Israelis, Palestinians eye reset amid conflicts

Israelis and Palestinians are hoping for a reset as overlapping conflicts in the Middle East have overshadowed and stalled progress on the two-state solution — three years after Hamas’ attack on Israel erupted into one of the worst humanitarian crises in the almost 80-year conflict.

Even with the ceasefire and the announcement of the United Nations-backed, United States-brokered Gaza peace plan last year and the formation of the Board of Peace, or BOP, early this year as part of the plan’s framework, neither “milestone” has succeeded in disarming Hamas nor stopped Israel’s aggression in Gaza.

The West Bank has also seen an increase in violence and displacement of Palestinians by Israeli extremists.

So for Mazin Qumsiyeh, professor and founder of the Palestinian Museum of Natural History and the Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University, the peace process is nonexistent.

“There has been no peace process. Never has been, never will be because the Zionist project is about colonization, ethnic cleansing,” Qumsiyeh said.

He also criticized the so-called BOP, which he believes serves the US’ interests more than it helps either the Israelis, Palestinians or the broader region.

Qumsiyeh, a 2025 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, said there “is no such thing as the Board of Peace”, but “there’s a board of hegemony and investment, and capitalism and destruction”, which is leading to a regional war and eventually a global war.

“Oct 7 is just a date. Palestinians have endured the kind of Oct 7 events daily since 1948. We’ve been suffering as a result of this ethnic cleansing,” he said.

Hamas in its statement defended the Oct 7, 2023 attack, saying it had once again brought the Palestinian question to the world’s attention, emphasizing that the “conflict with the enemy did not begin on that day, (and) its final chapters are not written yet”.

The BOP is supposed to supervise a transitional Palestinian technocratic government in the Gaza Strip — the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza — and work toward disarming Hamas and deploying the International Stabilization Force, a peacekeeping mission made up of international armed personnel.

On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September, the BOP proposed a $2.45 billion six-month Gaza recovery plan. Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza of the BOP, appealed for support.

He acknowledged that discussions with Israel were challenging ahead of elections in the country, citing a “more politically sensitive” situation.

“Given the complexity of what we’re dealing with, I think we’re making, slowly and steadily, progress,” Mladenov said. The proposal involves 66 projects, covering temporary housing, debris recovery and infrastructure like public transport, amid other efforts toward economic recovery.

To date, Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 74,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, and violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank continues. International charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned in a statement on Oct 6 that Israel “is progressively asphyxiating Gaza and continuing its genocide”.

“The space in which people can live is vanishing, while the conditions people need to survive are being systematically destroyed through continued violence, the deliberate blockade of essential supplies, and the destruction of healthcare and vital infrastructure,” MSF said.

More than 1,200 Israelis were killed on Oct 7, 2023, when Hamas stormed the Nova Music Festival from across the Gaza Strip in a surprise attack. The group also abducted more than 200 hostages.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened the Palestinian Authority on Oct 6 this year with “a full-scale offensive” if Palestinian security forces “turn their weapons against” Israeli settlers and troops, amid continued Israeli military operations, demolitions and settler violence in the West Bank.

Katz, during the cabinet briefing, said the Israeli military was preparing for such a scenario involving Palestinian security forces and Fatah-linked armed groups. Fatah refers to the Palestinian National Liberation Movement.

Israeli authorities had demolished or sealed 73 Palestinian-owned structures between Sept 22 and 28, displacing 93 people, including 55 children, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which also recorded 53 settler attacks that caused casualties or property damage during the same period.

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s Commission against the Wall and Settlements logged 647 settler attacks in September across the West Bank.

“It is important to stress that the Israeli genocide in Gaza continues to this day,” Saul Takahashi, former deputy head of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in occupied Palestine, told China Daily, noting that almost 1,500 Palestinians have been killed “since the so-called ceasefire of October 2025”.

He said the double standards and “sheer hypocrisy exhibited by the West on Palestine” have brought the entire international order into disrepute.

He believes the Security Council’s resolution endorsing the BOP should be revoked.

During the third anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will wrap up his term at the end of the year, called for a permanent truce in Gaza.

He recalled that last year’s ceasefire “brought some relief”, but added that “it has yet to deliver security, adequate humanitarian assistance or a credible path to recovery and peace”.

“I urge all parties to implement their commitments in full and advance to the next phase of the ceasefire, on the basis of the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict. It is time for the ceasefire to become permanent,” said Guterres as he appealed to “build the political path to lasting peace across the whole region”.

“The UN remains unwavering in its commitment to these imperatives. Let this anniversary mark not only another year of mourning, but also a renewed determination to build a different future: one in which Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace and security, with their rights, dignity, and aspirations fulfilled,” said Guterres.

Weighty elections

Israel is gearing up to hold on Oct 27 its first national elections since the Hamas attack. Netanyahu is seeking reelection. His rivals include Gadi Eisenkot and Benny Gantz, both former Israel Defense Forces chiefs of staff who were part of Netanyahu’s war cabinet in the first year of the Israel-Hamas war.

Israelis elect their parliament, the 120-seat Knesset, for a four-year term under a proportional representation system. The biggest party usually picks the candidate to be prime minister.

Jasim Husain, a former member of the Bahrain parliament, said that Israel’s elections are significant for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

The fear, he said, was that more right-wing candidates would be elected into the Israeli parliament.

“All eyes now in the Gulf are on the Israeli elections on Oct 27 and within one week the US mid-term elections in November. These two elections are going to have very direct impacts on the security arrangements in the Gulf,” he added.

Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, said that whoever wins “must be ready to (hold discussions) with the Palestinians” and prioritize dealing with the Palestinian question.

Milshtein said a majority of Israelis feel that the upcoming national elections will be one of the most consequential in the history of the country, because it “will really determine not only the policy but also the future, the vision”.

“Right now, it’s a very bizarre situation. During the last year, actually, let’s face it. There is no strategy. There is no Israeli strategy. We are stuck. The IDF is stuck in the yellow line. The yellow line is actually the line that splits Gaza into two,” noted Milshtein.

He also lamented that on the Palestinian side, “we cannot really identify a strong leadership, any great leaders that are ready to take on the reforms”.

“I’m not using the term ‘peace’ (process) because it doesn’t (fit) the current conditions in the Israeli-Palestinian arena,” he said.

Based on the technocratic government, the BOP and the process of reconstruction of Gaza and maybe deployment of international forces from Uganda, Burundi and other places, he said it was “not a good idea”, but a “better idea than the full occupation of Gaza”, which many Israelis, he said, consider a “nightmare”.

Milshtein said that from an Israeli point of view the most important thing is the disarmament of Hamas.

He also expressed skepticism about the push for reconstruction, and the deployment of international forces amid Hamas’ reluctance to disarm fully.

Milshtein hopes that whoever wins the elections in Israel will be more cooperative and friendly with Israel’s Arab neighbors who will only be prepared to reach any agreement with Israel if it finds a solution for the Palestinian question.

However, he is not optimistic that the new government would immediately speak about the Palestinian state.

Still, he hopes Israel will be “ready to (hold discussions) with the Palestinians (as) that will be enough for many Arab states. So everything really depends on the results of the coming elections”.

“(The Arab neighbors) are very suspicious about Israel. They think that the Israeli government right now is out of focus, full of ambitions to occupy more and more land (in the region) and is very aggressive,” said Milshtein.

Dealing with the Palestinian question is a patriotic mission for every Israeli, he added.

Further, he said, Israelis “cannot adopt Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s and many other right-wing supporters’ vision of the one state (Israel) between the river and the sea”.

“What are you going to do with 3 million Palestinians? Are you just going to give them citizenship or maybe be an apartheid state?” asked Milshtein, referring to the Palestinians living in the West Bank.

jan@chinadailyapac.com