Based on his own social media posts, Israeli comedian and former combatant Guy Hochman was detained and questioned in Toronto after the Hind Rajab Foundation accused him of war crimes and incitement in Gaza.
Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the former commander of the paramilitary “Defence Companies” (Saraya al-Difa), has died in the United Arab Emirates at the age of 89.
The Reuters news agency cited two sources confirming his death on January 21, 2026. Rifaat had reportedly fled from Beirut to Dubai following the collapse of the Assad regime and the flight of his nephew to Russia in December 2024.
Born in Qardaha, northwestern Syria, in 1937, Rifaat, a member of the country’s Alawite minority, was a central figure in the establishment of the Assad family’s rule in the 1970s. But he fell out with his brother, former President Hafez al-Assad, following a failed coup attempt in the early 1980s.
Here is a brief timeline of the main events during the life and career of the man known as the “Butcher of Hama”.
The Hama massacre
Rifaat was notorious for his role in the 1982 crackdown on the city of Hama to suppress an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Commanding the Defence Companies – a force of approximately 40, 000 soldiers independent of the regular army – Rifaat led a siege on the city that lasted nearly a month. The operation involved heavy shelling and ground assaults.
According to a 2022 report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the campaign resulted in approximately 40, 000 deaths, and 17, 000 people went missing. The assault destroyed entire neighbourhoods, including 79 mosques and three churches.
In a 2011 televised interview, Rifaat denied responsibility for the events, claiming he “did not know Hama” and attributing the orders to his brother, Hafez.
A photo taken in 1984 shows late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad (R) with his youngest brother, Rifaat, left, at a military ceremony in Damascus]AFP/HO]
Rifaat’s rise to power – and a failed coup
Rifaat joined the Baath party in 1952 and rose through the military ranks. He played a key security role in the 1970 coup, which brought overthrew the former head of state, Salah Jadid, and brought Hafez al-Assad to power.
In the late 1970s, as the regime faced internal opposition, Rifaat advocated for extreme measures. In a 1979 speech at a Baath party congress, he reportedly suggested “Stalinist” methods to purge opposition and proposed closing mosques to curb “sectarian ideology”.
His influence peaked in the early 1980s, but tensions with his brother were mounting. In November 1983, while Hafez was ill, Rifaat attempted to seize control, deploying his own forces in Damascus. The confrontation ended in a standoff.
By 1984, Hafez had regained control. Rifaat was stripped of his command, appointed to the ceremonial post of vice president and sent into exile. Reports at the time suggested he received $200m from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of a settlement to leave the country.
Exile and legal troubles
Rifaat spent the next 36 years primarily in Europe, where he faced multiple legal challenges over the source of his wealth.
France: In 2020, a French court sentenced him to four years in prison for money laundering and misappropriation of Syrian public funds, confiscating real estate assets worth an estimated $100m.
Switzerland: In August 2023, the Swiss Federal Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Rifaat for his alleged role in war crimes committed in Hama in 1982.
Assets Frozen: Authorities in the UK and Spain also froze family assets and investigated him for illicit financial activities.
Return and death
To avoid imprisonment in France, Rifaat returned to Syria in October 2021. Despite his previous calls in 2011 for Bashar al-Assad to step down, he appeared voting for his nephew in the May 2021 election at the Syrian embassy in Paris.
Palestinians in Gaza have expressed disbelief in the possibility of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joining a “Board of Peace” to rebuild the Strip. Many claim that the leader to blame for the war is unworthy of reconciliation.
Hamas has agreed to “give up their weapons” and the world will know “certainly over the next three weeks” if the group will follow through, Donald Trump told the World Economic Forum. Hamas will otherwise be “blown away very quickly,” the US president added.
The United States is expected to host a signing ceremony on Thursday for President Donald Trump’s “board of peace” (BoP) on the margins of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
Trump, who is to meet global leaders this week at the WEF, is pitching the board as the next phase of his administration’s 20-point peace plan and a mechanism to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory since October 2023.
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But while the BoP was first introduced last year with a specific two-year United Nations Security Council mandate to manage post-war Gaza, its official charter makes no direct reference to Gaza at all.
Instead, the document outlines a sweeping mandate that appears to challenge existing diplomatic frameworks, advocating a move away from established international institutions on the premise that they have failed to maintain global peace.
Invitations to join the BoP were sent this week to dozens of countries, several of which have confirmed receipt and signalled their willingness to participate. But others have so far been reluctant to join. Observers argued this reluctance of many invited states to make immediate commitments reflects growing concern that the Trump administration is seeking to use the BoP’s expansive charter to bypass, or even replace, the UN.
Here is what we know so far about the board, its structure and mandate, the countries that have agreed to join, those still undecided and why hesitation remains widespread.
What is the ‘board of peace’?
First proposed in September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, the board was initially framed as a mechanism to support the administration, reconstruction and economic recovery of the Gaza Strip.
The White House formally announced the creation of the BoP last week. However, the organisation’s 11-page charter, comprising eight chapters and 13 articles, does not mention Gaza once.
Instead, it proposes a broad mandate for a new international organisation that “seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”.
The governance structure has three layers: the BoP, an executive board and a chairman with sweeping authority.
According to the White House, a “founding executive council” sits at the top. The board of peace votes on budgets, policy and senior appointments while the executive board, which consists of seven members, is responsible for implementing the mission.
Members of the executive board include former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The chairman is Trump himself. He serves as the final authority on the interpretation of the charter and holds veto power over key decisions, including membership removal and executive board actions.
Board members “will oversee a defined portfolio critical to Gaza’s stabilization and long-term success”, the White House said, including “governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilisation”.
Below the founding council is the “Gaza executive board”, tasked with regional coordination and supported by representatives from Arab countries. Its mandate is to help “support effective governance” in Gaza.
At the bottom of the hierarchy is the “national committee for the administration of Gaza” (NCAG), which is to be led by Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister.
Alongside these civilian structures is a military pillar, led by US General Jasper Jeffers as commander of the “international stabilisation force” with a mandate that includes “permanent disarmament”.
Membership in the BoP is limited to states invited by the chairman. Member states are represented by heads of state or senior government officials and must contribute to operations in line with their domestic laws.
While general membership terms last three years, this limit does not apply to states contributing more than $1bn in the first year, which would grant them a permanent seat.
Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump praised the initiative. “I wish the United Nations could do more. I wish we didn’t need a board of peace, but the United Nations – and, you know, with all the wars I settled, United Nations never helped me on one war,” he told reporters.
Which countries have been invited and which have agreed to join?
Soon after the announcement, invitations were sent to dozens of countries across the world.
Leaders of at least 50 nations have confirmed receiving invitations, including close US allies such as the UK, France, Canada, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Australia.
US adversaries China and Russia were also invited.
Israel confirmed it will join the BoP after approval from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s office announced on Wednesday that he would participate in the initiative despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) having issued a warrant for his arrest over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
His decision comes even after earlier criticism from his office over the composition of the executive committee, which includes Turkiye, a regional rival.
Netanyahu’s participation, despite the ICC warrant issued in 2023 accusing him of overseeing crimes against humanity in Gaza, is likely to intensify concerns about the board’s objectivity, particularly given Trump’s central role in controlling its membership and direction.
Pakistan also confirmed on Wednesday that it would participate, according to a statement from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Pakistan expresses the hope that with the creation of this framework, concrete steps will be taken towards the implementation of a permanent ceasefire, further scaling up of humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, as well as reconstruction of Gaza,” the statement said.
Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said on Wednesday that the country’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, would join the board.
Other countries that have agreed to join include the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Argentina, Hungary and Belarus.
Andreas Krieg, associate professor of security studies at King’s College London, said countries joining the BoP were motivated by “access and leverage”.
“They will want a direct line into the White House; a seat in the room where contracts, corridors, crossings and timelines are decided; and a chance to shape what ‘post-Hamas’ means before facts harden on the ground,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that participation also amounts to “buying insurance” against future exclusion.
Filippo Boni, a senior lecturer in politics and international studies at the Open University in the UK, said invited states face a stark choice.
“Either join the board and undermine the UN or refuse to join,” he said, “and potentially face tariffs from the US.”
Which countries have rejected the BoP?
At least four countries – France, Denmark, Norway and Sweden – have confirmed they will not join. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson confirmed the decision to reporters in Davos on Wednesday.
Denmark is already under pressure from Washington over Greenland. Trump has repeatedly suggested the US should acquire the semiautonomous Danish territory, even threatening force if Copenhagen refuses – although in his speech to the WEF on Wednesday, Trump said he would not use force.
Why are countries hesitant to be part of the BoP?
Several other countries across the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia, including India, Indonesia, Egypt, Japan and Thailand, have also been invited but have yet to make a decision.
Most of Europe – including US allies like the UK, Germany and Italy – have not said whether they will join the board.
China and Russia haven’t confirmed participation in the board either.
For many nations, including China, that reluctance isn’t surprising, Boni suggested. Several of these countries advocate for UN principles and laws as the guiding pillars of international relations. Beijing, meanwhile, “has proposed its own global governance framework through the Global Governance Initiative (GGI), so it will likely move cautiously on Trump’s proposed plan”, he said. Launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2025, the GGI is a governance framework aimed at promoting multilateralism although Beijing has not outlined many specifics.
Displaced Palestinian children play at Bilal Mosque in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 20, 2026 [Haitham Imad/EPA]
Krieg said states choosing to stay out will still seek to maintain close ties with Washington through bilateral channels, defence cooperation, trade and discreet humanitarian support.
At the same time, “they will also keep insisting that anything involving troops and legal authority should run through the UN because that gives them cover and limits the sense that they are working for an American project,” he said.
Masood Khan, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US and UN, said the invitation for his country to join the board reflects growing international recognition of Islamabad’s stature. But he warned that the initiative’s success depends more on politics than on its structure.
“As long as President Trump’s political authority remains intact, the structure is likely to function,” he said, noting that the top tiers are filled with figures closely aligned with Trump.
Trump began his second term as president a year ago and is set to remain in office until January 2029, a year longer than the BoP’s UN mandate.
Boni said any countries willing to pay $1bn for a permanent seat would make that decision based more on “a political choice than an economic one”.
“The choice is to either challenge multilateralism and the rule-based international order with the UN at its centre or to continue abiding by it, thereby refusing to endorse US leadership under this new framework,” he said.
Krieg suggested that some wealthy states may see value in paying for influence although even they may proceed cautiously.
“Beyond the Gulf, a country like Japan could afford it, but I would expect Tokyo to be cautious about a paywall model that weakens UN norms. India can afford it too, but Delhi rarely pays to join someone else’s club unless the return is concrete and immediate,” he said.
Is the BoP a replacement for the UN?
Perhaps the most serious concern surrounding the BoP is its potential role as a rival to the UN, which has served as the cornerstone of global diplomacy for eight decades despite multiple failings – and repeated violations of its rules by powerful states like the US and its allies like Israel.
But Khan rejected the idea that the UN’s failure to act decisively in Gaza reflected an institutional collapse
“The UN was prevented from acting. It did not choose inaction,” he said, alluding to repeated US vetoes against Israel that paralysed the Security Council.
Trump was a vocal critic of the UN during his first term from 2017 to 2021 and has cut funding to several UN-affiliated bodies during his second stint in the Oval Office.
But Boni pointed out that while the UN Charter enshrined principles such as the equal rights of large and small states after World War II, the board of peace charter is essentially a list of rules to join the club “where no such principles seem to be present”.
Krieg said fears that the BoP could hollow out the UN are well founded.
“You do not need to abolish the UN to hollow it out. You can drain attention, drain money and create a habit where the big calls move to ad hoc bodies chaired by major powers,” he said.
Trump’s BoP poses that risk, he added.
“The UN still carries something the board cannot easily replicate – near-universal membership, legal standing and the machinery of agencies that can operate at scale. The risk is that the board turns the UN into a service provider that takes instructions rather than sets terms,” Krieg said.
