In the days since a fragile ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip, Israel has launched a major military operation in the occupied West Bank and suspected Jewish settlers have rampaged through two Palestinian towns.
The violence comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces domestic pressure from his far-right allies after agreeing to the truce and hostage-prisoner exchange with the Hamas militant group. US President Donald Trump has, meanwhile, rescinded the Biden administration’s sanctions against Israelis accused of violence in the territory.
It’s a volatile mix that could undermine the ceasefire, which is set to last for at least six weeks and bring about the release of dozens of hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, most of whom will be released into the West Bank.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. Escalations in one area frequently spill over, raising further concerns that the second and far more difficult phase of the Gaza ceasefire — which has yet to be negotiated — may never come.
A rampage and a military raid
Dozens of masked men rampaged through two Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank late Monday, hurling stones and setting cars and property ablaze, according to local Palestinian officials. The Red Crescent emergency service said 12 people were beaten and wounded.
Israeli forces, meanwhile, carried out a raid elsewhere in the West Bank that the military said was in response to the hurling of firebombs at Israeli vehicles. It said several suspects were detained for questioning, and a video circulating online appeared to show dozens being marched through the streets.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military launched another major operation, this time in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, where its forces have regularly clashed with Palestinian militants in recent years, even before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the war there.
At least nine Palestinians were killed on Tuesday, including a 16-year-old, and 40 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The military said its forces carried out airstrikes and dismantled roadside bombs and “hit” 10 militants — though it was not clear what that meant.
Palestinian residents have reported a major increase in Israeli checkpoints and delays across the territory.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz cast the Jenin operation as part of Israel’s larger struggle against Iran and its militant allies across the region, saying “we will strike the octopus’ arms until they snap.”
The Palestinians view such operations and the expansion of settlements as ways of cementing Israeli control over the territory, where 3 million Palestinians live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering cities and towns.
Prominent human rights groups call it a form of apartheid since the over 500,000 Jewish settlers in the territory have all the rights conferred by Israeli citizenship. Israel rejects those allegations.
Netanyahu’s far-right partners are up in arms
Netanyahu has been struggling to quell a rebellion by his ultranationalist coalition partners since agreeing to the ceasefire. The agreement requires Israeli forces to withdraw from most of Gaza and release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners — including militants convicted of murder — in exchange for hostages abducted in the Oct. 7 attack.
One coalition partner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, resigned in protest the day the ceasefire went into effect. Another, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has threatened to bolt if Israel does not resume the war after the first phase of the ceasefire is slated to end in early March.
They want Israel to annex the West Bank and to rebuild settlements in Gaza while encouraging what they refer to as the voluntary migration of large numbers of Palestinians.
Netanyahu still has a parliamentary majority after Ben-Gvir’s departure, but the loss of Smotrich — who is also the de facto governor of the West Bank — would severely weaken his coalition and likely lead to early elections.
That could spell the end of Netanyahu’s nearly unbroken 16 years in power, leaving him even more exposed to longstanding corruption charges and an expected public inquiry into Israel’s failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attack.
Trump’s return could give settlers a freer hand
Trump’s return to the White House offers Netanyahu a potential lifeline.
The newly sworn-in president, who lent unprecedented support to Israel during his previous term, has surrounded himself with aides who support Israeli settlement. Some support the settlers’ claim to a biblical right to the West Bank because of the Jewish kingdoms that existed there in antiquity.
The international community overwhelmingly considers settlements illegal.
Among the flurry of executive orders Trump signed on his first day back in office was one rescinding the Biden administration’s sanctions on settlers and Jewish extremists accused of violence against Palestinians.
The sanctions — which had little effect — were one of the few concrete steps the Biden administration took in opposition to the close US ally, even as it provided billions of dollars in military support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza, among the deadliest and most destructive in decades.
Trump claimed credit for helping to get the Gaza ceasefire agreement across the finish line in the final days of the Biden presidency.
But this week, Trump said he was “not confident” it would hold and signaled he would give Israel a free hand in Gaza, saying: “It’s not our war, it’s their war.”

DAVOS: Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Al-Debeibeh on Wednesday said that opinions are mixed on whether a new US administration under President Donald Trump would shift its approach to the Libyan situation.

Panel moderator Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, editor of Foreign Affairs, asked Al-Debeibeh to reflect on Trump’s return and if his new term as president would affect Libya’s stability.   

“I believe not only Libya fears the return of Trump, many others, including Europeans, have somehow reservations and different views about how to perceive (it),” he told a panel on global security at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Al-Debeibeh said Libya’s ongoing political crisis cannot be solved only from the point of view of security.

“Our institutions are still weak,” he said. “If we only focus on security, this is not the best recipe to solve the problems we have. Like many examples, in Syria lately and Afghanistan, we (in Libya) reject the idea of security-(based) solutions only.

“There are alternatives that we need to look into, such as reviving our heritage, our economic fabric, and this is precisely what is going to be the building blocks leading to a long-lasting stability here.

“If Mr Trump, the new American administration or whoever is in charge, if they really want Libya to be stable, then they shall look to find other ways to help us, not only through security, because otherwise, we are going back to square one.

“Unfortunately, when the diagnosis is wrong, then the result is wrong.

“If we focus on security only, this is going to backfire at the end of the day.”

Al-Debeibeh pointed to the fragility of state institutions and challenges to rebuilding a new Libya. But he said that his country is recovering slowly through the national unity government, and has managed to reestablish state institutions and services, today more than any time before.

“I have to tell you things are not rosy, but we somehow managed to recover to normal life in Libya and I would very much like thank the international community for backing us.”

He said the main challenge remains in the work to democratize Libyan society, saying that “democracy is the only solution.”

However, foreign intervention in Libya is a big challenge, because there are “powers who want to intervene, they want to impose their own agenda for many reasons.”

Yet, his country still needs to establish democratic institutions, a constitution that reflects Libyan society and to hold a referendum on the draft constitution. 

“We have enough of weapons, we need stability to begin with, we need to stabilize the economy because it is the way to stabilize the political situation. We have oil, we want foreign companies to come to invest in a win-win situation. So, the more the economy is stable, the more we have a stable country.”