Analyses Archives - Page 9 of 31

Hamas, Trump and The Ceasefire

CrossFireArabia
May 27, 2025

By Dr Marwan Asmar

CROSSFIREARABIA – The USA wants a ceasefire on Gaza, yet it maintains its supplies of weapons to Israel which the latter uses to beat Palestinians with. This was the case with the former Joe Biden administration.

However, it is the Donald Trump administration that is now in the front brokerage seat, talking, and for the first time, to Hamas directly, face-to-face about ending the genocidal, destructive Israeli war on Gaza.

Benjamin Netanyahu is downright angry about this fact, yet he is making sure that he doesn’t upset Trump by his extremist utterances despite the fact that he is on record for wanting to continue the deadly war on the civilians of Gaza under the pretext of destroying Hamas and its military wing.

However, it has been clear, and at least for the past month that direct negotiations between US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and his team including Adam Boehler have been taking place with top members of Hamas despite the fact that Israel has stepped up its war on Gaza with its mass killing of its starving 2.2 million-population.

The recent breakthrough achieved by the two sides, Monday, is awaiting final approval by the Israeli government which is sending out mixed signals of agreements and discord. However, there is circulating news that Netanyahu is finally ready.

The new deal agreed upon with the American team is that Hamas would agree on a 60-day-ceasefire where the Islamic movement would free 10 alive and dead prisoners (five of each) on the first day of the deal and 10 (also alive and dead) at the end of 60 days.

The American-sponsored deal includes the lifting of the Israeli siege on Gaza and allowing the entry of 100 aid trucks per day to enter the territory. Meanwhile Witkoff says that during those 60 days talks would continue to negotiate a ceasefire on a permanent basis.

However, Israel is still mulling on the fact because it says the ceasefire negotiations originally agreed on with Witkoff last January are different than what the present US-Hamas is talking about. The Israeli side, mainly Netanyahu, states that they want Hamas out of Gaza but first of all they must lay-down their arms and stashed weapons. Finally, the Gaza Strip must be a free area from any weapons.

These are intractable issues although Hamas and directly talking with the Americans, has previously stated it would entertain the idea of Gaza being run by an independent committee. Such flexibility may be one indication why the American administration is talking to Hamas officials and which is unprecedented as no US government, including Trump in his first presidential term, talked to an organization that is on their “terrorist list”.

The latest breakthrough to achieve a ceasefire on Israel’s war on Gaza, relaunched on 19 March maybe seen as another hope-to-be-dashed as in previous long-talks in Cairo and Doha turned out to nothing and were no more than “talking shops” with the Israelis, especially Netanyahu unwilling to end the war on Gaza, and not least of all of what was regarded as weak US president in the form of Joe Biden and his Middle East roving Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

All this appear to be changing now for Trump wants to end all global wars and doesn’t want to pay American money around the globe as in the case with Biden and his support for Ukraine where billions of dollars were spent. He has already stopped the war with the Houthis after “massacring” the country for a little more than a month and costing the American treasury around a $1 billion.

The American president is talking to Iran on a new nuclear deal and is now talking to Hamas with a real possibility of achieving a deal to end the war and allow UN aid trucks to feed the hungry of Gaza who are once again dying of Israeli-imposed starvation.

To prove his point on wanting to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, Trump sacked his National Security Advisor Mike Waltz for talking to Netanyahu behind his back last April when delicate talks was being pursued between Trump administration officials and Hamas.

Tide turns

The tide is turning against Israel. As well as less endearing developments in the White House against Israel, many countries around the world, including states in the European Union like Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and many more are today calling for the stopping of the war on Gaza with many openly saying they would support the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

This is something which is making Israel’s government extremely jittery. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sar is today, adopting a threatening attitude. He says if these countries take this step Israel would declare its sovereignty on many areas of the occupied West Bank.

All this, together with the latest negotiations, may finally persuade Israel to accept a deal rather than hold out and be prepared to be called an international pariah. Regardless however, many say that international pressure must be maintained from Trump in the United States as well as Europeans and the EU Union.

Analyses

Nuclear Politics: US-Iran and The ‘Illusive Deal’

CrossFireArabia
May 22, 2025

Dr Marwan Asmar

Despite the seeming sidedness and intransigence between Iran and the US, their fifth round of nuclear talks with Oman as mediator, is expected to be held in Rome on Friday.

Both US and Iranian delegates have been “public” in their approach. The Americans, led by US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff wants Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons and end its uranium enrichment, a process that would allow it to develop an atom bomb.

The American delegates say this is a “redline” they will not budge away from. However, the Iranians led by the country’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi insist that they must be allowed to enrich because this is part of their sovereignty and national interest.

On the face of it, both positions appear to be diametrically-opposed. The Americans insist on one thing while the Iranians on another with US president Donald Trump’s team believing it would be extremely dangerous for the world to allow Iran access to nuclear weapons.

However, the first round of US-Iran talks started on 12 April in the Omani capital of Muscat and since then three other round of talks were held, including one in the Oman Embassy in Rome. They were described as “positive” and with the exception of the fourth round, they were seen as introductory.

This time around the talks are in Muscat again, on 22 May, 2025 with the full teams taking part at the behest of the Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi as mediating between the two sides who are in two separate rooms and not directly talking to each other.

Despite all difficulties and intractable positions, the new republican administration in the White House is determined to iron-out a new nuclear deal with Tehran after the Trump took out the US out of the deal, officially termed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed in 2015 under the auspices of the UN with the backing of Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany in 2015.

Trump forced the US to exit out of the deal in 2018 and many argue this move allowed Iran to continue to enrich its uranium at 60 percent, much shorter to the 90-percent-mark for a nuclear weapon. The 2015 deal, and for the first time, capped Iran’s enrichment facilities at 6.7 percent, and since 2018 it moved freely in its ability to obtain weapons-grade material whilst wasting months, years and even decades of negotiations.

Back to the present. Outwardly, the Trump administration wants “nuclear-dismantellment” and zero-enrichment. But the fact that the Americans held five meetings with Iranian delegates mean they recognize what Iran is saying about its nuclear program, that it is there for “peaceful” energy reasons and have consequently stressed that if Tehran wants enriched uranium for such purposes it can import from different world countries.

The US administration believes this would check Iranian nuclear capability and prevent them from obtaining the nuclear bomb. But one point stands out and is being downplayed and that is the fact Iran is well-advanced in its nuclear program with at least five nuclear facilities across the country that are well known and inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency which is a UN watchdog.

The fact that the two sides are meeting on a regular basis sends positive signals despite the recent comments made by Iran’s top spiritual leader Ali Khamenei who is pessimistic about a deal being hammered out, if the United States doesn’t adopt a more flexible and less stringent approach on the Iranian nuclear file, enrichment issue and the removal of sanctions on the country reimposed by Trump when he got the US out of the deal in his first tenure as president in the White House.

These are the hurdles both sides are facing, points the make Iranian decision-makers not at all optimistic. But Trump has so far been using a “carrot-and-stick” approach. He has warned the Iranians that he would be prepared to attack Iran, if it doesn’t sign a deal soon and put the onus on Israel for the attack that would probably be a joint one with the US.

Netanyahu unhappy!

This point made Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu very happy in the month or so prior to 12 April. Then Netanyahu geared himself up for an impending attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and was therefore in great shock to hear that Iranian-US talks were in the pipeline and mediated by Oman.

He was in double-shock because the presumably US-Israeli strike was being pushed back in favor of international diplomacy. It is here as well, the cracks between Trump and Netanyahu begun to show still because the US president had already started to portray himself as a man of peace, not a warmonger and wanted to end the war in Ukraine and Gaza and was talking to Hamas, an arch-enemy of the Israeli prime minister with an eye on the Nobel peace prize.

To Netanyahu talking to the Iranians was just one more spike in the Israeli heart because it meant US-Israeli interests were diverging as underpinned by the current talks with Iran and its erstwhile allies like the Houthis which the US planes bombed to no success in a military campaign that started in March, April and stopped on 6 May because it achieved little success and was exorbitantly expensive.

Even if they don’t achieve immediate breakthroughs, the Iran-US talks are likely to continue for a while because it lies within the tenets of new American foreign policy as espoused by Trump. He is unlikely now to drop the diplomatic towel and go for a series of strikes because he knows of the military capabilities Iranian has. Also, Trump is likely to force Netanyhu’s hand and prevent him for striking that country because of the unforeseen consequences it would generate for the region and the US itself.

This analysis is written by Dr Marwan Asmar, chief editor of the crossfirearabia.com website.

Analyses

Al-Duwairi: The Houthis will not stop bombing Israel Unless…

CrossFireArabia
May 18, 2025

Military expert Major-General Fayez Al-Duwairi said that if the massacres and Israeli blockade of Gaza continue, the Houthis Ansar Allah group will continue bombing deep inside Israel.

He emphasized that targeting Ben Gurion Airport in particular would lead to the cessation of air traffic and the suspension of flights by some international airlines and creating a state of confusion forcing millions to go down to the shelters.

The Israeli army announced it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen toward Israel early Sunday morning as the Houthis threatened to impose a no-fly zone on airports in Israel due to the escalation in the Gaza Strip.

Houthi military spokesman Yehya Saree announced that the group targeted Ben Gurion Airport with two ballistic missiles all the way from Yemen, a distance of over-2000 kilometers in support of Gaza.

The Houthis have since initially linked attacks on ships in the Red Sea and attacks deep inside Israel wouldn’t stop until the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip comes to an end.

Nasr al-Din Amer, deputy head of the Houthi media told Al Jazeera Net that the group’s long-range missiles aim to close down the Ben Gurion Airport and prohibit navigation there until the blockade and aggression on Gaza is lifted.

Al-Duwairi noted the Houthis’ strikes prompted the Israeli occupation to change its defense strategy. Since last week, its focus shifted from the American THAAD system to the Israeli Arrow system, as THAAD previously failed to intercept two missiles launched by the Houthis one of which landed in the surroundings of the airport.

He predicts the Israeli occupation would continue its attack on Yemen and suggests that an airstrike would be imminent in the coming days. However, he explained that the targets are unknown and would likely be civilian.

The Israeli military announced in a statement last Friday it had carried out attacks on two ports in the Al Hudaydah Governorate on Yemen’s west coast using fighter jets, targeting and destroying infrastructure it claimed belonged to the Houthis in the two ports.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened: “We know the Houthis are merely an arm, and that Iran is behind them and provides them with support, instructions, and authorization.” He warned the Houthis would pay a heavy price, and “we will defend ourselves by all means to preserve Israel’s security,” as reported in Al Jazeera.

Analyses

Using Starvation as a Weapon of War

CrossFireArabia
May 14, 2025

By Professor Mutaz M. Qafisheh and Manal Radaydeh

The famine raging in Gaza is not a side effect of war. It is the outcome of a willful and publicly declared plan aimed at displacing and destroying Gazans by starving the entire population. This is not a natural disaster— it is the systematic denial of access to food in a tiny, resource-scarce strip of land. Starvation is being used as a weapon—to break people’s will, force surrender, collectively punish, and carry out ethnic cleansing.

Nearly two months after the ceasefire collapsed, Israeli forces tightened the blockade on Gaza, sealing border crossings and halting all entry of food, water, medicine, and fuel. According to the World Food Program (WFP), food stocks had already run out by April 2024, and conditions have worsened significantly since March. Even modest charity kitchens that once served over a million meals daily have now ceased operations. WFP reported that the prices of the few remaining food items have surged by over 1,400%.

Malnutrition and imminent death

This crisis is affecting everyone, but children are paying the heaviest price. UNICEF reported that over 60,000 children are suffering from severe malnutrition. As a result, thousands face imminent death. Most children survive on a single meal a day—or less. The lack of proper nutrition is damaging their bodies and minds in ways that may never be reversed. Satellite footage shows infants drinking water instead of milk. Many have withered to skeletons.

It is crucial to underline that this man-made hunger is not accidental. It is the explicit outcome of political decisions targeting civilians. Under international humanitarian law—particularly Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention—all parties in a conflict must allow the free flow of humanitarian aid to civilians. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has described this famine as “cruel collective punishment.”

On Nov. 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare—characterized as a war crime. This came after a unanimous order by the International Court of Justice on March 28, 2024 in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel. The ICJ ordered Israel to take all necessary and effective measures without delay to ensure the unhindered, large-scale provision of urgently needed services and humanitarian aid—food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene, sanitation, and medical care—to Palestinians throughout Gaza. Yet Israel continues to act as if it were above the law.

Today, Gaza’s food system is completely destroyed: bakeries bombed, farms bulldozed, fishing boats burned, livestock killed, warehouses flattened, shops emptied, and aid trucks blocked or turned away. OCHA warns that famine is either imminent or already unfolding. And yet, the siege continues—on top of systematic daily bloodshed.

Collapse of health care

The suffering is not only physical. As hunger spreads, so does the risk of disease, especially among children, the elderly, and the chronically ill. The health care system has collapsed. People with chronic diseases—cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart and kidney failure—are dying. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor recently documented the deaths of 14 elderly people due to malnutrition, among many others who perish in silence, with no one to record their plight.

The coming months and years will reveal the far-reaching consequences of the famine that struck Gaza in full view of world leaders—some of whom encouraged or were complicit in the starvation of 2 million innocent civilians. The world—particularly Europe and the Arab nations—can, if it chooses, put an end to these genocidal acts against children, the elderly, the sick, and the exhausted.

It is unimaginable. How is it possible that in the 21st century—an age of smartphones and social media—the international community watches a live-streamed famine unfold and does nothing? What has brought us to this moral and legal vacuum? If famine is tolerated this time, it will be normalized and replicated elsewhere. That would mean the erosion of values humanity has struggled for centuries to uphold.

It’s time for action, not just words. History will judge. History is here. And history is now.

Mutaz M. Qafisheh is Professor of International Law at Hebron University. Manal Radaydeh is a Researcher in International Diplomacy at Hebron University and this article was published in Anadolu.

Analyses

Israel is Burning: Here’s Why!

CrossFireArabia
May 10, 2025

By Dr Marwan Asmar

(Crossfirearabia.com) – Israel is burning. Its war on Gaza is going nowhere, Israeli society is being torn-apart, and its remaining 59 hostages remain in the depth of the tunnels in Gaza unable to be found. Its like looking for a needle in a haystack because of the extensive hundreds of miles of underground! Many, except Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, people like US Envoy Steve Witkoff believe the hostages, 24 still alive, are likely to die if the war is not brought to an end.

After 18 months of bloodshed on the Gaza Strip with its endless destruction, Israel is nowhere near to reaching its objectivity of stamping out Hamas. The Islamist organizations remains just as strong, determined and willing for martyrdom as when the fighters unleashed themselves soon after 7 October, 2023.

Israeli media is completely delusional 😂. This is what they're reporting meanwhile we're seeing video footage of eliminated Israeli soldiers being wheeled out of Rafah daily. Stop lying…. you're completely losing the ground battle & Trump is now begging for a ceasefire. pic.twitter.com/bRbSYC60zm
— Ortho PA (@Ortho_PA_) May 10, 2025

On the contrary all the Israeli government did by insisting on the continuation of the war on the Palestinian territory has created the wrath of many world nations, including the irritation of US president Donald Trump who has cut off contacts with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and who now feels the latter can no longer be trusted for a meaningful end to the fighting.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army which is back fighting on Gaza not of its own accord, is facing what can all be called the “Gaza malaise” of being entrapped in the Strip through ambushes, booby-trapped, once-standing houses and Palestinian resistance missiles, ammunitions and artillery.

Israel and its army – despite the killing of over 52,000 Palestinians, 100,000 injured with over 12000 remaining under the rubble – is facing the worst of times, bogged down, through its own accord in an enclave it is determined not to leave while shamelessly embarking on a spree of killing, murder and mass-bombing civilians under the intrepid eyes of the world and documented by international agencies. In fact, many experts, including Israelis, say this is the worst documented genocide which the Jewish state will not be able to live it down.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian resistance lead by Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters and a motley of other determined factions led by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine are wreaking havoc among Israeli soldiers and their killer machines of tanks, all over the Gaza Strip from its far north, center and its south.

Privately the Israeli army is complaining because of the orders they are following from extremist politicians like Netanyahu. And they have a right to be because they have literally bombarded every nook and cranny in Gaza, forcing its 2.1 million populations on a whirlwind pool of displacements not once, not twice but up to 10 times to squat from one place to another but to no avail.

How can civilians, mostly women and children living in tents – for this is what Gaza has been reduced to – be military targets with mass bombs dropped on schools and hospital. For this is what the Israeli army is, an impressive air force, thousands of tanks and mass bombs supplied by the Americans, British and many more countries have been reduced to.

There are no Palestinians fighters here, they don’t lounge among civilians in makeshift UN schools. The fighters are in bombed houses, Israeli-gorged out what used to be manicured-gardens and residential squares, in semblance of buildings that used to be ministries, ruined university halls, restaurants, shops and libraries and much more.

Israel has made sure these longer exist. However, the Palestinian groups have came to fight among the rubble of these places that are bombed and re-bombed time and again like a macabre scene never existed before.

In many of these places, different neighborhoods of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip to the north the bombed-out town of Beit Hanoon to Al Tuffah in Gaza City and Shuja’iyya to the east, near the wall that divided Gaza from Israel, the rubble and wreckage has become so bad that Israelis, for the most part, are no longer able to enter their tanks, bulldozers and other heavy machinery.

The soldiers have to go on foot with their machine-guns and backpack of bombs and other “vile little goodies”. Frequently, and today, much more so, they would be running from one place to another fearful of being sniped by Palestinian fighters.

Since Israel re-started its war on the Gaza Strip after 19 March, and as the Palestinian fighters geared for action weeks later, ambushes of Israeli soldiers were stepped in in the different areas of Gaza. These ambushes resulted in the death and injury – on a daily basis of many Israeli soldiers.

While the Israeli army – and it has been so throughout this war – trying to massage and downplay the number of Israeli dead, this has not worked because of the Israeli media, the internet and power of satellite television which meant that the image and the picture – even by Israeli soldiers themselves – has been instant and at the ready ready to be posted online.

As to the intensity of the fighting when satellite television provide pictures of helicopters, both like a scene of the ambush, the booby-trapped house and landing on top of Israeli hospitals, in Tel Aviv for instance, experts said one can be sure the number of Israeli dead and injured is large because Israeli soldiers on the ground on Gaza have with them medical teams to deal with immediate emergencies.

If helicopters to be transported to hospitals are brought in, they argue the number of ‘critically’ wounded and dead is sure to be much higher and that means the resistance is meting out powerful blows at the Israeli soldiers thousands who have been protesting in this latest military campaign that they don’t want to go back to fighting in Gaza in a recent memo signed by 200,000 rank-and-file soldiers and some even prepared to go to prison for disobeying orders.

The dismay among the Israeli soldiers have been highlighted by the booby-trapped housing. In one case recent case in Al Jenienah neighborhood in Rafah, a group of Israeli soldiers with their dogs walked into what appeared to be a booby-trapped disused building and which exploded immediately bringing in the transport helicopters. The place just blew up.

Such a situation is being repeated daily on the streets of Gaza, a strip proving a tough fight that can’t be conquered nor subdued. Just to go back to Shuja’iyya, a wrecked place which the Israeli army entered many times, and which history will associate with Palestinian courage, as its name in Arabic, as of Saturday morning a military transport vehicle was just blown up.

All the Israeli army first said that there has been a serious security incident there, with helicopters hovering at the scene on top of Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv. Later on the only owned up to two soldiers being killed and seven injured.

2 Israeli soldiers killed, 3 wounded in Gaza https://t.co/s3MUoiE3Ht
— Daily Finland (@DailyFinland) May 9, 2025

Brigadier-general Fayez Dwairi speaking on Al Jazeera says that the number of Israeli dead is likely to be between four and 12 depending whether we are talking about a Merkava tank and or a military vehicle that also carries 12 people. He points out the Israeli tanks is the only one in the world that has four operatives but has room for six additional soldiers.

Hence this is the battle Israel is currently waging. If Netanyahu insists that the war will continue then his army is likely to continue to face a vicious circle of death and mayhem as the Palestinian Israeli fighters will continue to mushroom.

Today the Palestinian resistance is still at the ready for with Gaza destroyed and mass wreckages that wrecks of death, they have nothing to look forward but to continue fighting especially against an Israeli government and army determined to fight Hamas and the other Palestinian factions till the end

This analysis is written by Dr Marwan Asmar, chief editor of the crossfirearabia.com website.