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Trump Tells Hamas to Proceed with ‘Full and Immediate’ Disarmament

Palestinian civil defense teams working to recover the remains of 67 members of the Abu Nasr family from beneath the rubble of their home after it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza City, 15 February 2026. (EPA)
Palestinian civil defense teams working to recover the remains of 67 members of the Abu Nasr family from beneath the rubble of their home after it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza City, 15 February 2026. (EPA)
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Trump Tells Hamas to Proceed with ‘Full and Immediate’ Disarmament

Palestinian civil defense teams working to recover the remains of 67 members of the Abu Nasr family from beneath the rubble of their home after it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza City, 15 February 2026. (EPA)
Palestinian civil defense teams working to recover the remains of 67 members of the Abu Nasr family from beneath the rubble of their home after it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza City, 15 February 2026. (EPA)

US President Donald Trump on Sunday urged Hamas to move forward with disarmament under his plan for postwar Gaza.

"Very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to Full and Immediate Demilitarization," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform, ahead of a February 19 meeting of his newly formed Board of Peace in Washington. 

Trump said members of the board have pledged $5 billion toward rebuilding war-ravaged Gaza and will commit thousands of personnel to international stabilization and police forces for the territory. 

The pledges will be formally announced on Thursday for their first meeting, he said. 

“The Board of Peace will prove to be the most consequential International Body in History, and it is my honor to serve as its Chairman,” Trump said in a social media posting announcing the pledges. 

He did not detail which member nations were making the pledges for reconstruction or would contribute personnel to the stabilization force. But Indonesia’s military said Sunday that up to 8,000 of its troops are expected to be ready by the end of June for a potential deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peace mission. It's the first firm commitment that the Republican president has received. 

Rebuilding the Palestinian territory will be a daunting endeavor. The United Nations, World Bank and European Union estimate that reconstruction of the territory will cost $70 billion. Few places in the Gaza Strip were left unscathed by more than two years of Israeli bombardment. 

The ceasefire deal calls for an armed international stabilization force to keep security and ensure the disarming of the Hamas group, a key demand of Israel. Thus far, few countries have expressed interest in taking part in the proposed force. 

The Oct. 10 US-brokered ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and Hamas. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently fire on Palestinians near military-held zones. 

It is not clear how many of the more than 20 members of the Board of Peace will attend the first meeting. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who held White House talks with Trump last week, is not expected to be there, but Foreign Minister Gideon Saar is. 

Trump’s new board was first seen as a mechanism focused on ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. But it has taken shape with his ambition for a far broader mandate of resolving global crises and appears to be the latest US effort to sidestep the United Nations as Trump aims to reset the post-World War II international order. 

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Arab World

UN Says Al-Hol Camp Population Has Dropped Sharply as Syria Moves to Relocate Remaining Families

US military vehicles escort buses transporting ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, in Qamishli, Syria, February 8, 2026. (Reuters)
US military vehicles escort buses transporting ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, in Qamishli, Syria, February 8, 2026. (Reuters)
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UN Says Al-Hol Camp Population Has Dropped Sharply as Syria Moves to Relocate Remaining Families

US military vehicles escort buses transporting ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, in Qamishli, Syria, February 8, 2026. (Reuters)
US military vehicles escort buses transporting ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, in Qamishli, Syria, February 8, 2026. (Reuters)

The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected ISIS group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.

Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR's representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in al-Hol camp in recent weeks."

“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.

He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”

The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.

There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

At its peak after the defeat of ISIS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of ISIS members.

The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.

Forces of Syria’s central government captured the al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.

Separately, thousands of accused ISIS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US.

The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male ISIS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.

Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with ISIS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.

Arab World

Rubio: US Satisfied with Overall ‘Trajectory’ in Syria

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gives a thumbs-up as he boards a plane while departing Bratislava Airport in Bratislava, Slovakia, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gives a thumbs-up as he boards a plane while departing Bratislava Airport in Bratislava, Slovakia, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (Reuters)
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Rubio: US Satisfied with Overall ‘Trajectory’ in Syria

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gives a thumbs-up as he boards a plane while departing Bratislava Airport in Bratislava, Slovakia, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gives a thumbs-up as he boards a plane while departing Bratislava Airport in Bratislava, Slovakia, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (Reuters)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Washington is pleased with the "trajectory" in Syria, which has launched talks with Kurdish minority groups, despite troubles.

"There's been some days that have been very concerning, but we like the trajectory," Rubio said on a brief visit to Bratislava. "We have to keep it on that trajectory. We've got good agreements in place."

Rubio added, however, that a deal between Syrian authorities and the Kurdish minority must now be implemented.

"That's not going to be easy and there other such agreements that they need to reach with the Druze, with the Bedouins, with the Alawites -- with all the elements of a very diverse society in Syria," Rubio said.

Syrian leaders in Damascus and Kurdish officials announced in January, after months of deadlock and armed clashes, that they had reached an agreement to integrate Kurdish forces and autonomous areas of Syria into the Syrian state.

A de facto separate Kurdish state was established in northeast of the country during Syria's civil war (2011-2024).

The United States had supported Kurdish forces in their fight against the ISIS group starting in 2014.

But after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad at the end of 2024, the President Donald Trump's administration backed Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa -- whose opposition forces drove Assad from power -- in his bid to impose authority over the entire country.

Rubio on Sunday defended the administration's embrace of Sharaa -- even against the former Kurdish allies -- by arguing that Washington faced a difficult decision in Syria.

The process, "as difficult as it's been, is far better than a Syria that would've been broken up into eight pieces with all kinds of fighting going on, all kinds of mass migration," Rubio said. "So we were very positive about that."

Arab World

Indonesia Says 8,000 Troops Ready for Possible Peacekeeping Mission in Gaza by June

Women walk down a hill overlooking a camp for displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on February 14, 2026. (AFP)
Women walk down a hill overlooking a camp for displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on February 14, 2026. (AFP)
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Indonesia Says 8,000 Troops Ready for Possible Peacekeeping Mission in Gaza by June

Women walk down a hill overlooking a camp for displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on February 14, 2026. (AFP)
Women walk down a hill overlooking a camp for displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on February 14, 2026. (AFP)

Indonesia's military said Sunday that up to 8,000 troops are expected to be ready by the end of June for a potential deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peace mission, the first firm commitment to a critical element of US President Donald Trump’s postwar reconstruction plan.

The Indonesian National Armed Forces, known as TNI, has finalized its proposed troop structure and a timeline for their movement to Gaza, even as the government has yet to decide when the deployment will take place, army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Donny Pramono said.

“In principle, we are ready to be assigned anywhere,” Pramono told The Associated Press, “Our troops are fully prepared and can be dispatched at short notice once the government gives formal approval.”

Pramono said the military prepared a composite brigade of 8,000 personnel, based on decisions made during a Feb. 12 meeting for the mission.

Under the schedule, troops will undergo health checks and paperwork throughout February, followed by a force readiness review at the end of the month, Pramono said. He also revealed that about 1,000 personnel are expected to be ready to deploy as an advance team by April, followed with the rest by June.

Pramono said that being ready does not mean the troops will depart. The deployment still requires a political decision and depends on international mechanisms, he said.

Indonesia's Foreign Ministry has repeatedly said any Indonesian role in Gaza will be strictly humanitarian. Indonesia’s contribution would focus on civilian protection, medical services, reconstruction, and its troops would not take part in any combat operations or actions that could lead to direct confrontation with armed groups.

Indonesia would be the first country to formally commit troops to the security mission created under Trump’s Board of Peace initiative for Gaza, where a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas has held since Oct. 10 following two years of devastating war.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim majority nation, does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel and has long been a strong supporter of a two-state solution. It has been deeply involved in providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, including funding a hospital.

Indonesian officials have justified joining the Board of Peace by saying it was necessary to defend Palestinian interests from within, since Israel is included on the board but there is no Palestinian representation.

The Southeast Asian country has experience in peacekeeping operations as one of the top 10 contributors to United Nations missions, including in Lebanon.