Analyses
Middle East
The ceasefire in Gaza tied to Donald Trump’s 20-point plan remains fragile, beset by violations and political tension. Tel Aviv threatens retaliation over the non-return of 19 hostage bodies, while Hamas accuses Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of deliberately delaying humanitarian aid convoys amid the rubble of Gaza. On paper, the Palestinian group has agreed to relinquish direct control of the enclave, but it has not accepted full disarmament or international oversight through Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace.” Meanwhile, the plan entirely omits the West Bank, deepening fears that Netanyahu’s government seeks to cement a “two Palestines” reality.
  • Claudia De Martino 3 October 2025
    In the peak of summer, as Operation Gideon’s Chariots (launched in May 2025) entered its second month, news emerged that the Israeli army had bombed Gaza’s only Catholic church, the Church of the Holy Family, on July 17. The strike killed three people—a relatively small number in a territory where daily fatalities range between 40 and 70—but it drew attention across, where many governments had assumed that Christian sites and communities would be spared the violence by religious or diplomatic convention.
  • Alessandra Tommasi 26 September 2025
    After almost two years of war in Gaza and at least 65,000 Palestinians killed, recognition of Palestine as a state has become an urgent issue internationally. France and the United Kingdom recently recognized Palestine, joining other Western countries and bringing the tally to four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council whose recommendation is required for recognition at the United Nations. Meanwhile, calls for a Palestinian state are multiplying. Among them is a petition by 60 Israeli NGOs, united under It’s Time, a coalition supporting a two-state solution that organized a peace summit in May. Reset DOC spoke with Raluca Ganea—co-founder and executive director of Zazim, a civic movement of Arabs and Jews working together for democracy and equality, and a member of It’s Time—about what is required to turn the vision of a two-state solution into a political reality.
  • Alessandra Tommasi 17 September 2025
    Christ is in Gaza, “crucified in the wounded and buried under the rubble.” With that image, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, reaffirmed the Church’s presence in the enclave after his latest visit to the Strip. In August, he refused to evacuate the Holy Family parish in Gaza City, “a shelter for hundreds of civilians,” despite Israel’s announcement of its occupation. After October 7, 2023, he offered himself to Hamas in exchange for Israeli children held hostage. Now, the Laboratory for Religious Studies at the University of Haifa, led by Uriel Simonsohn, has awarded him their Annual Peace Award, which, for the past three years, has honored religious leaders who build bridges for local and regional peace.
  • Gaetano Pentassuglia 4 September 2025
    The mission of the Global Sumud Flotilla raises a range of legal issues linked to the likelihood of Israel intervening in international waters to block the vessels and arrest those on board. Any intervention by Israeli authorities on the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters would constitute a breach of international law against the states whose flags the ships fly, as well as those of the foreign nationals on board, should they be arrested.
  • The upheavals concerning the area we call the Holy Land, where Jesus preached and which today spans Israel and the Palestinian Territories, inevitably involve the Christians living there. To grasp their significance, it’s useful to start with a Franciscan who was a passionate scholar of Judaism, later becoming Custos of the Holy Land and then Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem—the first patriarch to become a cardinal, Pierbattista Pizzaballa. How can we define him? Using the term he chose when elected in 2020: the “patriarch of remaining.”
  • Many media outlets highlight how Israel is increasingly isolated in the West regarding Gaza. According to a Pew Research Center survey, the number of pro-Western states—above all Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and Turkey, and in Europe, Spain, Sweden, Greece, Ireland, and the Netherlands—that hold a negative perception of Israel is growing. The Israeli government and army continue to present the current military intervention—Operation “Gideon’s Chariots,” launched last May—as a necessary response to the “existential threat” posed by Hamas, while a growing part of the international community can no longer perceive any danger in the starving masses of Palestinians wandering around food distribution centers in constant danger of being killed.
  • United by geography and a long history that, since the end of the Ottoman Empire and especially during the long rule of the Assads, has taken on the characteristics of colonialism and occupation in the name of a “Greater Syria,” Lebanese and Syrians today share the same hope: that tomorrow will be different from today, putting an end to conflicts and reducing them to “wars of the past.” Reality demands this. In 2018, Lebanon’s GDP exceeded 55 billion dollars; today, it barely reaches 20 billion. One hundred thousand Lebanese pounds, which were worth 65 dollars at that time, are now worth just one. In Syria, in 2011, when the brutal repression of anti-government protests began, GDP reached 45 billion dollars; today it is only 9 billion.
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