A lethal arrest raid, a suicide bombing, fresh land expropriations, a threatening Hamas video: That's the follow-up so far to Israel's historic Gaza pullout.
Rather than seize the moment to jump-start negotiations, Israelis and Palestinians appear to be falling into a familiar pattern of violence and rhetoric. Still, the withdrawal from Jewish settlements in Gaza is of such significance that even the latest spasms are unlikely to torpedo all momentum for peace.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won praise for fulfilling his pledge -- in a dramatic, breakneck sweep that ended last week -- to evacuate 8,500 settlers from the Gaza Strip and another 500 from the northern West Bank. Now the Israeli leader wants to send a very clear message that terrorism won't be tolerated and that major West Bank settlement blocs will remain Israeli.
"Israel cannot return to the '67 or '48 borders, because of the settlements," Sharon said in an interview on Monday, referring to Israel's frontiers before it captured Gaza, the West Bank and other lands. "The settlement blocs will remain in sovereign Israel. They are of vital strategic importance."
He added, however, that some other settlements would have to go in a final peace deal.
Sharon's critics say now is the time to capitalize on the goodwill created by the Gaza evacuation, not to flex muscles. Many fear the two sides already have begun to squander a unique historical opportunity. And the recent friction has brought home the pitfalls of trying to get Israelis and Palestinians together after five years of trust-destroying violence.
Both sides say they're still prepared to talk, however. Officials said a meeting is possible between Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when the two are in New York this month to address the UN.
And Sharon's withdrawal, ending 38 years of Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip, is likely to have long-lasting ripple effects on peacemaking that could weather some setbacks. With the settlers gone, the army is expected to complete its own pullout in the coming days.
"We understand that Mr. Sharon has to show the Israeli people that he is conceding on one side and strengthening his position on the other," Palestinian chief of staff Rafiq Husseini told reporters. "That worries us, but I think that in the end, justice will have to prevail."
Officials on both sides expressed hope that the pullout would create momentum for a return to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Then, an Israeli arrest raid in the West Bank town of Tulkarem deteriorated into a shootout that killed five Palestinians, and a suicide bombing on Sunday critically wounded two security guards at a bus station in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
That bombing came a day after Hamas militants in Gaza released a videotape purportedly showing their top bombmaker, Mohammed Deif, celebrating the Gaza pullout as a victory for armed resistance and threatening more attacks until Israel is destroyed. Deif has been in hiding from Israeli security forces since 1992.
And Israel, just two days after the last Gaza settler was evacuated, announced plans to confiscate Palestinian land around the West Bank's largest Jewish settlement to build a separation barrier that would, in effect, annex it to Jerusalem. Israel also said it would build a police station between the settlement, Maaleh Adumim, and Jerusalem -- another step that alarmed Palestinians.
"In exchange for the evacuation of people who shouldn't have been there in the first place, [Israel] is going to steal more and more Palestinian land," said Diana Buttu, legal adviser to the Palestinian Authority.
Buttu said Israel can't claim that it has ended its occupation of Gaza because it still controls the coastal strip's borders and air and sea space.
But she said an agreement, approved by the Israeli Cabinet last weekend, to have Egypt deploy 750 troops along the Gaza-Egyptian border so that Israel could pull out of the area was "a step in the right direction."
Another promising development occurred on Monday when Palestinian militant groups in Gaza told an Egyptian envoy that they remained committed to a six-month-old truce with Israel.
At the same time, however, an Islamic Jihad leader said his group reserves the right to respond to what he called Israel's "brutal massacres."
Military officials said Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Dan Halutz did not give final approval for the arrest raid in Tulkarem that killed five Palestinians and set off a new round of violence. The officials said Halutz criticized the raid as ill-timed and lacking "sensitivity."
Still, some saw the raid and other measures as an attempt to shore up government support among Israeli hardliners after the Gaza pullout alienated large sections of Sharon's right-wing Likud party.
David Landau, editor of Israel's Haaretz daily, said he thinks Sharon has hurt himself "so badly with the Right that I honestly can't see much that he can do by way of winning them back over."
Congratulations to China’s working class — they have officially entered the “Livestock Feed 2.0” era. While others are still researching how to achieve healthy and balanced diets, China has already evolved to the point where it does not matter whether you are actually eating food, as long as you can swallow it. There is no need for cooking, chewing or making decisions — just tear open a package, add some hot water and in a short three minutes you have something that can keep you alive for at least another six hours. This is not science fiction — it is reality.
A foreign colleague of mine asked me recently, “What is a safe distance from potential People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force’s (PLARF) Taiwan targets?” This article will answer this question and help people living in Taiwan have a deeper understanding of the threat. Why is it important to understand PLA/PLARF targeting strategy? According to RAND analysis, the PLA’s “systems destruction warfare” focuses on crippling an adversary’s operational system by targeting its networks, especially leadership, command and control (C2) nodes, sensors, and information hubs. Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, noted in his 15 May 2025 Sedona Forum keynote speech that, as
In a world increasingly defined by unpredictability, two actors stand out as islands of stability: Europe and Taiwan. One, a sprawling union of democracies, but under immense pressure, grappling with a geopolitical reality it was not originally designed for. The other, a vibrant, resilient democracy thriving as a technological global leader, but living under a growing existential threat. In response to rising uncertainties, they are both seeking resilience and learning to better position themselves. It is now time they recognize each other not just as partners of convenience, but as strategic and indispensable lifelines. The US, long seen as the anchor
Kinmen County’s political geography is provocative in and of itself. A pair of islets running up abreast the Chinese mainland, just 20 minutes by ferry from the Chinese city of Xiamen, Kinmen remains under the Taiwanese government’s control, after China’s failed invasion attempt in 1949. The provocative nature of Kinmen’s existence, along with the Matsu Islands off the coast of China’s Fuzhou City, has led to no shortage of outrageous takes and analyses in foreign media either fearmongering of a Chinese invasion or using these accidents of history to somehow understand Taiwan. Every few months a foreign reporter goes to
RSS