Middle East Press On: Turkey's Talks, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Palestinians NCAG, Gaza's Technocratic Genocide, Trump, Tehran, Kushner's Vision, UAE, Gaza's Concentration Camp, New Age Islam's Selection, 28 January 2026
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
28 January 2026
Manufacturing a monarch: Who backs Reza Pahlavi and why?
Why Türkiye’s talks with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia matter
Palestinians create the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) – Gaza’s technocratic turn to genocide management
Trump, Tehran, and the trial: The countdown to the unknown begins
Netanyahu the biggest obstacle to Trump’s Gaza plan
Homes, Not Illusions – Inside Gaza’s Rejection of Kushner’s Vision for ‘Rebuilding’ the Strip
Gaza Health Releases New Devastating Numbers, Warns Health System Near Collapse
Exposed – How the UAE Became Central to Gaza’s Concentration Camp Plot
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Manufacturing a monarch: Who backs Reza Pahlavi and why?
BY ÖMER EKREM KEÇECI
JAN 28, 2026
Recent protests in Iran have highlighted Reza Pahlavi, the U.S.-based son of the Shah, who was overthrown in 1979. However, serious questions are also being raised about him and whether he is suitable for leadership. The most striking thing about Pahlavi is that he has a highly positive approach toward Israel and pro-Israeli, far-right Western politicians.
Back in 2016, his exaggerated condolence message upon the death of Shimon Peres raised doubts about his judgment. Years later, in 2023, he took perhaps the most remarkable step and went to Israel, posing at the Western Wall with a kippa on his head. He met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then-Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel. Gamliel, while Israel's 12-day War with Iran was going on, shared a message: "Next year in free Tehran!" When the latest protests started in Iran, she took a selfie wearing a hat with the words "Make Iran Great Again" and shared the picture, tagging Pahlavi, with the caption “Soon.”
Speaking at the 2024 Israeli-American Summit, Pahlavi emphasized solidarity between Israel, the U.S. and Iranians like himself in the face of Iran's actions against Israel and the U.S. The Israeli American Council is a place that hosts the most ardent Zionists, like Miriam Adelson. Trump also gave a speech there that year.
In 2025, he attended the Conservative Political Action Conference, which was organized and attended by far-right and, therefore, mostly Israel supporters around the world.
During the 12 Day War, his wife, Yasmine Pahlavi, openly supported Israel's attack on Iran in an Instagram post, despite civilians dying. Pahlavi also released a video following the Israeli bombing and implicitly called on his Iranian supporters to attack the regime together with Israel. The fact that he did not say a single word against Israel in the video, neither for the killed civilians, led to many reactions under his tweet.
Yasmine had previously expressed her belief that the concepts of "women, life, freedom" were represented by the Israeli female soldier in another Instagram post.
Who promotes Pahlavi?
It appears that Pahlavi appeared most frequently on Fox News during this period. This channel is known for representing the far right in the U.S. and acting as a mouthpiece for Israel.
Opinions promoting Pahlavi's legacy are also published here. In a recent piece, one of his supporters, Shahryar Oveissi, argued that the current movement yearns for Pahlavi. The column, which claims that most Iranians admire the U.S., also stated that if Pahlavi comes to power, Iran will become a close partner of Israel.
In the U.K., too, support for Pahlavi is seen among figures dedicated to Israel. Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel and Reform Party leader Nigel Farage met with Pahlavi in July. Since the protests began, they, Patel in particular, have tweeted extensively, to which Pahlavi's side has expressed their gratitude.
Paul du Quenoy, a historian and staunch defender of Israel, openly advocated for the restoration of the Pahlavi monarchy. Believing he has the overwhelming support of the people, Quenoy claims that this would be enough to make Iran great again. While he discusses how things improved in Spain with the return of the monarchy, he fails to comment on the vast differences between the two countries.
Simon Sebag Montefiore, another historian known for his staunch defence of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and his attacks on anti-genocide activists, also wrote an article supporting the reinstatement of Pahlavi. However, the author, who states that “History is filled with relatively positive examples of the scions who have returned to power armed only with the name of their dynasty,” commits the absurdity of first citing the Bushes, father and son, as an example to support his argument.
Aside from those who take pride in serving Israel, it can be said that the Israeli right wing directly desires Pahlavi. The following lines are directly from a column in Arutz Sheva: “The mourning nation of Iran, even as it buries its dead and grieves for its stolen children, still clings to a single remaining window of hope. That hope is The Crown Prince, HRH Reza Pahlavi.” We also mentioned the example of Gila Gamliel. She also published an article in the Jerusalem Post on Dec. 31, in which she presented Pahlavi as the “symbol of national rehabilitation and renewal.”
However, there does not seem to be much response outside the far right. For example, MSNBC, which is opposed to U.S. President Donald Trump, has made almost no broadcasts about him. The ruling party in the U.K., Labour, also did not want to meet with him, for now.
All this type of information makes many people think that he is an Israeli asset. But, of course, for others, these are just an indication that he is just a "peace-loving" man.
Insufficient support
Jason Rezaian, who was imprisoned during the nuclear negotiations in 2014 while he was the Washington Post's Tehran correspondent, argues that Pahlavi, who has no real history of leadership, cannot lead a place of Iran's size and complexity.
In another publication, it is also stated that the opposition exhibits a diverse range, from ethnic minorities to republicans, monarchists and leftists. The newspaper also underlines that interviews with members of the Iranian opposition show that they are sceptical of Pahlavi's leadership. It is also reminded that the coalition Pahlavi established with the Iranian diaspora in 2023 did not last even two months. In this way, it’s pointed out that Pahlavi has not been successful in establishing even a very short-term unity with anti-regime secular Iranians, which is truly notable. Radio France also portrayed Pahlavi as politically immature and undesirable to the minorities who make up 50% of Iran's population.
According to the research of Ammar Maleki, who works at Tilburg University and conducts public opinion polling among Iranians, 1 in 3 Iranians have strong support for Pahlavi, while 1 in 3 have strong opposition. However, the Washington Post states that, based on who they were able to interview, there are some among Pahlavi's supporters who do not like him but support him because there is no other prominent figure, or those who only accept him for the transition period. Although there are some names among his supporters, such as former football player Ali Karimi, it can be said that this ratio and table will not be enough to distinguish Pahlavi as a leader.
The lack of support is raising questions even among pro-Israel figures. In this context, The Telegraph, which acts like Netanyahu's mouthpiece in the U.K., published an interesting article that cites the example of Ahmed Chalabi. Like Pahlavi, Chalabi cultivated close ties with the U.S. right, and after the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003, they gave him a senior role in Iraq's transitional government. However, his party only managed to get 0.5% of the vote in 2005. He had no popular support and failed to establish any order in Iraq. Maziyar Ghiabi, director of Persian and Iranian studies at the University of Exeter, is quoted in the piece, who says, “If the regime falls and someone like Reza Pahlavi comes to power, that is the easiest route to internal conflict.”
Even Fox News, which might be dubbed the most prominent propagandist for Pahlavi in Western media, expresses scepticism about his support among protesters and draws attention to the anti-Pahlavi sentiment among other dissidents in the diaspora.
West is in doubt
Pahlavi’s environment also leads many to think that he has adopted both the monarchy and oppressive policies similar to those of his father’s reign. Parviz Sabeti, the former director of Savak, the secret police service known for torturing and murdering the Shah's opponents, is currently Pahlavi's adviser. It was also reported that they did not respond to The Times seeking to clarify his exact role.
Another prominent actor of the Iranian diaspora is the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Shahin Gobadi, a member of the NCRI foreign affairs committee, also draws attention to Sabeti. Gobadi also states that Pahlavi has no organization within Iran and says, “More importantly, Pahlavi has never distanced himself from the crimes of his father's dictatorship.”
Indeed, Oveissi also praises the Shah's era in his aforementioned piece, describing it as a period of stability and prosperity. More importantly, he explicitly writes that Pahlavi wants a U.K.-style monarchy.
Also, an article published in Le Monde, emphasizing that Pahlavi is neither charismatic nor conciliatory, states that he excludes non-monarchists.
It is also noteworthy that most of those who want Pahlavi's return have not seen his father's reign. Making this point, the Daily Mail recalled the late Shah's lavish celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire. They also claimed that the Shah's soldiers, like today's regime, opened fire on protesters and killed dozens of them. The newspaper also reported that Pahlavi currently lives in a seven-bedroom mansion with a swimming pool in Washington. His decision not to issue a statement addressing his father’s actions, along with his privileged lifestyle, has led some to draw parallels between Pahlavi and his father.
The repression of dissidents is another aspect in which he resembles his father. Le Monde reported that many Iranians who contacted them said that if they offered even the slightest criticism of Pahlavi, they were harassed by his army of royalist cyber soldiers.
Pahlavi published a document called “Iran Prosperity Project” last year. According to David Ignatius, he “may be too much of a creature of the past to lead a new Iran,” but his project is “superb.” However, several analysts think this model “would reproduce certain traits of authoritarian centralism that Iranian history is trying to overcome.” Iranian analyst Hamid Enayat says that “the text does not provide for the dissolution of current repressive structures (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Basij militias), but their 'filtering' and their reconversion. A new intelligence service would even be established. This vagueness in democratic guarantees worries some observers and activists.”
In short, it cannot be said that he is a name that Westerners trust very much. However, the support he finds from Zionists seems high. But even on that side, some think he is not fit for duty.
Even some of his supporters write as if to say that he should not be supported. The Times writer Roger Boyes, who argues that he should be given a chance, states that he is a "goofy," "indecisive" person who is "out of touch" with the truth and has many opponents inside and outside Iran, but writes that he is not as bad as his father. Similar criticisms were made in more detail by Victoria Azad, who was with him for a long time. Trump's suspicion and distance from him may be due to these reasons.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/manufacturing-a-monarch-who-backs-reza-pahlavi-and-why
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Why Türkiye’s talks with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia matter
BY ISHAAL ZEHRA
JAN 28, 2026
When Türkiye’s foreign minister publicly confirmed that Ankara is in talks with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia over a possible defence pact, he was doing more than clarifying a diplomatic rumour. He was signalling how power is being recalibrated in the Middle East. The area today is defined less by fixed blocs and more by strategic hedging. Security guarantees of the United States feel conditional, regional conflicts remain unresolved and old assumptions about deterrence no longer hold. Against this backdrop, Ankara’s exploratory talks are not about creating a NATO-style pact. They are about options.
The starting point is the Saudi-Pakistan defence agreement signed in September 2025, which formalized decades of close military cooperation. That pact framed aggression against one as a shared concern, but crucially avoided automatic military triggers or integrated command structures. It was mutual defence in principle, not in mechanism.
Türkiye’s potential involvement would expand that framework from a bilateral understanding into a loose triangular arrangement. The significance lies less in legal clauses and more in strategic signalling: three influential Muslim-majority states, each with distinct strengths, exploring ways to coordinate security interests without surrendering autonomy.
Why Türkiye is interested
For Ankara, the attraction is not binding commitments but flexibility. Türkiye has the second-largest army in NATO, a battle-tested force, and a rapidly expanding defense industry. It is already deeply engaged with Pakistan through naval programs, aircraft upgrades, joint exercises and co-production initiatives. Pakistan is a familiar and low-risk defence partner.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, plays a different role. Over the past five years, Türkiye has carefully rebuilt ties with Riyadh after a period of sharp rupture. The reset reflects a hard lesson from the post-Arab Spring decade: Isolation and diplomacy carry real economic and strategic costs.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan now promotes a foreign policy that privileges stabilization, trade and regional platforms over ideological alignment. In that context, associating with a Saudi-Pakistan security framework allows Türkiye to widen its regional footprint, enhance deterrence signalling and hedge against uncertainty without jeopardizing its NATO position or committing to automatic defence obligations.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
Pakistan’s role in this emerging equation is understated but critical. As a nuclear-armed state with mature armed forces and a growing defence-export sector, Islamabad brings deterrence credibility and operational depth. Its expanding defence sales across the Middle East and Africa are not only commercial but strategic, reinforcing long-term security relationships.
For Saudi Arabia, the logic is equally pragmatic. Riyadh is no longer content with a purely reactive security posture. Under the "Vision 2030," the kingdom seeks strategic autonomy, diversified partnerships and the ability to shape regional outcomes rather than depend on external guarantees. Elevating defence ties with Pakistan and potentially drawing Türkiye into the orbit serves that objective.
This is not about forming an exclusive bloc. It is about creating a flexible security platform that can be activated politically, if not militarily, in times of crisis.
Not an axis but a hedge
Critics have been quick to frame the prospective alignment as an anti-Israel or anti-UAE axis. That reading misses the nuance. Ankara, Riyadh and Islamabad all maintain incentives to preserve working relationships with a wide range of regional actors, including Abu Dhabi. Economic interdependence, investment flows, and diplomatic balancing make outright confrontation unlikely.
What is taking shape is better understood as a hedge against instability and strategic vacuum. The language of mutual defence matters less than the message it sends: Regional powers are increasingly willing to coordinate among themselves rather than rely exclusively on outside guarantors.
The broader regional picture reinforces this interpretation. As Ankara, Riyadh and Islamabad explore one configuration, other powers are quietly assembling their own.
Just this week, India and the United Arab Emirates signed a letter of intent to deepen defense and security cooperation, including industrial collaboration and maritime security, during UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s short but significant working visit to India. The timing is telling.
Rather than one dominant alliance, the region is witnessing the emergence of parallel security frameworks that are overlapping, flexible and shaped by national interests rather than ideology. Time will tell whether these arrangements neutralize each other or instead coexist, compete or even intersect in an increasingly fragmented regional security landscape.
The bigger picture
Türkiye’s talks with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are therefore less about a single pact and more about a structural change. The Middle East is moving toward a multipolar security environment where influence is measured by connectivity, defence-industrial capacity and diplomatic agility.
In this new landscape, formal treaties matter less than the ability to signal unity, deter adversaries and keep options open. Ankara’s message is clear: Türkiye wants a seat at every relevant table, without being locked into any one arrangement.
As India and the UAE sketch their own defence framework, the region’s future security order is beginning to resemble a mosaic rather than a map, that is, fragmented, adaptive and constantly renegotiated. For now, the talks themselves may be more important than any agreement they eventually produce.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/why-turkiyes-talks-with-pakistan-and-saudi-arabia-matter
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Palestinians create the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) – Gaza’s technocratic turn to genocide management
January 27, 2026
by Ranjan Solomon
This document is largely based on a document written by Yara Hawari who is co-director of Al-Shabaka’s, and a policy member in the organization. She previously served as the Palestine policy fellow and senior analyst. Yara completed her PhD in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter. Al Shabaka is the only global network of Palestinian experts to produce critical policy analysis and collectively imagine a new policymaking paradigm for Palestine and Palestinians worldwide.
The announcement of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a 15-member technocratic body chaired by Ali Shaath, signals a shift toward depoliticized governance in Gaza amid ongoing genocide. Shaath, a Palestinian civil engineer and former deputy minister of planning and international cooperation, is positioned to lead an interim governing structure tasked with managing reconstruction and service provision under external oversight. While presented as a neutral technocratic governing structure, the NCAG is more likely to function as a managerial apparatus that stabilizes conditions. This policy memo argues that technocratic governance in Gaza—particularly under US oversight, given its role as a co-perpetrator in the genocide—should be understood not as a pathway to recovery or sovereignty, but as part of a broader strategy of genocide management.
Donald Trump’s so-called Board for Peace for Gaza is easy to dismiss. It is grotesque in its colonial imagination — a Riviera fantasy rising from mass graves, brokered by billionaires and real-estate interests, insulated from the screams beneath the rubble. It carries the familiar stench of American imperial arrogance: deciding the future of a people while excluding them entirely. One does not need deep analysis to reject it; instinct alone suffices.
What demands far greater intellectual vigilance is what comes after the spectacle. When vulgar colonialism recedes, it is often replaced not by justice or liberation, but by management. This quieter phase of domination is precisely what Yara Hawari exposes in her incisive critique of Gaza’s technocratic turn — a shift that risks transforming genocide from an act of violence into an administrative condition.
At first glance, Gaza’s National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) appears to be a corrective to Trump’s obscenity. It is Palestinian. It is composed of engineers, planners, and professionals. It speaks the language of reconstruction, service delivery, and institutional competence. There are no Kushners, no billion-dollar fees, no overt colonial theatrics. It presents itself as pragmatic, necessary, even humane. And yet this is precisely where the danger lies.
The central problem is not the identity of those appointed, but the structure within which they operate. Technocracy under occupation is never neutral. When governance is stripped of politics in a context defined by siege, occupation, and genocide, it does not become apolitical; it becomes complicit. What is presented as expertise becomes a means of stabilising injustice rather than dismantling it.
The NCAG’s mandate is framed narrowly around administration and reconstruction, while political questions — sovereignty, borders, accountability, demilitarisation, and the end of occupation — are deferred to Trump’s Board for Peace and its international overseers. This is not a division of labour; it is a division of power. Palestinians are invited to manage consequences, not to determine causes. They are allowed to rebuild ruins, but not to challenge the system that produced them.
This model is not new. It mirrors the role long assigned to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank: a body tasked with administering daily life while Israel retains decisive control over land, movement, security, and violence. The result has been a prolonged political limbo in which services are delivered, elections are postponed, dissent is policed, and occupation deepens uninterrupted. Statehood remains perpetually promised and perpetually denied.
Gaza now risks being absorbed into the same logic, under far more catastrophic conditions.
The most revealing aspect of the NCAG is not its technocratic composition, but its explicit refusal of politics. Its chair, Ali Shaath, has emphasised that the committee will play no political role in governing Gaza. In ordinary circumstances this claim would already be dubious. In the midst of an ongoing genocide, it is untenable. To declare governance non-political while bombs fall, borders are sealed, and territories are redrawn is not neutrality; it is acquiescence.
Depoliticization here functions as strategy. By treating Gaza’s devastation as a technical problem requiring managerial solutions, the structural causes of that devastation are rendered secondary, if not irrelevant. Reconstruction is discussed without addressing siege. Stability is prioritised over justice. Order is pursued while accountability is indefinitely postponed.
Language matters, and the language emerging from this technocratic framework is telling. The invocation of “one law, one authority, one weapon” echoes almost verbatim the formulations used by Jared Kushner in his plans for Gaza’s demilitarisation. This convergence is not accidental. It reflects a shared colonial priority: internal control over external responsibility. Palestinians are to be unified, disciplined, and disarmed, while the forces that carried out mass killing remain beyond scrutiny.
Security, in this vision, is reduced to Palestinians policing Palestinians. Protection from Israeli violence is absent from the equation. Demilitarisation is demanded without decolonisation; obedience without sovereignty. What emerges is not peace, but pacification.
Trump’s Board for Peace is obscene but transparent. Its ambitions are crude and its contempt for Palestinian agency barely concealed. The technocratic alternative is far more insidious precisely because it wears a Palestinian face. It risks normalising a future in which Gaza is endlessly rebuilt but never freed, administered but never sovereign, stabilised but never healed.
Genocide does not end simply because bombs pause. It continues when the conditions that made it possible are preserved under new administrative arrangements. A ceasefire without political rupture becomes merely an intermission. Reconstruction without accountability becomes another phase of violence — slower, bureaucratic, and easier for the international community to tolerate.
Hawari’s intervention is therefore not a rejection of relief or rebuilding. Gaza desperately needs both. It is a rejection of the lie that relief can substitute for liberation, or that expertise can replace political agency. It insists that governance cannot be severed from justice, and that reconstruction divorced from sovereignty is not recovery but containment.
Real alternatives already exist, developed by Palestinian experts and civil society actors who understand that rebuilding Gaza cannot be separated from dismantling siege, occupation, and colonial control. Frameworks such as the Gaza Phoenix Plan matter not because they are perfect, but because they restore politics to a space where politics has been violently erased.
The choice before the international community is not between Trump’s vulgar imperialism and benevolent technocracy. That is a false binary. The real choice is between managing genocide politely and confronting the structures that sustain it.
Gaza does not need trustees, technocrats, or stabilisers. It needs an immediate and permanent ceasefire, enforceable guarantees against renewed assault, accountability for crimes committed, the dismantling of siege and occupation, and the restoration of Palestinian collective decision-making.
Anything less is not peace. It is administration in the service of erasure.
This document calls to be widely disseminated as a way of illustrating that Palestinians have the political substance and technocratic capacity to transform Gaza into a liveable space for all its citizens without colonial intervention. Trump had no plan except that of land-grab and profit from the misery which he and his Zionist partners connived to do. His plan, as many others he conceived in the last year, is doomed to fail.
Proposed solutions for Gaza and Palestine involve a multi-phased approach focusing on immediate humanitarian relief, rubble removal, and reconstruction, alongside a, two-state solution supported by Arab nations, which includes a non-affiliated administrative committee to govern, ultimately transitioning to the Palestinian Authority. Implementation requires, however, significant international financing, securing borders, and restoring essential services.
Western engagement in Palestine is increasingly viewed through the lens of supporting long-term, structural change, such as the recognition of a Palestinian state, rather than just providing, which some critics argue sustains a status quo of dependency or aids in concealing, rather than resolving, the underlying political and colonial issues.
Traditional Western aid has often acted as a substitute for political action, allowing for the continuation of the Israeli occupation while failing to address the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people. The “repatriation” argument is often linked to the call for a “right of return” for Palestinian refugees, a fundamental aspect of the broader Palestinian struggle for self-determination.
Many perspectives now emphasize that support for Palestine should focus on decolonization, the removal of colonial structures, and establishing a single, democratic state with equal citizenship. The deliberation underlines a weighty swing from seeing the situation as a humanitarian crisis to recognizing it as a matter of political and territorial rights in which the entire global community vigorously drives for a just and permanent, sustainable solution.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260127-palestinians-create-the-national-committee-for-the-administration-of-gaza-ncag-gazas-technocratic-turn-to-genocide-management/
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Trump, Tehran, and the trial: The countdown to the unknown begins
January 27, 2026
by Jasim Al-Azzawi
Benjamin Netanyahu is facing the battle of his life in Israel’s general election set for May, with his liberty at stake. Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is trapped in a high-stakes balancing act, weighing his legal battles and the risk of imprisonment against the stability of his fragile coalition.
The legal noose tightens
Netanyahu’s legal woes, however, remain his biggest existential threat. He is charged with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in three different cases, dubbed Case 1000, Case 2000, and Case 4000. The charges include accepting expensive gifts, including champagne and cigars, from businesspeople; colluding with businesspeople to secure favourable media coverage in exchange for regulatory perks for telecommunications companies; and seeking to control news coverage by making backroom deals with newspaper publishers.
The trial has been a long-drawn-out process, but it seems to be leading to a conclusive end. According to legal experts, if Netanyahu is found guilty on all charges, he might face a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment. For a 76-year-old man, this would mean a life sentence, considering he has been a dominant force in Israeli politics over the last three decades. Netanyahu appears determined to retain power at any cost, utilizing every available lever of influence to ensure he remains a free man. While in office, he can leverage his authority to pursue legislative remedies, influence prosecutorial leniency, or secure a presidential pardon—avenues that vanish the moment he loses the premiership.
A coalition on the brink
The cracks within the Netanyahu uneasy coalition, comprising incompatible parties, seem to be deepening. The ultra-Orthodox parties, which Netanyahu cannot do without to build a majority coalition, insist that their yeshiva students be exempted from military service. This infuriates the rest of the country, which sees the ultra-Orthodox refusing to contribute to the country’s defence even in its hour of need, with threats looming on all fronts. Those who risk their children’s lives on the front lines do not want to subsidize those who do nothing to help defend the country.
Meanwhile, the far-right nationalist elements of the ruling coalition, such as those advocating aggressive settlement growth in the West Bank, pose problems for Israel’s international relations. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, represent constituencies that consider any land concession a betrayal, but they also alienate the moderate vote, which is so important to Israel’s relations with the United States.
The National Unity party and the centrists, who previously gave Netanyahu the benefit of the doubt, now appear exhausted by the years of political turmoil and government ineptitude. Current polls indicate that Netanyahu’s Likud party retains a hard core of loyalists returning 25-27 seats, but building the critical 61-seat coalition in the 120-seat Knesset seems a daunting challenge. Opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, who previously failed to mount a united challenge, now believe they have a genuine opportunity to end the Netanyahu era.
The Trump card
The return of Donald Trump to the White House brought a fascinating international dimension into Netanyahu’s electoral calculations. Netanyahu may expect diplomatic support and even intervention on his side. The Israeli prime minister and the American president had a perfect relationship during the first term of the American president. This was due to their conservative values and the unprecedented pro-Israeli moves by the American president, including the declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the American embassy, and signing the Abraham Accords with Arab countries.
Netanyahu may be depending on Trump to provide public support, apply pressure on Israeli opposition politicians, or deliver another public gesture, perhaps a new Middle East peace plan or a security commitment, to coincide with Netanyahu’s electoral chances. But one must not forget that Trump’s transactional nature has a flip side as well. If Netanyahu is viewed as a political liability or a losing bet, Trump has shown no qualms about dumping former friends. The only interest of the American president is his own electoral success, not Netanyahu’s.
The unthinkable scenarios
However, the most perplexing question remains whether Israeli President Isaac Herzog will use his constitutional power to pardon Netanyahu, bringing an end to the legal quagmire that has dominated Israeli politics for the last couple of years. Although this remains a legal possibility, the resulting fallout would likely engulf Israel in a deep constitutional crisis. President Herzog, who has managed to remain apolitical, will face a storm of criticism for subverting the rule of law and destroying the independence of the Israeli judicial system. The result, Israeli legal scholars warn, Herzog’s decision will likely prove to be more harmful to Israeli democracy than the conviction of the former Israeli Prime Minister.
The second scenario is even more sinister: could Netanyahu, on the brink of electoral defeat, deliberately heighten military tensions with Iran to mobilize support among nationalists to postpone the election? While such theories are often dismissed as conspiratorial, the reality remains that Netanyahu has spent years framing Iran as an existential threat and commands the military and intelligence apparatus necessary to catalyse a crisis. A military operation against Iran could unite Israelis behind their brave leader at a time when it makes no sense to hold an election during a time of crisis.
This would represent a cynical deployment of national security for the sake of survival. However, in light of the high stakes involved—the very continuation of power versus a jail sentence—some cannot dismiss it as impossible. This stems from Netanyahu’s track record of pushing political boundaries and strategically utilizing every available resource to maintain his grip on power. Israel’s election in May is more than a routine democratic election. The situation has evolved into a referendum on whether a single leader’s fate should determine a nation’s future, whether his legal entanglements should compromise national security, and whether a democracy can endure a figure willing to push every boundary to evade accountability. The Israeli public has a choice: continuity with a tainted but proven leader or seek change and an unknown future with leaders from the opposition who lack Netanyahu’s international standing and military credentials. The choice for Netanyahu himself may be simple: victory means freedom; loss means going to prison. When a man has everything to lose, the rest of the world holds its breath.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260127-trump-tehran-and-the-trial-the-countdown-to-the-unknown-begins/
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Netanyahu the biggest obstacle to Trump’s Gaza plan
OSAMA AL-SHARIF
January 27, 2026
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was never on board when US President Donald Trump announced his 20-point Gaza peace plan, which led to the Oct. 10 ceasefire agreement. He has resisted pressure to honour Israel’s commitments under phase one of the plan: allowing the unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid and stopping the killing of Palestinians in Gaza. More than 450 Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed since the ceasefire came into effect. And Israel has prevented the entry of the caravans and shelter needed to protect tens of thousands of displaced Gazans from the bitter cold that has swept the region for weeks. Infants have died of cold and exposure as a result.
Netanyahu was equally unhappy with Trump’s idea of establishing a “Board of Peace” to oversee the implementation of his plan, including the naming of a Palestinian national committee to run the enclave and inviting international troops to serve as a stabilization force in Gaza.
When Trump unveiled the four-tier structure of his Board of Peace this month — with an executive committee, a Palestinian national committee, a US general to head the stabilization force and a high commissioner to liaise between the Palestinian technocratic body and the executive committee — Netanyahu found himself cornered. Trump had stripped him of leverage regarding the fate of the Palestinian enclave. The US president also announced it was time to move to the second phase of the plan, which would entail Israel’s gradual withdrawal from Gaza, in addition to disarming Hamas.
But the real challenge for the Board of Peace will be forcing Netanyahu to yield and embrace the plan and its requirements fully and unconditionally. One litmus test is the opening of the Rafah border crossing. Trump sent his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Israel earlier this week to push this step forward. Netanyahu resisted, reiterating that for the crossing to open, Hamas must hand over the body of the last Israeli captive.
Within 24 hours, the Israeli military found the hostage’s remains in an area under its control in Gaza. Netanyahu bowed — but not before setting new conditions. He would allow the Rafah crossing to open not for aid trucks, but only for pedestrians to travel between Gaza and Egypt as part of a “limited reopening.”
Meanwhile, Israel continues to refuse entry to the 15-member Palestinian committee tasked with assuming responsibilities in the beleaguered Strip.
Whatever the outcome of Kushner and Witkoff’s trip to Israel, the general impression is that Netanyahu will continue fighting to have a final say on what happens next in Gaza. While the two US envoys met with Netanyahu, Israeli shelling killed at least three Palestinians in various parts of the Strip. The Israeli army has also continued expanding areas under its control beyond the so-called Yellow Line. It is believed to occupy nearly 60 percent of Gaza. The areas under its control have been flattened, while the army is digging deep trenches to prevent Palestinians from returning to what used to be their homes.
Trump’s Board of Peace has sent tremors across the globe because it has been given a mandate that extends beyond Gaza. Most of America’s Western allies have declined the invitation to join. The Arab and Muslim nations that have joined have done so after a careful assessment of the costs and benefits. Being on board regarding Gaza’s future is better than opting out. Working with Trump and his aides from within far outweighs being locked out of the deliberations and discussions.
The Palestinian Authority has not been represented at any level of Trump’s plan and is unlikely to have a role in the near future, pending its much-touted reform, which is a red herring. As much as the PA needs genuine reform and accountability, Israel will never approve of a Palestinian body that seeks to fulfil the ambition of a two-state solution.
Even so, Netanyahu’s recent political manoeuvres do not bode well for the Board of Peace and Trump’s peace plan. He remains the biggest obstacle to ending the carnage, opening border crossings and allowing much-needed aid and supplies to enter freely.
Ironically, Netanyahu and his far-right partners still espouse a plan to forcibly remove Gazans from the enclave, retain open-ended military control of the Strip and prevent reconstruction efforts.
The opening of the Rafah crossing will put Trump’s plan and his board to the ultimate test. Already, Netanyahu is seeking to derail that effort. He now plans to establish another crossing point, totally controlled by Israel, next to Rafah inside Gaza. Netanyahu is always planning ahead, working to impose new conditions that will keep him in the game.
At some point, the US president must realize that only one man stands in the way of truly ending the war, easing the plight of Gazans and allowing the implementation of his plan. That man is Netanyahu, whose self-interest requires that the Gaza crisis continues so that he can keep his coalition alive and avoid accountability for the debacle of Oct. 7, 2023.
Netanyahu will seek ways to delay moving to the second phase. He still rejects any role for Turkiye and Qatar on the executive board. He wants the final say on what enters Gaza and who is allowed to return. He will resist the deployment of foreign troops and find excuses not to withdraw his army a single inch.
Such clear disdain for what Trump is trying to achieve should be evident to the White House by now. For Trump’s plan to proceed, Netanyahu must commit openly and without delay, regardless of his personal calculations. Only one man can force him to do so: the US president.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2630787
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Homes, Not Illusions – Inside Gaza’s Rejection of Kushner’s Vision for ‘Rebuilding’ the Strip
January 28, 2026
By Noor Alyacoubi
Waiting for Basic Shelter
More than three months into the ceasefire, people in Gaza are clinging to any trace of hope that their homes will be rebuilt and their lives restored after two years of genocide that stripped them of even the most necessities. They are not asking for luxury. What they want is a simple cement house that can protect them from harsh winter winds and heavy rain, and from the burning summer sun.
Yet the plan put forward by Jared Kushner, which presents Gaza as a modern, polished enclave filled with skyscrapers, luxury resorts, ports, and investment hubs, has failed to inspire relief or optimism among Palestinians. Instead, it has been widely dismissed or viewed as an illusion designed to conceal the real intentions of Israel and the United States toward the Strip.
Scepticism on the Ground
“The United States has long acted as Israel’s primary backer and has supported the genocide in Gaza for two years,” said Mohammed Abu Own, a 35-year-old researcher from Gaza who lost his twin son and daughter, along with his home, in an Israeli airstrike in early 2024. “Why would it suddenly be concerned about our prosperity and reconstruction?”
“I believe this plan was not designed to end our suffering or reduce unemployment,” he added, describing it as unserious and unconvincing. According to him, the proposal lacks practical details and a clear timeline, turning it into “a form of political blackmail rather than a genuine reconstruction effort.”
Abu Own argues that the plan raises more questions than it answers and appears aimed at reshaping Gaza both geographically and demographically. Based on available descriptions, the plan divides the Strip into so-called “executive phases,” beginning in Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south and extending northward toward Gaza City.
Through this gradual process, critics fear Gaza’s identity would be altered under the cover of prosperity and modernization.
Under the proposal, the coastline is envisioned as a dense strip of tourism and investment towers, while the heart of Gaza City is portrayed as a zone of massive industrial compounds and advanced data centres. Eastern border areas are designated for industrial use in a manner resembling an expanded, population-free ‘buffer zone’. The plan also includes major infrastructure projects such as a port, an airport, a railway, and a tri-border crossing located in the far southeast of Rafah.
Ignoring Gaza’s Social Fabric
While the plan places heavy emphasis on economic development, it largely ignores Palestinians’ lived reality and the cultural, social, and religious fabric that defines Gaza’s historical identity.
“They want to replace national rights with employment projects,” Abu Own said. “They want to diminish our presence and erase our identity.”
Before October 7, 2023, Gaza had a distinct character rooted in Arab and Islamic traditions. Homes were built close together, neighbourhoods were tightly knit, and extended families often lived in the same buildings or along the same streets. Daily life revolved around proximity, shared spaces, and strong social bonds.
“We cannot live in compounds or skyscrapers,” Abu Own said. “Our way of life is inherited from our grandparents and ancestors. It’s traditional, communal, and far removed from the chaos and alienation of modern urban living.”
Economic Claims Under Scrutiny
The plan also fails to treat Palestinians as victims of war who deserve peace, stability, compensation, and humanitarian relief. Instead, it frames them primarily as a labour force meant to serve ambitious development projects—projects that many Palestinians doubt will ever materialize.
Kushner’s claim that unemployment in Gaza could reach zero percent within three years of implementing the plan has been met with widespread scepticism.
“This alone proves how unconvincing the proposal is and deepens our doubts about its real intentions,” said Mohammed Rushdy, an engineer at the Gaza Municipality. “No country in the world, even the most economically advanced, has ever achieved zero percent unemployment.”
“The United States itself, which is often described as the most powerful country in the world, has an unemployment rate of around 4.4 percent,” Rushdy added.
Rushdy also questioned the three-year timeline allocated for implementation. Gaza, he noted, covers only 365 square kilometres.
“Entire industrial and smart cities have been built from scratch within three years,” he said. “For Gaza, this is an excessively long timeline given its small geographic size.”
Reality on the Ground
These concerns become even more pressing when measured against the reality on the ground. Over the past two months, and continuing to this day, the Israeli army has carried out large-scale demolition operations within what is known as the “yellow line,” an area that now consumes nearly 55 percent of Gaza’s total land.
With only 45 percent of the Strip remaining for nearly two million people, Abu Own questions where the plan’s proposed projects and massive investments would even be built. Would they be established across the entire Strip, or only on the shrinking areas not under Israeli control? How could Gaza physically absorb such a vast number of towers and industrial facilities within its limited space?
Political Conditions
Further doubts about the plan’s credibility emerged when Kushner linked its success to several political conditions, most notably the disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions. Palestinians argue that this condition renders the plan’s implementation uncertain and dependent on shifting political calculations and the will of Israel and the United States.
For many in Gaza, these contradictions reinforce a single conclusion: the plan is not about rebuilding lives, but about reshaping the Strip on terms imposed from outside, with little regard for the people who call it home. Real intentions of settlement, they believe, are concealed behind this plan.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/homes-not-illusions-inside-gazas-rejection-of-kushners-vision-for-rebuilding-the-strip/
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Gaza Health Releases New Devastating Numbers, Warns Health System Near Collapse
January 27, 2026
Gaza’s Health Ministry warned on Tuesday that thousands of patients and wounded civilians face an imminent risk of death due to the continued closure of the Rafah border crossing, describing the situation as one of the most severe medical crises the enclave has faced during the war.
According to the ministry, approximately 20,000 patients with completed medical referrals are currently unable to leave Gaza for treatment abroad, including 4,500 children. Of these cases, 440 are classified as life-saving emergencies, requiring immediate evacuation.
The ministry reported that 1,268 patients have already died while waiting for permission to travel for medical care since Rafah was closed on May 7, 2024, following Israel’s ground assault on southern Gaza.
Only 3,100 patients have been allowed to leave the Strip during that period.
Health officials attributed the rising death toll to a combination of severe shortages of medicines and medical supplies, the collapse of most specialized health services, and the widespread destruction of hospital infrastructure across Gaza.
Many facilities remain partially functional or entirely out of service after repeated Israeli attacks.
Cancer Patients Among the Hardest Hit
Cancer patients are among the most affected groups, with the Health Ministry stating that 4,000 oncology patients are currently on urgent waiting lists. Diagnostic services and specialized treatments are largely unavailable inside Gaza, leaving patients without viable alternatives.
Medical authorities warned that continued delays will result in unpredictable health consequences, including further preventable deaths and an ever-growing backlog of medical referrals.
“The reopening of Rafah, the evacuation of patients and wounded, and the uninterrupted entry of medical supplies are now the last remaining lifeline,” the ministry said in a statement.
Political Pressure Over Rafah Crossing
The warning came one day after Hamas reiterated that Israel must fully implement all provisions of the ceasefire agreement, including the reopening of the Rafah crossing in both directions without restrictions.
In a statement issued Monday, Hamas said Israel must stop delaying its obligations, allow the unrestricted entry of humanitarian and medical supplies, withdraw fully from Gaza, and facilitate the work of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.
Israel has repeatedly linked the reopening of Rafah to political and security conditions, despite international pressure and mounting humanitarian concerns.
Deaths Continue Despite Ceasefire
The health crisis is unfolding as Gaza’s overall death toll continues to rise despite the ceasefire that took effect on October 11, 2025.
According to WAFA, at least 71,662 Palestinians — mostly women and children — have been killed since October 2023, with more than 171,400 injured.
Since the ceasefire began, 488 Palestinians have been killed and 1,350 wounded, largely due to continued Israeli fire and military operations.
Medical sources added that at least 714 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble since the ceasefire, while many others remain inaccessible.
The humanitarian toll has been compounded by winter conditions. A 12-day-old infant recently died from hypothermia at Al-Rantisi Hospital, raising the number of children who have died from cold exposure to 11 since the start of winter.
System Under Strain
Health officials stressed that Gaza’s medical system can no longer absorb the crisis alone. With hospitals overwhelmed, staff exhausted, and supplies critically low, they warned that without immediate access through Rafah, the number of preventable deaths will continue to climb.
“This is no longer a looming catastrophe,” the Health Ministry said. “It is unfolding every day.”
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/gaza-health-releases-new-devastating-numbers-warns-health-system-near-collapse/
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Exposed – How the UAE Became Central to Gaza’s Concentration Camp Plot
January 27, 2026
By Robert Inlakesh
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a key player in the current Gaza Ceasefire and, as Israel’s primary Gulf partner, is proposing major investments in the besieged coastal territory. While the Emiratis portray their role as purely humanitarian, it being the top aid donor since the beginning of the genocide, a much more insidious plot is in fact afoot.
Emirati influence in the Gaza Strip did not begin following October 7, 2023, and has not been limited to humanitarian aid missions. As the leading Arab member nation of the US’s “Abraham Accords”, the UAE exercises considerable power on the political, intelligence, economic, and military levels.
Often, the UAE-Gaza relationship is portrayed as purely humanitarian; the evidence used to suggest this is the $1.8 billion in aid spent on the territory in just over two years. While all the donated humanitarian supplies have certainly been crucial to the population’s survival, a famine was still declared, and the most vulnerable segments of society began to both fall ill and die as a result of the lack of assistance. This was due to Israel’s total blockade for three months, during which flights—both commercial and reportedly military—continued between the UAE and Israel.
While the lack of aid cannot be blamed directly on the UAE, it is largely underreported that, by proxy, Abu Dhabi does share guilt in the suffering of the civilian population in Gaza and seeks to further involve itself in plots designed to torment the Palestinian people.
In May of 2024, after the Israeli military invaded Rafah, closing off the crossing between Egypt and Gaza, the occupying military began forming a group of ISIS-linked gangsters and hardline Salafists, working with them to loot aid entering the Gaza Strip. The first of the groups, led by the now deceased Yasser Abu Shabab, was for months used by Israel to steal humanitarian aid and drip-feed it onto the black market, making it so that the population began to starve.
Later that same year, the Yasser Abu Shabab aid-looting gangs, who worked under Israeli protection and the watch of the occupying military, underwent a facelift and were disingenuously portrayed in the Western corporate media as a grassroots anti-Hamas force. Following the ceasefire that began in January of 2025 and was later violated by Israel in March, these ISIS-linked aid-looting militants returned to the scene in Israeli-supplied tactical gear and began calling themselves the “Popular Forces”.
Then came what was called the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) privatized aid scheme, which is where the UAE comes into the picture. The GHF transformed into a catastrophe, as Private Military Contractors (PMCs) lured starving Palestinians to aid sites to be gunned down en masse. Well over 2,000 civilians were killed by what they would label a “death trap”.
What many are unaware of is that part of the GHF conspiracy was to use this aid mechanism as a means of mass displacing at least 600,000 Palestinians into a gated concentration camp facility built on the ruins of Rafah. Not only would the GHF’s trigger-happy PMCs be used to support this project, but the ISIS-linked “Popular Forces” death squad, now transformed into an Israeli proxy against Hamas, would police this concentration camp.
Before the GHF’s emergence on the scene, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had reportedly instructed his military to begin the construction of the proposed concentration camp, designed to transfer around 600,000 civilians then living in the Mawasi area.
The United Arab Emirates, under the guise of its “Operation Gallant Knight 3” (al-Faris al-Shahm), which is sold as a purely humanitarian mission, just so happened to coincidentally have been building water desalination facilities in Egypt’s al-Arish, right along the Gaza border.
Emirati state-owned media reported as early as January 2024 that the UAE had built six such water facilities on the Egyptian border, capable of supplying around 600,000 people in Gaza. A real coincidence, considering that the Emiratis just so happened to have prepared the infrastructure for such a concentration camp well before Israel had even publicly proposed it.
When Israel began openly proposing the new concentration camp in Rafah in 2025, before the ceasefire, the UAE openly pledged to help provide water to the new planned “community” in southern Gaza.
This project quickly began to collapse; then came the ceasefire and the dissolution of the infamous GHF. However, the Israelis didn’t give up on their ISIS-linked proxies and instead began creating even more groups, now reaching a total of five separate anti-Hamas militias. It wasn’t long before information started leaking regarding a UAE role in aiding these ISIS-linked groups, which now exist behind Gaza’s so-called “Yellow Line” in the territory that the Israeli military currently controls.
On January 21 of this year, Drop Site News revealed that leaked documents it had seen detailed a plot to construct a new “Planned Community” in Rafah, presented as what the article labelled an “Israeli Panopticon”. On January 23, The Guardian then released a new bombshell piece of information on this “planned community”—set to be built in Israeli-occupied territory as part of the alleged “reconstruction” component of the Gaza ceasefire—the United Arab Emirates is planning to bankroll it.
The likelihood of such a concentration camp facility successfully being constructed on the ruins of Rafah, capable of housing 600,000 people, is still in question—especially given the fact that the attempt to construct a similar model failed before the latest ceasefire. Yet, the mere fact that the Israelis and Emiratis can demonstrably be shown to have been preparing to supply such a community with water, only months into the genocide, is striking.
In addition to its role in backing ISIS-linked death squads in Gaza and supporting the construction of a concentration camp “community” in Rafah, the UAE also provided an economic and logistical lifeline to Israel during its genocide.
Abu Dhabi’s trade ties with Tel Aviv during the genocide escalated, despite occasional Emirati statements of condemnation against Israeli war crimes. A 21% surge in trade occurred in 2025, for example, an increase on the record $3.2 billion in bilateral trade of 2024, during which the Israelis inflicted a man-made famine in Gaza.
Amid mass international airline cancellations and carriers refusing to fly to Israel, the Emiratis continued flights regardless and played a key role as a transit route for Israelis. Dubai even became the top holiday destination for Israelis last year, including for countless Israeli soldiers who were deployed in Gaza.
The key regional diplomatic lifeline for Israel throughout the genocide has been the UAE. In addition to this, the trade corridor created by the Emiratis to aid the Israelis enabled them to survive and partially circumvent the damage caused by the siege imposed on the Red Sea by Yemen’s Ansarallah.
Abu Dhabi also collaborates with the Israelis on their broader foreign policy objectives, including in the construction of an airbase in Somaliland, in Yemen’s Socotra Island, and beyond. The UAE-Israeli alliance is present in the Horn of Africa, across West Asia and North Africa, interfering in the internal affairs of countless nations. They also collaborate on projects to isolate and attack the Muslim Brotherhood, in addition to funding joint anti-Islam propaganda projects.
Then there is the UAE’s role in using the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s former Preventive Security Force head, Mohammed Dahlan, to not only command various initiatives across multiple continents but to push specific agendas in the Gaza Strip, and even the West Bank to a lesser degree.
The High Representative for Gaza in Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” (BoP) is none other than Nickolay Mladenov, who resides in the UAE and in 2021 became the director-general of the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi. Mladenov is also a Segal Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)—often described as the think tank arm of the Israel Lobby in the US.
Hiding behind the cover of being Gaza’s “top humanitarian aid donor,” the UAE has managed to work hand in hand with Israel in its projects to destroy the Palestinian people and their cause for statehood.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/exposed-how-the-uae-became-central-to-gazas-concentration-camp-plot/
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