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A Year After the Surprises

Palestinians inspect a destroyed building after an Israeli air strike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip (dpa)
Palestinians inspect a destroyed building after an Israeli air strike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip (dpa)
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A Year After the Surprises

Palestinians inspect a destroyed building after an Israeli air strike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip (dpa)
Palestinians inspect a destroyed building after an Israeli air strike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip (dpa)

The world may have witnessed the beginning of the current round of the Palestinian-Israeli war, but it sure won't know when and how it will end.

This round of the conflict is different, marked by a series of unexpected turns.

- The first surprise: Israel

Hamas' sudden massive invasion of the settlements around the Gaza Strip took Israel by surprise during its Yom Kippur celebrations. As soon as it woke up from its almost coma-like slumber, Hamas had killed, destroyed, and taken numerous captives to Gaza.

- The second surprise: Hamas

Hamas' modest capabilities compared to its opponent's surprised me.

This time, the surprise came from the Hamas movement, not the other side. No one could have predicted this level of unforeseen success, or it could have yielded this number of spoils.

The unexpected outcome left Israel contemplating its response, ranging from a ground invasion to limited action.

- The third surprise: the US

In the world's eyes, the firm notion that the superpower's intelligence and its regional branch, Israel, possess complete knowledge of what is happening above and below the ground was shattered.

The US itself was surprised. Under the shock, there was no time to assess the situation carefully and instead seemed to have pulled the gun immediately.

Without hesitation, it ordered its giant aircraft carriers to move to the nearest location opposite Gaza and Israel. President Joe Biden quickly dispatched the Secretary of State in anticipation of his visit.

The institutions of the major state began preparing for a danger that threatened the existence of the Hebrew state and risked a comprehensive regional war, with "exposed" US interests as a target.

- Fourth surprise: The old equation no longer applies

US intuitive assessment of the Israeli military force was that a brief intervention in a few days or weeks would suffice.

Israel itself had the same assessments, and it still considers the war, especially in Gaza, to be merely a disciplinary act that results in death and destruction greater than what it lost.

Tel Aviv deluded itself that Gaza is under control and that a tight siege and some bombings are enough to silence it. It believed no small or large war didn't end with a ceasefire or a medium- or long-term truce.

Israel was maintaining a fragile truce through limited concessions, such as increasing the number of workers, expanding the fishing area, and other things that were extremely limited, effective, and cheap to the point that it settled on protecting its southern borders within an equation that included a great deal of reassurance that Gaza would not do anything.

On October 7, the two partner allies, the US and Israel, were surprised that the old equation with Hamas no longer worked.

- Fifth surprise: resistance

Israel grew accustomed to a seemingly comfortable, calm Gaza, which provided it with additional capabilities to devote itself entirely to the West Bank, its central goal.

The West Bank, and Jerusalem in its heart, represents Israel's biggest and most dangerous challenge, with its broader geography and many entrances and exits that lead to every place in Israel.

The empty and crowded settlements cover the entire West Bank from its southernmost point to its northernmost point. Gaza is different because the settlements are still there, and the settlers, estimated at hundreds of thousands, are the reservists ready to participate without the need to be called up.

The resistance in the West Bank does pose no surprise. However, Gaza posed a different story.

Surprisingly, the Israeli army was shocked by the ferocity of the resistance in Gaza, placing the generals' estimates that the war was under control from beginning to end as an unreachable target.

They are fighting over every square meter of the Strip, which, under military standards, is considered the narrowest place on Earth exposed to the greatest amount of fire, with no decisive end in sight, according to the Israeli announced goals.

Every surprise of this war brings about subsequent surprises, and all estimates drawn from previous wars are no longer of value.

- Sixth surprise: global perception

Israel was content with the narrative shared with the US, portraying the Gaza war as a fight against ISIS and what it described as its "Palestinian branch."

The story lasted a few days but later declined, faded, and is no longer debatable. Thus, the Israeli behavior appears more "ISIS-y" than a defensive war, as it claimed at the beginning.

Israel's behavior awakened the conscience of the world shaken by the destruction of Gaza and the killing of thousands of civilians, half of whom were children, without mentioning those under the rubble.

The term "Israel's self-defense" has become mere nonsense that the world does not accept.

Israel was not surprised on a propaganda and narrative level only but also on a political level, as the world unanimously agreed that getting out of this cycle meant reaching a radical political solution to the Palestinian issue after it had become certain that its liquidation was impossible. This may be the seventh surprise.

As we approach the end of the year, two possibilities emerge, one positive and the other negative.

The first is for the world to move seriously towards a two-state solution, offering a real opportunity for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Alternatively, the world's enthusiasm may wane, relegating the two-state solution to a mere slogan that Israel can obstruct.

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Features

Attacks on Ebola Treatment Centers Are One of Several Problems Affecting Congo’s Outbreak Response

People wait to be attended at the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
People wait to be attended at the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
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Attacks on Ebola Treatment Centers Are One of Several Problems Affecting Congo’s Outbreak Response

People wait to be attended at the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
People wait to be attended at the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)

Arson attacks on Ebola treatment centers in eastern Congo show how authorities are faced with a number of serious complications — including a backlash in local communities — as they try to stop an outbreak of an infectious disease that has been declared a global health emergency.

The burning of the centers in two towns at the heart of the outbreak shows the anger in a region beset by violence linked to armed rebel groups, the displacement of a large number of people, the failure of local government and international aid cuts that experts say have stripped health facilities in vulnerable communities.

"A devastating set of emergencies are converging," said the Physicians for Human Rights nonprofit.

Here's a look at the longstanding crises in eastern Congo that have made it home to one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters, and how they are now affecting the response to a rare type of Ebola:

The region has a constant threat of violence

Eastern Congo has seen violence by dozens of separate rebel groups for years, some of them with links to foreign countries or Islamic State.

The Rwanda-backed M23 rebels are in control of parts of the region. While the Congolese government still largely controls the northeastern Ituri Province, which is the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak, that control is tenuous. The Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan group linked to ISIS, is one of the dominant rebel groups there and responsible for violent attacks against civilian targets.

Before the outbreak, Doctors Without Borders said in an assessment of the situation in Ituri that the insecurity had worsened recently, causing doctors and nurses to flee and leaving overwhelmed health facilities and "catastrophic" conditions in some parts.

Nearly a million people are displaced in Ituri

Nearly 1 million people in Ituri have been displaced from their homes by conflict, according to the United Nations humanitarian office.

That means this Ebola outbreak is "unfolding in communities already facing insecurity, displacement and fragile health care systems," said Gabriela Arenas, Regional Operations Coordinator at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

It's a significant concern that the disease might spread to the large displacement camps near the city of Bunia, where the first cases were reported.

Authorities have announced more than 700 suspected Ebola cases and more than 170 suspected deaths, mostly in Ituri. But cases have been reported in two other eastern provinces, North Kivu and South Kivu, where M23 are in control, and also in the neighboring country of Uganda.

That means that part of the outbreak in Congo is being managed by the government and part by rebel authorities, with an array of aid agencies also helping.

Aid cuts were devastating for eastern Congo

Health experts say international aid cuts last year by the United States and other rich nations were devastating for eastern Congo because it has so many problems.

The cuts "reduced the capacity to detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks," said Thomas McHale, public health director at Physicians for Human Rights. Congo has had more than a dozen previous Ebola outbreaks.

Aid groups fighting this outbreak on the ground say they don't have the equipment they need, like face shields and suits to protect health workers from infection, testing kits, and body bags and other materials needed to safely bury the bodies of victims, which can be highly contagious.

"We have made requests to different partners, but we have not yet really received anything," said Julienne Lusenge, president of Women’s Solidarity for Inclusive Peace and Development, an aid group operating a small hospital near Bunia.

"We only have hand sanitizer and a few masks for the nurses."

The Bundibugyo type of Ebola virus responsible for the outbreak has no approved vaccine or treatment.

Health and aid workers also face anger from local communities

The burning of two treatment centers by people in the Rwampara and Mongbwalu areas — which have the highest case counts — show how a backlash in some communities is further complicating the response.

Colin Thomas-Jensen, director of impact at the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, said the attacks may reflect the "built-in skepticism and anger" of people in eastern Congo over how the region has been treated, with years of violence from foreign-linked rebel groups and a failure of their government and international peacekeepers to protect them, he said.

Another source of anger has been the strict protocols around the burial of suspected victims of Ebola, which authorities are taking charge of wherever they can to prevent further spread of the disease when families prepare the bodies and people gather for a funeral.

The first burning of an Ebola center in Rwampara was by a group of local youths trying to retrieve the body of a friend who died, according to witnesses and police. The witnesses said the crowd accused the foreign aid group operating there of lying about Ebola.

Authorities in northeastern Congo have now banned funeral wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people in an effort to curb the spread, and armed soldiers and police are guarding some burials carried out by aid workers.

Features

Report: Netanyahu Relegated from Partner to Passenger in Trump's War on Iran

US President Donald Trump, right, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Feb. 4, 2025. (AFP)
US President Donald Trump, right, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Feb. 4, 2025. (AFP)
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Report: Netanyahu Relegated from Partner to Passenger in Trump's War on Iran

US President Donald Trump, right, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Feb. 4, 2025. (AFP)
US President Donald Trump, right, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Feb. 4, 2025. (AFP)

In the run-up to the February 28 attack on Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was not only in the Situation Room with President Trump, he was leading the discussion, predicting that a joint US-Israeli strike could very well lead to the demise of the regime in Iran.

“Just a few weeks later, after those sanguine assurances proved inaccurate, the picture was starkly different. Israel was so thoroughly sidelined by the Trump administration, two Israeli defense officials said, that its leaders were cut almost entirely out of the loop on truce talks between the United States and Iran,” said a New York Times report on Saturday.

“Starved of information from their closest ally, the Israelis have been forced to pick up what they can about the back-and-forth between Washington and Tehran through their connections with leaders and diplomats in the region as well as their own surveillance from inside the Iranian regime,” said the two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

“The banishment from the cockpit to economy class has potentially significant consequences for Israel, and especially for the prime minister, who faces an uphill re-election battle this year.”

“Netanyahu has long sold himself to Israeli voters as a kind of Trump whisperer,” uniquely capable of enlisting and retaining the president’s support. In a televised speech early in the war, he portrayed himself as the president’s peer, assuring Israelis that he talked to Trump “almost every day,” exchanging ideas and advice, “and deciding together.”

“He had led Israel to war in February with grand visions of achieving a goal he has pursued for decades: stopping Iran’s push for nuclear weapons once and for all. As the war began with a stunning decapitation of much of the government in Tehran, it seemed as though an even more grandiose dream might come true: the toppling of the regime.”

“But many in Trump’s inner circle had always viewed the idea of regime change as absurd. And it wasn’t long before American and Israeli priorities began to diverge more, especially after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices soaring and pressuring Trump into agreeing to a ceasefire.”

Far from vanquished, Tehran has behaved as though it won the war, merely by surviving it. Israel, by contrast, has seen its biggest objectives for the war elude its grasp.

Netanyahu set three goals at the start of the war: toppling the regime, destroying Iran’s nuclear program and eliminating its missile program. None have been realized.

Instead of burying Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a recent American proposal called for a 20-year suspension of, or moratorium on, Iranian nuclear activity and that time frame may have gotten smaller in subsequent proposals. That raises the prospect that an eventual deal could resemble the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear accord, which Netanyahu fought against at the time and Trump exited from three years later.

With the Trump administration excluding Israel from the negotiations, Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles may have been left off the table, as far as Israeli officials know. In that respect, any deal would fail to improve on the 2015 agreement, which Netanyahu assailed in part because it did not address Iran’s missiles.

It would also be a dismaying setback for the Israeli public, for whom life largely ground to a halt as the nation was bombarded by Iranian missiles in March and April.

There are other concerns for Israel about the possible contours of a US-Iran agreement, including a lifting of economic sanctions against Tehran. Doing so could amount to an economic lifeline, flooding Iran with billions of dollars that it could then use to rearm and to help its proxy forces, like Hezbollah, replenish their own arsenals with weapons to use against Israel.

While little is certain yet about the shape of an eventual deal — and any agreement could still be postponed by a renewal of fighting — what seems clear is that Israel’s partnership with the United States has come at a steep price. A country that for generations prided itself on “defending ourselves by ourselves,” and whose leaders exasperated a succession of American presidents with their hardheaded recalcitrance, is now making little secret of its need, and willingness, to submit to Trump’s demands.

As Defense Minister Israel Katz said on April 23, as Trump threatened to resume the war and bomb Iran back to the “Stone Age”: “We are only waiting for the green light from the US.”

“That admission was a humbling climbdown from the heady first days of the war, when the two countries achieved air supremacy and were so confident of success that they urged the Iranian people to topple the regime and secure their future,” said the NYT.

Within two weeks, it became clear that the war would not produce instant victory, as Trump had hoped. The White House, and some Israeli leaders, put aside their hopes for regime change, and Trump turned his attention toward ending the fighting.

“He had viewed Netanyahu as a war ally, but not as a close partner when it came to negotiating with the Iranians,” American officials familiar with his thinking said; in fact, he considered Netanyahu someone “who needed to be restrained when it comes to resolving conflicts.”

Israel soon found itself demoted from “equal partner” to something more akin to a “subcontractor” to the US military.

Israel would often clear plans with the United States, only to have the Trump administration throw it under the bus after those plans were executed, such as when Israel struck the South Pars natural gas field and oil facilities along the Gulf in southern Iran.

Trump even pressured Israel to bring a premature halt to its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon within days after the ceasefire on April 8, forcing Israel to accept restraints on its fighting with a hostile adversary right on its border.

“The sidelining is particularly hard to take for some Israeli officials, who, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that the country willingly shouldered some of the war’s more controversial assignments.”

For Netanyahu, it has meant repeatedly recalibrating his rhetoric, and even adjusting his description of Israel’s war objectives, in response to Trump’s frequent vacillations.

After initially telling his citizens that Israel’s goals were to “remove” the existential threats of an Iranian nuclear weapon and of its ballistic missile arsenal, by March 12 Netanyahu was articulating a new idea. This one downplayed the fact that those threats had not been removed, and instead exalted Israel’s close partnership with the United States.

“Threats come and threats go, but when we become a regional power, and in certain fields a global power, we have the strength to push dangers away from us and secure our future,” he said. What gave Israel such newfound strength in the eyes of its adversaries, Netanyahu asserted, was his alliance with Trump — “an alliance like no other.”

 

*David M. Halbfinger and Ronen Bergman for The New York Times

Features

A Grieving Father Buries His 6-Year-Old After a Land Mine Kills 3 Children in Syria’s Idlib

Idris Al-Ridah, center, weeps as he prays during the funeral of his son Mohammed, who was killed in an explosion caused by war remnants while playing with other children in the village of Abu Habbah in eastern Idlib countryside, in Abu Habbah, Syria, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP)
Idris Al-Ridah, center, weeps as he prays during the funeral of his son Mohammed, who was killed in an explosion caused by war remnants while playing with other children in the village of Abu Habbah in eastern Idlib countryside, in Abu Habbah, Syria, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP)
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A Grieving Father Buries His 6-Year-Old After a Land Mine Kills 3 Children in Syria’s Idlib

Idris Al-Ridah, center, weeps as he prays during the funeral of his son Mohammed, who was killed in an explosion caused by war remnants while playing with other children in the village of Abu Habbah in eastern Idlib countryside, in Abu Habbah, Syria, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP)
Idris Al-Ridah, center, weeps as he prays during the funeral of his son Mohammed, who was killed in an explosion caused by war remnants while playing with other children in the village of Abu Habbah in eastern Idlib countryside, in Abu Habbah, Syria, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP)

Idris al-Ridah wept as he carried the lifeless body of his 6-year-old son Amir, wrapped in a yellow and brown blanket, in northwest Syria.

The father collapsed to the ground as he laid his son to rest, his small body lowered into a grave next to two other young children who were siblings, Aya al-Fankih, 4, and Rayan al-Fankih, 6.

The three children were killed on Thursday in the village of Abu Habbah, in the countryside in the northwestern province of Idlib, when a land mine left behind from Syria's war exploded while they were playing near a well.

The deaths are the latest reminder of the dangers posed by unexploded war remnants scattered across the country years after the conflict began.

Mines and booby traps have killed and maimed hundreds of Syrians since Syria’s conflict began in March 2011, leaving about half a million people dead.

The Syrian Civil Defense said four other children who were near the well were also wounded in the blast.

"We heard a very loud explosion next to our house,” one resident, Mahmoud al-Aleiwi. He added that “when we got to the location there were a number of children’s bodies thrown around the well.”

He said one of the children was thrown 300 meters (984 feet) away by the explosion and was found on the roof of a house.

At a nearby hospital, wounded children cried as family members tended to them. One child had shrapnel wounds across his face and body, his legs wrapped in bandages. Another lay in bed with blood visible through bandages wrapped around his head.

Ten-year-old Ibrahim al-Suwadi was injured last month in a separate explosion caused by unexploded ordnance inside a damaged school in the town of al-Habit in Idlib’s southern countryside.

Sitting beside his father inside their home, al-Suwadi described how he was playing with his friends at the school when they went inside a room and found the mine.

“Two brothers picked it up and took it to the bathroom,” the boy said. “We thought it was an exploded mine so we started throwing rocks at it. All of a sudden, an older boy grabbed my hand and we ran, the mine exploded and I lost consciousness then I don’t remember anything.”

His father said the family had fled their village in 2013 during fighting and spent years living in displacement camps before returning after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government in December 2024.

Humanitarian organizations say unexploded ordnance remains one of the deadliest legacies of Syria’s war.

“Syria has ranked among the top contaminated countries around the world over the past years,” said Jakub Valenta, head of humanitarian disarmament and peace building for the Danish Refugee Council in Syria. He added that according to the data from the United Nations, around 14.3 million people are in danger of explosive ordnance in the country.

Valenta said the explosive hazards include anti-personnel mines, anti-tank mines and other unexploded devices left behind in residential and agricultural areas.

“We’re estimating that around 1,200 people and probably more have been affected by explosive ordnance accidents directly,” he said. “Out of those 1,200 people there were around 740 fatal casualties. The vast majority of these people are men and children.”

According to the Danish Refugee Council, around 60% of contaminated areas in Syria are agricultural lands, complicating efforts by displaced families to return home and rebuild livelihoods.

In Damascus’ southern suburb of Kisweh earlier this month, Syrian trainees working with Danish Refugee Council teams carefully removed and destroyed unexploded ordnance during training exercises aimed at expanding local demining capacity.

The organization says it has recruited and trained new Syrian explosive ordnance disposal teams to help clear contaminated areas and educate communities about the risks.

“The number of the casualties is among the highest worldwide in terms of explosive accidents and victims,” Valenta said.

“These people suffer lifelong injuries, physical like losing a limb or their vision and suffer mental health problems," he said. “These people also lose their jobs and livelihoods."