Arab Group at UN Rejects Israeli Proposal on Gaza Aid - Jordan News
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U.S. envoy Witkoff to meet Israeli, Qatari officials in Rome in Gaza ceasefire push
Ammon News - White House Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff plans to meet in Rome on Thursday with senior Qatari and Israeli officials to continue negotiations over the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, two sources with knowledge of the meeting told Axios. The trilateral meeting in Rome will take place as negotiators from Hamas and Israel holding indirect negotiations in Doha on the last sticking points. Witkoff made it clear to the parties in recent weeks that he will join the talks in Doha only if a deal is close at hand. But sources with knowledge of the issue said that the meeting in Rome is a signal that a deal might be a matter of days away. Witkoff is expected to depart for Rome on Wednesday and arrive on Thursday for a meeting with Israeli minister for strategic affairs Ron Dermer and a senior Qatari envoy. It will be a follow-up to a similar meeting between the three at the White House two weeks ago. If sufficient progress is made, Witkoff will travel from Rome to Doha toward the end of the week to try and seal the deal, according to a U.S. source and an Israeli source familiar with the details. Israel and mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. are waiting for Hamas' response to the latest proposal.
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Beyond Gaza's shadow: The unseen war for the West Bank's future
Israel is meticulously following a textbook model of instigating unrest in the occupied West Bank. The latest such provocations consisted of stripping the Palestinian-run Hebron (Al-Khalil) municipality of its administrative powers over the venerable Ibrahimi Mosque. Worse, according to Israel Hayom, it granted these powers to the religious council of the Kiryat Arba Jewish settlement, an extremist settler body. Though all Jewish settlers in occupied Palestine can be qualified as extremists, the approximately 7,500 inhabitants of Kiryat Arba represent a more virulent category. This settlement, established in 1972, serves as a strategic foothold to justify subjecting Hebron to stricter military control than virtually any other part of the West Bank. Kiryat Arba is infamously linked to Baruch Goldstein, the US-Israeli settler who, in February 1994, unleashed a horrific attack. He opened fire at Muslim worshipers kneeling for dawn prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque, mercilessly killing 29. This bloodbath was swiftly followed by another, where the Israeli army brutally cracked down on Palestinian protesters in Hebron and across the West Bank, murdering an additional 25 Palestinians. Yet, the Israeli Shamgar Commission, tasked with investigating the massacre, resolved in 1994 that the Palestinian mosque, a site of profound religious significance, was to be grotesquely divided: 63% allocated to Jewish worshipers and a mere 37% to Palestinian Muslims. Since that calamitous decision, oppressive restrictions have been systematically imposed. These include pervasive surveillance and, at times, unjustifiable, extended closures of the site, solely for exclusive settler use. The latest decision, described by Israel Hayom as "historic and unprecedented," is profoundly dangerous. It places the fate of this historic Palestinian mosque directly into the hands of those fanatically keen on acquiring the holy site in its entirety. But the Ibrahimi Mosque is merely a microcosm of something far more sinister underway across the West Bank. Israel has exploited its war in Gaza to dramatically escalate its violence, carry out mass arrests, confiscate vast tracts of land, systematically destroy Palestinian farms and orchards, and aggressively expand illegal settlements. Though the West Bank, previously largely subdued by joint Israeli military pressures and Palestinian Authority crackdowns, was not a direct party to the October 7, 2023, assault nor the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, it has inexplicably become a major focus for Israeli military measures. In the first year of the war, over 10,400 Palestinians were detained in Israeli army crackdowns, with thousands held without charge. Furthermore, hundreds of Palestinians have been forcibly ethnically cleansed, largely from the northern West Bank, where entire refugee camps and towns have been systematically destroyed in protracted Israeli military campaigns. Israel's overarching aim remains the strangulation of the West Bank. This is achieved by severing communities using ubiquitous military checkpoints, imposing total closures of vast regions, and the cruel suspension of work permits for Palestinian laborers, who are almost entirely dependent on the Israeli work market for survival. This insidious plan also explicitly targeted all Palestinian holy sites, including the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, and the Ibrahimi Mosque. Even when these shrines were nominally accessible, age restrictions and suffocating military checkpoints make it difficult, at times utterly impossible, for Palestinians to worship there. In August 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that his relentless violent campaign against the West Bank was part of confronting the "broader Iran terror axis." Practically, this statement served as a green light for the Israeli army to treat the West Bank as an extension of the ongoing Israeli genocide on Gaza. By mid-July 2025, over 900 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank, while at least 15 were murdered by settlers. As Palestinians were pushed further against the wall, with no centralized strategy by their leadership to meaningfully resist, Israel exponentially increased its illegal settlement constructions and the brazen legalization of numerous outposts, many built illegally even by Israeli government standards. Israel's actions in the West Bank were not a sudden deviation but consistent with a long-standing, insidious scheme. This includes a plan solidified by the Israeli Knesset in 2020 that allowed Israel to officially annex the West Bank. Israel's ultimate goal has always been to confine the majority of Palestinians into Bantustan-like enclaves, while asserting full control over the vast majority of the region. In August 2023, extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir articulated this sinister vision: "My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria (the occupied West Bank) is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs." More coercive measures swiftly followed, including Knesset laws to significantly curtail UNRWA operations, and further legislation to entrench de facto annexation. Last May, Smotrich audaciously announced 22 more settlements. On July 2, 14 Israeli ministers made a public call on Netanyahu to immediately annex the West Bank. In fact, every action Israel has undertaken, especially since the commencement of its devastating genocide in Gaza, has been carefully calculated to culminate in the irreversible annexation of the West Bank - a process that would inevitably be followed by declaring native inhabitants persona non grata in their own homeland. This level of systemic pressure and oppression will ultimately lead to a popular explosion. Though suppressed by the brutality of the Israeli army, the terror of armed settlers, and the suppressive actions of the Palestinian Authority, the breaking point is fast approaching. Those in the West who preach hollow calls for calm and de-escalation must understand the region is hurtling towards the brink. Neither diplomatic platitudes nor sterile press releases will suffice to avert the catastrophe. They are advised to act decisively against Israel's destructive policies, and they must act immediately. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is 'Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out'. His other books include 'My Father was a Freedom Fighter' and 'The Last Earth'. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA)
Ammon
2 hours ago
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Strategic crossroads: Jordan, Israel, and the shifting regional order
The joint press conference held recently in Amman—featuring Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, U.S. Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barak, and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani—delivered a powerful message about the region's shifting dynamics. It underscored Jordan's deep concern over the tragic events unfolding in Suwayda and, more broadly, in Syria. For Amman, these developments are not merely neighboring conflicts—they are directly linked to Jordan's national security and its evolving regional role. The ongoing unrest in Suwayda, despite a declared ceasefire, remains volatile and laden with strategic implications from a Jordanian perspective. Chief among these is the dangerous shift in Israel's security doctrine—from a defensive posture to one of assertive regional dominance. Israel now aspires to be the region's foremost power, even positioning itself as the sole security enforcer in the Middle East. Israel's agenda in Syria appears to oscillate between two alarming objectives: fragmenting the country into a collection of weak, rival statelets; and establishing a demilitarized, fragile zone in southern Syria—open to regular Israeli military intervention. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly declared his ambition for such a demilitarized zone. More concerning, however, is Israel's attempt to legitimize its military involvement by invoking the protection of the Druze community and engaging with Druze religious leaders such as Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri in Suwayda. Through these moves, Israel is positioning itself as a stakeholder in Syria's internal affairs, laying claim to the right to shape its future—a development with potentially far-reaching consequences for the entire region. From Amman's standpoint, what's unfolding in Suwayda resonates deeply with national security priorities. In a recent closed-door roundtable hosted by the Politics and Society Institute, Jordanian military, intelligence, and policy experts emphasized that the crisis in Suwayda cannot be viewed in isolation from what's happening in Gaza—or even the West Bank. Participants warned that Israel's evolving strategy could soon manifest in dangerous new policies across the region, including in the occupied Palestinian territories. But how does Suwayda connect to the West Bank? To answer this, we must first identify the threats Israel's actions in Syria pose to Jordan. Jordan's primary strategic interest in Syria is preserving the territorial unity of the Syrian state. That depends on the strength of the new political system and its capacity to integrate Syria's diverse communities into a cohesive national framework. Any descent into civil war or political fragmentation would not only destabilize Syria, but also trigger cascading threats across the region—chief among them, to Jordan. These include fresh waves of refugees, a potential ISIS resurgence, border insecurity, disruptions to shared water resources, delays in refugee repatriation, and a spike in cross-border drug smuggling and terrorism. From this vantage point, Israel's strategic direction in Syria constitutes a top-tier threat to Jordan. This threat is compounded by fears in Amman that the Israeli far-right government may seek to establish a pro-Israel Druze enclave in southern Syria—reminiscent of the South Lebanon Army during the Lebanese civil war. Such a development would trigger two deeply concerning consequences: renewed displacement of Syrian populations from Daraa due to worsening conditions, and an Israeli encirclement of Jordan from the north and west—effectively transforming Tel Aviv into a regional juggernaut. This leads us back to the West Bank. Under Israel's current strategic vision, the two-state solution has been effectively abandoned. At the same time, the Trump administration has shown no real interest in reviving peace efforts. On the contrary, Israel appears to be implementing a premeditated plan involving land annexation, the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, and the transformation of the West Bank into isolated, controllable cantons. What is unfolding in Syria—especially in the aftermath of the October 7 attack and Israel's war on Gaza—and what is brewing in the West Bank, are both manifestations of a dangerous new Israeli strategic doctrine. These developments suggest that no regional actor currently possesses either the political will or the leverage to halt Israeli efforts to forcibly reshape the demographic and geopolitical landscape in line with Netanyahu's long-term vision. If Israel can redraw the map in Syria, it is all the more capable of implementing even more consequential policies in the West Bank and Jerusalem, particularly regarding the Palestinian demographic question—posing a direct challenge to Jordan's core interests. Jordan's problem with Israel, then, is no longer limited to the occupation of the West Bank. It is now inseparably linked to Israel's broader regional ambitions—in Syria, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza. This means that diplomatic tensions and strategic anxieties between Amman and Tel Aviv are steadily intensifying, despite the existing peace treaty. Even more alarming is that Israel no longer seeks to present itself as a vulnerable, security-conscious state. Instead, it is acting as a dominant regional power bent on imposing its agenda and capitalizing on the overwhelming imbalance of power in its favor.
