Israel-Palestine conflict

Attacks on civilian infrastructure rising amid Israel’s ‘intensified’ offensive on battered enclave.

Israeli attacks on northern Gaza are reported to have killed more than 50 people since dawn.

The death toll from the overnight attacks was being tallied on Monday morning. Among the targets hit was a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City and a family home in Jabalia, according to Palestinian Civil Defence officials.

At least 33 people were killed in an attack in the middle of the night on the Fahmi al-Jarjawi school in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told the AFP news agency.

The school had been sheltering “hundreds” of people, Bassal said, adding that those killed were mostly children and women. Dozens were injured, he added.

The Israeli military claimed on Monday that the target of the attack had been a Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad control centre housing “key terrorists”.

“Numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,” it added.

Video footage broadcast by Al Jazeera showed fires in classrooms where forcibly displaced people had been sleeping, a child wandering alone among the flames, and people on the outside desperately trying to break windows.

In a separate attack on a residence in the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, 19 members of the Abd Rabbo family were killed, according to Bassal.

A nearby tent camp in Gaza City was also targeted, according to unconfirmed reports, killing six people.

Schools targeted

Despite mounting international pressure, which has pushed Israel to lift a blockade on aid supplies in the face of warnings of looming famine, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated last week that Israel would carry out an intensified military campaign until it controls the whole of Gaza.

International humanitarian law forbids attacks on civilian infrastructure, including schools. But Israel has repeatedly bombed schools, mostly being used as shelter by displaced people, throughout its 19-month war in Gaza.

At least 50 people were killed by bombs and artillery attacks in November 2023 at al-Buraq School in Gaza City

At the nearby al-Tabin School, more than 100 people were killed as they gathered for morning prayers in August last year.

An NGO backed by Israel and the United States has announced that it is set to start distributing aid in besieged Gaza, despite its chief walking out, citing concerns over its independence.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said in a statement on Monday that it is set to launch direct aid delivery in the battered enclave, hours after its executive director, Jake Wood, announced his resignation.

GHF, which has been tapped to distribute food, medicine and other vital supplies that have been blocked by the Israeli military for two months, said that it aims to deliver aid to 1 million Palestinians in the territory by the end of the week.

The NGO said it then plans to “scale rapidly to serve the full population in the weeks ahead”.

Israel said last week it would allow “minimal” aid deliveries into Gaza, where aid agencies warn of widespread famine and multiple deaths from starvation, but reports suggest that the few supplies that have entered the enclave have reached Gaza’s starving population of 2.3 million.

The United Nations and other aid agencies have refused to work with GHF, warning that the conditions under which it will work, including requiring Palestinians to gather at centralised aid points, will put people at risk and undermine other aid efforts.

Wood announced his resignation on Sunday, citing concerns over GHF’s independence.

The organisation could not adhere “to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon,” he said in a statement, and called for Israel to allow the entry of more aid.

The GHF board, in a statement, said it was “disappointed” by the resignation but remained committed to expanding aid efforts across the Strip.

A spokesperson for the US State Department also said it remained supportive of the NGO.

Wood’s departure follows growing criticism of GHF’s operational structure and independence.

The NGO, which claims it has been based in Geneva since February, emerged from “private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers and business people with close ties to the Israeli government”, according to The New York Times.

The UN and major humanitarian organisations have raised concerns that the GHF’s operations could undermine existing relief efforts, as well as restrict food access to limited areas of Gaza, which would force civilians to walk long distances to access aid and cross Israeli military lines.

There is also a worry that the GHF’s distribution plans, which the US and Israel say are designed to prevent Hamas from controlling aid, could be used to advance an Israeli objective of depopulating northern Gaza by concentrating aid in the south.

‘Weapon of war’

The controversy over the GHF unfolds against a backdrop of a worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, 1.95 million people – 93 percent of Gaza’s population – are facing acute levels of food insecurity, or not having enough to eat.

Aid agencies have described the crisis as a man-made famine, and have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war.

Robert Patman, a professor of international relations at the University of Otago in New Zealand, told Al Jazeera that Wood’s resignation reflected the lack of support from established humanitarian bodies for GHF.

“It’s no secret that major aid donors had not been convinced by this proposal, which is essentially a start-up,” he said.

Patman also noted that many humanitarian actors argue that there is “no need for a new humanitarian organisation”, stressing that the international community should instead focus on lifting the Israeli blockade on Gaza.

Israeli forces have killed more than a dozen Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in the last 48 hours, while thousands more face the threat of imminent starvation amid a drastically deteriorating humanitarian crisis.

On Sunday, four-year-old Mohammed Yassine joined dozens of other children who have starved to death in recent days as the World Food Programme (WFP) warned that more than 70,000 children in Gaza face acute levels of malnutrition.

As well as causing starvation deaths, Israel has intensified its bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza, killing some 600 people in nearly a week.

A strike on a tent housing displaced people in central Gaza killed a mother and her children in the central city of Deir el-Balah, according to Al-Aqsa Hospital, while a child was killed when his family’s tent was struck with a drone in Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

A strike in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza killed at least five, including two women and a child, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Eleven-year-old Yaqeen Hammad, a popular social media influencer, and nine of Dr Alaa Amir al-Najjar’s 10 children were also killed in separate Israeli air raids. Al-Najjar’s remaining child, 11-year-old Adam, is in critical condition in an intensive care unit.

The attacks come amid an Israeli blockade for almost three months that has choked off access to essential food, fuel, and medical supplies. Aid agencies warn that thousands of children are now at risk of death from starvation.

Children account for 31 percent of Palestinians confirmed killed during Israel’s 19 months of war on Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. This figure excludes deaths that have been reported but for which the victims remain unidentified, suggesting the real toll is higher.

A report commissioned by the United Nations also highlighted Israel’s disproportionate violence against children through targeting densely populated areas, with repeated air raids on residential buildings contributing to the rising child death toll.

At least 22 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn on Sunday, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

Below are some of the children killed in Israeli attacks:

Yaqeen Hammad

Known for her smile and volunteer work in Gaza, Yaqeen Hammad was killed after Israel shelled al-Baraka in Deir el-Balah, northern Gaza, on Friday night.

The 11-year-old influencer and her older brother, Mohamed Hammad, delivered food, toys and clothing to displaced families, the Palestine Chronicle reports. She also played an active role in the Ouena collective – a Gaza-based nonprofit group dedicated to aid and humanitarian relief.

Messages of grief and tributes from activists, Yaqeen’s followers and journalists poured in after news of her death spread online.

“Her body may be gone, but her impact remains a beacon of humanity,” wrote Mahmoud Bassam, a photojournalist in Gaza.

“Instead of being at school and enjoying her childhood, she was active on Instagram and participating in campaigns to help others in Gaza. No words. Absolutely no words,” another tribute read on X.

Mohammed Yassine

Activists and Palestinian platforms shared on social media painful scenes of Mohammed Yassine on a hospital bed.

Appearing in a video, holding Yassine’s body, Mahmoud Basal of Gaza’s Civil Defence said: “Mohammed Yassine died from hunger, a direct result of the occupation’s prevention of food and medical aid from entering Gaza.”

“Mohammed was not the first child, and the fear has become a certainty that he won’t be the last,” Basal added.

Dr Alaa al-Najjar’s nine children

An Israeli attack on the home of al-Najjar on Friday killed nine of her children and critically injured 11-year-old Adam.

Sidar, Luqman, Sadin, Reval, Ruslan, Jubran, Eve, Rakan and Yahya  – aged between seven months and 12 years – all died in the attack, Gaza’s Government Media Office said.

Al-Najjar is a paediatrician at the southern city’s Nasser Hospital, where her husband is receiving care after being critically injured in the attack.

“It is unbelievable,” said Ahmad al-Farra, head of the hospital’s paediatrics department, of the attack’s impact.

“You can’t imagine the shock that [al-Najjar] had when she heard about that [attack]. But up until now, she is trying to be near her son and her husband to survive.”

Joseph Neumeyer, who is also a German citizen, approached the building on May 19 with Molotov cocktails, officials say.

A dual United States and German citizen has been arrested on charges that he travelled to Israel and attempted to firebomb the branch office of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, federal prosecutors in New York have said.

Israeli officials deported Joseph Neumeyer to New York on Saturday and he had an initial court appearance before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Sunday. His criminal complaint was unsealed on Sunday.

Prosecutors say Neumeyer walked up to the embassy building on May 19 with a backpack containing Molotov cocktails, but got into a confrontation with a guard and eventually ran away, dropping his backpack as the guard tried to detain him.

Law enforcement then tracked Neumeyer down to a hotel a few blocks away from the embassy and arrested him, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York.

“This defendant is charged with planning a devastating attack targeting our embassy in Israel, threatening death to Americans, and [US] President [Donald] Trump’s life,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “The Department will not tolerate such violence and will prosecute this defendant to the fullest extent of the law.”

Neumeyer’s court-appointed attorney, Jeff Dahlberg, declined to comment.

The attack took place against the backdrop of Israel’s ongoing deadly war on Gaza, now in its 19th month. Nearly 54,000 Palestinians have been killed in the blockaded enclave, where a famine is now looming as Israeli forces continue to seal vital border crossings and uphold a crippling blockade on humanitarian aid including food, medicine, and fuel.

Neumeyer, 28, who is originally from Colorado and has dual US and German citizenship, had travelled from the US to Canada in early February and then arrived in Israel in late April, according to court records.

He had made a series of threatening social media posts before attempting the attack, prosecutors said.

During his first term, Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital despite Palestinian objections, in a move that has not been recognised by the international community. He also moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

The international community should look to impose sanctions on Israel to stop its war in Gaza, Spain’s foreign minister has said, ahead of a Madrid meeting of European and Arab nations, urging a halt to Israel’s punishing offensive in which Palestinian deaths and the spread of starvation are increasing each day.

The high-level talks on Sunday are the fifth official meeting of what is known as “The Madrid Group”.

Countries in the European Union that Israel had long counted on as close allies have been adding their voices to growing global pressure after it expanded military operations in the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip.

A nearly three-month aid blockade has worsened shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine in the Palestinian enclave, which has been devastated and ravaged due to Israel’s relentless war that followed the Hamas-led October 7 attack in 2023.

Barely any aid has crossed into Gaza since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a week ago that Israel would allow limited aid in to assuage concerns from allies.

The United Nations has said the amount of aid allowed in so far is a “drop in the ocean”, while some aid groups have described Netanyahu’s announcement as a  “smokescreen”.

Aid organisations say the trickle of supplies Israel that allowed to enter in recent days falls far short of needs, which is between 500-600 trucks a day. Israel has allowed some 100 trucks carrying aid into Gaza since Wednesday, officials say.

Madrid, Spain is hosting 20 countries as well as international organisations on Sunday with the aim of “stopping this war, which no longer has any goal”, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said.

“In this terrible moment, in this humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, we aim to … stop this war … [and to] break the blockade of humanitarian assistance that must go in unimpeded,” Albares told Al Jazeera ahead of the meeting.

‘We must consider sanctions’

The Madrid meeting will serve as preparation for a high-level UN conference on the two-state solution, which France and Saudi Arabia will host in New York on June 17.

“We want to create momentum” ahead of the UN conference, Albares said, so that “everyone” can recognise Palestine as an independent state.

“That conference in New York must be a big moment to push towards recognition of the state of Palestine,” he added.

A previous such gathering in Madrid last year brought together countries including Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye as well as European nations such as Norway and the Republic of Ireland that have recognised a Palestinian state.

Sunday’s meeting, which also includes representatives from the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, will promote a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

After the EU decided this week to review its cooperation deal with Israel, Albares said, “We must consider sanctions, we must do everything, consider everything to stop this war.”

Germany’s Deputy Foreign Minister Florian Hahn on Sunday also warned about the impact of Gaza’s deteriorating, “unbearable” humanitarian crisis, calling for an immediate ceasefire and diplomatic solution.

Hahn stressed that ending the war in Gaza and creating a path for diplomatic efforts toward a political solution is currently one of German foreign policy’s main priorities.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Madrid, said Sunday’s meeting is going to be “crucial”.

Members are going to be “seeking the potential of further political talks that could be conducive to the Israelis coming along with the Palestinians, discussing the need to end the war and achieve a Palestinian state”, Ahelbarra said.

Israel’s deadly assault has killed almost 54,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, mostly women and children.

On April 27, my brother-in-law, Samer, was killed in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza when his vegetable stall was bombed. He wasn’t armed. He wasn’t a political figure. He was a peaceful man trying to earn a living to feed his children in a place where food has become more expensive than gold.

Samer wasn’t a vendor by profession. He was a lawyer who defended the rights of the oppressed. But the war forced him to change his path.

During the ceasefire, he was able to buy vegetables from local wholesalers. After the war resumed and the crossings into Gaza were closed in March, supplies dwindled dramatically, but he maintained a small stock of vegetables. He continued selling day and night, even as buyers became scarce due to the high prices. He often tried to give us vegetables for free out of generosity, but I always refused.

When I heard about Samer’s killing, I froze. I tried to hide the news from my husband, but my tears spoke the truth. He looked like he wanted to scream, but the scream remained trapped inside his throat. Something held him back – perhaps his burdened soul could no longer bear even the expression of grief.

Samer left behind three little children and a heartbroken family. No one expected his death. It came as a shock. He was a good and pure-hearted young man, always cheerful, loving life and laughter, even in the toughest times.

I still remember him standing in front of his vegetable stall, lovingly calling out to customers.

Samer is among countless food sellers who have been killed in this genocidal war. Anyone employed in providing or selling food has been targeted. Fruit and vegetable vendors, grocers, bakers, shop owners and community kitchen workers have been bombed, as if they were dealing with weapons, not food. Bakeries, shops, farms and warehouses have been destroyed, as if the food they were providing was a threat.

Ten days after Samer was killed, a restaurant and a market on al-Wahda Street, one of the busiest in the Remal neighbourhood of Gaza City, were bombed. At least 33 people were killed.

Two weeks before Samer’s martyrdom, the vicinity of a bakery in Jabaliya was bombed. Days before that, a food distribution centre in Khan Younis was targeted. According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, more than 39 food and distribution centres and 29 community kitchens have been targeted since the beginning of the war.

It is clear by now that in its campaign of deliberate starvation, Israel is not only blocking food from entering Gaza. It is also destroying every link in the food supply chain.

As a result of the repeated targeting of vendors and markets, all that is available now to buy – for those who can afford to buy food – are scraps. Death has become easier than life in Gaza.

The starvation is affecting babies and little children the worst. On May 21, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported at least 26 Palestinians, including nine children, died within a 24-hour period due to starvation and lack of medical care in Gaza.

On May 5, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said it had registered the deaths of at least 57 children caused by malnutrition since the aid blockade began in early March.

As a mother, I often go days without eating just to feed my children whatever little food we have left. My husband spends the entire day searching for anything to ease our hunger but usually comes back with mere scraps. If we’re lucky, we eat a piece of bread – often stale – with a tomato or cucumber that I divide equally among our children.

The hardship Samer’s wife faces is even more unbearable. She tries to hide her tears from her children, who keep asking when their father will return from the market. The loss forced her to become a father overnight, pushing her to stand in long queues in front of community kitchens just to get a bit of food.

She often returns empty-handed, trying to comfort her children with hollow words: “When Dad comes back, he’ll bring us food.” Her children fall asleep hungry, dreaming of a bite to fill their stomachs – one their late father will never bring.

Israel has claimed that it is blocking aid to Gaza because Hamas takes it. The Western media, fully complicit in distorting the truth, has parroted the claim.

Yet it is clear that Israel is not just targeting Hamas but the entire population of Gaza. It is deliberately using starvation as a weapon of war against civilians, obstructing the flow of humanitarian aid – a war crime, according to international law.

Recently, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the true aim of his government more than apparent by demanding all Palestinians be expelled from Gaza as a condition for ending the war.

His decision to allow food through the crossings is nothing but a PR stunt. Enough flour was let in to have images of bread distributed at a bakery circulating in the media and to reassure the world that we are not starving.

But these images do not reflect the reality for us on the ground. My family has not received any bread and neither have the majority of families. Flour – where available – continues to cost $450 per bag.

While Israel claims that 388 aid trucks have entered since Monday, aid organisations are saying 119 have. An unknown number of these have been looted because the Israeli army continues to target anyone trying to secure aid distribution.

This tiny trickle of aid Israel is allowing is nothing compared with the needs of the starving population. At least 500 trucks are required every single day to cover the bare minimum.

Meanwhile, some Western governments have threatened sanctions and made some symbolic gestures to supposedly pressure Israel to stop starving us. Why did they need to wait to see our children dying of hunger before doing this? And why are they only threatening and not taking real action?

Today, our greatest wish is to find a loaf of bread. Our sole concern is how to keep surviving amid this catastrophic famine that has broken our bones and melted our insides. No one among us is healthy any more. We’ve become skeletons. Our bodies are dead, but they still pulse with hope – yearning for that miraculous day when this nightmare ends.

But who will act to support us? Who still has a shred of compassion for us in their heart?

And the most important question of all – when will the world finally stop turning a blind eye to our slow, brutal death by hunger?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Hostages and Missing Families Forum called for a ‘return to the negotiating table’.

Families of Israeli captives held in Gaza have intensified their criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid large protests across the country, as the expanded military ground offensive and deadly bombardment in the Palestinian territory put the release of their loved ones at risk.

On Saturday, protesters took to the streets in Tel Aviv, Shar HaNegev Junction, Kiryat Gat, and Jerusalem, with members of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum accusing the Israeli government of prioritising its war over securing the return of their relatives.

“We demand that the decision-makers return to the negotiating table and not leave it until an agreement is reached that will bring them all back,” the group said in a statement on Saturday.

Among those speaking at a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday was Einav Zangauker, the mother of captive Matan Zangauker, who directly addressed Netanyahu: “Tell me, Mr Prime Minister: How do you go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning. How do you look in the mirror knowing that you’re abandoning 58 hostages?”

The mounting anger among families has only deepened in recent days following Netanyahu’s nomination of Major General David Zini as the next head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency.

Zini has reportedly voiced opposition to any deal to bring an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, telling colleagues during Israeli military meetings: “I oppose hostage deals. This is a forever war,” according to Israel’s Channel 12.

“The families of the kidnapped are outraged by the words of Major General Zini. If the publication is true, these are shocking and condemnable words coming from someone who will be the one to decide the fate of the kidnapped men and women,” the forum said in a statement on Friday.

“Appointing a Shin Bet chief who puts Netanyahu’s war before the abduction of the kidnapped is tantamount to committing a crime and doing injustice to the entire people of Israel,” the group said.

Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Zini came just one day after Israel’s Supreme Court found his attempt to fire outgoing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar to be “unlawful”, citing a conflict of interest tied to Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial.

Despite the court ruling that Netanyahu could not appoint a replacement, he proceeded with the appointment of Zini anyway.

The attorney general later warned that the prime minister had defied legal guidance and tainted the appointment process.

The criticism comes as Netanyahu still faces an international arrest warrant request from the International Criminal Court over war crimes committed during the Gaza war.

The young victims, two of whom remain under the rubble, range in age from seven months to 12 years old.

An Israeli strike has killed nearly the entire family of a Khan Younis doctor while she was at work, Gaza health officials said.

The attack hit the home of Alaa al-Najjar, a paediatrician at the southern city’s Nasser Hospital, on Friday, setting it ablaze and killing nine of her 10 children, according to the head of the hospital’s paediatrics department, Ahmad al-Farra.

Al-Najjar’s husband is severely wounded, and the couple’s only surviving child, 11-year-old Adam, is in critical condition, Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement.

The dead children, two of whom remain under the rubble, range in age from seven months to 12 years old, the media office added.

The attack “encapsulates the ongoing genocide faced by the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said the office. “It is a full-fledged war crime under all international laws and conventions.”

‘New phase of genocide’

The UN’s special rapporteur for the Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, slammed the attack as part of a “sadistic pattern” of a “new phase of genocide” facing Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

Two doctors go to work to assist others.Nine of their kids are killed by an Israeli missile targeting their home. Only surviving child, in critical conditions.

Targeting families in the still-standing buildings: distinguishable sadistic pattern of the new phase of the genocide. https://t.co/6tlylARKK5

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) May 24, 2025

Hamas said it followed a routine of Israel “deliberately targeting … medical personnel, civilians and their families in an attempt to break their will”.

The Israeli military said it had struck suspected fighters operating from a structure next to its forces in an area where civilians had been evacuated. “The claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review,” the military added.

On Monday, Israel issued forced evacuation orders for Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, warning of an “unprecedented attack”. There has been heavy, deadly bombardment in the area daily.

The al-Najjar children were among dozens killed in Israel’s attacks on Friday and Saturday.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the bodies of 79 people killed in Israeli attacks were brought to hospitals between Friday and midday Saturday. That count does not include facilities in the north of the enclave that are inaccessible, it said.

The ministry puts the overall death toll in Gaza since October 2023 at 53,901, with 122,593 injured.

In Gaza, the sound of drones can be heard everywhere.

An analysis by Al Jazeera’s digital investigations team, Sanad, has revealed that Israel is repurposing commercial drones to use as weapons of war in the Strip.

And as drones become ever more accessible, the line between their civilian use and their military use is becoming increasingly blurred.

Sebastia, occupied West Bank – Israel calls it an archaeological project to highlight Jewish heritage and create a new Israeli national park. Palestinians see it as further evidence of Israel’s plans to annex an ancient town and erase Palestinian history in an area that tells the 5,000-year-old shared story of the peoples who have lived in this land.

Far-right, pro-settler Israeli government ministers were in Sebastia on May 12 as part of a delegation to mark the looming seizure of the town’s archaeological park, one of the largest and most important of 6,000 sites in the West Bank.

Ultranationalist Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu, himself a resident of an illegal West Bank settlement, hailed the beginning of Israeli excavation at the site and the coming creation of “Samaria National Park”, which will focus on the area’s Jewish history.

Palestinians say that will come along with an attempt to paint over their ties to the land. The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities called the excavations “preparation for Sebastia’s annexation and isolation from its surroundings”.

Israeli politicians refer to Sebastia as Samaria, or Shomron in Hebrew, and say it was the capital of the Biblical Kingdom of Israel nearly three millennia ago.

But the archaeological site includes the ruins of a Byzantine basilica, a Roman forum and amphitheatre, and the Crusader-era Church of St John, which was rebuilt into a mosque – and is believed to be the site of the tomb of John the Baptist, known in the Quran as Prophet Yahya.

Sebastia’s archaeological park, once a tourism hotspot and still a pilgrimage site for Christians, is being considered for inclusion on UNESCO’s world heritage list, subject to an application being finalised by Palestinian officials.

‘River of blood’

Sebastia mayor Mohammed Azim and town residents have long been warning of Israel’s intention to “Judaise” Sebastia and turn it into an Israeli-only tourism site.

Alarm intensified after the municipality received a land seizure order to construct an installation for “military purposes” at the summit of an ancient hilltop in the area last July.

Speaking to Al Jazeera in his office overlooking the increasingly deserted old town, Azim said a “river of blood will flow into the village” if construction of the barracks begins.

“The military is aiming to make life unbearable for the residents here, so they eventually surrender to reality and leave – just like those who have been displaced in Jenin and Tulkarem,” Azim said, referring to the more than 40,000 Palestinians displaced by Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank this year.

“Now, soldiers enter the village daily – and with the clear intention of killing,” Azim added. “We will resist construction – peacefully, of course. The landowners will not give up their land.”

The mayor called for condemnation of intensifying military violence in the village and the targeting of children, notably the army’s fatal shooting of 14-year-old Ahmad Jazar in January.

For its part, the Israeli state argues that the village of Sebastia will not be affected by the archaeological work, as it lies outside the boundaries of the proposed national park.

But Sebastia Archaeological Museum curator and lifelong resident, Walaa Ghazzal, says the plans are an escalation in Israel’s plans to eventually expel residents and business owners and prevent Palestinians from accessing the town, its ruins, and the sprawling hills and olive fields around it.

Ghazzal told Al Jazeera that “residents are afraid of the future”, especially those near the ruins.

“The situation is very dangerous,” she said. “Soon, they will prevent us from going to the archaeological site.

“In my opinion, we have only months before we are told to leave our homes,” Ghazzal added. “We are seeing the future in Gaza and in the camps [in the West Bank]. They are trying to erase us.”

‘Biblical heritage’

Israeli ministers and settler politicians are using rhetoric about protecting Jewish Biblical heritage to disguise their long-held desire to annex Sebastia, Azim said.

Eliyahu was joined in Sebastia by Minister of Environmental Protection Idit Silman and Yossi Dagan, chairman of the Shomron Regional Council, which controls 35 illegal West Bank settlements.

Silman has hailed the scheme and told Israeli media, “historical justice is being done”, accusing Palestinians of attempting to “erase” Jewish heritage.

The Israeli government has long been clear that Sebastia, which most historians agree was the capital of the Kingdom of Israel for less than 200 years, will be taken over and transformed into the centrepiece of Israeli tourism in the West Bank.

In May 2023, the Israeli government approved a 30 million shekel (more than $8m) scheme to restore the park and establish a tourism centre, new access roads, and an expanded military presence. The four million shekel ($1.2m) regeneration of a disused Hijaz railway station about two miles from Sebastia, last operational in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, has also been announced.

“The archeological excavations are designed to expose the antiquities of the site and make the ancient city accessible throughout all its periods: from the beginning of the settlement in the 8th century BCE during the ancient Kingdom of Israel, through the Hellenistic city, the magnificent Roman city built by King Herod [called “Sebastos” after Emperor Augustus], to the Byzantine period when a church was built at the site,” said the office of Israeli Minister of Heritage Eliyahu.

Erasing Palestinian identity

Ghazzal said Sebastia’s ruins exhibit a “distinct local culture” in a geographic region which has “always been known as Palestine”. She said the remains emphasise the religious and cultural importance of the town to conquering empires, and its multifaith inhabitants’ peaceful coexistence for centuries.

In the Palestinian submission to UNESCO, it is noted that the present town of Sebastia still preserves “the ancient name [and] is located on the eastern part of the Roman city, indicating a strong element of cultural continuity”.

But for those focused on the planned Israeli national park, it’s only Jewish history that matters.

Responding to a query from Al Jazeera, Eliyahu’s office said that Sebastia was “first and foremost a Jewish heritage site, where archaeological remains from the Kingdom of Israel period were found”.

“It is important to emphasise that even if we were to dig at the site to the depth of the Earth’s core, not even a grain of historical evidence of ancient Palestinian settlement would be found at the site,” Eliyahu’s office added.

Yossi Dagan, who lives in neighbouring Shavei Shomron, has long advocated for the takeover of Sebastia and emphasises its prominence in Biblical history. He told Israeli media at the archaeological site: “When you dig here, you touch the Bible with your own hands.”

But Ghazzal said that the Israeli government’s treatment of the Biblical stories in the Old Testament as historical reality is designed to relegate the claims of Palestinians to have lived on the land for thousands of years, and ignores the Palestinian people’s ancient ties to their land.

“You can’t base your claim to the land on religion – civilisations are about the people who develop their identity, their works and monuments – even their language,” Ghazzal said.

“Israel wants to kill the stories from our past and replace them with poison; it is a crime against our history,” Ghazzal added. “When they demolish our monuments, remove families who keep the history alive, who will speak after that – and carry our story for the next generation?”

Ghost town

Ahmad Kayed, a 59-year-old Sebastia villager and leading activist, told Al Jazeera the ruins will not be “taken without a fight”, and demonstrations are being instigated.

He said Israel is “planning something big” in Sebastia and referenced new iron blockades being erected on roads encircling the town.

It is already extremely unsafe for Sebastia residents to visit the archaeological park because of settler attacks and near-daily military invasions, he said. But once a military barracks is established, it will be permanently off limits.

“They are working step by step to get their hands on Sebastia and keep us suffering all the time so people will leave,” Kayed said, referring to the at least 40 families that have left the town since October 7, 2023.

“We are in the second Nakba and Sebastia is under siege,” he added. “But Sebastia is strong, we know how to face them because we have done it before.”

He pointed out that residents rose up to thwart Israel’s plans to take Sebastia in the late 1970s, and they did so again to halt settlers pumping sewage onto agricultural land in 2013. Two years later, residents’ protests and sit-ins blocked the construction of a new access road for settlers, which Eliyahu’s office justified as necessary for the “hundreds of thousands of Israelis who will want to come, learn, and experience the Jewish heritage” of Sebastia.

But Kayed admits times have changed, and violence from the military today is unlike anything he has experienced in his decades of activism.

“When we decide what to do, we will be smart, and we will demonstrate in new ways, and everyone in Sebastia will follow us,” he added.

He was also gravely concerned that if excavations took place, Israelis would desecrate archaeological findings that contradicted their claim to the land, with so much still to be uncovered if Palestinian-led digs were not blocked.

The municipality still hopes UNESCO will provide the village protection and add the ruins to its World Heritage list. The mayor also hopes the archaeological park will join 56 other locations on UNESCO’s register of significant sites considered to be “in danger”.

Businesses near the archaeological site say they have lost more than three-quarters of their custom since October 7.

Samer Sha’er, owner of a coffee shop directly next to the park and Sebastia’s imposing Roman columns, said a military outpost would be devastating for businesses.

“There will be daily confrontations, constant military presence, and no sense of security,” he said. “No one will want to come and sit here while the army is stationed nearby – neither shop owners nor visitors will be able to stay.”

Once holy land coveted by prophets and conquering emperors, Sebastia has been reduced to a ghost town – haunted by the glory of its history, which has also made it a target for annexation by the ultranationalist Israeli government.

Kayed looked visibly moved as he described his youth playing on the hills of the archaeological park, and a lifetime spent trying to save his home.

He was evidently aggrieved that the town had not acted more quickly to unify against the creeping threat of the military barracks or eventual annexation. But it seems all those concerned, including the town’s mayor, are not sure what is coming next – or when.

“This land means everything to me,” Kayed added. “I have spent all my childhood, all my life going to the park.

“They will confiscate my land [to build the barracks]. I planted olive trees there with my mother, it is very painful to lose them, Kayed said. “The village will never give up on the ruins – this is our history, our life. We will fight until the end.”

UN chief Antonio Guterres says Gazans are enduring “the cruelest phase” of the war. He denounced Israel’s blockade, calling the 400 trucks cleared to enter Gaza so far “a teaspoon of aid” when “a flood of assistance is required.”

Aid agencies have continued to criticise Israel after it announced it had sent a small convoy of trucks carrying vital supplies into Gaza.

COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, confirmed on Friday that 107 trucks had entered the enclave the previous day, loaded with flour, medicine and equipment.

However, aid agencies and others have condemned Israel’s policy to allow only minimal volumes of aid into Gaza, which the Israeli military has been blockading for close to three months.

They insist that the supplies are nowhere near enough for the millions trapped in the territory, and add that even the small amounts making it in are not making it to people due to Israeli attacks and looting.

The shipments follow Israel’s announcement on Sunday that it would permit “minimal” humanitarian aid into the territory for the first time since implementing a total blockade in early March.

Amid warnings of mounting famine and humanitarian disaster, Israel said that the decision to allow aid into Gaza was driven by diplomatic concerns.

Global outrage has been rising as the 11-week siege has progressed, leaving Gaza’s 2.1 million people on the brink of starvation, with medicine and fuel supplies exhausted.

The United Nations’ Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher has branded the aid deliveries “a drop in the ocean” and warned that far greater access is required to address the escalating crisis.

The UN estimates that at least 500 trucks of aid are needed daily. Since Monday’s announcement, only 300 trucks have made it in, including Thursday’s convoy, according to COGAT.

Attacks and looting

Aid agencies also state that even the aid that is being allowed into Gaza is not reaching people.

“Significant challenges in loading and dispatching goods remain due to insecurity, the risk of looting, delays in coordination approvals and inappropriate routes being provided by Israeli forces that are not viable for the movement of cargo,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

Hamas officials said on Friday that Israeli air strikes had killed at least six Palestinians guarding aid trucks against looters.

An umbrella network of Palestinian aid groups said that just 119 aid trucks have entered Gaza since Israel eased its blockade on Monday, and that distribution has been hampered by looting, including by armed groups of men.

“They stole food meant for children and families suffering from severe hunger,” the network said in a statement.

The UN’s World Food Programme said on Friday that 15 of its trucks were looted in southern Gaza while en route to WFP-supported bakeries.

‘Most people living off food scraps’

Inside Gaza, the situation continues to deteriorate.

Dr Ahmed al-Farrah of Nasser Hospital told Al Jazeera that the health system is overwhelmed.

“Most people now live off food scraps of what they had in stock,” he said. “I predict there will be many victims because of food insecurity.”

Palestinian Health Ministry officials said on Thursday that at least 29 children and elderly people have died in recent days from starvation-related causes, with thousands more at risk.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s  spokesperson said aid is being distributed via UN mechanisms, but stressed the amount reaching Gaza “is not enough”.

The leaders of Britain, France and Canada warned Israel on Monday their countries would take action, including possible sanctions, if Israel did not lift aid restrictions.

“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law,” a joint statement released by the British government said.

“We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions,” it added.

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused the trio of being “on the wrong side of history” and “supporting “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.

The administration of President Donald Trump has taken a hard line against top US universities over their responses to pro-Palestine protests, as well as their diversity initiatives and curricula.

The move on Thursday to block Harvard University from enrolling foreign students represents the latest escalation in a months-long standoff, which critics say has been rooted in unfounded claims of rampant anti-Semitism.

In a statement, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the administration was “holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus”.

Harvard has called the latest move “unlawful” and a “retaliatory action”.

Here’s how we got here:

December 2023: The standoff stretches back to the months following the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, and the resulting Israeli offensive on Gaza, in which at least 53,655 Palestinians have since been killed.

Then-Harvard President Claudine Gay’s testimony before Congress on the administration’s response to pro-Palestine protests sparks outrage, as elected officials, particularly Republicans, call for greater crackdowns.

Gay subsequently resigns from her post and is replaced by Alan Garber in August 2024.

January 2025: Trump takes office in January 2025, following a campaign where he vowed to crack down on pro-Palestine protests, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, and “woke ideology” on college campuses.

Trump also signs a series of executive orders calling for government agencies to take actions against DEI programmes at private institutions, including universities, and to increase government actions to combat anti-Semitism, particularly on campuses.

February 2025: The US Department of Justice (DOJ) launches a task force to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses”.

The task force later announces it will visit 10 schools, saying it was “aware of allegations that the schools may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination, in potential violation of federal law”.

The schools include Harvard, as well as Columbia University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Southern California.

March 7, 2025: The Trump administration takes its first action against a US university, slashing $400m in federal funding to Columbia University and accusing the school of “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students”.

A subsequent letter from the Department of Education warns Harvard and dozens of other universities of “potential enforcement actions”.

March 21, 2025: Columbia yields to Trump’s demands, which include banning face masks, empowering campus police with arresting authority, and installing a new administrator to oversee the department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies.

March 31, 2025: The US Departments of Education (ED), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the US General Services Administration (GSA) announce an official review of $255.6m in Harvard contracts and $8.7bn in multi-year grants.

The review is part of the “ongoing efforts of the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism”, the statement said.

April 11, 2025: Harvard is sent a letter saying the university has “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment” and listing several Trump administration demands.

The demands include a governance overhaul that lessens the power of students and some staff, reforming hiring and admissions practices, refusing to admit students deemed “hostile to the American values and institutions”, doing away with diversity programmes, and auditing several academic programmes and centres, including several related to the Middle East.

April 14, 2025: Harvard President Garber issues a forceful rejection of the demands, writing: “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights”.

The US administration announces an immediate freeze on funding, including $2.2bn in multi-year grants and $60m in multi-year contracts.

April 15, 2025: In a Truth Social post, Trump floats that Harvard could lose “Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity”. He accuses Harvard of “pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness’”.

April 16, 2025: The Department of Homeland Security calls on Harvard to turn over records on any foreign students’ “illegal and violent activities”, while threatening to revoke the university’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program approval. The certification is required for it to enrol foreign students. Noem gives an April 30 deadline for this.

April 21, 2025: Harvard files a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing it of violating the First Amendment of the US Constitution with “arbitrary and capricious” funding cuts.

April 30, 2025: Harvard says it shared information requested by Noem regarding foreign students, but does not release the nature of the information provided.

May 2, 2025: Trump again says the administration will take away Harvard’s tax-exempt status. No action is immediately taken.

May 5, 2025: The Trump administration says it is cutting all new federal grants to Harvard.

May 13, 2025: The US Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announces another $450m in federal funding from eight federal agencies.

May 19, 2025: The DOJ announces it will use the False Claims Act, typically used to punish federal funding recipients accused of corruption, to crack down on universities like Harvard over DEI policies. The Department of Health and Human Services also says it is terminating $60m in federal grants to Harvard.

May 22, 2025: Noem announces revocation of Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program, blocking it from enrolling new foreign students and saying current students will need to transfer to continue their studies.

Harvard responds: “We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the university – and this nation – immeasurably.”

Federal prosecutors have filed charges against a man suspected of fatally shooting two Israeli embassy staff workers in the United States capital of Washington, DC.

In a federal court on Thursday, Elias Rodriguez was accused of two counts of first-degree murder, as well as charges of murdering foreign officials, causing death with a firearm and discharging a firearm in a crime of violence.

In a news conference afterwards, interim US Attorney Jeanine Pirro warned that those charges were only the beginning — and that her prosecutors were combing through evidence for other crimes.

“This is a horrific crime, and these crimes are not going to be tolerated by me and by this office,” Pirro said.

“We’re going to continue to investigate this as a hate crime and a crime of terrorism, and we will add additional charges as the evidence warrants.”

Rodriguez is accused of shooting Israeli citizen Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, an American, both employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC.

The attack took place around 9:08pm US Eastern time on Wednesday evening (01:08 GMT Thursday), as the two employees were leaving an event hosted by the pro-Israel American Jewish Committee at the Capital Jewish Museum. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

Israeli embassy staff have said that the young couple were set to be engaged in the coming days.

“A young couple — at the beginning of their life’s journey, about to be engaged, in another country — had their bodies removed in the cold of the night, in a foreign city, in a body bag. We are not going to tolerate that anymore,” said Pirro, appearing to allude primarily to Lischinsky’s foreign roots.

“This is the kind of case that picks at old sores and old scars, because these kinds of cases remind us of what has happened in the past that we can never and must never forget.”

She pointed out that the Wednesday night attack took place at a museum that includes one of Washington’s oldest synagogues in the centre of the city.

Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said that the suspect chanted, “Free Palestine! Free Palestine!” after the shooting. Rodriguez, who hailed from Chicago, appears to have identified himself to police and was arrested shortly after the shooting.

An affidavit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation notes that Rodriguez told police, “I did it for Palestine. I did it for Gaza.”

The shooting, which has been widely condemned, comes as Israel faces growing global anger over its war on Gaza, where a blockade has left millions of Palestinians without food or basic supplies.

Experts at human rights organisations and the United Nations have compared the war, which has killed at least 53,000 people, to ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Since the war began on October 7, 2023, Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities have all reported upticks in harassment and racism.

In the aftermath of Wednesday’s shooting, officials spoke out against anti-Semitism, and the administration of President Donald Trump promised to pursue every legal avenue against the suspect.

“The Department of Justice will be prosecuting the perpetrator responsible for this to the fullest extent of the law,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday. “Hatred has no place in the United States of America under President Donald Trump.”

She went on to compare antiwar protests at US universities, which have been largely peaceful, to “ anti-Semitic illegal behaviour”. Protest leaders, however, have largely disavowed anti-Jewish hate.

In the wake of the shooting, one US Congress member told Fox News that the “Palestinian cause” was “evil”. Republican Representative Randy Fine continued by suggesting the Gaza war should end like World War II did, with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

“We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender,” he said. “That needs to be the same here. There is something deeply, deeply wrong with this culture, and it needs to be defeated.”

Separately, the Israeli government denounced the shooting as an attack against its state.

“We are witness to the terrible cost of the antisemitism and wild incitement against the State of Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often tried to paint himself as a close friend of United States President Donald Trump, but the relationship has rarely been as straightforward as the Israeli premier has portrayed it.

And recently, speculation across the Israeli media that the relationship between the two leaders, and by extension, their countries, has begun to unravel is becoming unavoidable.

Some idea of the gap was apparent in Trump’s recent Middle East trip, which saw him visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but not Israel, the state that has typically been the US’s closest ally within the region.

Likewise, US negotiations with two of Israel’s fiercest regional opponents, Iran and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, have been taking place without any apparent input from Israel, a country that has always regarded itself as central to such matters. Lastly, against a growing chorus of international condemnation over Israel’s actions in Gaza, there was the decision of US Vice President JD Vance to cancel a planned visit to Israel for apparently “logistical” reasons.

Appearing on national television earlier this month, Israeli commentator Dana Fahn Luzon put it succinctly: “Trump is signalling to Netanyahu, ‘Honey, I’ve had enough of you.’”

“We’re seeing a total breakdown of everything that might be of benefit to Israel,” Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and former political aide to several senior Israeli political figures, including Netanyahu, told Al Jazeera. “America was once our closest ally; now we don’t seem to have a seat at the table. This should be of concern to every single Israeli.”

‘Many Israelis blame Netanyahu for this,” Barak continued. “He always presented Trump as somehow being in his pocket, and it’s pretty clear Trump didn’t like that. Netanyahu crossed a line.”

‘No better friend’

While concern over a potential rift may be growing within Israel, prominent voices in the US administration are stressing the strength of their alliance.

Last Sunday, President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said that, while the US was keen to avert what he called a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, he didn’t think there was “any daylight between President Trump’s position and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s position”.

Also doubling down on the US’s commitment to Israel was White House National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt, who dismissed reports that the Trump administration was preparing to “abandon” Israel if it continues with its war on Gaza, telling Israeli media that “Israel has had no better friend in its history than President Trump”.

The Trump administration has also been active in shutting down criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza in public spheres and specifically on US college campuses.

Several international students have also been arrested and deported for their support of Palestine, including Rumeysa Ozturk, whose arrest as she was walking on a street in a Boston suburb for an opinion piece co-authored in a student newspaper was described by Human Rights Watch as “chilling”.

Spatting

Those policies have made it clear that the Trump administration sits firmly in Israel’s corner. And looking back at Trump’s policies in his first presidential term, that is not surprising.

Trump fulfilled many of the Israeli right’s dreams in that term, between 2017 and 2021, including recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, despite its eastern half being occupied Palestinian territory, recognising the annexation of the Golan Heights, despite it being occupied Syrian territory, and pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.

But those actions are partly to blame for the bumpy relationship between Trump and Netanyahu, with the US president reportedly resentful of what he saw as a lack of gratitude for those pro-Israel policies.

Trump was also furious after Netanyahu congratulated former US President Joe Biden following his 2020 election victory over Trump, which the current president still disputes.

“The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi [Benjamin] Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with. … Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake,” Trump said in an interview in 2021.

Nevertheless, in the build-up to the 2024 US election, Netanyahu and his allies actively courted candidate Trump, believing him to be the best means of fulfilling their agenda and continuing their war on Gaza, analysts said.

“Netanyahu had really campaigned for Trump before the election, emphasising how bad Biden was,” Yossi Mekelberg, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, said.

“Now they don’t know which way Trump’s going to go because he’s so contractual. He’s all about the win,” Mekelberg added, referring to the series of victories the president claimed during his recent Gulf tour, adding, “but there’s no win in Palestine”.

Across the Israeli press and media, a consensus is taking hold that Trump has simply tired of trying to secure a “win” or an end to the war on Gaza that Netanyahu and his allies on the Israeli hard right have no interest in pursuing.

Israeli Army Radio has even carried reports that Trump has blocked direct contact from Netanyahu over concerns that the Israeli prime minister may be trying to manipulate him.

Quoting an unnamed Israeli official, Yanir Cozin, a reporter with Israeli Army Radio, wrote on X: “There’s nothing Trump hates more than being portrayed as a sucker and someone being played, so he decided to cut off contact.”

“There’s a sense in Israel that Trump’s turned on Netanyahu,” political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg said from Tel Aviv. “Supporters of Netanyahu are panicking, as they all previously thought that Trump’s backing was unlimited.”

What now?

A break in relations between Netanyahu and Trump might not mean an automatic break between Israel and the US, Flaschenberg cautioned, with all factions across the Israeli political spectrum speculating on what the future may hold under a realigned relationship with the US.

US financial, military and diplomatic support for Israel has been a bedrock of both countries’ foreign policy for decades, Mekelberg said. Moreover, whatever Trump’s current misgivings about his relationship with Netanyahu, support for Israel, while diminishing, remains hardwired into much of his Republican base, analysts and polls have noted, and particularly among Republican – and Democratic – donors.

“Those opposed to Netanyahu and the war are hoping that the US may now apply a lasting ceasefire,” Flaschenberg said, with reference to Israeli reliance upon US patronage. “That’s not because of any great faith in Trump, but more the extent of their dismay in the current government.”

However, equally present are those on the hard right, such as Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who Mekelberg speculated may also hope to take advantage of whatever direction US policy towards Israel heads in.

“Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and their backers could take advantage of American disinterest, depending upon what shape it takes,” Mekelberg told Al Jazeera. “If the US continues to provide weapons and diplomatic cover in the UN while letting [Israel] get on with it, then that’s their dream,” he said of Smotrich, who has reassured his backers that allowing minimal aid into the besieged enclave did not mean that Israel would stop “destroying everything that’s left of the Gaza Strip”.

However, where Netanyahu may figure in this is uncertain.

Accusations that the Israeli prime minister has become reliant upon the war to sustain the political coalition he needs to remain in office and avoid both a legal reckoning in his corruption trial, as well as a political reckoning over his government’s failures ahead of the October 7, 2023 attack, are both widespread and longstanding.

“I don’t know if Netanyahu can come back from this,” Barak said, still uncertain about whether the prime minister can demonstrate his survival skills once again. “There’s a lot of talk about Netanyahu being at the end of his line. I don’t know. They’ve been saying that for years, and he’s still here. They were saying that when I was his aide, but I can’t see any more magic tricks that are available to him.”

A Palestinian student at US college UCLA has gained attention for going on a hunger strike to pressure the university to divest from Israel, as other supporters of Palestinian rights join the FastForGaza movement to call attention to Israel’s restrictions on food.