COMBO) This combination created on February 24, 2025 of file pictures shows the leader and top candidate for Chancellor of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party Friedrich Merz (L, on February 24, 2025 in Berlin) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (on December 9, 2024 in Jerusalem.. Friedrich Merz, who is expected to be Germany's next chancellor after his conservative CDU/CSU bloc won national elections, said on February 24, 2025 that he would make sure Benjamin Netanyahu "can visit" G

Analysis

Ahead of MBS visit, Saudis link Israel normalization to 3 asks from Trump

US President Donald J. Trump leaves the Saudi Royal Court with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on May 13, 2025, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

In Tel Aviv, reporting on national security, Israeli politics, defense

After 13 hours, 150 Gazans allowed to enter South Africa: What to know

A South African Airways (SAA) flight is seen on the tarmac before departing from the O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on Sept. 23, 2021.

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

Displaced people ride on a donkey-drawn cart through a muddy puddle in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Sept. 30, 2024.

Feature

Palestinians long for life before Oct. 7 as Gaza war upends lives, future

One year into the Israeli war on Gaza, as winter approaches, Gazans feel hopeless and trapped in an endless cycle of conflict amid tragic living conditions.

Rasha Abou Jalal

By Rasha Abou Jalal

In Gaza City, reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Nasser al-Kidwa, former minister for foreign affairs of the Palestinian Authority, ex-member of the Fatah movement's central committee, and nephew of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, gives an interview in Gaza City on Sept. 24, 2022.

Exclusive

A way forward, ex-Palestinian FM Nasser Kidwa calls for Arab security presence in Gaza

In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor, former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa said that Palestinians must be serious and practical in order to reach an agreement to end the war in Gaza and establish a Palestinian state.

Daoud Kuttab

By Daoud Kuttab

In Amman, reporting on Palestinian politics

The flags of Israel, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain are projected on the ramparts of Jerusalem's Old City on September 15, 2020 in a show of support for Israeli normalisation deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed landmark accords normalizing the Jewish state's relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as part of a peace push brokered by US President Donald Trump. (Photo by Menahem KAHANA / AFP) (Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty

Analysis

Israel-UAE trade to hit $3.3B in 2024 as wars in Lebanon, Gaza continue

Despite a growing Arab public backlash against economic ties with Israel, and politically strained ties between the UAE and Israel since the Gaza war, bilateral trade has continued across the technology, tourism and agriculture sectors.

Jennifer Gnana

By Jennifer Gnana

In Dubai, reporting on Gulf energy policy and politics

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian meets with regional leaders at the Asia Cooperation Dialogue in Doha on Oct. 2, 2024.

As Iran, Israel lurch toward war, Saudi Arabia seeks rapprochement with Tehran

Riyadh seeks assurances from Tehran that energy infrastructure in the region is spared amid talks of Israeli retaliation targeting Iranian oil and gas assets.

An apartment block stands in partial ruins after being hit by an Israeli airstrike on, Sept. 30, 2024 in Beirut, Lebanon.

Who were Palestinian commanders in Lebanon targeted in latest Israeli strikes?

Israel has frequently targeted Hezbollah commanders and leaders in Lebanon since the start of the cross-border hostilities, as well as members of Palestinian armed groups that joined Hezbollah on the southern front.

Debris lie around destroyed vehicles in a street under a residential building whose top two floors were hit by an Israeli strike in the Ghobeiri area of Beirut's southern suburbs on September 24, 2024. A Lebanese security source said on September 24 that an Israeli strike hit Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold, as the Israel army confirmed it carried out the strike in the Lebanese capital without giving further details. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP) (Photo by ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images)

Analysis

Israel's 2 goals in Lebanon: Decouple Hezbollah-Gaza, restore deterrence

"Our aspiration is to strike Hezbollah with a force that it has not yet experienced, while remaining below the threshold of regional war or bringing Iran into direct war," a senior Israeli political source told Al-Monitor.

In Tel Aviv, reporting on national security, Israeli politics, defense

MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

In White House visit, UAE leader seeks cooperation on Gaza and AI

UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan will meet with President Joe Biden in his first official visit to Washington since 2017.

United Arab Emirates

UAE's president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (L), speaks with US President Joe Biden as they attend a session of the G20 Leaders' Summit at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on September 9, 2023.

UAE in 'realignment mode' as Mohammed bin Zayed heads to US

The UAE president is set to meet US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on his visit. A top advisor refused to say on Thursday if he will be meeting Donald Trump.

United Arab Emirates

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (not pictured) in Jeddah, on March 20, 2024.

Saudi crown prince says no Israel normalization without Palestinian state

The crown prince's comments follow the kingdom's top diplomat saying that any deal with Israel would require a pathway toward a Palestinian state.

EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images

Palestinian poll finds majority of Gazans say Hamas' Oct. 7 attack was wrong

A September public opinion poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows that Palestinian support for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack has dropped and a majority of Palestinians in Gaza say the attack was not the right move.

Mayssa (C), 15, and Yara (R), 10, from Khan Younis, on board the UAE evacuation flight that arrived from Eilat to Abu Dhabi on Sept. 9, 2025.

UAE evacuates nearly 100 Gaza patients as 10,000+ await transfer

Abu Dhabi has pledged to bring in 1,000 injured children and 1,000 cancer patients from the Gaza Strip to be treated in the its hospitals.

United Arab Emirates

Coffin of US-Turkish activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot dead in the West Bank, is carried by Turkish honor guard police officers to a morgue at the Didim district in Aydin on Sept. 13, 2024.

Analysis

What Turkey’s legal campaign against Israel over slain activist entails

While experts expect few, if any, concrete outcomes to come from Ankara’s efforts to hold Israel legally accountable, the campaign will increase the political pressure on the Jewish state in the international arena.

Ezgi Akin

In Ankara, reporting on diplomacy, EU-Turkey ties, NATO