An Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in the foreseeable future is unachievable, as is a credible process for reaching one. Since 2002, Crisis Group has been working to advance a new, inclusive peacemaking model for Israelis and Palestinians and to reduce the likelihood of deadly conflict among Palestinians and between Israel and its neighbours.
Millions of Palestinian refugees rely on the UN Relief and Works Agency for services and employment opportunities. But the agency’s finances are in dire straits, putting the refugees’ wellbeing at risk. Donors should step up with sustainable, predictable, multi-year funding.
Israeli forces and settler attacks killed over a dozen Palestinians, as settler violence reached highest levels ever recorded and govt expanded settlement funding.
Israeli raids, settler violence and Palestinian gunmen roiled West Bank and Israel. Israeli military forces and settlers killed at least 18 Palestinians in Aug, while Palestinian attacks killed five Israelis. UN 4 Aug recorded 39% annual increase in settler attacks in first six months of 2023, highest since it began gathering data in 2006, while UN envoy 21 Aug said Palestinian casualties in 2023 have already surpassed 2022 figures, marking highest toll since 2005. Notably, Palestinian 1 Aug shot and injured six Israelis before being killed in Maale Adumim settlement. Israeli settlers 4 Aug killed Palestinian in Burqa village and 6 Aug killed Palestinian near Ramallah; Palestinian hours later killed Israeli security guard before being shot dead in Tel Aviv. Israeli forces 6 Aug killed three Palestinians near Jenin. Suspected Palestinian gunmen 19 Aug killed two Israelis in Huwara village. In rare clash, Palestinian security forces 30 Aug killed Palestinian in Tulkarem refugee camp.
Israel accelerated settlement building, Palestinian prisoners began hunger strike. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich 15 Aug announced plans to allocate $180mn to West Bank settlements after freezing funds to Palestinian communities in Israel and East Jerusalem; Arab local councils 21 Aug held strike in protest and Smotrich 28 Aug said he would unblock funds. Meanwhile, Palestinian administrative detainees in Israeli prisons early Aug began open-ended hunger strike in protest of detention without charge or trial; issue could provoke retaliation if any prisoner dies. Hundreds of Arab citizens of Israel 23 Aug voiced anger at govt’s failure to curb wave of criminal violence.
In other important developments. Amid legitimacy crisis facing Palestinian Authority (PA), PA President Abbas 10 Aug fired 12 governors in West Bank and Gaza in apparent attempt to reclaim public confidence. Tens of thousands of Israelis 17-19 Aug continued protesting govt’s judicial overhaul in Tel Aviv. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant 8 Aug threatened to “return Lebanon to the Stone Age (see Lebanon). Suspected Israeli airstrikes struck Syrian capital Damascus.
[Israeli settlers] are completely emboldened by this government. They have the legitimacy they didn’t have before politically and that gives settlers a lot more audacity.
Israel and one of its neighbors [Lebanon] - a neighbor that doesn't officially recognize Israel - have come to a constructive solution for a conflict. And that's histor...
Israeli security interests are best served by Lebanon's economy being rebuilt rather than the crisis getting worse.
In this video, Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for Lebanon, David Wood, warns that tensions between Hizbollah and Israel risk ending the relative calm of the past seventeen years.
This week on War & Peace, Olga Oliker talks with historian and writer Dr. Ilana Bet-El about the ongoing protests in Israel, the surge of the far right in that country and parallel political developments in Europe and beyond.
Young Palestinians have formed new armed groups across the West Bank. Small, disjointed and scattered, they lack a clear political agenda. But both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have found reason to exaggerate the threat they pose to the status quo.
As Israeli protesters rage against their far-right government’s anti-democratic legislation, military raids and settler attacks continue in the West Bank. Without steps to de-escalate the situation, violence there or in Jerusalem could spiral during the Muslim and Jewish holidays in the weeks ahead.
This week on War & Peace, Olga Oliker and Elissa Jobson are joined by Sam Sokol, reporter at Haaretz, to discuss the impact of the war in Ukraine on the country's Jewish communities, accusations of anti-semitism in Ukraine and Russia and their relationship to the real thing, and Ukraine-Israel relations.
This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood speaks with Mairav Zonszein and Tahani Mustafa, Crisis Group’s Israel/Palestine experts, about the past week’s violence, which follows the deadliest year in the West Bank and Jerusalem for almost two decades.
With Mahmoud Abbas ageing, a change is drawing near at the top of the Palestinian national movement. It remains unclear how a successor will be chosen. Elections are the best way, but Abbas and his circle are likely to try other, riskier means first.
Just days after a new Israeli government was sworn in, one of its most extreme members paid a provocative thirteen-minute visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount/al-Aqsa Mosque complex. In this Q&A, Crisis Group expert Mairav Zonszein looks at what is behind this move and what it implies.
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