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Trump’s Plan for Peace: ‘Take it or Leave it’

US President Donald Trump. AFP file photo
US President Donald Trump. AFP file photo
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Trump’s Plan for Peace: ‘Take it or Leave it’

US President Donald Trump. AFP file photo
US President Donald Trump. AFP file photo

US President Donald Trump plans to propose a comprehensive political plan to the Palestinian-Israeli negotiation table, uncovered a high-ranking US official engaged in talks with the Israelis.

“Parties to the conflict in the Middle East will be compelled to live with this new proposal,” the official said on Tuesday.

Speaking on conditions of anonymity, he said contrary to reports published in Israel this week, this plan is considered as “take it or leave it.”

The official also said that Washington plans to present Trump’s proposal to the Israelis and the Palestinians for discussion by December as the president does not wish to enter into long negotiations with the two sides, similar to what happened with his predecessor Barack Obama.

“Trump does not have time to play. This is his plan, and this is what will be,” the official said, adding that the new proposal aims to prevent negotiators to sit for hours in closed rooms, only to exchange accusations.

The official said that in the absence of such option, there would be a bigger possibility to find out which party will be responsible for the failure of the peace operation.

“Israel should understand that it cannot hope for a negotiation team better than three Jewish men with Kippahs on their heads,” he said, alluding to US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and the two envoys Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner.

Diplomatic sources in Tel Aviv, who were informed about Trump’s plan, said that Washington’s new proposal is expected to produce a big earthquake in the political arena in Israel.

“If there is anything that can threaten the ruling coalition today, it is surely the expected Trump plan,” he said.

The official said that lately, Trump has taken several dramatic decisions in the benefit of Israel.

“The US president did not take those decisions by chance, but he rather sent a message to the Israeli public and the Netanyahu coalition that Washington would not allow anyone to mess with Israel’s interests. But, on the other hand, Trump wants to achieve a historic agreement,” the official added.

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Arab World

UN Envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen Resigns

FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
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UN Envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen Resigns

FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)

The United Nations special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, unexpectedly resigned on Thursday after almost seven years as the organization's representative to the war-torn country.

"I wish to let the council know that I have informed the secretary-general of my intention to step down after more than six-and-a-half years serving as United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, and he has graciously accepted my request," Pedersen told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Syria.

"It has been my intention for quite some time to move on for personal reasons after a long period of service," Pedersen told the 15-member council. "My experience in Syria has affirmed an enduring truth - that sometimes it's darkest before the dawn. For so long, progress seemed absolutely impossible, until suddenly it came."

Syrian president Bashar Assad was ousted in December.

"Few have endured suffering as profound as the Syrians, and few have demonstrated such resilience and determination," Pedersen said.

"Today, Syria and the Syrian people have a new dawn, and we must ensure that this becomes a bright day. They deserve this so much," he added.

“Being a special envoy for any conflict, let alone one that we Syrians know, is no easy job," Syria's UN Ambassador Ibrahim Olabi told the Security Council, adding that Pedersen "departs on a note of hope, on a success story."

He said Syria looks forward to "engaging with the Secretary-General and all of you in working with his successor in a way that preserves Syrian sovereignty and fulfills the aspiration of the Syrian people."

Arab World

Gunman Kills 2 at Israeli-run Crossing between West Bank, Jordan

Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
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Gunman Kills 2 at Israeli-run Crossing between West Bank, Jordan

Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon

A gunman killed two people at an Israeli-run border crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan on Thursday, officials said.

The Israeli military referred to it as a militant attack and said that the shooter arrived on a truck transporting humanitarian aid. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said that two men, around 60 and 20 years old, were killed. The military said the attacker had been “neutralized," without elaborating, The AP news reported

Three Israelis were killed in a September 2024 attack at the crossing, when a retired Jordanian soldier opened fire. That attack appeared to be linked to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The Allenby Bridge Crossing over the Jordan River, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, is mainly used by Palestinians and tourists. It was closed after the attack.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for a future state. Violence has surged across the occupied West Bank since the Hamas-led attack from Gaza into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the latest war.

Israel is waging a major ground offensive in Gaza City that has forced nearly 250,000 Palestinians to flee, according to the United Nations. Hundreds of thousands remain in the city, large parts of which have already been destroyed in previous Israeli raids.

Arab World

Israel Says it Attacked Hezbollah Targets in South Lebanon

A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
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Israel Says it Attacked Hezbollah Targets in South Lebanon

A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)

Israel said on Thursday it had launched fresh airstrikes against Hezbollah military targets in south Lebanon to stop the group rebuilding in the area.

Israel's military confirmed in a statement that unspecified attacks were underway after earlier saying it would hit Hezbollah military infrastructure "in response to the group’s unlawful attempts to rebuild its activities in the area."

It warned residents of three villages to evacuate.

"We direct an urgent warning to the residents of the buildings marked in red... to evacuate those buildings," the military's Arabic-language spokesman Colonel Avichay Adraee wrote on X. He provided maps of the three Lebanese villages of Mays al-Jabal, Kfar Tebnit and Dibbine.

Lebanon's state news agency NNA confirmed strikes in the area. There was no immediate reaction from Hezbollah, or word on any damage or casualties.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the evacuation warning contradicted international peace efforts.

Lebanon's government was committed to halting hostilities and engaged in meetings to ensure implementation of a UN resolution that ended a round of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, Salam said in a post on X.

The US brokered a truce in November between Lebanon and Israel after more than a year of conflict sparked by the war in Gaza, but Israel has continued sporadically to attack Hezbollah across the border.

Lebanon is under pressure to disarm the group.

Hezbollah has said it would be a serious misstep even to discuss disarmament while Israel is continuing airstrikes on Lebanon and occupying swaths of territory in its south.