Israel HAS worked to get rid of its enemy Hamas…
THAT has resulted in desolate , famine stricken lawless territory that can’t even feed itself due to looting…..
Could Israel and the US are on the outs after Israel took out Syria’s military assets during the past few weeks…
The US has upwards of 2,000 troops in Syrian and has been backing the Kurds there…
(Would Trump back out the effort to keep a close eye on any ISIS activity there?)
The US HAS been talking to Syrian leaders….
Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack last year has unleashed a humanitarian crisis in the enclave, with more than 45,000 people dead, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Hunger is widespread, and Israel has placed restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza and blocked movement of aid trucks between the north and south.
Though Hamas has been routed in much of the territory, Israel has not put an alternative government in place. In parts of southern Gaza, armed gangs have filled the resulting power vacuum, leaving aid groups unwilling to risk delivering supplies.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said this month that it would no longer deliver aid through Kerem Shalom, the main border crossing between Israel and southern Gaza, because of the breakdown in law and order.
Hundreds of truckloads of relief are piling up at the crossing in part because aid groups fear they will be looted.
What began as smaller-scale attempts to seize aid early in the year — often by hungry Gazans — has now become “systematic, tactical, armed, crime-syndicate looting” by organized groups, said Georgios Petropoulos, a senior U.N. official based in the southern city of Rafah. “This is just larceny writ large,” he said….
Everyone is rushing to help rebuld Syria now that Assad is gone…
Top Arab diplomats visited the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Monday, the latest in a string of diplomatic overtures by the international community as Syria emerges from years of isolation under President Bashar al-Assad.
The visits by ministers from Jordan and Qatar, just two weeks after Mr. al-Assad’s fall, suggest that Arab nations are eager for better relations with a country that had been a pariah and a source of instability in the region.
Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Shara, held “extensive talks” with Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, in Damascus on Monday, according to a statement from the Jordanian foreign ministry. Hours later, Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, arrived in Syria and met with its new leadership, according to the Qatari foreign ministry.
They were among the first high-ranking Arab diplomats to visit Syria since Mr. al-Assad was toppled two weeks ago by the rebel coalition led by Mr. al-Shara. Top Arab diplomats vowed at a meeting in Jordan this month to “support a peaceful transition process” in Syria….
Dec 23, 2024 – ISW Press
The Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS)-led Syrian interim government stated it will discuss mechanisms for disarming and dissolving the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces’ (SDF) with SDF leadership, according to unspecified SDF sources. The sources cited by a Syrian journalist claimed that the interim government will avoid any negotiation to establish a decentralized system that grants some autonomy to Kurdish-governed areas.
Iran Update, December 22, 2024
Dec 22, 2024 – ISW Press
A senior official in the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expressed the readiness to negotiate with the Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS)-led interim government in order to determine the future role of the SDF. The HTS-led interim government continues to signal a shift away from Iran and the Axis of Resistance.
A look at the sitaution in the West Bank another sore spot for the Palestinians …..
David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, “We have ideologues on both sides of this equation that are determined to thwart any accommodation.”
In 2013, Makovsky was part of the team trying to negotiate a peace deal. That failed proposal, and two others, would have seen Palestinians keep about 95% of the West Bank.
But today, with the increasing number of settlements – blue dots on the map, some far from the Green Line – it may be even more complicated to determine borders in a two-state solution.
The negotiations changed under Donald Trump, said Makovsky: “Until Trump, all of the U.S. peace approaches were similar. Under Trump, working with Prime Minister Netanyahu, he doesn’t want to pick and choose which settlements make it and which don’t. So, the prime minister convinced the president that every single settlement is called Israel. Now that creates an impossible situation of Swiss cheese. Any Palestinian entity is now going to be dotted with settlements.”
Now, settlers may have another ally with sway in President-elect Trump’s nominee to be the next ambassador to Israel: Mike Huckabee, who has said he’s open to annexing parts of the West Bank…..
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