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'Next Day' Scenarios...Hamas’ Defeat, Return of the PA, and the Two-State Solution

A Palestinian child sits on the rubble of homes destroyed by the Israeli bombing of Khan Yunis. (Reuters)
A Palestinian child sits on the rubble of homes destroyed by the Israeli bombing of Khan Yunis. (Reuters)
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'Next Day' Scenarios...Hamas’ Defeat, Return of the PA, and the Two-State Solution

A Palestinian child sits on the rubble of homes destroyed by the Israeli bombing of Khan Yunis. (Reuters)
A Palestinian child sits on the rubble of homes destroyed by the Israeli bombing of Khan Yunis. (Reuters)

By the end of the week, 50 days will have passed since Hamas launched the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, and Israel responded with a devastating attack on the Gaza Strip.

While war is not over yet, all indicators suggest that the future of Gaza is being discussed in the corridors of major powers, to determine the shape of what has become known as “the next day.”

But what do we know about the scenarios being drawn for Gaza’s future?

The Defeat of Hamas

Western countries are drawing their scenarios based on the “inevitability” of the war ending with the defeat of Hamas and the movement’s failure to return to ruling Gaza again.

An informed Western source said that the major capitals are convinced that the clashes will not end before Hamas is defeated militarily, while acknowledging that this Palestinian movement is not only a military power, but also an “ideology” that cannot be eliminated by only using force.

“We know that [Hamas] is also an idea, and an idea is defeated by another,” the source remarked, adding that eliminating the group militarily without defeating it as an idea could “make us win the battle and lose the war.”

While the Israeli army penetrated deep into northern Gaza, Hamas, as well as the smaller Islamic Jihad group, are still daily announcing a series of operations, ambushes, bombings, and rocket launches, which means that they are able to continue confronting the invasion, at least, in the foreseeable future.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters are holed up in a network of tunnels that extend under Gaza City and its suburbs.

However, the prominent Western source does not seem convinced that Hamas will hold out for long in northern Gaza.

“Israel is now preparing to launch its expected attack on Khan Yunis,” he said, which means that the goal of eliminating Hamas militarily is not only limited to the northern Gaza Strip only, but will extend to the south as well.

This matter must raise fears of a huge wave of displacement towards the border with Egypt. It is known that Khan Yunis currently houses hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were originally displaced from northern Gaza, the focus of the current Israeli attack.

Who will fill the void?

If the scenario of “defeating Hamas” is achieved - as Israel and Western countries hope - a problem will arise about who will fill the vacuum after the fall of its rule, which has continued since 2007.

The Western source said that the current focus is on a role for the Palestinian Authority in governing the Gaza Strip, which the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah linked to a broader agreement that includes “ending the occupation” and implementing a political solution that ends with the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip as well.

While the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to return to Gaza “onboard an Israeli tank,” the scenarios being discussed by Western diplomats place this matter at the top of the possible options in the next stage.

The informed Western source noted that among the possible options is the training of some members of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza in order to manage the Strip in a future stage, noting that the PA is still paying the salaries of thousands of Palestinian employees, who remained in the Strip after Hamas took control of it in 2007, following a short war that ended with the defeat of the PA security forces.

It seems that the bet on the Authority’s new role in managing Gaza came after Western powers failed to convince Arab countries to assume part of this role by sending forces to the Gaza Strip. The prominent Western source acknowledged that the relevant Arab countries categorically rejected this proposal.

Their refusal is seemed to be linked to the conviction that the priority was to stop the war and help the residents of the Gaza Strip humanitarianly, before thinking about “the next day” and who will rule Gaza if Hamas is defeated.

Reviving the “two-state solution”

In light of the Arab refusal to send forces, and the rejection of the Palestinian Authority to assume a role outside the framework of a comprehensive solution, it seems that the Western focus in the next stage will be on reviving the peace process in order to reach the implementation of the two-state solution.

According to the Western source, the United States is telling its interlocutors that it is determined to launch a major effort to implement the two-state solution, based on its conviction that defeating Hamas militarily is not enough, and that the Palestinians need a state that represents them and lives side by side next to Israel.

He added that the Americans publicly announced their rejection of the Israeli re-occupation of Gaza Strip, as well as any idea of changing its current borders, noting that Washington considers that the features of the solution are defined in the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with a “land exchange” between the two parties, in reference to previous understandings and discussions on this matter between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

Nonetheless, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said on Friday - as he welcome the Spanish and Belgian prime ministers in Cairo - that reviving the two-state solution path was an exhausted idea, stressing the need to move “to recognize the Palestinian state and bring it into the United Nations.”

Regardless of the Egyptian position, the US effort to revive the two-state solution could face more than one obstacle in the next stage.

First, there is the “Israeli obstacle”. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government includes some extremist settlers who reject the establishment of a Palestinian state, and who insist on expanding settlement in the West Bank, which they call Judea and Samaria, according to the biblical name.

Pushing towards the formation of a Palestinian state will undoubtedly portend the fall of Netanyahu’s government and the holding of new elections, in which right-wing extremists may achieve significant results.

Second, the Biden administration will face another domestic obstacle, represented by a difficult electoral campaign against a stubborn opponent, Donald Trump, whom opinion polls give him a significant lead over his Republican rivals, and also over his Democratic opponent, Biden.

If Trump wins, he will not hesitate to provide greater support to Israel, and won’t be enthusiastic about the establishment of a Palestinian state on the lines demanded by the Palestinian Authority.

A third point must be solved before discussing “the next day”, which is the “Hamas” obstacle. All the scenarios presented are based on the fact that the movement will be defeated militarily and its rule will end. But that has not been achieved yet. Pending its realization, the West Bank and the Lebanese border fronts may explode, and the confrontation between the US and the pro-Iranian militias may expand in both Syria and Iraq, and perhaps in Yemen as well.

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Features

Rats, Fleas Plague Gaza’s Displaced as Temperatures Rise

Garbage litters the ground next to makeshift shelters housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)
Garbage litters the ground next to makeshift shelters housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)
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Rats, Fleas Plague Gaza’s Displaced as Temperatures Rise

Garbage litters the ground next to makeshift shelters housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)
Garbage litters the ground next to makeshift shelters housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)

As springtime temperatures rise in Gaza, a surge in rats, fleas and other pests has compounded the misery of hundreds of thousands of displaced people still living in tents after more than two years of war.

With meager shelter and almost no sanitation, Palestinians told AFP the vermin are invading their makeshift homes, biting children and contaminating food, in what aid agencies warned was a growing public health threat.

"My children have been bitten. One of my sons was even bitten on the nose," said Muhammad al-Raqab, a displaced Palestinian man living in a tent near the southern city of Khan Younis.

"I am unable to sleep through the night because I must constantly watch over the children," the 32-year-old construction worker, originally from Bani Shueila, told AFP.

With shelters erected directly on soft sand by the Mediterranean Sea, rodents can easily burrow under tent walls and wreck havoc inside, where people have established makeshift pantries and kitchens.

"The rodents have eaten through my tent," Raqab said.

Nearly all of Gaza's population was displaced by Israeli evacuation orders and airstrikes during the war with Hamas that began after the group's attack on Israel in October 2023.

According to the UN, 1.7 million of Gaza's 2.2 million inhabitants still live in displacement camps, unable to return home or to areas that remain under Israeli military control despite a ceasefire that began in October 2025.

In these camps, "living conditions are characterized by vermin and parasite infestations", the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Action (OCHA) said after field visits in March.

Hani al-Flait, head of pediatrics at Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, told AFP his team encounters skin infections such as scabies daily.

- 'Flooded with sewage' -

"The severity of these skin infections has been exacerbated by the fact that these children and their families are living in harsh conditions that lack basic public sanitation, as well as a complete absence of safe water," he told AFP.

Sabreen Abu Taybeh, whose son has been suffering from a rash, blamed the conditions in the camp.

"We are living in tents and schools flooded with sewage," she told AFP, showing the rash covering her son's upper body.

"I have taken him to doctors and hospitals, but they are not helping with anything. As you see, the rash remains."

"The summer season has brought us rodents and fleas," Ghalia Abu Selmi told AFP after discovering mice had gnawed through clothes she had prepared for her daughter's upcoming wedding.

"Fleas have caused skin allergies not only for children but for adults as well," she said, sorting through garments riddled with holes inside the tent she now calls home in Khan Younis.

The 53-year-old said her family has been displaced 20 times since October 2023 and has yet to return to their home in the town of Abasan al-Kabira near the Israeli border.

Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to control all access points into Gaza, with tight inspections and frequent rejections of aid deliveries, according to NGOs and the UN.

This has caused shortages in everything from medicine and fuel, to clothing and food.

Airstrikes and firefights between Israel's military and what it says are Hamas fighters still occur near-daily.

According to the territory's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority, at least 777 people have been killed by Israel's military since the start of the ceasefire.

The military says five of its soldiers have also been killed in Gaza over the same period.

Features

Chornobyl First Responder Says Few Survive 40 Years on

Petro Hurin, 76, one of hundreds of thousands of "liquidators" brought to clean up the aftermath of the explosion that tore apart reactor Four of the Chornobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986, reflected in a mirror as he stands in his house in the village of Khutory, Cherkasy region, Ukraine April 7, 2026. (Reuters)
Petro Hurin, 76, one of hundreds of thousands of "liquidators" brought to clean up the aftermath of the explosion that tore apart reactor Four of the Chornobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986, reflected in a mirror as he stands in his house in the village of Khutory, Cherkasy region, Ukraine April 7, 2026. (Reuters)
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Chornobyl First Responder Says Few Survive 40 Years on

Petro Hurin, 76, one of hundreds of thousands of "liquidators" brought to clean up the aftermath of the explosion that tore apart reactor Four of the Chornobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986, reflected in a mirror as he stands in his house in the village of Khutory, Cherkasy region, Ukraine April 7, 2026. (Reuters)
Petro Hurin, 76, one of hundreds of thousands of "liquidators" brought to clean up the aftermath of the explosion that tore apart reactor Four of the Chornobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986, reflected in a mirror as he stands in his house in the village of Khutory, Cherkasy region, Ukraine April 7, 2026. (Reuters)

Petro Hurin says his health has never been the same since he was sent 40 years ago to clear the Chornobyl site in the wake of the world's worst nuclear accident.

He was among hundreds of thousands of "liquidators" brought in to clean up after the explosion at reactor four of the Chornobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. The disaster sent clouds of radioactive material across much of Europe.

Thirty-one plant workers and firemen died in the immediate aftermath, mostly from acute radiation sickness. Thousands more have since succumbed to radiation-related illnesses, such as cancer, although the total death toll and long-term health effects remain a subject of intense debate.

At the time, Hurin worked for a business that supplied diggers and construction vehicles, which sent him to the Chornobyl exclusion zone in June 1986. Of the 40 people sent by his company, only five are alive today, he said.

"Not a single ‌Chornobyl person is ‌in good health," the 76-year-old said. "It's death by a thousand cuts."

Soviet authorities strove to ‌conceal ⁠the extent of ⁠the Chornobyl disaster, refusing to cancel the May 1 parade in Kyiv, around 100 km (60 miles) to the south. Ukraine's current government has highlighted the Soviet authorities' bungled handling of the accident and attempts to cover up the disaster.

Hurin said some colleagues produced medical certificates to excuse themselves from serving in Chornobyl, but he was willing to help.

"I realized that, however small my contribution might be, I was doing my bit to help tame this atomic beast," he said.

HEADACHES, CHEST PAIN, BLEEDING

Working 12-hour shifts, Hurin used an excavator to load dry concrete mixed with lead – shipped to the site by river barge – onto trucks ⁠for transport to the reactor, where it was mixed to build a massive sarcophagus ‌to contain the radiation.

"The dust was terrible," Hurin recalled. "You'd work for half ‌an hour in a respirator, and it would end up looking (brown) like an onion."

After four days, Hurin said he ‌began experiencing severe symptoms, such as headaches, chest pain, bleeding and a metallic taste in his throat. Doctors treated ‌him but after another shift, he could barely walk. He feared he had "a day or two" to live.

"I was brought to the hospital, and the doctors did a blood test first," Hurin said. "They pricked all my fingers and a pale liquid came out, but no blood."

Soviet doctors refused to diagnose radiation sickness, a finding he said was not permitted at the time. Instead, he was told he ‌had vegetative-vascular dystonia, a nervous disorder often linked to stress.

Before the disaster, Hurin had never taken sick leave, but afterwards he spent around seven months going from ⁠one hospital to another to ⁠receive treatment, including a blood transfusion.

He says he has been diagnosed with anemia - often linked to radiation sickness - angina, pancreatitis and a series of other conditions.

By the standards of his countrymen, Hurin has lived a long life. According to the World Health Organization, average life expectancy for men in Ukraine stood at 66 in 2021, having declined during COVID.

Now retired, Hurin lives with his wife Olha in central Ukraine's Cherkasy region. Although he suffers from health problems, he still plays the bayan – a type of accordion - and writes songs and poems.

He says he is fighting to access a special disability pension for "liquidators" of the nuclear disaster.

Another catastrophe - Russia's 2022 invasion of his homeland - has come to dominate his life. He and his wife Olha regularly visit a memorial in nearby Kholodnyi Yar dedicated to their grandson, Andrii Vorobkalo, a Ukrainian soldier, who was killed three years ago in the war, aged 26.

After his daughter had left to work in Europe, Hurin and his wife raised Andrii from the age of four. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Andrii quit his job in Greece.

"He left everything behind and came to defend Ukraine," Hurin told Reuters, standing near the memorial stone dedicated to his grandson. "We think of Andrii all the time."

Features

Driven by the Pressures of War, Iran Gives Its Field Commanders More Power Over Factions in Iraq

Members of the Popular Mobilization Forces attend a funeral for colleagues who were killed in a US airstrike in Anbar, in Najaf, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP)
Members of the Popular Mobilization Forces attend a funeral for colleagues who were killed in a US airstrike in Anbar, in Najaf, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP)
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Driven by the Pressures of War, Iran Gives Its Field Commanders More Power Over Factions in Iraq

Members of the Popular Mobilization Forces attend a funeral for colleagues who were killed in a US airstrike in Anbar, in Najaf, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP)
Members of the Popular Mobilization Forces attend a funeral for colleagues who were killed in a US airstrike in Anbar, in Najaf, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP)

Iran has granted its commanders greater autonomy over armed factions in Iraq, allowing some groups to carry out operations without Tehran’s approval, a shift driven by the pressures of the war, three faction members and two other officials told The Associated Press.

Many Iran-backed factions are funded through the Iraqi state budget and embedded within the security apparatus, drawing criticism from the United States and other countries that have borne the brunt of their attacks and say Baghdad has failed to take a tougher stance.

Despite mounting pressure from the US, Baghdad has struggled to contain or deter the groups. The most hard-line factions now operate under Iranian advisers using a decentralized command structure, the five officials told AP, each on condition of anonymity to speak freely about sensitive matters.

“The various forces have been granted the authority to operate according to their own field assessments without referring back to a central command,” said one faction official, who didn't have permission to speak publicly.

The war in the Middle East has exposed the fragility of Iraq’s state institutions and their limited ability to restrain these groups. A parallel confrontation between Washington and the factions has deepened the crisis, with factions acting as an extension of Iran’s regional campaign and escalating attacks on US assets in Iraq before a tenuous ceasefire deal was reached in April.

Even if the ceasefire agreement holds, Washington is expected to intensify efforts against the groups militarily and politically, particularly as they gain latitude to operate more independently, officials and experts said. On Friday, the US imposed sanctions on seven commanders and senior members of four hard-line Iran-backed Iraqi armed groups.

“The US is still going to feel it has the freedom of action to hit Iraqi factions,” said Michael Knights, head of research for Horizon Engage, a geopolitical risk consulting firm, and an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “That may well play out into an effort to try and guide a less faction-dominated government formation.”

Decentralized control

Days into the war sparked by US and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, an Iranian delegation arrived in Iraq’s Kurdish region and delivered a blunt message: If faction attacks escalated near US military bases, commercial interests and diplomatic missions, Iraqi Kurdish authorities should not come to Tehran with complaints, as there was little they could do about it.

“They said they’ve devolved authority to regional Iranian commanders,” a senior Iraqi Kurdish government official said on condition of anonymity, citing the subject's sensitivity.

In the past, Kurdish leaders in Iraq would call Iranian officials after attacks to ask why they had been targeted. “This time, they wanted to preempt that by saying, ‘We can’t help you with the groups in the south right now,’” the official said.

This shift reflects lessons drawn from the 12-day war in June, the official said. Faction officials corroborated the claim. During that war, operations were tightly centralized. In its aftermath, greater autonomy was granted in the field.

A spokesperson for Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, among the Iran-backed armed groups that have attacked the US in Iraq, said there was “coordination” with Iran in launching attacks but didn't give details.

“Since we are allies of Iran, we have coordination with our brothers in Iran,” Mahdi al-Kaabi said.

In the recent war, key Iraqi faction leaders appeared to step back from the latest phase and didn't appear to be directly involved in operations, Knights said. US strikes largely killed mid-level commanders, according to faction officials.

“None of the first-line leaders have been killed,” said a second faction official, who wasn't authorized to brief reporters.

Rather than targeting top figures, the US also focused on Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisory cells, said Knights, who tracked the attacks. In one strike in Baghdad’s upscale Jadriya neighborhood, three Guard advisers were killed at a house used as their headquarters during a meeting, according to the second faction official.

Pressure on Iraq is intensifying

At the heart of government efforts to rein in armed groups lies a paradox: The factions the government says it cannot control are tied to political parties that brought it to power.

The Coordination Framework, an alliance of influential pro-Iran Shiite factions, helped install Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as prime minister in 2022. He now serves as caretaker premier amid a prolonged political deadlock.

Faction forces carrying out attacks on US targets aren't rogue actors; they're part of the state’s Popular Mobilization Forces, created after the fall of Mosul in 2014 to formalize volunteer units that were critical in defeating the ISIS group.

The PMF has evolved into a powerful force, with fighters receiving state salaries and access to government resources, including weapons and intelligence. The result, critics say, is a deep contradiction: Certain state-funded groups operate in line with Iranian priorities, even when doing so undermines Iraq’s national interests.

Al-Sudani’s office didn't respond to the AP’s requests for comment on the decentralized control of armed groups.

The US is focused on curbing the power of these groups in Iraq, the senior Iraqi Kurdish official and a Western diplomat said, which will put increasing pressure on the government, still functioning in caretaker status. The diplomat also spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't permitted to brief reporters.

Last week, Iraq’s ambassador to the US was summoned to Washington to hear US condemnation of attacks by Iran-backed factions on American personnel and diplomatic missions, according to State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Bigot.

“The Deputy Secretary affirmed that the United States will not tolerate any attacks targeting its interests and expects the Iraqi Government to take all necessary measures immediately to dismantle Iran-aligned armed groups,” Bigot said in a statement.

Factions resist steps from Iraq's government

Al-Sudani has taken limited steps to curb faction influence, including further institutionalizing the PMF and occasionally removing commanders who act outside state authority. The efforts have met significant resistance from armed groups.

Further institutionalizing them has deepened their entrenchment within the state. The US may seek to isolate the most hard-line factions — including Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada — from others more embedded in Iraq’s political system. “The bad factions from the worse factions,” the senior Iraqi Kurdish official said.

Harakat al-Nujaba spokesperson al-Kaabi offered a dual framing of the group’s position, stressing both its alignment with Iran and its claim to Iraqi state legitimacy.

“To put it bluntly, we are allies of Iran,” he said. He described the group as part of Iran’s regional “axis” alongside Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthis in Yemen.

At the same time, he insisted the group operates within Iraq’s political order, supporting the state and government when they serve national interests.

“It’s true we’re not affiliated with the government or the prime minister, but we respect the law and the constitution,” he said.