Demands have been rising within the government coalition to dismiss National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, following his decision to refrain from supporting a bill granting tax exemptions to companies on part of their profits within the draft state budget law for the year 2025, which was voted on in the second and third readings yesterday, and passed with the support of 59 Knesset members and the opposition of 58.

Shortly before the vote on the bill, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to leave Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem to participate in the vote, despite opposition from doctors following his prostatectomy on Sunday, in case the bill did not pass. This was evident after the vote ended and the bill passed by only one vote.

MKs from the Otzma Yehudit party announced that they would oppose the bill because of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's "targeting" of the police and the prison service, which are under Ben-Gvir's responsibility, while MKs from the Agudat Yisrael party in the United Torah Judaism bloc were absent from the vote in protest of the delay in passing the law exempting Haredim from conscription.

Netanyahu addressed Ben-Gvir's opposition to the law, saying, "There is no greater irresponsible stupidity than this. I expect all coalition members, including Minister Ben-Gvir, to stop destabilizing the coalition and posing a threat to the existence of the right-wing government at this critical time in Israel's history."

Smotrich criticized Ben Gvir on the X platform, writing that “Minister Ben Gvir unfortunately chose to harm the prime minister, forcing him to leave his sickbed and posing a threat to the existence of the government and the economy for the sake of media tricks.”

Ben-Gvir responded by saying that he "suggested not to disturb the prime minister, and that the police budget could be agreed upon immediately, if only Smotrich would stop boycotting Ben-Gvir and agree to negotiations now," while Smotrich considered that he "is determined to continue leading the Israeli economy in the year of war and not to be drawn into childish disputes."

Netanyahu insists on keeping Ben-Gvir in the coalition, not dismissing him, and trying to minimize the confrontation with him, according to Haaretz newspaper today, Wednesday, which quoted sources in the Likud party as saying that “although the coalition includes 67 MKs, and therefore he could in principle manage without the support of Otzma Yehudit, represented by six MKs, Netanyahu does not trust Gideon Sa’ar (the foreign minister) and is not prepared to leave the fate of the coalition in his hands and extort achievements.”

According to the coalition agreement between Likud and Sa'ar, the latter is expected to join Likud and run for office in the upcoming Knesset elections, while "Netanyahu's advisers are extremely skeptical of Sa'ar," according to the newspaper.

The Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs documented, in its monthly report on the violations of the occupation and its settlers against places of worship, 22 incursions into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the prevention of the call to prayer in the Ibrahimi Mosque 48 times, during the month of December.

The Awqaf said in its report that the occupation forces and settlers have escalated their attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque, noting that the extremist Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, stormed the mosque on the first day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah under heavy guard from the occupation forces. This is the seventh storming of the mosque since he assumed office.

She warned of the nature of these attacks, which aim to establish the presence of the colonists and impose a new reality, through the performance of Talmudic rituals such as collective epic prostration, blowing the trumpet, and introducing plant offerings, at a specific time and place.

She pointed out that these incursions are carried out under the supervision and protection of the occupation police, which permanently prevents the guards of Al-Aqsa Mosque affiliated with the Jerusalem Endowments Department from carrying out their work within its courtyards, and restricts the Muslim worshippers, pursuing them and detaining them at the gates of Al-Aqsa.

In a provocative move , extremist colonial groups published a modified image showing the alleged "temple" on the ruins of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, accompanied by the phrase "Building the temple is closer than ever," and called on their followers to storm the mosque extensively.

Regarding the Ibrahimi Mosque, the Ministry of Endowments documented that the occupation forces prevented the call to prayer 48 times, and stormed it, climbed onto its roof, and took some measurements, which constitutes a flagrant violation of the sanctity of Islamic holy sites and an encroachment on endowment property.

The Endowments also documented the occupation authorities carrying out excavations and extending a sewage line in the courtyards of the Ibrahimi Mosque. They also assaulted the director of the Ibrahimi Mosque, Sheikh Mutaz Abu Sneineh, at the military gates leading to the mosque and prevented him from receiving medical treatment. They also attempted to disrupt a Quran recitation event in the mosque.

The Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs renewed its warning against the dangerous plans to be implemented towards the Ibrahimi Mosque, which were announced by the Likud Knesset member, who called for controlling the Ibrahimi Mosque and placing it completely under Israeli “sovereignty.”

The report documented the occupation municipality in Jerusalem notifying the demolition of Al-Isra Mosque in Wadi Yasul neighborhood in Silwan town in occupied Jerusalem, and the attack by a group of terrorist settlers on the Bar Al-Walidain Mosque in the village of Marda in Salfit Governorate, and the violation of the sanctity of the Yanun Mosque near the town of Aqraba in Nablus Governorate, desecrating it with their shoes, taking pictures, and performing Talmudic rituals inside it.

The report pointed out that the occupation forces attacked the Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Mosque in Nour Shams Camp, which led to the destruction of large parts of it and caused severe damage to its facilities. The occupation bulldozers also destroyed the entrance to the Al-Salam Mosque in Tulkarm Camp and closed it with earth mounds.

Hundreds of thousands demonstrated today, Wednesday, in the Turkish city of Istanbul, denouncing the occupation's crimes against our people, and in support of Palestine.

The participants raised Turkish and Palestinian flags and chanted slogans supporting the Palestinians and condemning the ongoing Israeli crimes for the second year.

They also carried huge banners reading "Stop the genocide in Gaza" that Israel has been committing against Palestinian civilians since October 7, 2023.

The Israeli occupation continues its aggression on the Gaza Strip, by land, sea and air, since October 7, 2023, which resulted in the martyrdom of 45,541 citizens, the majority of whom are women and children, and the injury of 108,338 others, in an incomplete toll, as thousands of victims are still under the rubble and in the streets, and ambulance and rescue crews cannot reach them.

The year 2025 cuts the ribbon of its events without testing the pulse and without any introduction, to delve deeply into the events of the criminal Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, and Israel’s goals of annihilating the Strip completely through continuing the massacres, and Israel’s desperate attempts to expel and displace as many citizens as possible. At the forefront of the undeclared goals, it seems that there is an Israeli desire to reduce the population of the Strip, displace a large part of them, impose a settlement strip on the lands of the Strip, and the desire to continue the war even if a swap deal is reached, and to ignore all international appeals and calls.

In parallel with this greater challenge facing the Palestinian cause, the fundamental political change in the region and the attempt to impose a new reality that responds to the vision of the American administration, which seeks to formulate a new Middle East, will be at the forefront of the goals of Israel and the United States, and will pass through targeting the Palestinian cause through attempts to change the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, to conform to the American vision and end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the manner decided by the Trump administration, and allow Israel to establish large settlements in the West Bank to isolate it from Gaza, and thus thwart the two-state solution, while the issue of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and its annexation may need more time.

Based on the vision of the new Middle East, the American administration will strive hard to revive new Arab normalization relations with Israel, led by Saudi Arabia, in order to close the door in the face of Iranian expansion in the region, target the Iranian nuclear project through Israel and the United States, attempt to impose economic sanctions on Iran, and await developments on the Lebanese front. If presidential elections are held and the government is freed from the grip of Hezbollah, this may contribute to improving the situation on the northern front, especially since moderation is the master of the situation in the Syrian arena led by the opposition, and this does not mean that Israel will leave Syria or southern Lebanon.

Among the major challenges is the attempt to weaken the role of the Palestinian Authority economically without ending this role, in order to strengthen internal divisions and disputes. This requires a decisive stance from the national action factions to combat attempts to undermine the Palestinian national project and liquidate the cause, as the structure of a new Middle East depends on marginalizing and weakening the role of the Palestinian cause.

Israeli wishes will undoubtedly come true at the expense of the Palestinians. Israel, which has lost soldiers, money and property, and has failed because it has fought the longest war since the establishment of its entity, and is still unable to return the detainees from Gaza, and more than a million Israelis have remained away from their homes in the north and south alike, will seek to continue taking revenge on our people. Despite Israel’s claim that it has accomplished the mission of eliminating Hezbollah in the north, Hamas in the south, and that it has caused Iran to lose several important strongholds, it will continue its policy of creating problems in the region, as it is a source of concern and a real threat to the entire world.

The year of challenges will dominate the reality of Jerusalem, and its targeting and the pace of Israeli attempts to Judaize it and attempt to control the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque will be at the forefront of the Israelis’ priorities, in addition to the policy of demolishing homes and establishing settlement projects that will cover the new year.

While the peoples of the world are monitoring the wishes of joy and happiness in all aspects of life with the advent of a new year, our Palestinian people, who are imprisoned, oppressed, subjugated and defeated due to the unjust occupation, remain unable to achieve their wishes, which will face painful and difficult challenges. What can we say but: May God be with our people, and let all efforts unite to stop the war of extermination, asking the Almighty for imminent relief, and to protect our homeland and grant it victory over the unjust invaders.

The Palestinian people celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the launch of the Fatah movement on January 1, 1965, that giant launch of the Palestinian people’s revolution to liberate occupied Palestine and enable Palestinian refugees to return to their historical homeland, in implementation of General Assembly Resolution No. 194.

After the British-led colonial powers colluded to enable the Zionist Jewish gangs to control 78% of the land of historic Palestine, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of the Palestinian Arab people outside their historic homeland by declaring the establishment of their colonial settlement entity and then enabling them to launch their aggressive war on June 5, 1967, which resulted in the occupation of the rest of Palestine, the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands, and calling them displaced persons to live with the millions of Palestinian refugees who preceded them a life of asylum in exile, stripped and deprived of their basic right to return to their cities and villages from which they were forcibly expelled as a result of American policy and its axis biased towards the Israeli colonial entity by virtue of its aggressive function of working to protect American interests and influence in the Arab homeland, which confirms and explains the reasons and factors for its reversal of its pledges and obligations as a permanent member state of the Security Council to work to consolidate international security and peace and to ensure the implementation of international resolutions issued by the Security Council and the General Assembly, and to enable the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and establish their independent state, as With the rest of the peoples of the world, in implementation of the principles and objectives of the United Nations and its Charter.

The launch of Fatah, with its timing, goals, resistance strategy, and the rallying of the Palestinian people, the vanguard of the Arab people, around it, constituted an earthquake for the Israeli colonial entity, its masters and makers, who thought they had succeeded in taming, subjugating and subjecting the Palestinian people to surrender to the Zionist-American plans.

Fatah, the leader of the Palestinian revolution, launched and formed its launch in defiance of regional circumstances and by rejecting the results of the June 1967 aggression, by escalating its resistance with a long-term popular war of attrition deep inside the occupied territories against the Israeli occupation forces, inflicting military losses on its human ranks, equipment, facilities and economy, and achieving the great victory in the Battle of Karameh with the support and participation of the heroes of the Jordanian Arab Army on March 21, 1968. This victory dispelled the claim of the Israeli colonial entity that it is an invincible army, and thus threatened the influence and interests of the countries that created and established this racist, aggressive entity, and what it means in terms of the decline of European hegemony not only in the Middle East, but also in the countries of the Third World.

This victory, its results and repercussions pushed America and its axis to work through its terrorist Israeli agent, which it provided and empowered with more elements of military, political and economic power to achieve a specific goal represented in eliminating the Palestinian revolution and its backbone, the Fatah movement, which had assumed leadership of the PLO since 1969.

The Fatah movement went through stages of struggle recorded in the history of the modern Palestinian struggle on the path to freedom, independence, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital:

First: The construction and establishment phase was inaugurated by launching its first operations on 1-1-1965 inside the occupied Palestinian territories, and the attempts to distort and cast doubt on various factors that accompanied it. This phase extended until the June 1967 aggression, and what resulted from it was the occupation of the rest of Palestine “the West Bank and the Gaza Strip”, the Golan Heights and Sinai.

Second: The Fatah movement, led by the martyr Abu Ammar, announced its refusal to surrender to the arrogance of the Israeli enemy, which was waiting for the leaders of the concerned countries to declare surrender, according to the statement of the Israeli Defense Minister at the time, Moshe Dayan, that he was waiting for his office phone to ring.

This stage witnessed an escalating popular liberation war on several fronts, accompanied by Palestinian, Arab and international popular support for the Palestinian revolution. This support was not popular, but was accompanied by official support from the countries surrounding occupied Palestine, most notably Jordan and Egypt.

This popular and official tide, support and rallying on the world stage was also reflected in the global liberation movements, which led to a further decline in the influence of the American camp in the Middle East region, which the American strategy considers to constitute national security in light of the Cold War between the American and Soviet axes, due to its important geopolitical, economic and strategic position. This prompted America to move to the executive phase to militarily eliminate the threat looming over its influence and interests, which are represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and its backbone, the Fatah movement. Then came the broad and comprehensive aggression of the Israeli colonial entity by invading Lebanon in 1982, targeting the revolutionary and resistant military presence. The exit of the Palestinian resistance from Lebanon was to spare the blood of the Lebanese people and to remove the pretexts of the militarily superior Israeli entity to destroy Beirut and Lebanese cities, to begin the third phase of the Fatah movement’s struggle.

Third: After the military withdrawal from Lebanon, the Fatah movement faced a conspiracy of secession after defending the independent decision, and refusing to be subservient to any official Arab regime, and to be a card in the hands of that regime or another. The beginning of the third stage was the preparation for a massive popular uprising inside the occupied territory, which was launched under the leadership of Fatah in December 1987, during which the Palestinian people presented hundreds of martyrs, and thousands of prisoners and wounded. During which the Israeli enemy failed, over the course of years, to abort the popular revolution of the Palestinian people with its components, despite its use of all forms of oppression, persecution, killing, torture, arbitrary arrests, imposing collective punishments, and other violations and crimes that are classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity. By committing these crimes, it revealed the falsehood and impudence of this expansionist entity, despite its refusal to implement international resolutions calling for an end to the occupation of the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories, claiming that it is the only oasis of democracy in the Middle East, and its love of peace and respect for international legitimacy. Consequently, this falsehood and claim raised the level of global support for the Palestinian people’s right to freedom, independence, self-determination, and the establishment of their independent state. The flame of the uprising remained. The first was burning until regional and international changes occurred, the most important of which was the collapse of the Soviet Union, which led to changes in the balance of power in favor of the American axis. This was followed by the Oslo transitional phase agreement in September 1993, which heralded the beginning of the stage of struggle from within the homeland to build state institutions on the path to ending the occupation and establishing the Palestinian Arab state with Jerusalem as its capital, and resolving the refugee issue in implementation of General Assembly Resolution No. 194.

Fourth: The signing of the Oslo Accords resulted in the move to the homeland, and the public reception of the martyred President Abu Ammar in Gaza, Jericho upon his return to the homeland, and to Jenin and Nablus was nothing but an expression and referendum on the renewal of the pledge of allegiance, and the affirmation of the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and its program to establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital on the borders of June 4 within a period of time not exceeding five years, according to the timetable stipulated in the Oslo Accords, which the forces of Israeli terrorism and extremism turned against, starting with the killing of Rabin as punishment for concluding the agreement and its ratification by the Knesset, in a path that led to the extremists of Israeli extremism and terrorism taking over the reins of power, armed with an aggressive expansionist strategy aimed at perpetuating its colonial occupation and completely evading the implementation of its obligations to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories occupied since the June 1967 aggression, leading to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital at the end of the transitional period, which is supposed to end in May 1999.

This Israeli coup against the Oslo Accords, as well as the occupation itself, is a coup and a challenge to the principles and charter of the United Nations, which represented the greatest challenge facing the Palestinian leadership that led the stage armed with international law and the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations, and with broad support from the international community. The recognition of the Palestinian state by 149 countries, and its acceptance as an observer member in the United Nations, which prevented and prevents its acceptance as a member with full rights and duties, the American veto and the American policy biased towards the Israeli colonial entity, which is manifested in the ugliest form in its unlimited support for the crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing that the Israeli enemy has persisted in committing for fourteen months in the Gaza Strip and for years, albeit at a lesser rate in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the capital of the Palestinian state, without fear of accountability and punishment, with American enablement. The challenge to the decisions of the International Court of Justice by refusing to implement them is only one example of hundreds of examples of Israeli-American politics that prevent the achievement of regional and international security and peace in the medium and long term.

Sixty years after the launch of Fatah, the backbone of the Palestine Liberation Organization, a question remains in people’s minds: Has Fatah succeeded in achieving its goals through its leadership of this stage? Is it still qualified to lead the next stage with its challenges?

Baby rockets, do not hit, do not kill, do not destroy, in the face of the deadly, destructive, aggressive colony rockets capable of harming and hurting Palestinian civilians.

The rockets of the Palestinian factions are useless, but everything outside Palestine boasts, is proud and happy, that the Palestinian resistance is still able to respond to Israeli sites. Morally, it raises the head, but materially, in action and in influence, it has no value in influencing the Israelis, except that they rush to enter the shelters.

The Israeli colony does not need excuses or justifications to bomb Palestinian civilians, destroy their homes, properties, hospitals, schools, starve them, and prevent them from receiving water, treatment, food, and all the necessities of life. It is working to end the Palestinian human presence on the land of Palestine, by killing or as a prelude to deportation, expulsion, and displacement. It does not need excuses or justifications to continue the crimes of killing and destruction, but it uses the Palestinian bombing as an excuse before the Israeli society and the families of the prisoners to continue its insane war against the Palestinians. This is why the factions provide the justification and argument to continue the crimes of the colony against the people of the Gaza Strip, without mercy and without hesitation, and it also shows the international community that the bombing is mutual between the two parties!!

The colony is superior militarily, technologically, technically and electronically, and it acts, does and kills without any sense of human guilt towards the Palestinians. Therefore, the leaders of the factions must have broad horizons and conscious awareness in how to use their tools to fight, not out of pity for the merciless enemy, but out of pity for their people who are suffering and being killed, without any appropriate and strong Palestinian response that makes the occupation costly for the Israelis.

The occupation has superior power and unlimited American support, so it is not surprising that the American president stands

Previous and next Trump with the steps, attacks and fascism of the colony against the Palestinians. Therefore, can President Trump, who achieved success and won the presidency of the United States due to the donations of the Israeli Jewish “AIPAC”, and due to the evangelical Christians who believe in the promises of the Torah, and he is one of them, and his team that he appointed from the Zionists who support the colony and its colonial expansions, can they stand with the Palestinians against the measures and policies of the colony, and against his friend Netanyahu, no matter how these policies, measures, killing and destruction seem, against human rights, no matter how exposed and persistent the colony is in its extremist aggressive attack against the Arab Palestinian people?

About 1,542 tents housing displaced people in displacement camps and shelters in the Gaza Strip were flooded by rainwater that hit the Palestinian atmosphere over the past two days.

The media office of the General Directorate of Civil Defense said in a statement on Wednesday that rescue teams had monitored hundreds of tents that were flooded with rainwater at a level exceeding 30 cm, and that many of the displaced people suffered from shivering due to the cold and the damage to their belongings and bedding.

Civil Defense crews in Gaza Governorate monitored 242 tents flooded by rainwater in each of the camps set up on the grounds of Yarmouk Stadium and Gaza Municipality Park, 185 tents set up on the grounds of Al-Saraya Complex, and 70 tents set up on the grounds of Al-Shuja'iyya parking lot.

In Rafah Governorate, 170 tents were also monitored, flooded with water, erected on the sea road and around the “Fash Farsh” rest area.

In Khan Yunis, in the area of Al-Aqsa University, the vicinity of Asdaa Prison, and the Al-Amal neighborhood pool, more than 665 tents were damaged and flooded, according to the Civil Defense.

While in the central governorate, the flooded tents were concentrated in the area west of Deir al-Balah, in Bassa, around al-Baraka, and in Wadi al-Salqa, and amounted to 210 tents.

The media office added in its statement that these tents were exposed to rainwater leakage at a level exceeding 30 cm, while hundreds of other tents were exposed to rainwater below this level, and the displaced people in them were unable to use them until the depression ended.

Like a sweaty, panting athlete, exhausted from running on a relay track, the year that has passed hands over its baton, with all the pain it has brought, the distance of hopes, the deepening of disappointments, the successive setbacks, and the closing of horizons, to the coming year, which today begins its first steps on the path of Calvary, without its features being clear, amidst the dense fog that surrounds it, and reduces the horizontal vision to examine its endings and the outcomes of running on its track.

As we bid farewell to the departed year to its final resting place, we do not know what the new year holds for us, while astrologers predict that what has passed and gone will be just a walk in the park, and what the heir carries of repercussions of the earthquakes, volcanoes and flood, which descended on Gaza in October of the year 2023, destroying the crops and the offspring, with the doctrine of annihilation, erasure and burning, which the criminal killers brought into service as a worship to take revenge on the others, drawing inspiration for its teachings from the books of biblical fundamentalism carried by dreams of expansion and tendencies of control.

The lives of 25,000 children were lost over the past year, as well as the lives of men, youth and women. Homes and buildings were demolished, churches, mosques, schools, hospitals and universities were destroyed, cities, neighbourhoods and camps were wiped out, and hundreds of families were erased from the civil registry.

"It is remembered and not repeated"... that year that has passed and gone.

Stop the genocide now..!

Aida Touma Suleiman: 2024 was a harsh and unique year in terms of the suffering of the Palestinian people and international silence and inaction

Adel Shedid: I see no end to the dark horizon looming over Gaza.. and the internal situation is heading towards further rifts

Dr. Amani Al-Qarm: Three challenges facing the Palestinian cause in the coming period, and an “opportunity must be created” to ensure its survival

Hatim Abdel Qader: The Palestinian people bid farewell to the most difficult and bloody year in light of the international community’s abandonment of its responsibilities

Najah Muslim: Despite all the challenges, opportunities remain available to strengthen national unity and invest in global popular support

Badr Zamaara: The year 2025 holds great challenges for youth that require a comprehensive and immediate response to spread hope and positive change

The Palestinian people are closing in on the year 2024 with a heavier bill than the blood, suffering and pain of their children, homes, institutions and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, and without any signs on the horizon of stopping the war of extermination to which they are being subjected and the catastrophe whose horrific chapters they are living in front of the eyes, ears and silence of the international community and the “free” world that is celebrating the arrival of the year 2025.

More than two million people in the Gaza Strip have been living in fear, death, hunger and homelessness for fourteen months, not paying attention to the preparations that occupy the minds of the rest of the peoples of the world to celebrate the New Year. What concerns them is to get out of the furnace of the Holocaust and stop the torrent of blood that winter adds to the pain, inside tents and shelters and under destroyed roofs, after their homes, schools, hospitals, universities, mosques and churches were turned into a thing of the past by Israeli aircraft missiles, tank shells and bulldozers.

Politicians, writers and analysts who spoke to Al-Quds said that the Palestinian people are bidding farewell to the most severe and bloody year in light of the international community’s abandonment of its responsibilities. They stressed that they do not see an end in sight to the dark reality that the Gaza Strip is experiencing, while the internal Palestinian situation is heading towards further rifts, in light of the ongoing events in Jenin and its camp.

A war of total annihilation that left huge losses and deep trauma.

Arab Knesset member Aida Touma-Sliman said that the year 2024 was harsh and unique in terms of the suffering experienced by the Palestinian people, stressing that the year witnessed a comprehensive war of extermination that left behind huge losses and deep shock.

Suleiman considered that the international inaction and silence on the crimes and fierce attacks led by the Israeli occupation government were among the most prominent features of the year.

She added: "Gaza was the most prominent headline of the year 2024, but the West Bank also witnessed serious events that will affect the future."

Suleiman pointed out that the year 2024 was not only one of violence on the Palestinian level, but also witnessed major regional events, such as the war on Lebanon and the repercussions of the fall of the regime in Syria.

She said: "These developments will have a profound impact on the course of the coming year, especially since the war on Gaza has not ended yet, and the Israeli aggression on Lebanon and Syria continues.

Suleiman expressed her hope that the new year would bring an end to this bloody war and the possibility of rebuilding Gaza, in addition to reaching a political solution that would restore momentum to the Palestinian cause and prevent attempts to bury it by the Israeli leadership.

Palestinian unity and internal challenges

Regarding the internal Palestinian situation, MP Suleiman stressed the importance of healing the rift and stopping the internal bleeding among the people of one nation.

She said: "We hope that next year will be the beginning of unity of the Palestinian people and unity of the Palestinian leadership, because the division has weakened the ability to confront the increasing risks."

Suleiman warned that the coming year carries risks and challenges, as the Israeli government includes within its policies dangerous plans to annex large areas of the West Bank and dismember it with settlements, in addition to considering building settlements in the northern Gaza Strip.

She added: “These policies are not just slogans, but are translated into actions supported by new budgets and plans.”

MP Touma Suleiman concluded her interview with Al-Quds by stressing that Donald Trump's return to the White House will increase the danger of this stage, saying: "Trump will provide unlimited support to the occupation government, more than what Biden was providing it."

2025 will be an extension of the disasters of 2024

For his part, researcher and political analyst Adel Shadid expected that the year 2025 would be an extension of the catastrophic events witnessed in 2024, noting that the repercussions of those events, especially the ongoing massacres in Gaza, would continue to dominate the Palestinian scene for years to come.

"I don't see an end to the dark horizon looming over the Gaza Strip," Shadid said. "The war will continue into next year."

Regarding the situation in the West Bank, Shadid expected a “major qualitative shift” in Israeli annexation policies over the coming year, with intensified efforts to empty Area C of Palestinian residents.

He stressed that these policies pose a serious threat to the future of the Palestinian territories and the continued existence of the population there.

On the domestic front, Shadid expressed his pessimism about the internal Palestinian situation, stressing that the recent events in Jenin increased the state of fragmentation and division.

He added: "The internal Palestinian situation is heading towards further rifts, and I do not see an end in sight to this painful, dark file."

Regional and international developments will overshadow interest in the Palestinian issue

Shadid touched on regional and international developments, considering that the political earthquakes in Syria and their repercussions, in addition to the Ukrainian crisis, will greatly affect interest in the Palestinian cause.

He explained: "In light of these developments, the Palestinian issue will not be the first regional or international event, which further complicates the scene."

Shadid expressed his concern about a far-right administration led by Donald Trump taking over the reins of power in the United States.

He explained that the new team expected in the White House, which adopts right-wing positions that are more extreme than the right,

The religious nationalism in Israel will pose a real threat to the future of the Palestinian people and their national cause.

Shadid concluded his statements by saying: “The year 2025 will be a year full of serious risks and real threats, especially in light of the regional and international changes that are overshadowing the Palestinian reality.”

On the threshold of a new phase in the Middle East

In turn, the writer and researcher in American and Israeli affairs, Dr. Amani Al-Qarm, said that the Palestinian issue faces three main challenges in the coming period: First, the reality of the new Middle East. We are on the cusp of a new phase in the Middle East with geopolitical changes, an imbalance of power in favor of Israel, and a retreat on the part of the forces opposing it, such as Iran and its allies.

She added that this Israeli expansion that we are currently witnessing in the Golan and Lebanon, and it is very likely that it will be in Yemen and Iraq, will create a state of ambiguity in the scene that will make the world turn its attention to what is happening in the region and not in Palestine, even though the center is the Palestinian issue.

“The second challenge is the surplus power that Israel currently feels. It is natural that it will be reflected in the Palestinian interior and the Israeli approach to dealing with the people and the cause towards more encroachment, aggression and oppression in order to achieve the project of complete Israel and to eliminate the existence of the Palestinian cause and its institutions within two tracks: the first, in the West Bank and Jerusalem through the annexation plan to completely tighten control over the Palestinian territories and build settlements. The second is in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli presence and war will likely continue next year even if a truce occurs in order to get rid of the Hamas threat on the one hand and also to divert attention from what is happening in the West Bank on the other hand,” she said.

She added: The third challenge is the existence of an American administration that is completely biased towards Israel, with the decision-making center in US President Donald Trump.

Expect a tough year under Trump

Al-Qarm said: We have seen how the previous years of Trump were, and it is likely that the coming years will be the same, but on the contrary, they could be more difficult due to the repercussions of the October 7 attacks, a Republican-dominated Congress, and a series of appointments to the American president, all of which support Israel and do not recognize the Palestinian state.

“From my point of view, we have to stop waiting for what America will offer us. It will not offer anything, and it will not do anything on our behalf,” she continued, noting that the war on Gaza and the American approach to dealing with the issue proved that there is a very large gap between what American politicians talk about in the media, a discourse full of diplomatic words and rights, and what is actually happening on the ground, in terms of unprecedented support for Israel, which is waging a war not only for its project and interests, but also to protect American interests.

Al-Qarm explained that with the aforementioned challenges, I believe that the most realistic expression is how to “create an opportunity” for the continuity of the Palestinian cause and ensure its survival.

She said: Here lies the knot, as we as Palestinians must revive ourselves before the Arab and Western worlds with a narrative other than the stereotypical narrative we are accustomed to.

Al-Qarm stressed the diplomatic approach to invest in the popular and elite sympathy that emerged as a result of the rivers of blood in Gaza, to transform it into political convictions among others, to consolidate the Palestinian narrative with a new, humane spirit.

Al-Qarm concluded her statement to Al-Quds by saying: “This will not come about except by activating and supporting the channels of popular diplomacy and abandoning empty slogans and racist fanaticism.”

Successive chapters of Israeli brutality and terrorism

Former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, Hatem Abdel Qader, said that the Palestinian people are bidding farewell to the most severe and bloody year, as its months witnessed successive chapters of Israeli brutality and terrorism.

He added: "While the world celebrates the arrival of a new year, the Palestinian people are facing unprecedented massacres in history, including mass killing, destruction, hunger, siege and settlement, in addition to targeting holy sites, in a scene whose ugliness cannot be described in words."

Regarding the suffering of the people of Jerusalem, Abdul Qader pointed out that the year 2024 was a very painful year for the city, considering that what happened there was the other side of the crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.

He added: "Jerusalem is witnessing a silent expulsion of Jerusalemite citizens, and attempts to impose a new reality on the ground through terrorist measures and violations that affect all aspects of the city, whether demographic, social, religious, or urban."

He also pointed out that last year witnessed unprecedented rates of home demolitions in Jerusalem, considering this part of Israeli policies aimed at resolving its battle within the city.

Palestinians alone face the greatest crimes of genocide

Abdul Qader stressed that the Palestinians, during the current year, stood alone in confronting the greatest crimes of genocide, without the international community assuming its responsibility to stop this destruction.

He explained that the burning of hospitals, and the killing of medical personnel, patients and the wounded, did not provoke the anger of countries that claim to defend democracy and human rights.

In his speech, Abdul Qader called for the new year to be a turning point in which the human conscience awakens to bear its moral and humanitarian responsibility, demanding the establishment of legal mechanisms to hold war criminals accountable for their crimes and achieve justice for the Palestinian people.

In a message of optimism despite all the challenges, Abdel Qader stressed that the Palestinian people enter the new year with a stronger will to cling to their land and national rights, and with a stronger determination to stand firm, resist, and defend their land and holy sites.

Abdul Qader said: "The occupation must realize that no matter how brutal and terrorist it is, it will never enjoy security and stability unless the Palestinian people obtain their full legitimate national rights, including freedom, independence, and the establishment of their state on their occupied land."

The genocide continues in the Gaza Strip

Professor of International Relations and Media, Najah Muslim, said that with the beginning of the new year, the Palestinian scene is renewed under the pressure of the continued genocide in the Gaza Strip, where the humanitarian tragedy is growing without any indications of reaching a swap deal or a temporary truce.

She stressed that the continued Israeli intransigence reflects a policy of erasing the political horizon by rejecting diplomatic initiatives and relying on military force and the killing machine.

Regarding Palestinian prisoners in occupation prisons, Muslim stressed that this file remains one of the most prominent humanitarian and national issues, with the continuation of systematic Israeli violations against them, including solitary confinement, medical neglect, and collective punishment policies.

On the West Bank level, Muslim warned of a dangerous escalation in Israeli settlement projects, especially after the statements of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in which he threatened to erase the Green Line through new agricultural settlement projects.

A direct threat to international efforts to revive the two-state solution

She pointed out that this escalation represents a direct threat to international efforts aimed at reviving the two-state solution, and places the Palestinians before a double challenge to preserve what remains of their lands and confront the ongoing Israeli attacks.

Muslim also drew attention to the occupation's ongoing attempts to undermine Palestinian institutions and exert pressure on Palestinian citizens through displacement and land confiscation policies.

Despite all these challenges, opportunities remain available to strengthen Palestinian national unity and capitalize on the growing global popular support for the Palestinian cause, Muslim said.

She added: There is an urgent need to adopt a comprehensive political vision based on popular resistance and effective diplomacy, while exploiting the progress in digital media to expose Israeli violations.

Muslim pointed out that the Palestinians can benefit from regional variables, including popular opposition to normalization, to strengthen their position on the international stage and continue the struggle to achieve their legitimate national rights.

Unemployment rates rise to unprecedented levels

For his part, Badr Zamaara, a specialist in international law and youth rights, said that the year 2025 holds great challenges for Palestinian youth, requiring a comprehensive and immediate response.

He pointed out that the serious violations and ongoing restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation, in addition to the unprecedented rise in unemployment rates, as a result of the war in Gaza and the continued military measures and closure in the West Bank and Jerusalem and the ongoing state of closure, lead to the aggravation of the economic and social conditions, with an increasing daily feeling of frustration and disappointment with any acceptable horizon for the continuation of life.

He stressed that the catastrophic humanitarian conditions in Gaza are unprecedented as a result of the destruction and genocide, which raises legal and political questions about the future of the region and what the coming days may bring in light of the ongoing Israeli threats and the youth's lack of a sense of security.

Zamaara pointed out that Palestinian youth suffer from a continuous deterioration in living conditions, with a lack of opportunities to participate in decision-making, as a result of the absence of democratic elections. In addition, many youth issues suffer from a severe lack of resources and development horizons.

He stressed that the new year brings with it many challenges that require different thinking and action than before.

He said: "Youth issues are no longer just clichés repeated in conferences and forums."

He added: "We must devise new solutions to deal with the challenges facing Palestinian youth, and launch initiatives that enhance their resilience and preserve hope in Palestine."

Zamaara concluded by stressing that the coming year should be a year of hope and positive change for the youth of Palestine.

Today, Wednesday, the Israeli occupation forces launched a campaign of raids and arrests in the West Bank.

In Tubas, citizen Ayman Tayseer Bani Odeh and his two sons Baraa and Tayseer were arrested, in addition to the arrest of the two brothers Ahmed and Abdullah Rafeh Bani Odeh during a raid on their homes in the town of Tamoun.

The occupation forces stormed the town of Tamoun and the surroundings of the Far'a camp, south of Tubas, in the early hours of this morning.

Local sources reported that the occupation forces stormed the town of Tamoun with several military patrols accompanied by a bulldozer after leaving the Al-Hamra military checkpoint, passing through the villages of Al-Nasariyah and Wadi Al-Far’a, amid continuous, low-flying reconnaissance drones, while the sounds of gunfire were heard inside the town during its storming.

In Hebron, the occupation forces stormed the town of Dura and arrested Nafez Al-Shawamreh, Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Haribat, and the brothers Abdul Qader and Mamdouh Yasser Abu Arqoub.

The occupation forces also arrested Wael Halayqa and Wassim Halayqa from the town of Al-Shuyukh, northeast of Hebron, and Ismail Hassan Al-Khudur and Ismail Muhammad Al-Khudur from Bani Naim, east of Hebron, after raiding their homes, searching them and tampering with their contents.

In Salfit, the occupation forces stormed the town of Deir Istiya and raided several houses in the town, searched them, ransacked their contents, and arrested five citizens: the two brothers Ashous Daoud Obeid (33 years old), and Mustafa (28 years old), Abdullah Abdul Rahman Ahmed Khalaf (27 years old), Asem Tayseer Abdul Karim Diab (23 years old), and Qutaiba Ibrahim Hisham Abu Hijleh (22 years old).

The occupation forces also stormed the village of Haris, northwest of Salfit, and arrested: Karim Fahd Daoud, Ahmed Musleh Kleib, Nayef Abdul Souf, and Qusay Muhammad Kleib.

In Nablus, the occupation forces stormed Balata camp accompanied by a military bulldozer, and deployed in several neighborhoods inside the camp amid heavy gunfire, raiding several homes, searching them and tampering with their contents.

In Bethlehem, the occupation forces stormed the town of Beit Fajjar and raided the homes of the brothers Ali and Khaled Issa Taqatqa, searched them and ransacked their contents without any arrests being reported.

It also raided the town of Al-Khader, and the villages of Marah Rabah and Harmalah in the Bethlehem Governorate, without any reports of raids on homes or any arrests of citizens.

At least 17 citizens were killed and others were injured, at dawn on Wednesday, after the Israeli occupation forces targeted Al-Bureij camp and the town of Jabalia in the central and northern Gaza Strip.

Local sources reported that 15 citizens, most of them children, were killed and a number of others were injured when the occupation forces bombed a house in Jabalia al-Balad, north of Gaza. Two citizens were also killed when the occupation forces bombed a house in al-Bureij camp.

The occupation forces blew up residential blocks in the town of Beit Lahia, Jabalia camp and its surroundings in the northern Gaza Strip.

The occupation forces opened fire in the northwestern area of Gaza City, and the occupation forces' artillery targeted the southeastern neighborhoods of Al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip.

The Israeli occupation continues its aggression on the Gaza Strip, by land, sea and air, since October 7, 2023, which resulted in the death of 45,541 citizens, the majority of whom are women and children, and the injury of 108,338 others, in an incomplete toll, as thousands of victims are still under the rubble and in the streets, and ambulance and rescue crews cannot reach them.

Hebrew media reported on Tuesday that the Israeli army has been working in recent days to strengthen the border infrastructure as part of the lessons of the "Al-Aqsa Flood" attack launched by the Palestinian resistance on October 7, 2023.

The Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported that there will be an Israeli military base or site in front of every Israeli settlement.

On the northern front, the Broadcasting Authority explained that the Israeli army is preparing to withdraw from the western sector in Lebanon in coordination with the American monitoring mechanism.

Today, Israel's Channel 12 reported that about a thousand families of those affected signed a petition demanding a government commission of inquiry into the events of October 7, while Channel 14 reported that the army had recruited dozens of prominent lawyers to advise officers as part of the investigations into that attack.

This comes as Israeli media focuses on what it sees as the delay of Benjamin Netanyahu's government in forming an official investigation committee into the October 7, 2023 attack, amid questions about the reasons for this delay.

Yedioth Ahronoth reported earlier that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Mayar called on Benjamin Netanyahu's government to expedite the formation of an official commission of inquiry into the October 7 failures.

Late last week, reports indicated that the army intends to submit a report to Defense Minister Yisrael Katz regarding the ongoing investigations into its failures in confronting the October 7, 2023 attack.

A few days ago, Israeli President Isaac Herzog stressed the importance of forming an official investigation committee into the attack, in light of the disagreements and statements Israel is witnessing between the political and security levels regarding who bears responsibility for the failure to confront the October 7 attack.

While the Military Intelligence Division previously announced that it "bears responsibility for the failure," Netanyahu insists on denying that he received any prior warnings from the military establishment about a possible attack from Gaza.

The National Campaign to Recover the Bodies of Martyrs said that the Israeli occupation authorities are holding the bodies of 198 documented Palestinian martyrs during the year 2024.

It stated in a statement today, Tuesday, that this number "constitutes a third of the martyrs detained in the numbered graves and refrigerators, documented by the campaign, whose number is 641 martyrs."

She explained that "these numbers do not include the detention of martyrs in the Gaza Strip, as there is no accurate information available about their number, while the campaign documented the occupation's return of the bodies of 325 martyrs from the Gaza Strip."

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Tlaleng Mofokeng, called on the Israeli occupation to release the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Hussam Abu Safia, and end the genocide in the Gaza Strip.

“As a doctor and UN rapporteur, I demand an end to the brutal arrest of Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Hussam Abu Safia by the Israeli occupation and an end to the genocide in Gaza,” Mofokeng said in a post on the X platform on Tuesday.

Last Saturday, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that the Israeli army had arrested the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the North Gaza Strip Governorate, Hussam Abu Safiya.

Since the start of the war of extermination on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation army has been targeting the health sector in the Strip, bombing and besieging hospitals, threatening to evacuate them, and preventing the entry of medical supplies, especially in the areas of the northern Strip, which it invaded again on October 5.

The latest Israeli attack on the health system in Gaza was on Friday, when Kamal Adwan Hospital was stormed, set on fire, put out of service, and more than 350 people were arrested inside, including medical staff, wounded and sick people, and Abu Safiya.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned of an increase in the number of child deaths in Gaza due to the severe cold and lack of shelter.

This came in a statement issued by UNRWA on Tuesday, regarding the infants who froze to death in Gaza due to the severe cold.

UNRWA said: "Six infants have died from the cold in the past few days, and more may die from the cold and lack of shelter and basic winter supplies."

The agency called on Israel to lift the siege on Gaza and allow the delivery of blankets and winter clothes.

The displaced people inside the tents made of cloth and nylon suffer from harsh living conditions due to the scarcity of basic necessities of life, clothing, bedding and blankets, which worsen with the winter season.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Tuesday that Israel's "deliberate" destruction of health facilities in the Gaza Strip "amounts to a form of collective punishment and constitutes a war crime."

This came in a report by the Commission, which explained that "the pattern of deadly Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals and their surroundings has pushed the health care system to the brink of total collapse, and has had a catastrophic impact on the ability of Palestinians to access health and medical care," according to the United Nations News website.

The report stated that "the attacks documented between October 12, 2023 and June 30, 2024, raise serious concerns about Israel's compliance with international law."

In the report, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said that “the continuous bombardment and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, as the only place where Palestinians should feel safe (hospitals) has become a death trap.”

He stressed that "protecting hospitals during war is of utmost importance, and all parties must respect this principle at all times."

Turk explained that the Commission's report "details the devastation of the health care system in Gaza, and the extent of the killing of patients, staff and other civilians in these attacks, in blatant disregard for international humanitarian law and human rights law."

The Commission said in the report that "the horrific destruction caused by the Israeli military attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital last Friday reflects the pattern of attacks documented in the report."

The report stated that hospital staff and patients "were forced to flee or arrested, with numerous reports of torture and ill-treatment. The hospital director was also arrested and his fate and whereabouts remain unknown."

Turk called for the immediate release of all arbitrarily detained medical personnel, according to the website.

Since the beginning of the genocide in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, the Israeli army has been targeting the health sector in the Strip, bombing and besieging hospitals, threatening to evacuate them, and preventing the entry of medical supplies, especially in the areas of the northern Gaza Strip, which it invaded again on October 5.

The latest Israeli attack on the health system in Gaza was on Friday, when the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip was stormed, set on fire, put out of service, and more than 350 people were arrested inside, including medical staff, wounded and sick people, and the director, Hussam Abu Safiya.

In this context, the Commission’s report recorded between October 12, 2023 and June 30, 2024 “at least 136 airstrikes on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, resulting in heavy casualties among doctors, nurses, paramedics and other civilians, and causing severe damage to or complete destruction of civilian infrastructure.”

“Under certain circumstances, the deliberate destruction of health care facilities may amount to a form of collective punishment, which in turn may constitute a war crime,” he added.

The report stated that "Israel claims, in most cases, that Palestinian armed groups were using hospitals, but to date it has provided little information to substantiate these claims, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear to contradict publicly available information."

He referred to the first large-scale operation carried out by the Israeli army against the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in November 2023.

He stated that "three mass graves were found (in the medical complex), and some bodies were found still connected to catheter devices, indicating that the dead were patients."

Türk stressed "the need to conduct independent, comprehensive and transparent investigations into all these incidents, and to hold accountable those responsible for all violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law."

He stressed the need for "Israel, as the occupying power, to give priority to ensuring and facilitating access to adequate health care for the Palestinian population, and to future recovery and reconstruction efforts, with the aim of restoring medical capabilities that were destroyed over the past fourteen months of violent conflict" in the Strip.

With American support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving about 154,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

This evening, Tuesday, settlers assaulted a young man in the Arab al-Malihat community in al-Ma'arjat, northwest of Jericho.

According to local sources, a number of settlers stormed the compound and assaulted the young man Ibrahim Malihat, causing him to suffer bruises, after which he was transferred to a hospital in Jericho.

Arab Al-Malihat is one of the Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley that is targeted by settlers, under the protection of the occupation forces, through provocative raids on the residents, assaulting them, forcing them to leave their pastures, and attempting to steal their livestock.

A report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reduced expectations of progress in negotiations to reach a prisoner exchange deal between the Islamic Resistance Movement and the Israeli occupation.

The report suggested that the Israeli army would expand its attacks to other areas in the northern Gaza Strip, with the aim of systematically displacing Palestinians from there, but at the same time it doubted the success of the occupation forces in defeating the Hamas movement.

The newspaper’s senior military analyst, Amos Harel, opened his article by saying, “On the last day of 2024, it would be better, for a change, for the government to tell the public the truth. Despite the intensive contacts that have taken place in recent weeks, talks on a prisoner swap have stalled again, and the chances of reaching a settlement appear slim.”

"Only the intervention of US President-elect Donald Trump will somehow be able to get this wagon out of the mud on the eve of his inauguration on January 20," he added.

Harel painted a bleak picture of the negotiations, drawing on the sources available to him, as well as the scarce published information, and spoke of a major discrepancy between the two parties, reflecting the depth of the disagreements in the negotiations.

He explained that "Hamas is still demanding a clear commitment to the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, supported by maps and a strict timetable, and is also seeking to formulate agreements on the criteria for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons in the next rounds of the deal. Meanwhile, Israel is demanding that Hamas provide it with a complete and detailed list of the names of all the kidnapped and their status, whether alive or dead."

He pointed to information confirming the Israeli government's desire to reach only a partial deal, under which only detainees included in the "humanitarian" list (women, the elderly, the wounded and the sick) would be released, and that there is a disagreement over the definition of the sick and wounded who might enter the humanitarian phase, because after about a year and four months of captivity, the condition of all the kidnapped has become difficult, and it is possible that they will all be included in the list.

"Israel has an interest in increasing the number as much as possible, because the completion of the second stage of the deal is now in doubt. On the other hand, Hamas in the Gaza Strip... seeks to return only a limited number of the kidnapped in order to preserve the rest on the assumption that fighting will resume soon," he commented.

Despite the ongoing efforts by regional mediators, especially Qatar and Egypt, to reach a solution, Harel highlights Israeli reports indicating that the situation of the detainees in the Strip is worsening, and it appears that the negotiations are not making real progress, which raises Israeli concerns about their fate.

Can Hamas be defeated?

While the military analyst confirms that the Israeli army is intensifying pressure on the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza with the aim of pressuring the Hamas leadership to make concessions in the negotiations, he points out that “the military pressure operations have not achieved a tangible change in the political or military situation in Israel’s favor.”

“This operation, the fourth in the camp since the beginning of the war, is still ongoing. This time the results have been more devastating and deadly. The Israeli army has destroyed most of the camp’s homes, and more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed. The heads of the security services continue to claim that military pressure – which has escalated somewhat in the past week with the expansion of the operation to the nearby town of Beit Hanoun – is effectively pushing the negotiations towards an agreement,” he says.

But he confirms, on the other hand, that the Israeli army, despite its denial of implementing the "generals' plan," is continuing the process of displacing the population step by step.

Harel concludes by asking: Will Hamas be defeated? He answers that it is “very doubtful.”

He justifies his assessment by saying, “Hamas continues to have civilian control over most of the Gaza Strip, controls humanitarian supplies, makes money from them, and imposes its authority over the majority of the population.”

It also points to the increase in rocket fire from the northern Gaza Strip, in addition to the killing of a number of Israeli soldiers and officers in successive ambushes by the Palestinian resistance, and the continued targeting of Israeli forces in the Netzarim and Philadelphi axes.

“Under these circumstances,” he concludes, “it is difficult to see how the war will end anytime soon. Israel may remain bogged down in the Gaza quagmire for years to come, without a real resolution, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs the war to continue in order to prevent the formation of an official commission of inquiry into the failures of October 7, and to continue the battle to legitimize the judicial coup.”

The Israeli occupation government continued to procrastinate in responding to demands to allow the International Red Cross to visit Palestinian detainees, who suffer from inhumane detention conditions.

The occupation government submitted a request to the Supreme Court, the sixth of its kind, to postpone consideration of a petition demanding that the Red Cross be allowed to visit Palestinian detainees, according to the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz.

The newspaper indicated that the petition was submitted by human rights organizations last February to resume Red Cross visits that had been suspended since the start of the Israeli war of extermination on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.

The occupation government requested to postpone submitting its final position to the court for the sixteenth time, citing "sensitive security and political reasons."

This evening, Tuesday, a young man was injured by live bullets, and a woman suffered bruises after the occupation forces stormed the town of Halhul, north of Hebron.

According to security sources, the occupation forces stormed the town of Halhul and fired live bullets during the clashes that erupted in the area, which led to a young man being injured by live bullets, and a woman suffering from bruises after being assaulted.

Medical sources at Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron added that the injured young man arrived at the hospital after being shot in the chest and another in the foot. His condition was described as stable, and he needs emergency surgery.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education said on Tuesday that the Israeli army killed about 13,000 students from schools and universities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and injured more than 21,000 others during the war of extermination that has been ongoing since October 7, 2023.

The Palestinian Ministry added in a statement that the number of students who were martyred in Gaza reached 12,000, while 120 students were martyred in the West Bank.

It added that the number of injured students in Gaza reached 21,000, while 655 students were injured and 548 others were arrested in the West Bank.

630 educational personnel were killed, 3,865 were injured, and 185 were arrested in the West Bank, according to the same data.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education stated that 788 thousand male and female students are still deprived of their studies in schools and universities in the Gaza Strip.

Regarding Israeli attacks on educational buildings, the Ministry reported that 425 government schools, universities and their facilities, and 65 affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), were subjected to bombing and sabotage, which led to the complete destruction of 77 of them and the severe damage of 171 others.

109 schools and 7 universities in the West Bank were also stormed and vandalized, according to the same statement.

A number of American experts have questioned, in intermittent statements, the sincerity of Abu Muhammad al-Julani’s (Ahmad al-Sharaa) moderation, indicating that after al-Julani was the head of al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, he has now become the most influential man in the country. “He is the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the terrorist organization designated by the United States and which toppled Bashar al-Assad this month,” according to Matthew Levitt, a terrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs, which is close to Israel, warning that Western leaders have responded positively to this development with relative calm because al-Julani broke with al-Qaeda in 2016.

But has this new leader truly rejected what al-Qaeda stands for and severed ties with the broader al-Qaeda network? In 2016, al-Julani gave a speech in which he denied “affiliation with any external entity.” Many reporters and analysts interpreted this comment as a rejection of al-Qaeda. However, one of al-Qaeda’s most senior leaders had already approved al-Julani’s renaming.

Experts say al-Jolani has clashed with his al-Qaeda rivals and achieved effective autonomy as he carved out his fiefdom in northwestern Syria. But he remains committed to armed jihad and Islamic rule. To this day, several organizations within al-Qaeda’s orbit operate under the banner of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Biden administration officials are said to be discussing whether to remove Mr. Julani’s group from the list of foreign terrorist organizations. Doing so would be premature.

“The United States should not consider removing the terrorist designation and associated sanctions unless al-Julani publicly denounces al-Qaeda, rejects jihadism, and ensures that Syria does not become a haven for terrorists,” Levitt says.

Others believe this is unlikely to happen, because al-Julani is not a moderate. In 2016, during a speech in which he broke with al-Qaeda, al-Julani expressed gratitude to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who helped plan the 9/11 attacks and succeeded Osama bin Laden as leader of al-Qaeda after 2011. Al-Julani praised al-Zawahiri’s “blessed leadership” and praised him for implementing the principles taught by bin Laden.

At the time of his comments, al-Jolani was the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate. He declared "the complete abolition of all operations under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra" and announced its replacement with a short-lived alliance that merged with other rebel groups to become Hayat Tahrir al-Sham six months later.

Al-Julani (al-Sharaa) says he made the name change because the presence of an al-Qaeda branch in Syria was a pretext for the United States and Russia to bomb and displace Syrian Muslims. Hence the replacement of Jabhat al-Nusra with an alliance not affiliated with any external entity.

It is noteworthy that al-Julani has not yet disavowed his allegiance or pledge of loyalty to al-Zawahiri. Nor has he identified al-Qaeda as an external entity. At the time, al-Qaeda had a strong presence in Idlib, the Syrian province that was primarily under al-Julani’s control. In October 2016, a U.S. airstrike in Idlib killed a longtime al-Qaeda operative who the Pentagon said was planning attacks on Western targets. The following January, a precision U.S. airstrike killed more than 100 al-Qaeda members at their training camp in Idlib. In February, another airstrike in Idlib killed al-Zawahiri’s deputy, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command.

Levitt notes that it is no surprise that the US government does not buy the idea of a break between al-Julani and al-Qaeda. In May 2018, the State Department amended its terrorist blacklist to include Hayat Tahrir al-Sham as an alias for Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria. “The United States is not fooled by this al-Qaeda affiliate’s attempt to rebrand itself,” the State Department’s top counterterrorism official said in a statement. “Whatever name al-Nusra chooses, we will continue to deny it the resources it needs to advance its violent cause.”

Since the Assad regime was toppled, al-Jolani has claimed that he would respect Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities. Yet as al-Jolani’s forces closed in on Damascus, CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh asked in an interview whether his plan for Syria was still to implement “strict Islamic rule.” Rather than say no, he insisted: “People who fear Islamic rule have either seen it implemented incorrectly or they don’t understand it properly.”

What has gone unnoticed are the jihadist groups, particularly fighters from Central Asia, that were part of al-Jolani’s coalition during the march from Idlib to Damascus. Among them is the Turkestan Islamic Party, whose leader sits on al-Qaeda’s main advisory council. Five other groups within the coalition are blacklisted as terrorists by the United States. Al-Jolani is already lobbying the United States and Europe to lift sanctions on Syria. So is the UN envoy to Damascus. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has canceled a $10 million bounty on al-Jolani’s head and sent a delegation to Syria to meet with the country’s interim government.

It is noteworthy that the official spokesman for the US State Department, Matthew Miller, said in response to a question from the Jerusalem correspondent that the administration will judge the new government in Syria "by actions, not just words." But experts in Washington fear that Washington will overlook many of al-Julani's actions in pursuit of the gains of the largest share of the United States in the future of Syria.

A United Nations report published on Tuesday concluded that the strikes carried out by the Israeli occupation army, which have continued since October 2023 on hospitals or their surroundings in the Gaza Strip, have brought the health system in the Strip to the “brink of complete collapse.”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement accompanying the report that “the pattern of deadly Israeli attacks on and around Gaza’s hospitals, and the associated combat operations, has pushed the health care system to the brink of total collapse, disastrously affecting Palestinians’ ability to access health and medical care.”

The statement pointed out that the Israeli allegations about the presence of militants in hospitals in Gaza are "vague and vague."

“In most cases, Israel claims that Palestinian armed factions were using hospitals. However, to date, it has provided little information to substantiate these claims, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear to contradict publicly available information,” it said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, denounced that Gaza hospitals had turned into a "death trap."

“As if the ongoing bombardment and dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the only place where Palestinians should feel safe has become a death trap,” he said, stressing that “protecting hospitals during war is of utmost importance, and all parties must respect this principle at all times.”

On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that the war had undermined the health care system in northern Gaza, noting that Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals were completely out of service.

The head of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce in the Gaza Strip, Aid Abu Ramadan, said that the humanitarian aid convoys entering Gaza do not cover 15% of the citizens’ needs.

Abu Ramadan explained in a statement to Voice of Palestine Radio that the prices of basic commodities are witnessing significant increases compared to before the war, which makes it difficult for citizens to buy them even if they are available in the markets, in addition to the real liquidity crisis resulting from the complete shutdown of banks and the destruction of the currency in circulation.

In a related context, the head of the NGO Network in the Gaza Strip, Amjad Al-Shawa, said that 110,000 tents shelter displaced people in various parts of the Gaza Strip, and those inside them are shivering from the severe cold in light of the famine, the prevention of aid from entering, and the need for 25,000 patients to leave the Strip to receive treatment.

Al-Shawa pointed out the repeated requests from the World Health Organization and the Red Cross to protect medical staff, patients and hospitals, while the occupation authorities evade all international laws and resolutions, arrest the wounded and medical staff, and bomb and burn hospitals.

In turn, the Director of Supporting Medical Professions at Al-Muhtaseb Hospital in Hebron, Nidal Abu Afifa, said that five thousand units of blood have been collected as part of the fourth blood donation campaign for our people in the Gaza Strip, and to meet the needs of our people in the Strip, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and the Rahma International Foundation.

Abu Afifa added that since the beginning of the aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip, three blood donation campaigns have been sent, during which ten thousand units were delivered.

The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said that 258 of the agency's employees have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war.

The UN Commissioner added in statements to the media that nearly 650 incidents against the agency's buildings and facilities have been recorded since the beginning of the war.

He confirmed that more than two-thirds of the agency's buildings were damaged or destroyed, most of which were used as schools for children.

Lazzarini said at least 745 people were killed in UN agency shelters while seeking UN protection.

The head of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Ola Awad, reviewed the conditions of the Palestinians at the end of 2024, noting that the population of the Gaza Strip decreased by 6% by the end of 2024, with the continuation of the brutal occupation aggression on the Strip, which led, according to figures issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, to the martyrdom of 45,484 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, until the end of December 2024, and about 100,000 Palestinians left the Strip since the beginning of the aggression since October 7, 2023.

Awad explained in a statement issued by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics that among the martyrs, there were about 17,581 children, about 12,048 women, in addition to about 11,000 missing persons, and about 108,090 other citizens injured.

In the West Bank, the Israeli occupation continued, and based on the above data, the estimated population of the State of Palestine at the end of 2024 reached 5.5 million Palestinians (3.4 million in the West Bank, while the estimated population of the Gaza Strip for the year 2024 decreased by about 160 thousand Palestinians, to reach 2.1 million (a decrease of 6% from the population estimates for the Gaza Strip for the year 2023), including more than one million children under the age of eighteen, constituting 47% of the population of the Strip.

About 15 million Palestinians in historical Palestine and the diaspora:

According to the revised population estimates prepared by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, there are approximately 14.9 million Palestinians in the world at the end of 2024, half of whom are outside historical Palestine, as their number reached approximately 5.5 million Palestinians in the State of Palestine, including 2.8 million males, 2.7 million females, and 1.80 million in the 1948 territories.

It is also estimated that the number of Palestinians in the diaspora has reached about 7.6 million, of whom 6.4 million are in Arab countries.

65% of individuals in the State of Palestine are under 30 years of age:

By the end of 2024, the percentage of individuals (0-4 years) reached 14% of the total population in Palestine, with 13% in the West Bank and 15% in the Gaza Strip, while the percentage of individuals under 15 years reached 37%, with 35% in the West Bank and 40% in the Gaza Strip. The percentage of individuals under 30 years in Palestine reached 65% of the total population in Palestine; 63% in the West Bank and 68% in the Gaza Strip. The percentage of individuals aged (65 years and over) reached 4%.

About 60,000 pregnant women are at risk due to lack of health care in the Gaza Strip:

According to figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, there are approximately 60,000 pregnant women at risk due to the lack of health care in the Gaza Strip, and 13,649 pregnant women are expected to give birth in the coming month, 5,522 in the Gaza Strip and 8,127 in the West Bank. In addition, 155,000 pregnant and lactating women face difficult challenges in accessing and obtaining prenatal and postnatal health care services.

In addition, 96% of the population in the Gaza Strip (2.1 million people) are facing high levels of acute food insecurity until September 2024, including about 49,300 pregnant women. More than 495,000 people (22% of the population) are facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity (Phase 5), including 11,000 pregnant women. About 3,500 children are at risk of death due to malnutrition and food shortages, with 36 children killed as a result of famine and malnutrition.

As a result of the aggression, education has become an unavailable luxury. With every shell that explodes, the human right to a normal life in the Gaza Strip collapses.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education, until the end of September 2024, more than 77 government schools have been completely destroyed since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, while 191 schools have been bombed and vandalized, including 126 government schools, 65 schools affiliated with the Relief Agency, while 98 schools in the West Bank have been vandalized since the beginning of the Israeli aggression.

More than 51 university buildings in the Gaza Strip were completely destroyed, while 57 university buildings were partially destroyed, and more than 20 universities in the Gaza Strip were severely damaged since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, 7 universities in the West Bank were subjected to repeated raids, vandalism and tampering with their contents.

The number of martyrs among students enrolled in schools in Palestine reached 11,796 martyrs, including more than 11,714 martyrs in the Gaza Strip, and 82 martyrs in the West Bank. The number of martyrs since the beginning of the Israeli occupation aggression among students enrolled in higher education institutions in Palestine reached 796 students, including 761 students in the Gaza Strip, and 35 students in the West Bank.

The number of martyrs among teachers and administrators in schools in Palestine reached 466 martyrs, 463 of whom were martyred during the raids on the Gaza Strip, and 3 martyrs in the West Bank. Meanwhile, 121 workers, both male and female, working in higher education institutions in the Gaza Strip were killed as a result of the ongoing air raids.

The collapse of the economic system in the Gaza Strip, a sharp contraction in the productive base of the West Bank, and an unprecedented rise in unemployment rates:

Palestine is suffering from a social, humanitarian, environmental and economic catastrophe that has led to the shrinkage of the productive base and the distortion of the economic structure of Palestine, as the contribution of the Gaza Strip to the total Palestinian economy has declined to less than 5%, after representing about 17% before October 7, 2023. A year after the Israeli occupation’s aggression on the Gaza Strip and its repercussions on the West Bank, initial estimates indicate a contraction of the gross domestic product in the Gaza Strip by more than 85%, and about 22% in the West Bank, so that the Palestinian economy has declined by a third compared to what it was before October 7, 2023. The unemployment rate has also risen to 80% in the Gaza Strip and 35% in the West Bank, raising the unemployment rate in Palestine to 51%.

This morning, Tuesday, Israeli occupation forces began demolishing a building in the Salam suburb, northeast of occupied Jerusalem.

Eyewitnesses reported that a force from the occupation army and police, accompanied by a bulldozer, stormed the Ras Shehada neighborhood in the Salam suburb, and began demolishing a building under construction, owned by citizen Iyad Al-Qasrawi, on the pretext of not having a license.

The sources indicated that the occupation bulldozers destroyed streets in the Salam suburb during the demolition operation that began this morning.

She pointed out that the occupation forces were deployed intensively around the demolition site, and obstructed students from reaching their schools.

According to statistics from the Jerusalem Governorate, the occupation authorities have carried out about 433 bulldozing and demolition operations in the governorate since October 7, 2023.

The year 2024 ends at midnight tonight, and it will gather its last papers and depart far away, but its events, disasters and tragedies will remain present in the minds, because it was the year of genocide and assassinations in every sense of the word, the year in which Israel continued to wage the largest war in history against our defenseless Palestinian people, and caused the destruction of more than 80 percent of the homes in the Strip, killed and displaced thousands, and erased thousands of families from the civil records, and made life impossible in a geographical area that is the most densely populated in the world, so it became the most tragic in history.

Years are just numbers, passing from one time slot to another to record the chronological sequence that bears witness to the major historical events that we cover year after year, and we stop at them with analysis and discussion, to monitor their effects on human societies on our planet that witnesses unprecedented suffering, to record the war of extermination on Gaza in the year 2024 as the most tragic event in the world, as its repercussions were much stronger than earthquakes and volcanoes, and carried with it all kinds of violations and harsh and difficult measures that Israel carried out in a way that makes one’s forehead blush.

Words fail to describe the year that was for our Palestinian people burning, shocking, heartbreaking, seismic, volcanic, deadly, terrifying, catastrophic, disappointing, destructive, satanic, terrifying, unjust, terrible, painful and bloody.

It was a year of sadness in which masks fell, conscience died, and the veins of humanity dried up in people’s hearts, turning into black hearts that did not pulsate with a single seed of love or loyalty for Palestine.

It was a year of treason and baseness that appeared in public through a large global conspiracy against our Palestinian people and their honorable resistance. No one, neither Arab nor Western, dared to stop Israel and curb its aggression. On the contrary, the rush to conferences of apostasy, prostration, and surrender was prevalent, and all the statements that were issued and are being issued were for media consumption by fools who have no connection to history, honor, dignity, and the exploits that have completely disappeared.

The events of 2024 were not surprising for our oppressed, occupied and wronged Palestinian people, but they were shocking in their effects and goals, which were clear, and pointed to a compass of revenge against our people, led by Israel and the Western axis led by the United States, amidst a terrible international and Arab silence. The goal was not only to eliminate the resistance, but also all the capabilities of the life of our Palestinian people. The loud number of martyrs, children and women, which exceeded half of the total number of martyrs, and the successive sanctions of siege, evacuation, displacement, systematic ethnic cleansing campaigns, starvation, arrests, destruction of hospitals, health and medical centers, burning of displaced persons’ tents, and destruction of homes, buildings and facilities, are evidence of this. The war on our people has been ongoing since the Nakba of 1948, and its pace has increased in 2024, which is considered the year of catastrophes and disasters par excellence.

Gaza cried out, screamed and called out at the top of its voice for a whole year, hoping to find answers or listening ears. However, all those who heard the call decided not to answer, so Gaza remained alone, complaining to time about its pains, wounds and sufferings. It lives by the sea and loves life, but its bed is death and its blanket is the sky, and there is no one who answers the call.

The year 2024 has passed, which we can call the year of transformations, catastrophe and heroism. We witnessed the continuation of the war of genocide, and the accompanying comprehensive destruction of everything in the Gaza Strip, to the point that it became normal news to commit several massacres in one day, or to bomb shelters or aid convoys, or to bomb and burn a hospital and put it out of service, or to see children and women die from the cold or from the lack of medicine or from the rush to obtain a loaf of bread.

The above has become a passing event that does not require any attention, nor even international condemnation, but rather just a feeling of pity or timid condemnations that are of no use.

The great steadfastness and the continuation of the valiant resistance, to the point of being able to inflict human losses on the occupation forces, and launching rockets from areas in northern Gaza towards Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip envelope, where there is no longer one stone left standing, do not diminish the enormity of the humanitarian catastrophe. Rather, there is an urgent need to evaluate what happened, its accuracy, and to draw lessons and morals that will stop the genocide and prevent a decisive victory for the Israeli aggression.

Despite the passage of about 14 months, the war has not ended, and whenever the level of optimism increases regarding an agreement on a partial deal that achieves a truce for several weeks but does not end the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues what he has been doing for a whole year of maneuvers and procrastination, which are called negotiations, and do not actually aim to stop the war, but rather provide a cover for its continuation until it achieves its goals, which revolve around achieving a decisive victory that he and those seeking it, more than anyone else, realize is impossible to achieve.

The fact that the Israeli goals have not been achieved does not mean that a long distance has not been covered on the road to achieving them, in addition to paving the way for achieving the undeclared goals. It is not right to talk about victory in the shadow of genocide, and the evidence for that is all this death and destruction in making the entire Gaza Strip an uninhabitable area, preventing the entry of humanitarian aid, in addition to creating security, military and infrastructure facts in the Gaza Strip, aiming to change the map of the Gaza Strip humanly and geographically.

The repeated displacement within the Gaza Strip keeps the door wide open for displacement abroad to achieve a displacement that they say is “voluntary,” while in reality it is forced displacement. In order to mitigate its impact, they are threatening to allocate an area in Sinai that is two to three times the area of the Strip so that the largest number of Gazans can “move” to it, which will not be large enough for its residents after preparing to cut off at least a third of it for security, military, and settlement reasons.

If the war of extermination in Gaza, which coincides with the war of annexation and decisiveness in the West Bank, does not push the divided Palestinian forces towards unity, nothing else will push them towards it, which imposes the search for another approach other than unity to overcome the comprehensive impasse that the national movement is going through with its various parties and its two wings, the secular national and the Islamic national. Perhaps the approach is the struggle of the popular forces and all those loyal to change the political system through political and popular pressure so that changing it leads to unity, without this meaning a complete neglect of the pursuit of it. Rather, it is possible to proceed in a parallel and simultaneous manner for the sake of change and unity, with a greater focus on creating tools for change and facts on the ground on the path to achieving it.

Unity has not been achieved even at the factional level, despite Beijing’s declaration, which was immediately shelved due to the unwillingness to pay the price of unity, which became further away after the Al-Aqsa flood, as the leadership does not want to put its head under the guillotine alongside Hamas’s head, and it acts as if there is no place for Hamas in the political system after what it has done, and it imagines that by doing so it will guarantee the preservation of its head and its subsequent role.

As for Hamas, it wants to stay and work to ensure its subsequent role, even by demanding an end to the war and a return to the way things were before October 7, without reviewing the validity of embarking on the Al-Aqsa flood given the results it led to, and the need for change and renewal in it based on drawing lessons and morals. It is trying unsuccessfully to seek shelter under Palestinian legitimacy by agreeing to the Beijing Declaration to preserve its leadership, and it realizes that it must be outside the government at least for now, so it agreed to form a consensus government in which the factions do not participate, and then agreed to a community support committee despite all the concessions it entails, while the priority now is to preserve the cause and keep the people on their homeland, and thwart the annexation and resolution plan.

Instead of searching for mechanisms to achieve unity, through implementing the Beijing Declaration or otherwise, there were understandings instead that led to three fruitless meetings in Cairo to discuss the formation of a community support committee; in response to a regional, American and international demand that attempts to overcome the Israeli position rejecting Hamas’s continued rule over the Gaza Strip and the return of President Mahmoud Abbas’ authority, without any guarantees that the occupying state would accept this committee.

Most likely, the occupation will not accept this committee, because it wants to achieve a decisive victory on the path to establishing “Greater Israel,” so it is keen to work towards annexation, displacement, and Judaization, and to establish separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and between Areas A, B, and C in the West Bank, and between them and Jerusalem, and between the West Bank and the 1948 territories, in addition to deepening the Palestinian division between two forces and two programs, and seeking to eliminate any embodiment of national identity, even in the form of the existing authority bound by unfair restrictions, and mortgaged to the commitments of Oslo and post-Oslo, which led to making the authority less than self-rule, and that its survival is the goal and not defeating the occupation and embodying independence, and that the ceiling that governs it is the security-economic ceiling without any political role or horizon.

It has been a leap year not only in Palestine, but in the region, as evidenced by the earthquake that occurred in Syria and its aftershocks. Although the fall of the corrupt and authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad is not to be regretted, and is a cause for hope if things go as they should, its fall and the accompanying Israeli role allowed Netanyahu to talk about a major role for Israel in achieving this “achievement,” as was also evident in the continuous bombing of Syrian targets over the past years, the comprehensive destruction of the various capabilities of the Syrian army, in addition to Israel’s occupation of large areas of southern Syria, and its efforts to divide the country and control its fate.

The occupation is employing, to achieve its goals, the enormous legacy that the new regime carries from the defunct era, and 13 years of civil war in which revolution intertwined with conspiracy, internal revolutionary factors with terrorism and with foreign interventions, including the presence of an American and Turkish occupation, the need to lift the siege and finance reconstruction and the return of the displaced, and the competition of several projects, especially the American-Israeli project and the Turkish-Qatari-Brotherhood project, in addition to the presence of Russian bases, and the control of the Kurds over areas, which imposes caution and explains the lack of clarity of the path that the new regime will follow, as it is not enough to change the form and the softness of speech in light of the exclusion of others and the formation of a government and institutions of one color.

Will the new regime be a democratic civil regime that unifies the country and embodies the Syrian people’s right to self-determination, and is inclusive of all regardless of gender, color, religion, or nationality, and preserves its independence and sovereignty? Or will it be a sectarian, dictatorial regime that feeds the existing division and maintains a formal unity? Or will the country head toward chaos, insecurity, and civil war?

Hezbollah, which fought a support war that exhausted the occupying state and eased the burden on Gaza, received a severe blow that weakened it greatly, but did not eliminate it, and it was able to continue its role after that. Perhaps the harshest blow was the martyrdom of its leader and Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who is irreplaceable, in addition to the loss of most of its leadership and the frameworks surrounding it, and a fundamental part of its sources of military strength, including the supply route in Syria, and dealing a blow to Iran that reduced its ability to operate, in addition to the impact of Lebanon’s special conditions and internal pressures on Hezbollah, which prompted it to agree to a ceasefire without linking that to stopping the war of extermination on the Gaza Strip as it had committed to, instead of coexisting with the Israeli violations.

Despite the severe blows received by the axis of resistance and the dismantling of the unity of the arenas, the loss of the occupying state was not small, on various human, military, economic and moral levels, and on the image of Israel in the world, even among the ranks of public opinion in the allied Western camp that strongly supports the occupying state.

The consequences of the Al-Aqsa Intifada on Israel’s role and future will not be limited to what is happening in the immediate term, which has shown that the occupying state is continuing to shape the new Middle East, but rather what will happen in the medium and long term, which will be very different, as evidenced by the state of political, societal and ideological division that threatens the unity of Israeli society and its role in the future and has not receded much despite waging an existential war.

We should not forget the Yemeni missile strikes on the Israeli interior, which caused millions of Israelis to take shelter and disrupted navigation in the port of Eilat for more than a year. Israel was also exposed to an Iranian attack twice with hundreds of missiles and drones, in addition to the hundreds of operations carried out by Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and the resistance factions in Gaza, as well as the launching of a number of drones from Iraq towards Israeli sites.

If we take stock, we must admit that what the Gaza Strip faced was a catastrophe, and a price that should not be paid because it does not match the size of the achievements at all. Palestine was not liberated in exchange for that price, and the occupation was not expelled from the territories occupied in 1967, not even the Gaza Strip.

In this context, the negotiations from the resistance's point of view focus on stopping the war and returning things to what they were before, and completing a prisoner exchange deal, which reflects the great deterioration, while the occupying state is focusing on a partial exchange deal that achieves a calm for weeks but does not end the war. Also, removing Hamas from the government in the Gaza Strip has become a given for everyone, including Hamas itself, to ensure the acceptance of the occupying state to stop the war, and the donor countries to provide the necessary funds for reconstruction.

Based on the above, the new year is likely to be the year of decision, as the war will end and its final results will be determined. Either the occupation will crown its achievements by resolving the conflict, even if only temporarily, or the Israeli advance will be halted and the new Middle East will be drawn. The scenarios proposed in the new Trump era are the worst of the worst, as maintaining Israeli control over the Gaza Strip and dealing with it in the same way as the West Bank, which the occupation forces are violating wherever, whenever and however they want, is not the worst scenario, while the West Bank will face attempts to annex it completely or parts of it. What Trump and Netanyahu want will not be an inevitable fate if the Palestinians, Arabs and free people in the entire world know what they have to do, and they can know, because more than a hundred years of struggle cannot be wasted.

The preferred Palestinian scenario is unity, partnership and struggle, but it is unlikely to be achieved immediately, and it needs time and a change in the map of Palestinian forces and their weights. The biggest evidence is that we will welcome the new year with the continuation of the security campaign on the Jenin camp, which aims to “impose order”; that is, to put an end to the phenomenon of resistance, so that the authority’s accreditation in the West Bank can be renewed, because there are strong and serious Israeli calls to get rid of the authority, and so that it can return to the Gaza Strip.

This situation is dangerous and its continuation threatens to lead to a maze of self-destruction. If the internal fighting is not stopped, the victor - if there is a victor - will be defeated at the mercy of the only victorious occupation. This will increase the chances of inflicting defeat on the Palestinians. There is a need to evaluate the various strategies adopted that have led to where we are and to formulate new strategies capable of victory.

The internal fighting can only be stopped through a comprehensive dialogue that aims to define the nature of the stage, the challenges and opportunities, and to formulate appropriate strategies away from harmful illusions and losing bets, most importantly formulating an agreed-upon strategy for resistance. There can be an agreement at this stage to focus on providing the elements of steadfastness and survival, and on the forms of popular resistance without relinquishing the right to resistance in its various forms, as this form or that is used according to the stage, and combining several forms in another stage, and adhering to the right to self-defense in all stages.

Since betting on the leadership, forces and elites is a losing bet, as they have become outdated, eroded, flabby and corrupt and have not been united by genocide, annexation and displacement plans and the resolution of the conflict, the bet must be on the Arab and Islamic peoples and the entire world whose public opinion has become more and more supportive of Palestine, and on the popular forces that want change to strive to create new facts capable of finding a new balance of power that prevents the occupation from achieving a decisive victory, then opens the way to its defeat and imposing the name of Palestine on the map of the region and the new world.

In the year 2025, there are existential dangers and a new catastrophe that could befall the Palestinians, and there is a great opportunity to achieve the beginnings of historic victories, and this depends on the peoples and their living forces, their movement and their ability to bring about the required change, as victory can only come through Palestinian, Arab, regional and international change, and this can happen, as the sacrifices, heroism and blood that were shed by committing 10,000 massacres will not be wasted.

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education said that 12,943 students were killed and 21,681 were injured since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on October 7, 2023.

The Ministry of Education stated in a statement on Tuesday that the number of students who were martyred in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the aggression has reached more than 12,790, and those who were injured are 21,026, while in the West Bank 120 students were martyred and 655 others were injured, in addition to the arrest of 548.

It pointed out that 630 teachers and administrators were martyred and 3,865 were injured in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and more than 158 were arrested in the West Bank.

It pointed out that 425 government schools, universities and their buildings, and 65 affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), were subjected to bombing and vandalism in the Gaza Strip, which led to 171 of them being severely damaged and 77 being completely destroyed. In addition, 109 schools and 7 universities in the West Bank were subjected to storming and vandalism.

The Ministry of Education confirmed that 788,000 students in the Gaza Strip are still deprived of attending their schools and universities since the beginning of the aggression, while most students suffer from psychological trauma and face difficult health conditions.