Israel-Turkey rift dampens Gaza force plans as allies get cold feet

Israel's opposition to Turkish deployment is causing potential partners such as Pakistan and Azerbaijan to hesitate, putting the US scheme at risk

By Ragip Soylu in Ankara

Published date: 2 December 2025

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-turkey-rift-dampens-gaza-force-plans-allies-pull-back

The United States is struggling to create an international stabilisation force for Gaza, as stipulated by the UN Security Council, due to disagreements with Israel over Turkey’s participation, two people familiar with the issue told Middle East Eye.

The Security Council last month approved a resolution to create the force, securing official support from Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Jordan.

However, little progress has been made since then, the sources said.

Turkish officials have repeatedly stated that Ankara is ready to contribute to the force, but Israel has consistently indicated that it will not tolerate the presence of Turkish troops in the Gaza Strip.

Despite Israel’s opposition, Middle East Eye reported last month that the Turkish government had finalised plans to deploy a contingent of at least 2,000 soldiers to Gaza.

The force would be composed of personnel from multiple branches of the military with previous peacekeeping and conflict-zone experience.

Now, however, Turkey’s participation in the force appears increasingly uncertain.

“Without Turkey’s participation, countries like Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Indonesia are not inclined to deploy troops,” one person familiar with the negotiations told MEE.

The UAE, on the other hand, announced last month that it would not join the force “for now”, citing the lack of a clear framework.

It remains unclear whether the Security Council resolution has convinced Abu Dhabi to reconsider its stance.

An Israeli report suggested that the UAE refused to join the Gaza force due to concerns over Qatari and Turkish influence, intimating that their involvement could empower groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

“There are elements belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood who are taking a central role in the plan to reconstruct Gaza,” a source familiar with Abu Dhabi’s position told i24NEWS.

The UAE is expected instead to focus on humanitarian aid, reconstruction and supporting the establishment of an effective local government.

Israeli anger

A second person familiar with the issue told MEE that Ankara still expects the United States to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept Turkey’s participation.

“Washington remains insistent on deploying Turkish troops,” the source said.

The source added that Turkey’s sudden decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu last month on charges of crimes against humanity did not help the negotiations.

“Obviously, the Israelis are angered by this in the middle of the talks,” they said.

One person familiar with US planning told the Washington Post that the goal is for the force to consist of three brigades, perhaps up to 15,000 troops.

Another source said the international stabilisation force could include as many as 20,000 soldiers.

The Post reported a US official and saying the objective is to deploy the force in “early 2026”, although discussions about which countries will participate remain “a fluid process”.

Another US official told Israel’s Channel 14 this week that operations are expected to begin as early as January.

In November, Israel also blocked the entry of dozens of Turkish search and rescue personnel into the Gaza Strip. The team had been sent to help recover the remains of Israeli soldiers.

Tensions between Turkey and Israel have been running high due to Ankara’s actions against Netanyahu’s government at the International Court of Justice and a trade ban imposed since the spring of 2024.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide and repeatedly urged the international community to hold Israeli leaders accountable.

The two countries are also at odds in Syria.

Netanyahu’s government reportedly wants to maintain control over certain territories in the south of the country as a buffer zone and opposes the deployment of any Turkish radars or sophisticated systems south of the T4 air base near Homs.

In pardon of narco trafficker, Trump destroys his own case for war

It appears more important to the White House that the party of convicted Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández wins (last) Sunday's volatile election.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

Nov 29, 2025

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-pardon-drug-trafficker/

The Trump administration has literally killed more than 80 suspected drug smugglers by blowing their small boats out of the water since September, but this week the president has reportedly decided to pardon one of the biggest cocaine traffickers of them all.

If that doesn't make any sense to you, then join the club.

The news that Trump is going to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras who was sentenced to 45 years in U.S. prison just last year came as a shocker. The White House has said repeatedly that drug traffickers are narcoterrorists who are waging war on America, justifying their killing the boats every time. Yet Hernandez was convicted of conspiring to import 500,000 kilos of cocaine into the United States and stuff it "right up the noses of the gringos" and Trump says "CONGRATULATIONS TO JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON."

While president, Hernández received millions of dollars from trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico, and from notorious drug lords like Joaquín Guzmán Loera, a.k.a. El Chapo, who was the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and is responsible for the murder of some 34,000 people. In return, according to prosecutors, President Hernández allowed vast amounts of cocaine to pass through Honduras on its way to the United States.

Prosecutor Jacob H. Gutwillig told jurors during the trial that Hernández had accepted “cocaine-fueled bribes” from cartels and “protected their drugs with the full power and strength of the state — military, police and justice system.” Hernández ran the country from 2014-2022; his National Party had been in power since 2009.

Sounds like the very type of menace — or terrorist — that the Trump administration is trying to use as a justification for military action in Latin America today.

"Former president Hernández was found guilty of taking bribes from El Chapo and the Sinaloa Cartel to allow 400 tons of cocaine to flow through Honduras into the United States, essentially running Honduras like a narcostate," noted Quincy Institute research associate Lee Schlenker.

"Trump accuses Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro of conspiring to flood the United States with deadly drugs through the dubious 'Cartel of the Suns,' but far from pardoning Maduro or praising his acolytes, like (he promises) with Hernández, Trump has brought us closer to a U.S.-led military intervention in Latin America than we've been in over 35 years by threatening air strikes against Venezuelan territory," he added.

We assume the difference here is politics. And ideology. Maduro is a socialist and doesn't want to do business with Washington. Hernandez was tolerated if not preferred by previous U.S. administrations from Obama through the first Trump White House, because he and his National Party were business friendly, anti-communist, and supported by the neoconservatives now gunning against Maduro.

While he was useful, Hernandez played the game and Washington turned a blind eye to his crimes which not only included the drugs but human rights abuses against his people via the military and police, election fraud, embezzling from the nation's social security system and World Bank Funds, and even bragging at one point that he was siphoning off international funds through phony NGOs.

Hernández left office in 2021 and wasn't indicted until 2022 (by the Biden DOJ), though he and his family were already being investigated during the first Trump tenure. His brother Tony, a former Honduran congressman, was convicted of drug trafficking in 2019 and given a life sentence. DOJ prosecutors say he "was involved in all stages of the trafficking through Honduras of multi-ton loads of cocaine destined for the U.S."

In the same day he announced his would pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, Trump said he was endorsing the National Party candidate for president, Nasry “Tito” Asfura, who is running against what he calls the "narco-communism" represented by center-left candidate Rixi Moncada of the incumbent LIBRE party. This is laughable, says Schlenker, because current president Xiomara Castro has done everything to curry favor with Trump, including "tough-on-crime policies not too dissimilar from those seen in neighboring El Salvador under Trump ally Nayib Bukele."

But Asfura and Hernandez have paid lobbyists in Washington and if you think that doesn't make a difference then we have a block of empty office space on K Street to sell you. According to Schlenker, Hernández paid D.C. lobbying group BGR Group, which was a leading donor to now Secretary of State Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign, over $600,000 in 2019 to win allies in Washington as he was under investigation.

"Hernandez has strong supporters in Trump world, including convicted (and later pardoned) Trump advisor Roger Stone, who has been urging Trump to pardon Hernández for months. Rubio, for his part, has long sung Hernández's praises, thanking him for his work targeting drug trafficking, as has Rubio ally, lobbyist, and former Trump administration official Carlos Trujillo, who represents several Honduran clients who would likely stand to benefit from a return to National Party rule," added Schlenker.

Trujilo was just on Capitol Hill talking down LIBRE before he was called out by Rep. Joaquín Castro for his obvious conflict of interest.

The New York Times said Sunday's elections were already beset by fears of "fraud, mass protests and even the threat of a military crackdown," and Trump and other Washington neoconservatives weighing in is adding another layer of volatility.

For those of us picking up on news this weekend that Trump is boasting about "closing the airspace" around Venezuela only reinforces the suspicion that this is not about "narcoterrorism" at all. If Trump wanted to rid the hemisphere of drug traffickers, he wouldn't be letting them out of prison, period.

UN report accuses Israel of 'de facto' state policy of torture

UN Committee Against Torture says practice has become 'organised and widespread' since October 2023

By MEE staff

Published date: 30 November 2025

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/un-report-accuses-israel-de-facto-state-policy-torture

A UN report has accused Israel of having a "de facto" state policy of torture for Palestinian prisoners.

The UN Committee Against Torture said on Friday that use of torture by the Israeli state was "organised and widespread" and had greatly increased since the beginning of the war on Gaza on 7 October 2023.

The report noted that Israel had no legislation criminalising torture, and said its legislation allowed public officials to be exempted from criminal culpability under the principle of "necessity".

"The committee was deeply concerned about reports indicating a de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture and ill-treatment during the reporting period, which had gravely intensified since 7 October 2023," the report said.

"It also expressed its concern that a range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, if implemented in the manner alleged, would amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population."

The report also comes as Israel has faced widespread criticism over a video that apparently showed soldiers shooting dead two unarmed men in the occupied West Bank.

The United Nations said on Friday that the killing in the occupied West Bank appeared to be a "summary execution".

"We are appalled at the brazen killing by Israeli border police yesterday of two Palestinian men in Jenin," UN rights office spokesman Jeremy Laurence told reporters in Geneva, calling the incident "yet another apparent summary execution", in reference to the killings that took place on Thursday. 

He said UN rights chief Volker Turk is calling for "independent, prompt and effective investigations into the killings of Palestinians", and for those responsible for killings and other violations in the occupied West Bank to "be held fully to account".

Summary execution is a war crime under the Geneva Convention and international law. 

A video has circulated widely on social media showing the two Palestinian men emerging from a building with their arms raised and their shirts lifted, clearly indicating they were unarmed and posed no threat to the Israeli soldiers.

Gaza 'stabilization force' fails to launch as nations unwilling to commit troops: Report

Several nations that previously committed troops to the US-led occupation force have 'backpedaled' amid fears they will have to kill Palestinians

News Desk

NOV 29, 2025

https://thecradle.co/articles/gaza-stabilization-force-fails-to-launch-as-nation-unwilling-to-commit-troops-report

The White House is having difficulty launching its so-called Gaza International Stabilization Force (ISF), as countries that previously expressed willingness to deploy troops to the project now seek to distance themselves from it, according to a 29 November report in the Washington Post.

The ISF “is struggling to get off the ground as countries considered likely to contribute soldiers have grown wary” over concerns their soldiers may be required to use force against Palestinians.

Indonesia had stated it would send 20,000 peacekeeping troops. However, officials in Jakarta speaking with the US news outlet said they now plan to provide a much smaller contingent of about 1,200.

Azerbaijan has also reneged on a previous commitment to provide troops. Baku will only send troops if there is a complete halt to fighting, Reuters reported earlier this month.

US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza envisioned meaningful troop contributions from Arab states, including the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar. But after expressing early interest, none have committed to participating.

“A month ago, things were in a better place,” one regional official with knowledge of the issue stated.

Trump’s plan for post-war Gaza rests on the ability of an international force to occupy the strip and was endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution on 17 November.

However, because the resolution gave the force the mandate to “demilitarize” the Gaza Strip, many countries are resisting participation.

They say their troops could be required to disarm Hamas on Israel’s behalf. This would require killing Palestinians and possibly cast their forces as co-perpetrators in Israel’s genocide in front of the world.

Some officers are “really hesitant” to participate, one Indonesian official said.

“They want the international stabilizing force to come into Gaza and restore, quote unquote, law and order and disarm any resistance,” a senior official in Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. “So that’s the problem. Nobody wants to do that.”

Participation would also put their soldiers in harm’s way, whether from Hamas or the ongoing Israeli airstrikes, which regularly kill Palestinians despite the alleged ceasefire that took effect in October.

Sources familiar with the plan told the Washington Post that the White House plans to man the force with between 15,000 and 20,000 foreign troops, divided into three brigades to be deployed in early 2026.

However, details have not been finalized, which has led to additional hesitancy among potential participating nations.

“Commitments are being considered. No one is going to send troops from their country without understanding the specifics of the mission,” the official said.

Efforts to establish the so-called “Board of Peace,” a committee of Palestinian technocrats taking orders directly from the White House to deal with the day-to-day administration of the enclave, have also stalled.

“We thought, with the Security Council resolution, within 48 to 72 hours, the Board of Peace would be announced,” another person familiar with the plan told The Post. “But nothing, not even informally.”

No other members of the Board of Peace have yet been named.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that the Israeli army will disarm Hamas if foreign countries are unwilling to do so for them.

“All indicators show that indeed no countries are willing to take on this responsibility, and that understanding is sinking in both in Israel and in the US,” said Ofer Guterman, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv.

“Bottom line: It’s unlikely that the ISF, if it’s established at all, will lead to Gaza’s demilitarization,” he added.

Tamara Kharroub, Deputy Executive Director and Senior Fellow of the Arab Center in Washington, DC, described the Trump plan as “Permanent Palestinian subjugation and neocolonial rule dressed up as peace.”

“There are no guarantees or binding mechanisms or clarity around what constitutes reform or demilitarization and around who determines what they are. The plan ultimately gives Israel a blank check to prolong its presence in Gaza, fully reoccupy it, or resume its genocidal war,” Kharroub wrote.

Amnesty International Says Gaza Genocide Is Not Over

The group says Israel continues to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza

by Dave DeCamp | November 27, 2025

https://news.antiwar.com/2025/11/27/amnesty-international-says-gaza-genocide-is-not-over/

Amnesty International said on Thursday that the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza is not over despite the US-backed ceasefire deal, which Israel has continued to violate.

While the agreement has led to a de-escalation of Israeli attacks and a slight increase in aid entering Gaza, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinians, and Israel continues to impose restrictions on humanitarian aid and is not allowing reconstruction.

“More than one month after a ceasefire was announced in Gaza on 9 October, Israeli authorities are still committing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction,” Amnesty said in a statement.

“Israel severely restricts the entry of supplies and the restoration of services essential for the survival of the civilian population – including nutritious food, medical supplies, and electricity – as well as stringently limiting medical evacuations. Israeli authorities continue to prohibit the entry of equipment and material necessary to repair life-sustaining infrastructure and required to remove unexploded ordnance, contaminated rubble and sewage,” the group added.

Amnesty also pointed to the continued displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza as they are not allowed to enter the Israeli-occupied side of the Strip, which accounts for 58% of the territory, and are shot and killed if they attempt to cross the “yellow line,” the ambiguous boundary that cuts Gaza in two.

“Palestinians are prevented from returning to their homes or agricultural lands located in areas beyond the yellow line, and the Israeli military has shot at those who come near,” Amnesty said. “Some 93 Palestinians attempting to cross and return to their homes have been killed.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Thursday that since the ceasefire was supposed to go into effect, Israeli forces have killed at least 347 Palestinians and wounded 889, more than 1,000 total casualties.

Amnesty called for international pressure on Israel, saying it was “clear that Israel will not permit the provision of aid sufficient to create life-sustaining conditions within Gaza unless the international community demands that it takes effective measures to ensure that it does so.”

A map redrawn piece by piece: Palestinians describe a country annexed in plain sight

Annexation in the occupied West Bank has become so routine that it now unfolds largely unnoticed and rarely reported, Palestinian human rights activists warn.

Zeynep Conkar

https://www.trtworld.com/article/37e1b713269a

As violence persists in Gaza despite the US-brokered ceasefire, the occupied West Bank is being altered through a series of small, largely unpublicised actions that collectively redraw the map, Palestinian community leaders and human rights groups have warned. 

At a virtual press conference, activists and leaders of civil groups emphasised the broader impacts of ongoing violence, displacement, and legal impunity, portraying them as different facets of the same policy aimed at fragmenting, wearing down, and ultimately removing Palestinians from their land.

“While global attention has understandably centred on Gaza, as the genocide continues, the (occupied) West Bank, including East Jerusalem, endures relentless violence and suffering with far too little visibility or attention from people around the world, including the media,” said actress and activist Susan Sarandon, a member of Artists4Ceasefire.

“Although President Trump has publicly said West Bank annexation is not going to happen, the reality on the ground shows annexation advancing in practice every single day,”

Extensive documentation and ground reports from the occupied West Bank, reviewed by TRT World, reveal new settlements, parallel road systems, military checkpoints, and Palestinian communities increasingly confined to isolated pockets.

Speakers at the presser said that despite video evidence and eyewitness testimonies, prosecutions are nearly nonexistent. And that settlers operate with near-total impunity, and it is precisely this lack of accountability that forces Palestinians to abandon their homes.

‘I needed to document’

From villages in Masafer Yatta, a group of 19 Palestinian hamlets in the southern occupied West Bank, to the centre of occupied East Jerusalem, communities are facing increasing forced displacement, according to reports.

For Mohammad Hureini, 20, a youth activist and human rights defender from At-Tuwani in the Hebron Hills (also known as Mount Hebron) in the southern occupied West Bank, this has shaped his entire life.

He has been documenting settler violence targeting rural Palestinian communities in Area C since he was a teenager.

“I was 14 when I decided to carry a camera. I had seen the demolitions, the settlers, the bulldozers rolling toward my neighbours’ homes. I realised I needed to document what was happening in Masafer Yatta and show the world what our community is living through,” Hureini said at the press conference. 

His village was the focus of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.

“I’m proud to be one of the collaborators on No Other Land,” he added, describing the film as an unfiltered record of daily life in his village. 

“Ninety-six minutes of harassment, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid that we live through every single day.”

Hureini said the film’s global success came at a personal cost. 

“After the Oscar win, my cousin Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, the directors, were targeted. Here, under this brutal occupation, being Palestinian is treated as a crime. No matter who you are or what you’ve done.” 

He described watching his village shrink year after year, with farmland cut off by new roads and settlers patrolling the hills around them.

Human rights lawyer Allegra Pacheco, who also took part in the press conference, described life under occupation in the occupied West Bank as marked by constant insecurity and a lack of predictability.

“When you are controlled by a foreign military, you have no control over anything in your life. No safety. You do not know what’s going to happen when you go to sleep at night. Your house can be raided by the Israeli army. Your loved ones could be taken away. Every night, every day that happens, and again, there’s no end in sight.”

“When a settler raids a Palestinian home, if the Palestinian pushes the settler out of his own home, the Palestinian could be arrested for attacking the settler, could be shot and killed, and all those instances have happened,” Pacheco said.

She also highlighted that the Palestinian Authority is prevented from entering 60 percent of the West Bank.

‘Annexation means permanent’

For Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s Policy Lead in the occupied Palestinian territories, the issue is deeply personal. 

Living in the occupied West Bank while her family remains in Gaza and cannot visit them, she describes the fragmentation imposed on Palestinians as “a system that decides who can move, who can stay, and who is slowly pushed out”.

Khalidi said that this fragmentation affects even the smallest areas of daily life. 

“It shapes your ability to visit your parents, to take your child to school, to drive to work, and even to sit safely in your own living room.”

“When I talk about military occupation, collective punishment, or policies that amount to forcible transfer, I'm not speaking in legal terms alone. I'm speaking as someone who experiences them. My family, my neighbours, and my friends experience them.”

Communities disappear from the map, she said, while settlers enjoy full protection from the army.

“All Palestinians in the West Bank live with the fear that a new military order or a settler code could make our communities disappear, just like what has happened to dozens of Palestinian communities, as we've heard today, that no longer even exist on the map.”

The International Court of Justice has repeatedly ruled that Israel’s prolonged occupation and annexationist policies are unlawful. 

“If states accept the ICJ conclusions, their policies must reflect them. You can't condemn annexation at The Hague and then engage in business as usual on the ground,” Khalidi said.

The Palestinian map, which in 1948 included a much larger share of territory, is being redrawn in a way that makes the two-state framework increasingly unworkable, she added.

Palestinians are being pushed into smaller, disconnected zones that cannot sustain long-term life.

For Khalidi, accountability is the dividing line between a future in which Palestinians survive and one in which they slowly disappear.

“The law is absolutely clear. The human impact is absolutely catastrophic. And I say this as a Palestinian woman living these policies every day. We cannot survive another decade of statements without action.”

“If states continue to treat this as a problem to manage, the Palestinian state won't fail. It will simply disappear.”

Rand Paul Warns Trump War in Venezuela Will ‘Fracture’ Movement

by Kyle Anzalone | Nov 25, 2025

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/rand-paul-warns-trump-war-in-venezuela-will-fracture-movement/

Senator Rand Paul said that President Donald Trump’s warmongering in Latin America could fracture the GOP. 

“I think once there’s an invasion of Venezuela, or if they decide to re-up the subsidies and the gifts to Ukraine, I think you’ll see a splintering and a fracturing of the movement that has supported the President,” Paul told Margret Brennan on Sunday. “I think a lot of people, including myself, were attracted to the president because of his reticence to get us involved in foreign war.”

Paul has been highly critical of the President ordering strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. The US has destroyed 22 ships, killing at least 83 people. The Senator has condemned the strikes as extrajudicial killings. 

The US has engaged in a massive military buildup in the Caribbean and threatened Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Multiple reports have said the White House is preparing for strikes in Venezuela. 

Paul pointed to Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio for pushing regime change in Caracas. “I think it’s clear that Senator Rubio, as a senator, was very much an advocate of regime change,” he explained. 

Fractures have already emerged within Trump’s MAGA movement over his foreign policy. Some conservative commentators have demanded that Tucker Carlson and others be removed from the movement over their stance on Israel. 

Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene recently announced her resignation from Congress after sparring with Trump on the Jeffrey Epstein files, Israel, and Venezuela. 

Multiple polls have shown that invading Venezuela is widely unpopular with Americans.