Category World News

While diplomatic circles welcome the recovery of the last Israeli captive’s remains in Gaza and the imminent partial reopening of the enclave’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt, a quieter, darker reality is taking shape on the ground.

According to comments by retired Israeli General Amir Avivi, who still advises the military, Israel has cleared land in Rafah, an area in the southern Gaza Strip that it had already flattened in more than two years of its genocidal war, to construct an enormous facility to entrench its military control and presence in Gaza for the long term.

Speaking to the Reuters news agency on Tuesday, Avivi described the project as a “big, organised camp” capable of holding hundreds of thousands of people, stating it would be equipped with “ID checks, including facial recognition”, to track every Palestinian entering or leaving.

Corroborating Avivi’s claims, exclusive analysis by Al Jazeera’s Digital Investigations Team confirms that ground preparations for this project are already well under way.

Satellite imagery captured from December 2 through Monday reveals extensive clearing operations in western Rafah. The analysis identifies an area of about 1.3sq km (half a square mile) that has undergone systematic levelling.

According to the investigation, the operations went beyond mere debris removal and involved the flattening of land previously devastated by Israeli air strikes.

The cleared zone is located adjacent to two Israeli military posts, suggesting the new camp will be under direct and immediate military supervision. The satellite evidence aligns with reports that the facility is to act as a controlled “holding pen” rather than a humanitarian shelter.

The trap of return

To analysts in Gaza, no humanitarian intent is behind this projected high-tech infrastructure, which they say is in fact a trap for Palestinians.

“What they are building is, in reality, a human-sorting mechanism reminiscent of Nazi-era selection points,” Wissam Afifa, a Gaza-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera. “It is a tool for racial filtering and a continuation of the genocide by other means.”

The reopening of the Rafah crossing, tentatively scheduled for Thursday, according to The Jerusalem Post, comes with strict Israeli conditions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted on full “security control”.

For Palestinians hoping to return to Gaza, this means submitting to what Afifa describes as “human sorting stations”.

“This mechanism is designed to deter return,” Afifa said. “Palestinians will face interrogation, humiliation and the risk of arrest at these Israeli-run checkpoints just to go home.”

By leveraging facial recognition technology confirmed by Avivi, Israel is creating a high-risk ordeal for returnees, he said. Afifa argued it will force many Palestinians to choose exile over the risk of the “sorting station”, serving Israel’s longstanding goal of depopulating the Strip.

Permanent occupation within the ‘yellow line’

The Rafah camp is just one piece of a larger puzzle. Israel in effect occupies all of Gaza with a physical military presence in 58 percent of the Gaza Strip. Its forces directly occupy an area within the “yellow line”, a self-proclaimed Israeli military buffer zone established by an October ceasefire.

“We are witnessing the re-engineering of Gaza’s geography and demography,” Afifa said. “About 70 percent of the Strip is now under direct Israeli military management.”

This assessment of a permanent foothold is reinforced by Netanyahu’s own remarks to the Knesset on Monday. By declaring that “the next phase is demilitarisation”, or disarming Hamas, rather than reconstruction, Netanyahu signalled that the military occupation has no end date.

“The talk of ‘reconstruction’ starting in Rafah under Israeli security specifications suggests they are building a permanent security infrastructure, not a sovereign Palestinian state,” Afifa added.

A ‘show’ of peace

For the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza, the hope that the return of the last Israeli captive would bring relief has turned into frustration.

“There is a deep sense of betrayal,” Afifa said. “The world celebrated the release of one Israeli body as a triumph while two million Palestinians remain hostages in their own land.”

Afifa warned that the international silence regarding these “sorting stations” risks normalising them. If the Rafah model succeeds, it would transform Gaza from a besieged territory into a high-tech prison where the simple act of travel becomes a tool of subjugation, he said.

Flooding in southern Mozambique has forced thousands of families to flee to informal displacement camps. Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa has been seeing conditions for the women and children at a camp in Chokwe.

Sudan has moved to the forefront of the global humanitarian landscape, now hosting the world’s largest internal displacement crisis. According to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), approximately 14 million people have been forced from their homes within the country.

These staggering figures in Sudan are part of a broader global surge in forced displacement. UNHCR estimates suggest the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide exceeded 122 million by the first half of 2025.

However, amid geopolitical shifts sweeping the Middle East, a countertrend has emerged. For the first time in a decade, the global number of displaced persons dropped by 5.9 million by mid-2025. This shift raises critical questions: what drives people back to conflict zones, and how do they survive in the ruins?

Al Jazeera Arabic spoke with experts, officials and returnees to understand the “Khartoum case” – a phenomenon where civilians are trickling back to the Sudanese capital despite the destruction, driven by nostalgia and a fragile sense of stability following the government’s recent return to the city.

A region in flux

While the global numbers show a slight decline, the regional reality remains grim. The conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which erupted in April 2023, has placed immense pressure on infrastructure across all Sudanese states.

Elsewhere in the region, the situation is equally dire. In the Gaza Strip, internal displacement affects nearly two million people—the vast majority of the population. Many have been displaced multiple times due to the Israeli offensive that began in October 2023.

Adnan Abu Hasna, media adviser for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), describes the situation in Gaza as unique. With 90 percent of homes, schools and infrastructure destroyed, Abu Hasna notes that 2.5 million Palestinians are, in effect, homeless, making a return to normalcy “almost impossible” amid total destruction.

Meanwhile, protracted conflicts continue to drive displacement figures in Syria, where 12 million remain displaced, and in Yemen, where the number exceeds five million.

The Khartoum experiment

Khartoum presents a unique case study in the dynamics of return. The recent resumption of government operations from the capital has sent a signal of potential stability.

Adel El-Baz, director-general of the African Centre for Consulting, views the government’s return as a “direct invitation” for citizens to follow suit. Major-General Osama Abdel Salam, former director of the Centre for Strategic Studies and Research, argues that the return of civilians naturally enhances security.

“The filling of abandoned neighbourhoods with residents reduces the risk of negative phenomena, prevents theft and spreads an atmosphere of reassurance,” Abdel Salam explained.

However, the infrastructure challenge is monumental. Saad El-Din El-Tayeb, spokesperson for Khartoum State, told Al Jazeera that the government has spent more than a year attempting to clear the debris of war.

“We began by cleaning the cities of bodies and burnt vehicles, restarting water stations, and rehabilitating power distribution lines,” El-Tayeb said.

He highlighted that Khartoum suffered the “largest looting operation” of its electrical infrastructure in history. Approximately 15,000 electrical transformers were stripped, with looters targeting the copper in underground cables and motors. Despite this, El-Tayeb noted that authorities are diverting available electricity to critical facilities like hospitals and water stations, while encouraging the use of solar energy.

‘Nostalgia’ amid the ruins

For the displaced, the decision to return is often emotional rather than practical. Rimah Hamed, a dentist and journalist, fled Khartoum for Gezira State and later Egypt when hospitals closed and security collapsed.

She recently returned to her family home in Khartoum. “The primary motivation was nostalgia,” Hamed told Al Jazeera. “The Sudanese character is sentimental. People returned because they missed their homes.”

Hamed found her neighbourhood transformed. Her house was empty, stripped of essential items, with no running water or electricity.

“There was only one water source in the neighbourhood where everyone went to fill up,” she recalled. “But gradually, neighbours started coming back. The neighbourhood began to regain its social features, and life returned little by little.”

Hamed observed that the community had developed a “psychological immunity” to the harsh conditions, adapting to shortages through grassroots initiatives.

Prerequisites for peace

While emotional ties drive some to return, sustainable reintegration requires tangible resources. Tom Ndahiro, a Rwandan genocide researcher, suggests that “relative peace” is the baseline requirement – a sense that the situation has improved enough to survive the night.

Experts interviewed by Al Jazeera outlined a hierarchy of needs for a sustainable return:

• Security: A trusted leadership to organise resettlement and prevent chaos.
• Shelter: Even temporary structures like tents, provided they offer safety.
• Essentials: Food security and access to clean water are non-negotiable.
• Power: Electricity is viewed as the decisive factor for economic stability.

Rami Mahkar, a journalist, emphasised that security must come first. “Without security, the displaced are forced to move again,” he said, adding that the presence of functioning shops for food and supplies is critical for those trying to rebuild their lives.

A private plane carrying Ajit Pawar, the deputy chief minister of India’s Maharashtra state, crashed on Wednesday, killing him and four other people on board, authorities said.

The aircraft was en route to Baramati, Pawar’s home city, from India’s financial capital of Mumbai when it crash-landed in an open field and burst into flames some 254km (159 miles) from the state capital.

The reason behind the crash was not immediately known, and an investigation is under way.

Who was Ajit Pawar?

Pawar, 66, was a key political figure and served as the second-highest elected official in Maharashtra, India’s wealthiest state.

He was an ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ‌in the state government, leading a faction ⁠that split in 2023 from the opposition Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

He wielded considerable influence in the state’s sugar belt and was known for his ability to mobilise rural voters.

Born on July 22, 1959, Pawar started his political career with the Indian National Congress, commonly known as the Congress party, in the late 1980s, influenced by his uncle Sharad Pawar, according to a report in India’s The Hindu newspaper.

In 1991, he was first elected as a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from the Baramati constituency, which he represented for a record eight terms.

In 1999, when his powerful uncle formed the NCP, Pawar joined it and served several terms as Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister in coalitions led by the NCP over the past two decades.

In 2019, Pawar briefly left the NCP to join the BJP’s cabinet in Maharashtra as a deputy chief minister. He later returned to the party and, in 2023, orchestrated a split within the NCP by aligning with the BJP-led coalition.

In February 2024, the Election Commission of India acknowledged Ajit Pawar’s faction as the official NCP. The same year, he was sworn in as Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister for a sixth time.

What’s Pawar’s legacy?

Pawar’s contribution to the development of his region was significant, said a report in The Indian Express newspaper, particularly in Maharashtra’s Pimpri-Chinchwad area, where he pushed “large-scale infrastructure projects, including wider roads and improved civic facilities”.

Baramati especially underwent a makeover, with several infrastructure projects attributed to him, as he supervised the development of his bastion with his uncle, Sharad Pawar.

However, Pawar was also accused of corruption in two prominent cases.

In an alleged Maharashtra irrigation scam, he was accused of involvement in irregularities in awarding contracts worth millions of dollars for civic projects between 1999 and 2009.

Last year, he was named in a land scam in Maharashtra’s Pune city, with a company owned by his son accused of buying reserved government land below the market value. Upon uproar, the deal was scrapped.

Government inquiries into both the alleged scams remain inconclusive.

How did Pawar die?

Pawar’s aircraft, travelling from Mumbai, tried to make an emergency landing in the family stronghold of Baramati, where he was set to canvass ‍in the local elections.

The VSR Ventures-operated Learjet 45 aircraft crashed in an open field at about 8:30am (03:00 GMT) while landing at Baramati airport, local media reported.

The charter aircraft went down in flames, said the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India’s aviation regulator.

Videos from the crash site showed smoke billowing from some of the burning wreckage of the plane, scattered across the open field.

“At first it was ‌on fire, after that there were four or five more explosions,” an unidentified witness told India’s ANI news agency, after seeing the plane crash and explode. But the flames were ‌too fierce to pull anyone out, he added.

Pawar was travelling with his personal security officer, an assistant, and two crew members at the time of the crash, the DGCA said.

VK ⁠Singh, the director of VSR Ventures, told broadcaster India Today the cause of the crash was not clear.

“The aircraft is 100 percent safe,” he said. “The crew was fairly experienced.”

What have been the reactions?

PM Modi described Pawar as a “leader of the people” in a post he shared on X. He said Pawar’s “untimely demise” was “shocking and saddening”.

“Shri Ajit Pawar Ji was a leader of the people … [with] a strong grassroots level connect,” Modi said, adding that he was a “widely respected” and “hardworking” political stalwart.

“His understanding of administrative matters and passion for empowering the poor and downtrodden were also noteworthy.”

Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party also posted his condolences on X, calling Pawar’s death “extremely painful”.

“I am with the people of Maharashtra in this hour of grief,” he wrote.

Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said he had “no words to express my emotions”.