The US has announced the Gaza ceasefire is moving to phase two, where “demilitarisation, technocratic governance, and reconstruction” will be the focus. But did Israel and Hamas abide by phase one? Soraya Lennie breaks down what’s happened.
A compilation of what Trump envisions for the future of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military has launched raids and interrogations ensnaring more than 80 people across the occupied West Bank, wounding at least one man and demolishing the home of another as Israel escalates its attacks on the Palestinian territory in tandem with its ongoing genocidal war in Gaza.
In one incident on Thursday, Israeli forces surrounded a home in Dura, south of the city of Hebron, before shooting and wounding the brother of Mahmoud al-Fasfous.
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The al-Fasfous brothers have long been wanted by Israeli forces and have faced frequent raids of the family home and soldier assaults.
In another raid in Hebron’s Khallat Nafisa area, Israeli forces sealed off the area from civilians before destroying the home of Imran al-Atrash with a bulldozer, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Israeli forces killed al-Atrash and another Palestinian, Walid Muhammad Khalil Sabarna, in mid-November when the duo was accused of carrying out a car-ramming and stabbing attack that killed one Israeli settler and injured three.
The Israeli military posted photos of the demolition on Telegram, claiming that al-Atrash was a “terrorist” and cheering the effort to destroy his home.
Elsewhere in Hebron and the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces detained and interrogated at least 80 Palestinians during overnight and dawn raids, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society reported.
At least one woman and two children were among those detained along with former prisoners.
“This represents an unprecedented escalation since the beginning of the year, described as part of a campaign of collective punishment,” the group said, adding that field interrogations have “become the occupation’s most prominent policy”.
Two arrests took place during a raid on the Arroub refugee camp, located north of Hebron, with other arrests under way in virtually all areas surrounding the city, Wafa reported.
In the al-Majaz community of Masafer Yatta, a collection of hamlets in the South Hebron Hills, Israeli forces plundered homes before converting one into a military outpost, forcing its inhabitants to spend the night outside in the cold.
Meanwhile, in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, soldiers stormed the town of Kobar and fanned out across multiple neighbourhoods.
Townspeople told Al Jazeera that the soldiers tried to provoke residents by shouting: “Who wants to become a martyr? Where are the cowards?”
Israel has stepped up its raids on the occupied West Bank – including injuring dozens of Palestinians with live rounds and grenades at a prominent university earlier this month – amid a formal push to annex the territory.
Israeli settlers have rampaged in Palestinian lands, killing and beating Palestinian civilians, including the elderly, and destroying their property with impunity, often backed by the Israeli military.
Throughout 2025, Israeli settlers or soldiers killed 240 Palestinians in the West Bank, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said last week. Israeli forces killed 225 people while settlers killed at least nine. The agency could not confirm whether settlers or soldiers caused the remaining six deaths.
Fifty-five of those killed – nearly one-quarter of the total – were children.
During the same period, Palestinians killed 17 Israelis in the West Bank, including one child and six members of Israeli forces, OCHA reported.
A federal officer in the United States has shot a Venezuelan man in the leg in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Officials say officers had tried to stop a car to arrest the man and opened fire after two people attacked one of them with a “snow shovel and broom handle”.
Protests broke out in the city after the incident.
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Wednesday’s shooting comes exactly a week after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed local resident Renee Nicole Good in her car in Minneapolis during an immigration raid.
In an X post on Wednesday, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote that at 6:50pm (00:50 GMT on Thursday), federal law enforcement officers were stopping “an illegal alien from Venezuela who was released into the country by [former President] Joe Biden in 2022”.
The DHS added that the man had tried to evade the officers, crashing his car into another parked car and then fleeing on foot. It said one of the officers caught up with the immigrant on foot “when the subject began to resist and violently assault the officer”.
The department’s post said that while the immigrant and the officer were struggling on the ground, two people came out of a nearby apartment and began to strike the officer with a snow shovel and a broomstick. It further said, “The original subject got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick.”
“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg,” the DHS wrote.
It added that the immigrant and the two people who had come out of the apartment ran back inside the apartment and barricaded themselves in.
The immigrant and officer who was attacked were taken to hospital, and the other two people who attacked the officer are in custody, DHS wrote.
On the morning of January 7, Jonathan Ross, an ICE officer, fatally shot Good while she was in her car in Minneapolis.
Local officials said Good, 37, was acting as a legal observer during protests against US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Legal observers are usually volunteers who attend protests to watch police-demonstrator interactions and record any confrontations or possible legal violations.
Good’s killing sparked outrage and protests in Minnesota and nationwide.
In a joint statement released after she was shot dead, Minneapolis City Council President Elliot Payne and council members wrote: “Renee was a resident of our city who was out caring for her neighbors this morning and her life was taken today at the hands of the federal government. Anyone who kills someone in our city deserves to be arrested, investigated, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
After Good was shot, the Republican Trump administration clashed with local authorities, including Democratic Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Trump and administration officials claimed that Good had deliberately hit the ICE officer with her SUV and he had shot her in self-defence.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described Good’s actions as “domestic terrorism”.
She said Good had refused to obey orders to get out of her car, “weaponise[d] her vehicle” and “attempted to run” over the officer. Minnesota officials disputed Noem’s account, citing videos showing Good trying to drive away.
Footage from the incident shows Good’s car slowly reversing and then trying to move forwards. As the car moves forwards, an agent is seen walking around in front of it. He opens fire while standing in front of the driver’s side of the SUV.
Speaking about the shooting on Wednesday, Trump told the Reuters news agency: “I don’t get into right or wrong. I know that it was a tough situation to be in. There was very little respect shown to the police, in this case, the ICE officers.”
Walz wrote in an X post on Wednesday that state investigators have been to the scene of the shooting.
“I know you’re angry. I’m angry. What Donald Trump wants is violence in the streets,” Walz wrote.
“But Minnesota will remain an island of decency, of justice, of community, and of peace. Don’t give him what he wants.”
In a series of posts on X on Wednesday, Frey wrote: “No matter what led up to this incident, the situation we are seeing in our city is not sustainable.”
He added that there are 600 local police officers working in Minneapolis, and the Trump administration has sent in 3,000 federal officers.
“I have seen conduct from ICE that is intolerable. And for anyone taking the bait tonight, stop. It is not helpful. We cannot respond to Donald Trump’s chaos with our own chaos.”
The DHS launched Operation Metro Surge, which includes Minneapolis, in December. The Trump administration said the operation aims to root out and arrest criminals and undocumented immigrants.
The Trump administration escalated its immigration operation in Minneapolis on January 6. In an X post, ICE announced it planned to deploy 2,000 additional agents to the northern Midwestern city.
“A 100% chance of ICE in the Twin Cities – our largest operation to date,” the post said, referring to Minneapolis and the adjacent city of St Paul.
Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, told local news media that ICE is “surging to Minneapolis to root out fraud, arrest perpetrators and remove criminal illegal aliens”.
On Monday, the state of Minnesota filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that the operation is an unconstitutional “federal invasion”.
The population of Minnesota is more than 5 million people, and according to numbers from the Migration Policy Institute from 2023, the number of undocumented immigrants in the state is 100,000.
Republicans have made disparaging remarks particularly targeting the state’s Somali population.
Noem said on Tuesday that Trump intends to end temporary deportation protections and work permits for some Somali nationals in the US.
“Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status,” Noem said in a statement. “Further, allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. We are putting Americans first.”
In December, ICE launched a raid in Columbus, Ohio, which also has a large Somali population. In late November, ICE agents were deployed in New Orleans, Louisiana. Similar raids were launched in Charlotte, North Carolina, the same month.
As of 2023, there were about 770,000 Venezuelan immigrants in the United States, making up just under 2 percent of the country’s 47.8 million foreign-born population, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
The institute estimated that in 2023, 486,000 Venezuelan immigrants were not authorised to be in the US, accounting for 4 percent of a total of 13.7 million unauthorised immigrants.
Since 2014, about 7.7 million Venezuelans, comprising 20 percent of the population, have left the country, mostly to seek better opportunities abroad as the economy has faltered and the government has cracked down on the political opposition. While the vast majority have moved to neighbouring countries, some have gone to the US.
On January 3, US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the Trump administration describes as a “narcoterrorist”. He currently faces charges related to weapons and drug trafficking in New York.
During a national address on January 3, Trump stated: “Maduro sent savage and murderous gangs, including the bloodthirsty prison gang, Tren de Aragua, to terrorise American communities nationwide.”
The search for a figure to lead post-war Gaza, which lies in ruins from Israel’s genocidal war, has moved from diplomatic backrooms to the negotiating tables in Cairo.
Following the Arab veto of the regionally toxic former British leader Tony Blair, Washington has deployed its Plan B, Nickolay Mladenov, as the push for phase two of the fragile ceasefire gains some momentum.
The 53-year-old former Bulgarian foreign minister and defence minister is no longer just a nominee; he is arguably the most critical figure in the newly launched phase two of the ceasefire, which Israel has violated on a daily basis since October 10.
Mladenov has been confirmed as the director-general of the United States-proposed “Board of Peace”. His mandate is to oversee the transition from Hamas rule to a new technocratic administration led by Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority (PA) deputy minister.
For five years from 2015-2020, Mladenov served as the United Nations’ top envoy to the region, earning a reputation as a “firefighter” who could talk to everyone.
Now, he returns with a far more fraught and potentially explosive mission: Implementing a US-designed plan that explicitly calls for the “disarmament of all unauthorised personnel” – a euphemism for ending Hamas’s military power while Israel continues its occupation.
Mladenov’s immediate challenge is not just reconstruction, but high-stakes mediation. His itinerary, which includes meetings with leaders of Palestinian factions in Cairo, highlights why he was chosen: He is one of the few international figures who retains lines of communication with all sides while holding the trust of Washington and Israel.
While US special envoy Steve Witkoff has framed phase two as an effort to “create the alternative to Hamas”, Mladenov’s role is to make that alternative function on the ground.
He is tasked with supervising the new “technocratic committee” headed by Shaath, which will manage daily life for two million war-battered Palestinians who have lost family members, their homes, hospitals and schools in relentless Israeli bombardment.
However, this structure will face a crisis of legitimacy. Mladenov must navigate a landscape where Israel controls a “buffer zone” in the east, more than 50 percent of the whole territory, and refuses to withdraw fully – all while he attempts to sell a governance plan to the very factions he is tasked with disarming.
Mladenov’s appointment signals Washington’s preference for a managerial solution to a military and political crisis.
In his recent post-UN career, Mladenov has championed a “new model” for the Middle East, defined by “cutting-edge innovation” and technological partnerships. He has spoken enthusiastically about the region shifting from “oil barrels to silicon chips”.
Critics, however, argue that this worldview presents a mismatch for Gaza’s current reality. As the Strip enters the second phase, the needs are existential, not technological. The displaced population is living in flimsy tents in extreme weather, dependent on humanitarian aid that Israel largely blocks, and navigating a landscape of rubble.
There is a concern among humanitarian experts that Mladenov’s mandate – tied to high-level “Board of Peace” politics – may be divorced from the gritty requirements of a starving population. The risk is of an administrator focused on a “Davos-style” future while the present remains mired in catastrophe.
While Mladenov is often cited as a “fair broker” trusted by both Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the PA, his post-UN career suggests a subtle but significant realignment.
Since 2021, he has served as director-general of the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi. In this capacity, he has become a vocal proponent of the “Abraham Accords” – the normalisation agreements between Israel and several Arab states – framing them as a “supercharge” for regional stability.
This perspective places him firmly within the strategic orbit of some Gulf states and US President Donald Trump’s administration. While this connection may help secure funding for reconstruction, it complicates his standing on the Palestinian street, where the accords are often viewed as the diplomatic architecture that allowed Palestinians’ plight to be sidelined.
The specific nature of phase two could make Mladenov’s job nigh impossible.
In his previous role, Mladenov reported to the UN secretary-general and was bound to uphold international law. In his new role, he answers to a US-led board that heavily leans into the Israeli narrative of its “security demands”, specifically the “disarmament of all unauthorised personnel”.
Mladenov must now persuade Palestinian factions to engage with a “technocratic” promise of governance, overseen by a diplomat who has spent the last few years advocating for Arab-Israeli normalisation.
Beirut, Lebanon – Fears are rife in Lebanon over another Israeli military escalation, similar to the one in 2024 that killed more than 4,000 people and displaced around a quarter of the country’s population.
The intensification comes amid growing pressure by the United States and Israel on Lebanon to ensure the Shia group Hezbollah disarms. The decision to bring Hezbollah’s weapons under state control is popular in Lebanon outside of the group’s traditional support base. But analysts also fear internal tensions could lead to violence if Israel continues to attack the country without impunity and disarmament is pushed through by force.
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Tensions are also growing after a meeting in Florida between US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on December 29, when the latter was reportedly given a green light to begin a new offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Despite an ongoing ceasefire since November 2024, Israel has attacked Lebanon almost daily. Tens of thousands of Lebanese are still displaced from their homes along Lebanon’s southern border.
And now the fear is that military action will ramp up. On Sunday alone, Israel launched around 25 attacks on south Lebanon, leaving many in the country worried about further widespread attacks. The United Nations says Israel has violated the ceasefire more than 10,000 times since November 2024.
Almost a year into the conflict that began in October 2023, Israel escalated its war on Lebanon, launching a devastating series of strikes between September and November 2024.
Every region in Lebanon was hit by some kind of Israeli attack, including air strikes or drone strikes. However, the areas primarily targeted, the south, eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, and Beirut’s southern suburbs (known as Dahiyeh), are predominantly inhabited by Shia Muslims, the sect from which Hezbollah derives the majority of its domestic support.
Among the dead in the attacks was the long-time leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.
Then in October, Israeli troops invaded south Lebanon and fought Hezbollah on Lebanese territory. When the ceasefire was agreed in November, Israel was supposed to withdraw all its troops from Lebanese territory within two months.
For its part, Hezbollah was to retreat to north of the Litani River and the Lebanese Army would deploy to south Lebanon.
Attacks from both sides would also cease.
In the last year, however, Israel has continued to attack Lebanon almost daily. Hezbollah has largely avoided responding militarily, and the Lebanese Army has also dismantled Hezbollah’s infrastructure in south Lebanon, according to Lebanese government and military officials.
Israel withdrew most of its troops, but kept hold of five areas inside Lebanon, under the guise of ensuring its security.
“You can’t only trust international guarantees or borders. You have to be wherever there is danger. This is the main lesson from October 7,” Amit Segal, an Israeli journalist who is familiar with Israel’s Netanyahu administration, told the New York Times in October, referring to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in 2023.
On January 8, the Lebanese Army announced it had completed its mission of disarming Hezbollah south of the Litani.
But Israel’s Foreign Ministry doesn’t agree, saying “extensive Hezbollah military infrastructure still exists south of the Litani River”.
“Hezbollah is rearming faster than it is being disarmed,” it said, accusing the Lebanese Army of collaborating with Hezbollah, without providing evidence.
Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Diodato Abagnara said there was no sign of Hezbollah regrouping in the south, and analysts told Al Jazeera late last year that the group was weakened to the point that it could not threaten Israel.
Regardless of the evidence put forward by Lebanese or UN officials, Israel doesn’t seem to be convinced. Analysts believe that Israel can only be stopped from attacking by one power: the United States.
Trump restrained Israel from a follow-up attack on Iran last July. But the US president has largely emboldened Netanyahu to continue his militaristic agenda in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Following the Florida meeting between Trump and Netanyahu, Arab and Israeli media suggested that the Israeli prime minister had received a green light from the US president to go after Hezbollah and intensify attacks in Lebanon again.
“Hezbollah must be completely disarmed,” Trump is alleged to have said, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“If the Lebanese Army doesn’t succeed in disarming them, and Israel believes an action is the necessary thing to do [then the US backs Israel].”
Residents in south Lebanon have gotten used to the attacks, but aren’t sure what to expect next.
“The situation is calm,” a local named Hussein Salman told Al Jazeera, adding without any sense of irony, “One day there’s an attack, another there isn’t. It’s calm”.
Kamel Jaber, a journalist from the southern town of Nabatieh, told Al Jazeera that the situation remained tense.
“Sometimes several days pass with nothing happening,” Jaber said. “Sometimes a single day passes, and the Israelis, through their warplanes, carry out a series of fire attacks or a series of successive raids on specific locations.”
“Sometimes they say they have eliminated Hezbollah’s missile capabilities, and then a little while later they escalate their attacks on the Lebanese state, claiming that Hezbollah’s weapons are still present and active,” Jaber said.
Many in Lebanon are now convinced that what happens next will depend on Israel’s agreements and calculations with the US, rather than anything the Lebanese government does.
And for many in the south – including Ali Attieh, the head of a farmers’ cooperative in the village of Kfar Hamam – the reason is simple.