Middle East

UN stresses adherence to principles of neutrality and independence in delivering life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The United Nations has said it will not take part in a US-backed humanitarian operation in Gaza because it is not impartial, neutral or independent, as Israel pledged to facilitate the effort without being involved in aid deliveries.

“This particular distribution plan does not accord with our basic principles, including those of impartiality, neutrality, independence, and we will not be participating in this,” deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters on Thursday.

The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will start work in Gaza by the end of May under a heavily criticised aid plan that the UN aid chief Tom Fletcher described as a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement” of Palestinians in Gaza.

Speaking to reporters in Antalya, Turkiye, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday acknowledged the criticisms and said Washington was open to any alternative plan to get aid to civilians “without Hamas being able to steal it”.

“We’re not immune or in any way insensitive to the suffering of the people of Gaza, and I know that there’s opportunities here to provide aid for them,” Rubio said after speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier on Thursday.

“There are criticisms of that plan. We’re open to an alternative if someone has a better one,” he said.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Thursday that the UN “has a solid and principled operational plan to deliver humanitarian aid and life-saving services at scale and immediately across the Gaza Strip”.

Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies, and has blocked the delivery of all humanitarian assistance to Gaza since March 2, demanding Hamas release all remaining captives.

A report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative released on Monday said the Gaza Strip “is still confronted with a critical risk of famine” after more than a year and a half of devastating war, with the vast majority of its approximately 2.1 million people at severe risk.

In a bid to address some concerns, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has asked Israel to expand an initial limited number of so-called secure aid distribution sites in Gaza’s south to the north within 30 days. It has also asked Israel to let the UN and others resume aid deliveries now until it is set up.

“I’m not familiar with those requests, maybe when they went into Jerusalem, but I will tell you that we appreciate the effort of the United States,” Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters on Thursday.

“We will not fund those efforts. We will facilitate them. We will enable them,” he said. “We will not be the ones giving the aid … It will be run by the fund itself, led by the US.”

Israel and the US have urged the UN and aid groups to cooperate and work with the foundation.

It is unclear how the foundation will be funded. A Department of State spokesperson said no US government funding would go to the foundation.

A fact sheet on the foundation, circulating among the aid community last week, listed respected former UN World Food Programme chief David Beasley as a potential adviser. However, a source familiar with the effort said Beasley was not currently involved.

Gaza is starving. As Palestinians mark 77 years since the Nakba, families are still under bombardment, cut off from aid and struggling to survive. With US President Donald Trump touring the Gulf, what will it take to bring relief to Palestinians?

The Nakba. It’s a concept that accompanied me from birth until I lived through it myself these past two years.

I was born a refugee in the Khan Younis camp, known by the city’s residents as the largest gathering of refugees expelled from their lands during the Nakba, when Israel was founded in 1948.

Whenever someone asked me my name, it was always followed by: “Are you a refugee or a citizen?”

‘What is a refugee?’

As a child, I would ask: “What is a refugee?”

I attended a school run by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and my documents always had to include proof that I was a refugee.

I received treatment at UNRWA clinics, always needing to bring that refugee card.

I spent a lot of time trying to understand what being a refugee meant. How did my grandparents flee their land in Beit Daras, a village north of the Gaza Strip that no longer exists? How did my grandfather end up in this camp, and why did he choose this place?

Before Israel’s war on Gaza, May 15, or Nakba Day, the day Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, was a unique occasion. Everyone paid attention to it, seeking out people who had lived through it to hear their stories.

When I began working as a journalist in 2015, Nakba Day was one of the events I looked forward to covering. That year, I went along with colleagues to the Shati camp, west of Gaza City.

It would be my first time writing about the Nakba, and my first visit to a refugee camp in 13 years, since we had moved from camp life to village life in al-Fukhari, south of Khan Younis.

When I entered the camp, memories of my childhood in Khan Younis came flooding back: the small, crowded houses, some newly built, others still original structures.

It was nice that the commemoration falls in May, with good weather.

Elderly men and women sat by their doors, just as my grandmother did when I was a child. I used to love sitting with her; she seemed used to open spaces, like her pre-1948 home in Beit Daras.

We sat with elderly women, all over 70. They talked about their homeland, the stability they had in their lands, their simple lives, the food they grew and ate, and the heartbreak of not being able to return.

We met many – from Majdal, Hamama, and al-Jura, all depopulated villages and towns taken over by Israel in 1948. Whenever I met someone from Beit Daras, we’d share memories, and laugh a lot, talking about the maftoul (Palestinian couscous) the town was famous for.

The visit was light-hearted, filled with laughter and nostalgia, despite these people having been forced into camp life after the occupation drove them from their towns in horrific ways.

Displacement

I began to understand those Nakba stories more deeply when my grandfather began to tell me his own story. He became the central character in my Nakba reports every year, until his death in 2021.

He estimated he was about 15 years old at the time. He was already married to my grandmother, and they had a child.

He would describe the scenes as I sat in awe, asking myself: How could the world have stood by silently?

My grandfather told me they had a good life, working their farm, eating from their crops. Each town had a specialty, and they exchanged produce.

Theirs was a simple cuisine, with lots of lentils and bread made from wheat they ground in stone mills. Until that dreadful displacement.

He said the Zionist militias forced them to leave, ordering them to go to nearby Gaza.

My grandfather said he shut the door to his home, took my grandmother and their son – just a few months old – and started walking. Israeli planes hovered overhead, firing at people as if to drive them to move faster.

The baby – my uncle – didn’t survive the journey. My grandfather never wanted to go into the details, he would only say that their son died from the conditions as they fled.

After hours of walking, they reached Khan Younis and, with nowhere else to go, he pitched a tent. Eventually, UNRWA was set up and gave him a home, the one I remember from my childhood. It was so old; I spent years visiting them in that asbestos-roofed house with its aged walls.

That memory of being forced into exile became their wound. Yet, the idea of return, the right to go home, was passed down through generations.

Memories made flesh, blood, and anguish

The Nakba was a memory passed down from the elderly to the young.

But in the war that Israel began waging on Gaza on October 7, 2023, we lived the Nakba.

We were forcibly displaced under threat of weapons and air strikes. We saw our loved ones arrested before our eyes and tortured in prisons. We lived in tents and searched everywhere for basic provisions to save our children.

My grandfather told me they fled under threat of weapons and planes – so did we.

He said they searched for flour, food, and water while trying to protect their children – so are we, right now in the 21st century.

Perhaps in 1948, the media was more primitive. But now, the world watches what’s happening in Gaza in many formats – written, visual, and audio – and yet, nothing has changed.

Never did I imagine I’d live through an existential war – a war that threatens my very presence on my land, just as my grandparents lived through.

The repeated scenes of displacement are so painful. They’re a cycle, one that we have been cursed to live through as Palestinians again and again.

Will history record this as Nakba 2023?

Years from now, will we speak of this Nakba just as we’ve spoken about the original one for 77 years? Will we tell stories, hold commemorations, and hold close memories of the dream of return that has stayed with us since childhood?

Since I realised what it meant to be called a refugee and learned I had a homeland, I’ve been dreaming of returning.

This pain, we can never forget it. I still remember the camp and my life there.

I’ll never forget the moment Israel destroyed my house and made us homeless for two years, 24 years ago.

Now we live our painful days searching for safety, fighting to survive.

We will tell future generations about this war, the war of existence.

We resist hunger, fear, thirst, and pain so we can remain on this land.

The Nakba hasn’t ended. The 1948 Nakba continues in 2025.

Israeli forces destroyed homes in the occupied West Bank and killed dozens in Gaza as Palestinians marked 77 years since the Nakba. Israel’s ‘brutality’ has displaced 85-year-old Nakba survivor Mohammed once again, but he says this time it’s worse.

The Trump administration says it has accepted an airplane worth an estimated $400 million from the state of Qatar. While Trump is president, the White House says it would be used as the new Air Force One, then it would go to Trump’s presidential library after his term ends.

The aircraft would become the most expensive gift from a foreign government ever to a US elected official, ABC News reported. But some members of Congress say accepting it would be unconstitutional.

When asked about the potential gift at a May 12 executive order signing, Trump blamed Boeing’s lack of progress in building a new Air Force One. He said he would be “stupid” to refuse a free airplane, and said he won’t use it after he leaves office. “It’s not a gift to me, it’s a gift to the Department of Defense,” he said.

What do experts say?

Legal experts told PolitiFact they believe accepting the gift would violate the US Constitution’s emoluments clause, which reads, “No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

The emoluments clause was designed “to prevent foreign nations from gaining improper influence” over US leaders, said David Forte, Cleveland State University emeritus law professor.

Experts differed on whether accepting the plane would be an impeachable offense.

Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor, said that if Trump accepts the gift, it could be an impeachable deed, because it would amount to “a fully corrupt act.”

Forte, however, said the gift wouldn’t necessarily amount to a bribe or an impeachable offense, but it “is a form of influence buying designed to gain the gratitude of the recipient by playing to his vanity.”

Is this the first time Trump is facing such accusations?

During Trump’s first term, Congressional Democrats, private individuals and attorneys general from Maryland and Washington, DC, filed lawsuits against Trump stemming from the emoluments clause.

However, many of the cases were dismissed on procedural grounds, and the US Supreme Court did not rule on the transactions’ underlying constitutionality.

Trump’s possible acceptance of the aircraft is different, said Frank Bowman, a University of Missouri emeritus law professor.

In his first term, Trump said payments were made to his businesses. This time, there would be no connection to Trump’s businesses. It would be a gift offered for free with no promise of payment from the president or the US Treasury, Bowman said.

NBC News, citing an anonymous senior Justice Department official, reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi approved a memo prepared by the agency’s Office of Legal Counsel that deemed it was legal for the Defense Department to accept the gift. Bondi has previously lobbied on behalf of the state of Qatar.

Trump, on his part, has thanked Qatar for the jet.

“If we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department, during a couple of years whole they’re [Boeing is] building the other one, I think that’s a very nice gesture [from Qatar],” he said on May 12.

Can the emoluments clause be enforced against Trump?

Legal experts said it’s unlikely that Congress, controlled by Republicans, will stop Trump from accepting the gift.

Meghan Faulkner, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, DC, said that since it appears the Justice Department has signed off on receiving the gift, it “could make it harder to hold him accountable”.

Bowman said the Justice Department, according to longstanding policy, wouldn’t prosecute a sitting president.

Faulkner said Trump stands to benefit again after running out the clock on emoluments challenges during his first term. “Enforcing the Emoluments Clause in the courts would face similar challenges (in his second term), including the challenge of finding a plaintiff who has standing to challenge the violations,” she said.

Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassouna was killed the day after she learned a film about her life in Gaza would be shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Al Jazeera’s Hind Toussiate spoke with the director of the film, Sepideh Farsi.

Palestinians held marches in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah to commemorate the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, of their mass dispossession during the creation of Israel in 1948.

More than 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 2023 and an aid blockade threatens famine, while Israeli leaders continue to express a desire to empty the territory of Palestinians.

In the West Bank, too, occupied since 1967, Israeli forces have displaced tens of thousands from refugee camps as part of a major military operation.

This year marks the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, during which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their lands after Israel declared itself an independent state in the territory.

In Ramallah city, Palestinian flags and black ones branded “return” flew at road intersections on Wednesday, while schoolchildren were bussed into the city centre to take part in the weeklong commemoration.

At one event, young boys wearing Palestinian kuffiyeh scarves waved flags and carried a giant replica key, a symbol of the lost homes in what is now Israel that families hope to return to.

No events were planned in Gaza, where more than 19 months of war and Israeli bombardment have left residents destitute and displaced.

Moamen al-Sherbini, a resident of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, told the AFP news agency that he felt history was repeating itself.

“Our lives here in Gaza have become one long Nakba, losing loved ones, our homes destroyed, our livelihoods gone.”

Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during Israel’s war.

In early May, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans for an expanded military offensive in Gaza, aimed at the “conquest” of the territory while displacing its people en masse, drawing international condemnation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government is working to find third countries to take in Gaza’s population, months after United States President Donald Trump suggested they be expelled and the territory redeveloped as a holiday destination.

“Nakba Day is no longer just a memory – it’s a daily reality we live in Gaza,” said 36-year-old Malak Radwan, speaking from Nuseirat in the centre of the enclave.

“This is a miserable day in the lives of Palestinian refugees,” said 52-year-old Nael Nakhleh in Ramallah, whose family comes from the village of al-Majdal near Jaffa in what is now Israel.

Palestinian refugees maintain their demand to return to the villages and cities in current-day Israel that they or their relatives were forced to leave in 1948. The “right of return” remains a core issue in the long-stalled negotiations between Israel and Palestine.

Donald Trump says he thinks the US is close to doing a nuclear deal with Iran. The US president made the comments in Qatar, where he praised the Emir for helping to push for a diplomatic solution, rather than war.

When Abdullah Ocalan said his Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, should lay down its arms and disband after more than four decades of conflict with the Turkish state and tens of thousands of deaths, there was an instant look across the border to Syria.

Syria’s northeast is largely controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led military force Turkiye has repeatedly fought against over the past decade.

The SDF is led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkiye views as a “terrorist” group and the Syrian branch of the PKK. The United States, however, has backed the YPG in Syria to fight against ISIL (ISIS).

Since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December, the SDF has been negotiating with the new Turkish-allied government in Damascus over what its future role in a newly unified Syria and as a military force will be and what kind of governance will extend to the northeast of the country.

No laying down of arms

The removal of the PKK from the equation will likely facilitate the SDF’s integration with Damascus, analysts told Al Jazeera.

“For the SDF, it makes it much easier to talk with the government in Damascus and also to de-escalate their relations with Turkey,” said Wladimir van Wilgenburg, an analyst of Kurdish politics based in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

While the SDF rejects Turkiye’s assertions that it is the Syrian arm of the PKK, analysts said the groups have strong links.

While the PKK’s announcement that it would heed Ocalan’s call and disarm was welcomed by SDF leader Mazloum Abdi, he said his group would not disarm and Ocalan’s decision did not extend to Syria.

But this could give the group further incentives to bring its fighting force and governing structure – called the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES) – under the umbrella of the new government in Damascus.

When reached for comment on Monday, an AANES spokesperson told Al Jazeera: “The autonomous administration is not concerned with the internal affairs of other countries.”

The SDF has clashed with Turkish-backed Syrian factions, including in the immediate days after the fall of al-Assad’s regime, and sustained attacks from Turkiye’s air force.

In December, the US negotiated a ceasefire between the SDF and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, which has since been incorporated into Syria’s new armed forces.

Abdi has been in discussions with the new Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, over how best to integrate the SDF into the post-Baathist Party security forces and govern Syria’s northeast.

Increased pressure to negotiate

The SDF has engaged in the talks with the pressure of an impending US troop withdrawal from northeast Syria.

Without a US presence and support, the SDF has feared it might be vulnerable to attacks from Turkiye or Turkish-backed factions in Syria.

But should the PKK’s decision to disarm bring a feeling of security to Turkiye along its border with Syria, analysts said the relations between the SDF and Turkiye would also likely improve.

“We know that Turkey’s hardline stance towards the SDF was very much linked to concerns over the PKK and not so much about the SDF being Kurdish-dominated,” Thomas Pierret, a Syria specialist and senior researcher at the Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds, told Al Jazeera.

This is evident by Turkiye’s relations with Masoud Barzani and his Kurdish Democratic Party in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region, Pierret said.

Of course, this new reality “doesn’t mean it will be easy”, according to Pierret. Under the agreement between Turkiye and the PKK, some fighters could be relocated to third countries – essentially sent into exile. There’s also the possibility some fighters may decide to make their way to northeast Syria, in which case, Pierret said, Turkiye could see the SDF as a haven for PKK fighters.

So Turkiye will keep a close eye on the SDF in Syria and the SDF’s negotiations with Damascus.

In the past, the Turkish military has launched drones, fired artillery and carried out air strikes against Kurdish fighters, including the SDF.  And analysts said military options may still be on the table going forward.

“For now, they seem to be letting negotiations take their course,” Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International with a focus on Syria, told Al Jazeera. “And that’s probably related both to events in Syria but also to the PKK process.”

Beyond Syria

The PKK’s affiliates and allies are spread across regions of the Middle East where Kurds live.

Historically, the PKK has operated in Turkiye as well as northern Iraq. And their allies have operated in places where Kurds live in Syria and Iran. Their struggles have often opposed the national authorities in those places or sought self-determination or federalism.

One example is the Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK, in Iran, which says its goal is to declare an autonomous Kurdish region in Iran.

“It’s unclear what will happen with the … PJAK because they also have a number of Iranian Kurdish fighters inside the PKK,” van Wildenburg said.

“It’s possible that they will continue as a political party and not as an armed group because they are already not doing much fighting against the Iranian state anyway.”

Analysts agree it is unclear whether the PKK’s allies will follow Ocalan’s lead and lay down their arms or, as is the case with the SDF in Syria, if they will view their own struggles as independent and make decisions on their own.

Russia and Ukraine are poised for talks in Turkiye on Thursday, even though the prospects of President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting directly for the first time in three years were dashed by the Kremlin late on Wednesday.

United States President Donald Trump, who had earlier indicated that he might join the negotiations, will also not attend, according to American officials.

Here’s what we know about the talks, what prompted them, who’s expected to attend, and why the negotiations matter:

Why are the talks being held?

On Sunday, Putin proposed the idea of direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Turkiye, instead of the rounds of indirect talks that the US and others have tried to mediate between the neighbours at war. Putin referenced direct talks that took place in 2022 while pitching for their resumption.

“It was not Russia that broke off negotiations in 2022. It was Kyiv. Nevertheless, we are proposing that Kyiv resume direct negotiations without any preconditions,” Putin said on Sunday.

In February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Shortly after, Russia and Ukraine held talks in the Turkish capital, Istanbul.

According to Zelenskyy, the talks fell apart because Russia demanded that Ukraine concede the Donbas region, which spans Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions – parts of which Russia occupied during its invasion. Zelenskyy added that Russia wanted Ukraine to surrender long-range weaponry, make constitutional amendments to declare neutrality and significantly reduce its armed forces. “There were never any negotiations; it was an ultimatum from a murderer,” Zelenskyy said at the time.

While Zelenskyy had earlier held that any peace agreement would require Russia to give up Ukrainian territory it had occupied, in December last year, Zelenskyy said the “hot phase” of the war could end if NATO offered security guarantees for the part of Ukraine currently under Kyiv’s control.

He added that the return of land that Russia has occupied could be diplomatically negotiated later.

“The pressure that the US has exerted to attempt to bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine has evolved over time,” Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank, told Al Jazeera. “It appears that the most recent elements in that evolution, particularly in terms of European solidarity with Ukraine, have led Russia to engage in direct talks.”

Putin’s recent push for talks came a day after Ukraine’s four major European allies gave Putin an ultimatum to accept an unconditional 30-day ceasefire or face renewed sanctions. This ultimatum came after leaders of the European countries, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland, visited Kyiv.

They gave Putin a deadline until May 12. On Sunday, May 11, Putin – without committing to a ceasefire – said: “We are committed to serious negotiations with Ukraine. Their purpose is to eliminate the root causes of the conflict, to establish a long-term, lasting peace for the historical perspective.”

Where are they being held?

The talks are being held in the Turkish city of Istanbul, which straddles the boundary between Asia and Europe.

What role did Trump play in this?

The four European leaders – Britain’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Poland’s Donald Tusk – said that they had briefed Trump about their ultimatum to Russia over a phone call and suggested that he was on board.

But after Putin called for direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow, Trump issued a statement on his Truth Social platform asking Ukraine to meet with Russia “immediately”.

Trump ran his campaign for the 2024 election on the promise to bring a swift end to the Ukraine war. The Trump administration held multiple meetings, starting February, with Russian and Ukrainian representatives separately in Saudi Arabia in attempts to broker a deal.

Also in April, the Trump administration indicated that it was taking a step back from providing security guarantees to Ukraine. The Trump administration said it wanted Europe to take the lead in supporting Ukraine’s defence instead, noting that the US had other priorities, including border security.

In recent weeks, however, Trump and his team, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have expressed growing frustration at the lack of meaningful progress in negotiations and have threatened to walk out of efforts to mediate peace.

Explaining his insistence that Ukraine join the May 15 Istanbul talks, Trump argued: “At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the US, will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly!”

Who will be there?

“I supported President Trump with the idea of direct talks with Putin. I have openly expressed my readiness to meet. I will be in Turkiye. I hope that the Russians will not evade the meeting,” Zelenskyy wrote in an X post on Monday.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy announced he will be in Ankara on Thursday, where he will meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The talks with Russia, however, are supposed to be held in Istanbul subsequently.

Trump has said he will send Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg to attend the talks in Istanbul.

Russia on Wednesday night announced its team for the meeting. Vladimir Medinsky, a close Putin aide and former culture minister who also led previous rounds of unsuccessful talks with Ukraine in 2022, will lead Moscow’s team. With him will be Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin and the director of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Igor Kostyukov.

Trump’s earlier offer to attend the talks himself had been welcomed by Kyiv. “All of us in Ukraine would appreciate it if President Trump could be there with us at this meeting in Turkiye. This is the right idea. We can change a lot,” Zelenskyy had said.

However, late on Wednesday, US officials clarified that Trump would not be attending.

The US president is currently in the Middle East, where he spent Wednesday in Qatar, after visiting Saudi Arabia a day earlier. On Thursday, Trump will be in the United Arab Emirates before returning to Washington.

What does Putin’s absence mean?

Zelenskyy had earlier said he would be present at the talks only if Putin also attended. “Putin is the one who determines everything in Russia, so he is the one who has to resolve the war. This is his war. Therefore, the negotiations should be with him,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Tuesday.

With Putin now no longer poised to attend, it is unclear if Zelenskyy will personally participate in the talks or whether he will leave it to his team to join the negotiations.

Yet, in many ways, Zelenskyy scored over Putin by throwing down the gauntlet and asking him to attend.

“Zelenskyy has presented a challenge to Russia to show that it has genuine interest; it is up to Russia whether it meets this challenge or not,” said Giles.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had also pledged to urge Putin to attend the talks.

What’s on the table?

It is difficult to predict what might specifically be discussed in the Turkiye talks.

“It would be rash to predict whether there will be any meaningful discussion at all, since the acceptable outcomes for both are still far apart,” Giles said. “Russia wants to neutralise Ukraine as an independent sovereign state, while Ukraine wants to survive.”

At the moment, Ukraine has proposed an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, while Russia has insisted that a series of its demands be accepted before it joins such a truce. Moscow said that it wants assurances over the monitoring mechanism for a ceasefire, and that a truce won’t be used by Ukraine to rearm and mobilise more soldiers. Instead, Putin has announced brief, unilateral ceasefires in recent days that Ukraine says Moscow never actually adhered to.

“We do not rule out that, during these negotiations, it will be possible to agree on some new truces, a new ceasefire and a real truce, which would be observed not only by Russia, but also by the Ukrainian side. [It] would be the first step, I repeat, to a long-term sustainable peace, and not a prologue to the continuation of the armed conflict,” Putin said on Sunday.

How significant are these talks?

Giles said that if the talks happen, “they will be a significant step forward”.

He added: “Anything that has been referred to as peace talks [ so far] has not been anything of the sort,” describing the two parallel discussions that the US has had with Russia and Ukraine.

On March 19, the US, Ukraine and Russia announced a 30-day ceasefire on attacks on Russian and Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and on March 25, they agreed on a Black Sea deal, halting the military use of commercial vessels and the use of force in the Black Sea. Both sides, however, traded blame for violating the terms of those agreements, which have now expired.

State-owned airline Qatar Airways has signed an agreement to buy 210 aircraft from United States manufacturer Boeing, coinciding with President Donald Trump’s visit to Qatar as part of his tour of the Gulf region.

Trump and Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, witnessed the signing ceremony in Doha on Wednesday. The White House said that the deal for the Boeing 777X and 787 planes with GE Aerospace engines was worth $96bn.

Trump said Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who signed the deal with Qatar Airways CEO Badr Mohammed Al Meer next to Trump and the emir, told him: “It’s the largest order of jets in the history of Boeing. That’s good.”

Trump had initially said that the deal was worth more than $200bn and was for 160 planes, before the White House issued updated numbers after his comments.

The White House also said that agreements signed by the US and Qatar would “generate an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion”.

“This is a critical next step for Qatar Airways on our path as we invest in the cleanest, youngest and most efficient fleet in global aviation,” Qatar Airways Group CEO Badr Mohammed Al-Meer said in a statement.

“After two consecutive years of record-breaking commercial performance and with this historic Boeing aircraft order – we’re not simply chasing scale; we’re building strength that will allow us to continue to deliver our unmatched products and customer experiences.”

The sale is also a boost for Boeing and its biggest engine supplier at a time when large versions of rival Airbus’ A350, powered by Rolls-Royce engines, have struggled with maintenance problems from operating in the world’s hottest climates, including the Gulf region.

Boeing shares rose 0.9 percent in New York, while GE Aerospace stock edged up 0.1 percent.

For the 787s, Qatar opted for GE Aerospace’s GEnx engines rather than Rolls-Royce’s Trent 1000, according to the administration. GE Aerospace’s GE9X is the only engine option for the 777X.

It is the largest widebody engine deal for GE Aerospace, the company’s CEO Larry Culp said in a statement.

Faisal al-Mudahka, editor-in-chief of the Gulf Times, said the Qatar Airways purchase of Boeing aircraft is a “win-win”.

As one of the world’s top airlines with a growing market, Qatar Airways has more demand than supply at the moment and will need the fleet, he said.

“I think Donald Trump and Qatar know how to package things to make political gains and economic gains.”

Trump’s Qatar visit is the second destination of his Gulf tour, after an initial stop in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he made a surprise announcement about lifting sanctions on Syria and then met the country’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Trump is to land on a third and final stop in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday for a one-day visit.

No mention of Gaza

The Qatari emir said the two leaders had a “great” few hours of discussion covering a range of issues. “I think after signing these documents, we are going to another level of relations,” he said.

Trump thanked the emir and said it had been a “very interesting couple of hours” discussing topics including the Russia-Ukraine war, Iran and trade relations.

However, Israel’s war on Gaza was not mentioned by either leader.

Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said the fact that Gaza wasn’t mentioned led him to believe the discussion is “ongoing”.

“When it comes to Gaza, you have the Israelis there as well. On the issue of a ceasefire, Trump can put pressure on the Israelis, … but you still have the Israelis there making decisions. This is going to be a little bit more difficult to work out,” he told Al Jazeera.

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who was also in Doha, said “we’re making progress” in response to a question by Al Jazeera Diplomatic Editor James Bays on whether discussions on Gaza were ongoing.

“His tone was pretty telling. He was very positive,” Bays said. “When I asked him whether that was regarding aid deliveries or a ceasefire, he said, ‘We’re making progress on all fronts.’”

“He said he hopes there would be a positive announcement ‘soon’, but we have no indication of what that might mean,” Bays added.

Qatar’s role as a global mediator and a massive purchase of Boeing airliners were prime areas of focus in official talks between US President Donald Trump and Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Iran’s president says his nation will not be intimidated by threats as Trump accuses Tehran of carrying out proxy wars.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country would not “bow to any bully” in response to United States President Donald Trump’s criticism of Tehran during his ongoing three-day Gulf tour.

“He [Trump] thinks he can come here, chant slogans, and scare us. For us, martyrdom is far sweeter than dying in bed. You came to frighten us? We will not bow to any bully,” he said on Wednesday in comments broadcast live on state TV.

Earlier in the day, during the GCC summit in Riyadh, Trump said that while he wanted to make a deal with Iran, the country “must stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars, and permanently and verifiably cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons”.

Washington and Tehran have held four meetings that were mediated by Oman to help reach a deal over the latter’s nuclear programme.

While attending a state dinner in the Qatari capital in Doha on Wednesday, Trump repeated his publicly stated desire for a peaceful resolution to Iran’s nuclear programme and suggested the ball is in Tehran’s court.

“It’s a perilous situation, and we want to do the right thing,” Trump said. “We want to do something that’s going to save maybe millions of lives. Because things like that get started, and they get out of control.”

On Tuesday, Trump said that he wanted “to make a deal with Iran”, but “if Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch … we will have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure”. He added that he would not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Successive US administrations have sought to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. A sustained effort by world powers during the Barack Obama administration culminated in a 2015 agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

But when Trump succeeded Obama as US president, he unilaterally withdrew the US from the nuclear agreement in 2018, causing the deal to crumble.

Despite ongoing talks, the Trump administration has continued to impose sanctions on Iran.

On Wednesday, the US issued sanctions targeting Iran for efforts to domestically manufacture components for ballistic missiles, the US Department of the Treasury said.

The sanctions target six individuals and 12 entities for what the Treasury Department said was “their involvement in efforts to help the Iranian regime domestically source the manufacturing of critical materials needed for Tehran’s ballistic missile program”.

As President Trump parades through the Middle East this week, he will encounter a very different region than the one he experienced during his first term. True, the Israeli-Palestinian problem remains unresolved, as do the challenges emanating from Iran’s much-advanced nuclear program and the instability and dysfunction in Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

But this old wine is now packaged in new bottles. Beyond the garish headlines of Trump’s plan to accept a Boeing 747 as a gift from Qatar, new trends are emerging that will redefine the region, posing additional challenges for U.S. policy.

Of all the changes in the Middle East since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, perhaps the most striking is Israel’s emergence as a regional powerhouse. Aided by the administrations of Presidents Biden and Trump, and enabled by Arab regimes that do little to support Palestinians, Israel devastated Hamas and Hezbollah as military organizations, killing much of their senior leadership. With the support of the United States, Europe and friendly Arab states, it effectively countered two direct Iranian missile attacks on its territory.

Israel then delivered its own strike, reportedly destroying much of Iran’s ballistic missile production and air defenses. In short, Israel has achieved escalation dominance: the capacity to escalate (or not) as it sees fit, and to deter its adversaries from doing so. Israel has also redefined its concept of border security in Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and Syria by acting unilaterally to preempt and prevent threats to its territory.

Converting Israel’s military power into political arrangements, even peace accords, would seem like a reasonable next step. But the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems uninterested in such options and is unlikely to be induced to change its outlook. Moreover, securing new, lasting agreements also depends on whether there are leaders among the Palestinians and key Arab states ready to take up the challenge, with all the political risks it entails.

But the Arab world remains in serious disarray. At least five Arab states are dealing with profound internal challenges, leaving them in various degrees of dysfunction and state failure. Amid this power vacuum, two alternative power centers have emerged. The first are the states of the Persian Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Relatively unscathed by the Arab Spring and blessed with sovereign wealth funds, oil and natural gas, these stable authoritarian powers, particularly Saudi Arabia, have begun to play an outsize role in the region.

The second category comprises non-Arab states. Israel, Turkey and Iran are the only states in the region with the capacity to project significant military power beyond their borders. While each has suffered periods of internal unrest, they currently enjoy domestic stability. Each also boasts tremendous economic potential and significant security, military and intelligence capabilities, including the capability to manufacture weapons domestically.

One (Israel) is America’s closest regional ally, another (Turkey) is a member of NATO and a newfound power broker in Syria, and the third (Iran) retains considerable influence despite Israel’s mauling of its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran’s nuclear program keeps it relevant, even central, to both Israeli and American policymaking.

All three non-Arab states engender a good deal of suspicion and mistrust among Arab regimes but are nonetheless seen as key players whom no one wants to offend. All three are at odds — with each frustrating the others’ regional objectives — and all three are here to stay. Their influence will most likely only grow in the years to come, given the fractiousness of the Arab world.

In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, it seemed that the Palestinian issue was once again front and center, not just in the Arab world, but internationally. Those who claimed it had lost its resonance could point to the outpouring of sympathy and support for Gazan civilians as Israel’s war against Hamas led to a humanitarian catastrophe.

Moreover, the United Nations passed resolutions calling for an end to the war, many around the world condemned the war and Israel, the International Court of Justice took up the question of whether Israel is committing genocide, and the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu (as well as for Hamas’ military commander, later found to have been killed).

Nonetheless, it has become stunningly clear that, far from pushing the Palestinian issue to the top of the international agenda, the Oct. 7 attack has actually diminished its salience and left Palestinians isolated and without good options. Continued U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas, despite the exponential rise of Palestinian deaths, has protected Israel from negative consequences; key Arab regimes have done next to nothing to impose costs and consequences on Israel and the U.S. as Palestinian civilian deaths mount. The international community appears too fragmented, distracted and self-interested to act in any concerted way in defense of Palestine.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian national movement remains divided and dysfunctional, giving Palestinians an unpalatable choice between Hamas and the aging president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. The prospects for anything resembling a two-state solution have never looked bleaker.

How the Trump administration will process these developments remains to be seen. Clearly, it has adopted a pro-Israel view, with Trump musing about turning Gaza into a Riviera-style resort. He has deployed his special envoy to the Middle East to secure the return of hostages taken by Hamas but has yet to invest in any postwar plan for the beleaguered enclave. Indeed, he has left the strategy for Gaza to Israel, which in turn has resumed its military campaign there. Trump has also acquiesced to Israel’s pursuit of aggressive border defenses against both Lebanon and Syria, while enabling Israel’s annexationist policies in the West Bank.

Yet Trump is nothing if not unpredictable. In April, he announced new U.S. negotiations with Iran in the presence of Netanyahu, who himself has tried to persuade the president that the only solution to Iran’s nuclear program is military action. But if U.S.-Iranian negotiations do advance, or if Trump’s interest in Israeli-Saudi normalization intensifies, he may find himself drawn into the Middle East negotiating bazaar, dealing with the intricacies of day-after planning in Gaza and a political horizon for Palestinians.

These paths are already fomenting tension between Trump, who will not be visiting Israel on his Middle East trip, and a recalcitrant Netanyahu. But given Trump’s absolute control over his party, Netanyahu will have few options to appeal to Republicans if the White House proposes policies that he opposes. As most U.S. allies have already learned, if Trump wants something, he’s not averse to using pressure to get it.

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations and the author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.” Lauren Morganbesser is a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Syrians are describing it as a turning point – “The second joy since the fall of Bashar al-Assad.”

United States President Donald Trump has announced he will lift all sanctions on Syria, as a way to help the country rebuild after years of civil war.

The United Nations estimates half of the Syrian population is displaced, and nearly 75 percent needs humanitarian aid.

It says that, at its current rate of growth, Syria will take at least half a century to achieve its pre-war economic level.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa has already called on the United States to invest in the nation’s oil and gas sector.

But can he capitalise on the removal of US restrictions and transform the fragmented and devastated country?

And what about Syria’s fragile security situation?

Presenter:

Folly Bah Thibault

Guests:

Sinan Hatahet – Nonresident Fellow, Atlantic Council’s Syria Project.

Joshua Landis – Director of the Center for Middle East Studies, University of Oklahoma.

Omar Alshogre – Syrian refugee and director for detainee affairs at the Syrian Emergency Task Force.

Qatari prime minister states that the UN should be allowed to resume aid distribution inside Gaza.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said that a series of recent Israeli attacks on Gaza show that Israel is not interested in ending the war.

In an interview with the US news outlet CNN on Wednesday, Al Thani said that he had hoped that the release of a US-Israeli soldier named Edan Alexander from captivity in Gaza would be a “breakthrough that will help bring back the talks on track” but that Israel had instead opted to step up strikes on the Strip.

“Unfortunately, Israel’s reaction to this was [bombing] the next day, while sending the delegation,” he said.

Al Thani also stated that a US-backed plan for distributing aid in Gaza through a newly created group is unnecessary. Humanitarian and United Nations aid groups have said that they already have the means of delivering aid to Gaza but are being blocked from doing so by Israel.

Israel has completely cut off Gaza’s access to food, water, fuel, and humanitarian aid since March 2, prompting global monitors of extreme hunger to warn of possible famine and allegations of the use of starvation as a weapon of war by human rights groups.

Israel has claimed, with little evidence, that members of the armed Palestinian group Hamas are stealing large portions of aid entering the Strip, and have pushed for the exclusion of UN organisations, long viewed with ire by Israeli authorities, from aid distribution.

A newly created body with US backing called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said on Wednesday that it would begin operations in Gaza by the end of May, and that it has asked Israel to allow increased levels of aid into the Strip.

Critics have said that the new organisation fulfils an Israeli goal of sidelining the UN and independent international organisations from aid distribution in Gaza.

“GHF emphasizes that a successful humanitarian response must eventually include the entire civilian population in Gaza,” the foundation’s executive director, Jake Wood, wrote in a letter to the Israeli government.

“GHF respectfully requests that the [Israeli military] identify and deconflict sufficient locations in northern Gaza capable of hosting GHF-operated secure distribution sites that can be made operational within 30 days,” he added.

A recent report by the Observer, a UK-based news outlet, notes that a GHF fundraising document appears to mirror claims about the problems of humanitarian assistance in Gaza that do not include the actions of the Israeli government itself and instead blame a “collapse” of “traditional humanitarian channels” due to aid diversion and combat operations.

Thousands of aid trucks have been bottlenecked outside of Gaza amid Israel’s blockade for weeks, with UN officials stressing that they are ready and capable of resuming aid distribution in the Strip, if Israel will lift the siege.