American and Iranian officials are meeting on Saturday in Islamabad, Pakistan, to begin conversations aimed at ending the conflict that has consumed the Middle East since late February. Though much change has occurred in the last six weeks, the decisions made in the next two could determine the future of the region for decades to come.

The “fog of diplomacy,” as The Washington Post’s David Ignatius put it, has shrouded much of what is known about the talks and their contours. The first 24 hours after the ceasefire was announced saw dueling — and often conflicting — statements, denials and claims about various points, including the inclusion of Lebanon in the agreement, Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium and the status of the Strait of Hormuz, that were proposed and supposedly agreed to by the parties.

Those sticking points deepened in the days between the ceasefire announcement and Saturday’s meeting in Pakistan. On Wednesday, Israel conducted widespread strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and operatives whom the IDF said had embedded in civilian areas, while Hezbollah has launched dozens of missiles into Israel — including one fired at the southern city of Ashdod that also triggered sirens across Tel Aviv and surrounding towns early Friday morning. Meanwhile, Trump on Thursday accused Iran of “doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz.”

It is against that backdrop that Vice President JD Vance, joined by White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will enter into negotiations tomorrow in Islamabad. 

In tandem, a separate set of negotiations is slated to take place in Washington early next week, when the U.S. will convene the envoys from Israel and Lebanon for rare direct, public talks aimed at reaching a peace agreement between Beirut and Jerusalem. If reached — and if Lebanon takes meaningful action to demilitarize Hezbollah — Iran could lose its most powerful proxy in the region. Under pressure from Washington, Israel has limited its attacks on Lebanon.

While the inability to agree on the parameters for a ceasefire does not portend well for the ability to secure a more lasting agreement,both sides have a vested interest in reaching an accord that allows both to declare victory. Watching from the sidelines are Israel and the Gulf states, which will not be represented in Islamabad, and will instead have to hope from their respective capitals that the U.S. does not acquiesce to an agreement that emboldens Iran — and leaves the American allies vulnerable.

With the regime still intact — and still pledging destruction — Israel has reason to worry. Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, warned on Thursday night that “we definitely won’t allow the criminal aggressors who attacked our country to go unpunished.”

And even as Pakistan positions itself as a convener, its senior officials make clear it is not hosting talks as an impartial actor. On Thursday morning, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif posted on X — and later deleted — that “Israel is evil and a curse for humanity,” adding, “I hope and pray people who created this cancerous state on Palestinian land to get rid of European jews burn in hell.”

With elections in both the U.S. and Israel later this year, both Washington and Jerusalem have a vested interest in U.S. negotiators securing the best possible deal with Tehran. With rising fuel prices, the White House will want to project strength in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will need to convince voters that they are safer now than they were a year ago — and that Israel won’t find itself in an ongoing cycle of wars that bring the country to a halt for weeks on end every year.

But the longer-term questions remain. Will Iran, whose nuclear and ballistic missile programs were dealt significant blows, further conceal aspects of both? What degree of threat can Israel live with on its borders? How has the Iranian regime’s survival emboldened its allies in Beijing and Moscow? And what of the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have largely held their fire over the last six weeks?

Those are questions unlikely to be resolved in Islamabad in the coming days, but they are the ones that Israel and the West will have to grapple with once the dust from this war has settled.

For many Israelis who were awoken by rocket sirens just before 3 a.m. Wednesday, only to see the headline on their phones that a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran had been reached, the news was met with mixed feelings of relief and concern.

For most Israelis, the ceasefire has brought tangible relief: an end to regular missile alerts, the prospect of uninterrupted sleep (though Hezbollah swiftly shattered that hope for many on Thursday night), and children back in school. Yet for residents of Israel’s north who continue to live under frequent Hezbollah rocket fire, even this fragile respite remains out of reach.

After the ceasefire went into effect, there was a pervading feeling in Israel that the war with Iran was not complete, and the return to routine life may be short-lived. An overwhelming majority of Israelis supported the war a month after its late-February start, and just over half supported its continuation, according to the Israel Democracy Institute. Those views remained relatively steady after Iran stopped shooting missiles: A poll broadcast on Israel’s Channel 13 news on Thursday found that 51% of Israelis opposed President Donald Trump’s agreement to a ceasefire. 

Israelis’ support for the war effort despite the challenges on the home front was strong because its aims — eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat and severely degrading the ballistic missile threat — were meant to ultimately make them safer, along with the hope, bolstered by statements from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, that the mullahs’ regime would be toppled.

Yet, according to the Channel 13 poll, Israelis ranked their sense of security after the war at 5.36 out of 10, and gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a grade of 5.56. Only slightly more Israelis (33%) thought that Israel and the U.S. won the war, as opposed to Iran (28%); a plurality (39%) were not sure.

“Israel did not meet its war aims, and the cost is expected to be high,” Yoav Limor, the main military analyst of Adelson-owned Israel Hayom wrote on Thursday. The Times of Israel’s Lazar Berman lamented that “another war ends without a decisive win.” Even the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 featured the headline “This is how wars are lost: Stopping a moment before victory” on its homepage, and another, more positive, article about the war’s achievements, still admitted “‘total victory’ was not reached.”

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid went as far on Wednesday as to call the ceasefire “a diplomatic disaster at a level that I cannot remember. … Of all possible results, Netanyahu reached the worst.” 

Shas leader Aryeh Deri, a Security Cabinet observer and one of Netanyahu’s closest political allies, accused Lapid and others who made similar comments of “acting against the country for narrow, short-term political gain.” 

On Wednesday evening, Netanyahu made a live statement to reassure the public. 

“Iran is weaker than ever, and Israel is stronger than ever,” the prime minister said. “This is the bottom line … We have set the terrorist regime in Iran back many years. We have shaken its foundations. We have crushed it.”

However, Netanyahu added, “We still have goals to complete, and we will achieve them either by agreement or by the resumption of fighting. We are ready to return to combat at any necessary moment. … This is not the end of the campaign; this is a way station on the way to achieving all of our goals.” 

The mixed feelings from the public and the mixed messages from Netanyahu were backed up by experts who spoke to Jewish Insider on Thursday.

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, told JI that “it’s too early to sum up, because we need to see the results of the negotiations over the next two weeks, and what happens in Iran when the dust settles.” 

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Assaf Orion, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said that it is “too early to say” whether Israel is safer now than it was six weeks ago.

“We are at halftime,” Orion said. “The first part was military … but wars are not just a military competition, they are diplomatic and military. …The reality after exhausting the negotiations is how we will judge the war.” 

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, told JI that “it’s too early to sum up, because we need to see the results of the negotiations over the next two weeks, and what happens in Iran when the dust settles.” 

That being said, Avivi was confident that Israel is safer than before the war began.

“The last six weeks were a huge drama, a total military defeat of a regional power,” he said. “Iran’s military industry, steel plants, petrochemical plants, navy, were almost entirely eliminated. … Essentially, Israel and the U.S. did whatever they wanted for the past month and a half. They attacked wherever they wanted. If they wanted to turn off the country’s electricity, they could have. … [Iran is] crushed militarily and economically.” 

Avivi did not view Israel as having been stopped by the U.S. mid-fight, citing the IDF as saying that they hit all the targets they had defined as important and reached a stage where the remaining targets were energy and economic sites. “That’s why the Iranians broke and wanted a ceasefire,” Avivi said.

“The nuclear project was harmed, but the enriched uranium is still in Iran, and it is unclear if they are closer to giving it up than before,” Brig.-Gen. (res.) Assaf Orion, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said. “That needs either a military solution or a deal, or the situation will get worse. … [Iran] may change its nuclear strategy for the worse, because with fewer capabilities, they are more motivated [to break out to nuclear weapons], and the knowledge and materials remain.” 

This was the right time for a ceasefire, Avivi posited, because the fighting had gotten to a point where the remaining targets were Iran’s economic abilities, and the Islamic Republic “basically surrendered,” and decided to agree to the U.S. demand to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without concessions from the U.S.

Orion, however, said that “Israel did very serious damage to Iran [which will last] for many years,” but still viewed the results of that damage as inconclusive.

“The nuclear project was harmed, but the enriched uranium is still in Iran, and it is unclear if they are closer to giving it up than before,” he said. “That needs either a military solution or a deal, or the situation will get worse. … [Iran] may change its nuclear strategy for the worse, because with fewer capabilities, they are more motivated [to break out to nuclear weapons], and the knowledge and materials remain.” 

As for Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, Orion said, “their industry is damaged and unable to produce large quantities … [but] they still retain about half of their capabilities, something like 1,200 missiles and over 200 launchers. It’s clear they can still create the terror effect and harass Israel and neighboring countries. … They can buy [drones] from Russia to threaten the Gulf states.” 

A central question pertaining to Iran’s ballistic missiles and other conventional capabilities, Orion said, is what it will rebuild, how quickly and whether China will help Tehran.

Avivi said he views Iran’s ballistic missile strategy as “totally ineffective, influencing nothing … sporadic and not targeted,” and noted that it did not damage Israeli military capabilities, while “every Israeli strike is a death blow to the regime, its industries or senior officials.” 

As for regime change, which was not an official war aim, Orion argued that it’s too early to know whether it will happen. “Trump said it already happened, but it’s really just a shift change. The [remaining] people are no less extreme,” he said.

Avivi said that reaching a ceasefire with the regime does not undermine the effort to change it: “The people can still take to the streets, and Israeli and American drones can back them up. This regime will crumble in the end, but it’s a process. It won’t happen in a day.”

One major downside of the war for Israel may be a deterioration in U.S. public opinion towards the Jewish state.

“On the one hand,” Orion said, “Israel proved itself as a military partner with capabilities and prowess to significantly help the U.S. with what it wanted to achieve. Israel was there from day one and took on most of the mission of clearing out Iran’s air defenses … It did a lot of the work when NATO didn’t want to.”

However, Orion pointed to a recent New York Times article that portrayed Israel as “dragging the U.S. into the war, even though it was a presidential decision in the end, contrary to the stances of senior [American] figures and public opinion on the left and right. It will take time to see the aftershocks.”

As to whether the ceasefire will last, Orion said that, while nothing is certain, a ceasefire is generally called when both sides “estimate that conditions would be improved by talking,” and noted that at the outset of the war, the Trump administration said it would likely take four to six weeks.

Avivi said that “Israel and the U.S. now have two weeks to regroup and rearm, which Iran isn’t able to do because it doesn’t have a military industry anymore.” 

Iran can spend the ceasefire “taking stock of the disaster that happened to them,” Avivi added.

President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to escalate the war in Iran on Monday if Iranian leaders do not agree to a broad ceasefire deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz by his Tuesday evening deadline, threatening that the U.S. would target every bridge and power plant still standing in the country.

Trump took a hawkish posture while speaking to reporters at the White House alongside senior U.S. defense officials about the ongoing war and diplomatic efforts to bring it to a close, warning that the U.S. has a plan to take out Iran’s entire transportation and energy infrastructure within “four hours” if Iran did not make a deal. 

“I can tell you they’re negotiating, we think, in good faith. We’re going to find out. … After [8 p.m. ET on Tuesday], they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants. Stone ages,” Trump said, referring to the deadline he set for Iran to agree to his terms, which has now been postponed three times.

The president said he extended the deadline from Monday to Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET because he “thought it was inappropriate” to demand a response “the day after Easter.” The comment came hours after telling reporters at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll that the Tuesday deadline was final and unlikely to have any additional extensions. 

“The entire country can be taken out in one night and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said from the briefing room. “We have a plan, because of the power of our military, [where] every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock, and it’ll happen over a period of four hours if we want it to.” 

“We don’t want that to happen. We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation. If that’s the case, the last thing we want to do is start with power plants, which are among the most expensive things, and bridges,” he continued. “So do I want to do that? No. Do I want to destroy their infrastructure? No. It will take them 100 years to rebuild. Right now, if we left today, it would take them 20 years to rebuild their country and it would never be as good as it was. The only way they’re going to be able to rebuild their country is to utilize the genius of the United States of America.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who took part in the press conference alongside Trump, told reporters on Monday that, “per the president’s direction, today will be the largest volume which strikes since day one of this operation. Tomorrow, even more than today, and then Iran has a choice. Choose wisely, because this president does not play around.”

Trump repeatedly reiterated his commitment to ensuring that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon — after saying the country’s nuclear program was “obliterated” last June — and said that any agreement between Iran and the U.S. would need to adhere to his terms, including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. “We have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be [that] we want free traffic of oil and everything,” the president said.

“They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said of Iran, arguing that his actions were an insurance policy for the U.S. “if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen, because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective and afraid of Iran.”

The president described the Iranians as “very good bulls*** artists, that’s why for 47 years they’ve been bulls***ing other presidents,” while defending his decision to take military action against the regime.

“I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They’re at the weakest point they’ve ever been,” Trump said, despite Iran’s continued missile strikes across the Gulf and in Israel. “In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiations is that they can’t communicate. … They have no method of communication. So we’re communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth.”

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As the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran extends into its sixth week, the next 36 hours may be some of the most pivotal, offering clarity as to whether an end is in sight — or whether an escalation is imminent.

On the table now, according to Axios, is a proposed two-phased ceasefire deal, lasting 45 days, that would immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz and give negotiators two to three weeks to reach a broader agreement to end the war. As a signal that the U.S. is open to the agreement, President Donald Trump extended by 24 hours the deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait, setting a new deadline of Tuesday night ET.

The core issues remain: Tehran’s closure of the key waterway, and the fate of the country’s enriched uranium. But a deal between Washington and Tehran would include broader issues, including potential sanctions relief in exchange for Tehran’s promise that it will not pursue nuclear weapons. Iran has signaled that it will not reopen the Strait for a temporary ceasefire and is seeking a more permanent resolution.

The president paired threats with optimism, leaning into the current debate with a mix of tough talk — warning yesterday that strikes targeting Iran’s power plants and bridges would take place on Tuesday in the absence of a deal — and hopes of an 11th-hour diplomatic breakthrough. 

Trump doubled down on both sentiments yesterday in a flurry of interviews with reporters. “If they don’t make a deal, and fast, I am considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil,” Trump told Fox News’ Trey Yingst on Sunday morning. Yet the president said there was a “good chance” that a deal would be reached today — even as he posted “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!” on his Truth Social site, a reminder of the new deadline he had set for the Islamic Republic to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

In comments to The Wall Street Journal, the president said that if the Iranians “don’t come through, if they want to keep it closed, they’re going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country.”

Trump made the comments on the heels of the daring weekend rescue of an American weapons system operator who had been shot down inside Iran — the details of which the president is expected to share at an afternoon press conference today alongside senior military officials. 

A diplomatic agreement would see a winding down of the war that would likely allow Iran to retain some of its ballistic missile capabilities — a compromise that is unlikely to sit well in Israel, which continues to face fire from Iranian forces. 

On the other hand, Trump’s threatened destruction of key Iranian infrastructure could further deteriorate conditions in the Islamic Republic, where a regime-imposed internet blackout has ensured minimal on-the-ground reporting on weeks of war. And as always, the president has one eye on the markets, which will open today after the holiday weekend.

The U.S. and Israel have already made serious strategic strides by killing dozens of members of Iran’s senior leadership and severely crippling Tehran’s nuclear program. The question now is whether that will be enough for Trump to declare victory in accordance with the rough timeline he’s given for U.S. operations in Iran — or whether the U.S. will double down on its military operations.

As the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran nears the one-month mark, experts say the war has diverted diplomatic and military attention away from Gaza, creating a mixed picture: Hamas has used the pause in sustained Israeli military pressure to reassert control in areas it still governs, while the degradation of Iran’s capabilities could ultimately leave the group weaker and more isolated once the conflict subsides.

“I think it’s safe to say that Israeli and American attention has been significantly diverted to the Iran war, and as a corollary to the second front, meaning the war with Hezbollah, at the expense of full time attention to Hamas,” said Matthew Levitt, director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s program on counterterrorism and intelligence. “But it’s not like nothing’s happened in the interim, both for good and for bad.”

Some ceasefire efforts remain ongoing, even as the war continues: Earlier this week, Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza and a former senior United Nations official, briefed the U.N. Security Council on the board’s progress in implementing elements of President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan, outlining early reconstruction efforts and a phased proposal for disarmament. 

According to experts familiar with the briefing, those efforts have focused in part on areas of Gaza under Israeli control, where work has begun on clearing debris, addressing unexploded ordnance and laying the groundwork for new housing and infrastructure projects.

Gaza currently remains divided among the Hamas-controlled western part of the enclave, referred to by some experts as the “red zone,” while the IDF controls the eastern side, or “yellow zone.” Levitt said that work is being done to “build what is being described as new Rafah, as well as an Emirati-funded city, so that hopefully in the not too distant future, Gazans who are in the area of the enclave controlled by Hamas can be vetted and moved into these new communities.” 

The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza — a new technocratic Palestinian governing body launched under the peace plan — has also begun vetting thousands of candidates for a new civilian police force, while several countries, including Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania, have committed troops to a proposed International Stabilization Force, according to the UN. 

However, experts and former White House officials also noted that the diverted attention from Gaza has had negative effects as well, most notably creating conditions for Hamas to “reassert its very physical presence” in the part of the enclave it controls. 

Elliott Abrams, Iran envoy under the first Trump Administration and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S., Israel and Arab states focusing elsewhere “is temporarily an advantage for Hamas. For Gaza, the issue is whether the [Board of Peace] member states, led by the U.S., will insist on Hamas disarmament — without which all the plans for rebuilding Gaza will fail, and no country will send its troops there as a peace force.”

Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, also noted that “Hamas has certainly been taking advantage of the shift of attention to the Iran war.”

“Last week, [Mladenov] presented Hamas with a proposal for disarmament. The proposal calls for gradual disarmament but makes it emphatically clear that Hamas needs to fully disarm by the end of the process,” he said. 

“Because of lack of international attention, the tools needed to implement this — namely the creation of a new Palestinian police force — have been stalled,” al-Omari continued. “Hamas itself is unlikely to respond to the disarmament proposal until it sees how the Iran war ends. If Iran is not decisively weakened by the end of the war, Hamas will likely adopt a more hardline position when it comes to disarmament.”

Levitt said that while Hamas’ retrenchment in the enclave may cause concern, “the reality is [Hamas is] not able to expand beyond the less than half [of the enclave] that it controls.” He also noted that the current conflict in Iran may actually create the conditions to further weaken, pressure and isolate the terrorist group when the war subsides. 

“[Hamas is] not getting the money they once did on a regular basis from Iran or from Qatar,” Levitt said. “It has limited resources, and when the war ends I think that authorities will still have a lot of the same leverage that they did before the war, and in a situation where perhaps Iran’s capabilities to fund and arm its proxies are sufficiently degraded.”

He also noted that there could be more “interest” from other countries in aiding in the Gaza peace process once the Iran war dies down. 

“Sure, there’ll be parties who are angry at the United States, who are angry at Israel, and feel this was a war of choice,” Levitt said. “But once the war ends, I think there will be a lot of people who are going to be eager to try and do what they can to try and stabilize the region after these years of severe instability and suffering, and I think there’s going to be a focus on Gaza once the war ends.” 

Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Joe Biden, agreed that the war may weaken Iran’s ability to support Hamas and that “some regional players might be newly committed to seizing the opportunity to disarm this branch of the Iranian axis of resistance.” 

But the assistance of Gulf countries is not guaranteed, he said. “Others may pause their involvement in post-war Gaza for various reasons, ranging from the need to focus on their own recovery from the war, to unhappiness with Israel’s role in starting a war they hoped to avoid, to continuing opposition to Israel’s policies in the West Bank and opposition to a credible pathway to a Palestinian state,” Shapiro said. 

Rachel Brandenburg, a senior policy analyst at Israel Policy Forum, also argued that the war in Iran could impact “regional stakeholders’” involvement in post-war Gaza, “particularly across the Gulf.” She noted that “when the dust settles on this war, it is also likely to detract from the funds and attention Gulf countries had pledged for Gaza and to support the Palestinian Authority.”

“[Gulf countries] will not only have to confront the losses from physical infrastructure destruction but also from a pause on investments, business, tourism, and energy resources,” Brandenburg said. “I expect they will reconsider how much money is left for Gaza and the Palestinian Authority.”

Meanwhile, Jason Greenblatt, former White House envoy to the Middle East under the first Trump administration, argued that the “focus has not shifted” from combating Hamas and has instead “sharpened.” 

“Dismantling the Iranian regime’s capacity to arm, fund and direct Hamas is critical for Gaza’s future,” Greenblatt said. “But in my view, there is a difference between temporary humanitarian relief and meaningful rebuilding. The first can and should continue. The second cannot move forward until Hamas disarms and stops threatening Israel.”

Alexander Gray, former chief of staff to the National Security Council during Trump’s first term and now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, echoed those sentiments, telling Jewish Insider that the Trump administration is “smartly treating many of the Middle East’s challenges as inherently interconnected.”

“There will never be peace in Gaza without destroying the ability of Iran to fund and deploy proxies like Hamas to destabilize the region,” Gray said. “The president’s focus on dismantlement of the Iranian proxy network is not accidental: without it, peace from Gaza to Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Yemen will be elusive.”

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the United States had achieved “regime change” in Iran through the killing of Iranian leaders and teased a “very significant prize” provided by Iran to the U.S. in the course of ongoing negotiations.

“We have, really, regime change. This is a change in the regime, because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Asked if he was hopeful that diplomatic negotiations would achieve a lasting ceasefire, the commander-in-chief replied, “I think we’re going to end it. I can’t tell you for sure. You know, I don’t like to say this — this war has been won. The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news. … We’ve won this war.”

Trump also acknowledged on Tuesday that Jared Kushner, White House Special  Envoy Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance are involved in peace talks while expressing optimism that the current leadership in Iran was capable of making a deal. 

“We’re talking to the right leaders, and they want to make a deal so badly,” Trump said without specifying which Iranian officials his administration was engaged with. 

The president said he reached the conclusion that “we’re dealing with the right people” after receiving a “gift” from Iranian leaders that was “oil and gas related” and “worth a tremendous amount of money.” Trump declined to say what exactly the gift was, but said the offering was “related to the flow, to the Strait [of Hormuz].” 

The Iranians “gave us a present, and the present arrived today,” said.. “It was a very significant prize.” 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in remarks following the president’s comments that Pentagon leaders “see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well. We negotiate with bombs.”

Trump then responded by noting that Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine were the “only two people” in his administration who “were quite disappointed” when he suggested that the war could be resolved soon.

The president revealed that after telling the two men that he thought “this thing’s going to be settled very soon,” both men replied “Oh, that’s too bad.”

“Pete didn’t want it to be settled. These guys are doing a great job. That’s a good attitude though, right?” Trump said of Hegseth and Caine. “They were not interested in settlement. They were interested in just winning this thing.”

As tensions intensified between the U.S. and Iran amid the regime’s violent repression of protesters in January, and as Tehran vowed itself “prepared for war,” a long-running battle with the Islamic Republic’s forces in Manhattan came to an end.

The final stages of the conflict between the Justice Department and the New York-based Alavi Foundation, which since 2008 has faced allegations of acting under Iranian direction, took place in secrecy — with scores of legal documents sealed and even vaulted away. 

But materials filed on Jan. 12 with the New York State Charities Bureau revealed its ultimate outcome: a settlement that will provide compensation for numerous American and Israeli victims of Tehran-backed terror, but also enable a successor organization to recoup control of the foundation’s vast assets, including its 36-story crown jewel skyscraper on Fifth Avenue.

The final deal — which a filing this month shows came together confidentially in the last days of the Biden administration, and has just begun to go into effect — will officially dismantle the Alavi Foundation and strip it of hundreds of millions of dollars. Formed as the Pahlavi Foundation in 1973 during its namesake shah’s reign, Alavi was later commandeered and rechristened by figures tied to the regime of the mullahs, and the federal government accused it of conspiring with an Iranian state-owned bank to evade taxes and sanctions.

The settlement of the suit brought by the federal government compels payouts totaling $318 million to the U.S. government and a wide array of people Iran and its proxies have harmed: in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, in the 1996 Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, in multiple 1990s and 2000s suicide attacks against Israel, in the torture and murder of an Iranian dissident, and in the 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane. 

In exchange, a new non-governmental organization, the Amir Kabir Foundation, will rise in Alavi’s place. Named for a historic Persian imperial administrator, the new group will take full possession of 650 Fifth Ave., appraised at $435 million, plus bank and investment accounts holding more than $87.6 million, and properties from Queens to California worth tens of millions more and home to various Shia religious and educational facilities.

Records show that the Amir Kabir Foundation shares Alavi’s old address and even its phone number, and that three of the five members of the Alavi Foundation’s board of directors are part of the new group’s six-person leadership team. This includes Dr. Hamid Yazdi, who has served as Alavi’s president since 2013, and whose name appears on registration paperwork for the Amir Kabir Foundation. Yazdi did not respond to requests for comment. 

And although by-laws for the new group require it to remain “independent from any national or international agencies,” it will continue to provide funding and support for at least one longtime Alavi affiliate: the Qoba Foundation of Carmichael, Calif., which occupies an Alavi-owned property that the feds sought to seize in the early days of the case and which bears the name of a politically significant Iranian mosque.

The news that the Amir Kabir Foundation shared much of Alavi’s leadership team and would regain access to the huge rental revenues from 650 Fifth Avenue and the network of religious facilities lodged at the old organization’s properties alarmed longtime Iran-watchers.

“This is the Iranians playing anti-sanctions, anti-accountability three-card monte. They are treating the U.S. Department of Justice and the courts as if they are fools,” asserted Dr. Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. “Iran’s only concern is maintaining the property. It’s lucrative and, in theory, can help undermine U.S. security from within. If the CIA owned a skyscraper in Tehran, would they be so willing to give it up, or would they just shuffle the acronyms around and hope no one notices?”

The news also worried Lara Burns, head of terrorism research at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Burns highlighted her own contributions to a report that found Alavi-backed groups had promoted anti-American, pro-ayatollah extremist rhetoric, and noted the group’s history of violating sanctions, as documented in the federal case. She suggested “government fatigue” with the lengthy and expensive litigation process may have contributed to the federal decision to settle.

A former FBI agent, Burns further argued financial penalties like those in the settlement can at times serve effective “punitive and deterrent functions” — but not in this case.

“I do not believe restitution and fines serve either purpose in the case of Alavi Foundation, who has shown a willingness to continue its behavior at all costs and the fiscal ability to maintain that agenda,” she argued to Jewish Insider. “Allowing Alavi to obfuscate their identity and basically start with a clean slate creates risks related to a continued foreign influence campaign on behalf of a regime that has called for the death of U.S. leaders and who has blatantly stated its intent to cause America harm through a variety of nefarious activities.”

But Alavi’s longtime attorney, Daniel Ruzumna, maintained that the new foundation would in no way serve as an alter ego to the old. He noted that the Alavi Foundation’s board had completely turned over during the yearslong legal fight, and stated that all members of the Amir Kabir Foundation’s leadership had submitted to interviews with the federal government and received no objection. 

Further, he pointed to language in the document filed in New York subjecting the Amir Kabir Foundation to a five-year term of oversight from the state Attorney General’s office, and said that it would operate under the “close supervision” of the Justice Department.

“AKF and its board members have no relationship to the Government of Iran, no connection to the Government of Iran, and have never been accused of having a relationship with Iran — zero, nothing,” Ruzumna said. “Any suggestion otherwise is categorically false.”

The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which handled the case, declined to comment for this story.

Three months after a ceasefire largely ended the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the battle over the future of U.S.-Israel relations still rages in Washington. Both the left and the right face an erosion of support for traditionally pro-Israel positions. Amid the upheaval, the progressive Israel advocacy group J Street sees an opportunity: a chance to solidify Democrats’ shift away from unconditional support for Israel and its security needs. 

J Street is betting that the shift within the Democratic Party reflecting a chillier relationship with the Jewish state — wrought by two years of war in Gaza — is here to stay. At the start of an election year, interviews with J Street’s top political official and its policy chief make clear that the group is eager to create space for Democrats who have taken a more critical approach to Israel, reflecting and reinforcing a shift toward greater distance in the historically close U.S.-Israel alliance.

“There’s going to be a new normal,” Ilan Goldenberg, J Street’s senior vice president and chief policy officer, told Jewish Insider in an interview. “There were two years of trauma that, I think, with the return of the hostages and the end of the war, people can finally start processing, but things are not going back.”

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, public opinion, particularly on the left, began to shift against Israel during its aggressive war against Hamas in Gaza. That change was reflected in increased calls from congressional Democrats to place conditions on American security assistance to Israel, a position that a decade ago was largely a fringe idea.  

AIPAC has, at least publicly, written off the shift as “noise,” noting that American security assistance to Israel remains intact. Earlier this month, Congress voted to approve a State Department funding package that included the expected $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel. 

But J Street’s influence in the Democratic Party is growing. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) accepted an endorsement from J Street for the first time last year. The group now counts every member of House Democratic leadership among its endorsees. (Jeffries has also been endorsed by AIPAC.) 

Even though the Gaza war is largely over, J Street doesn’t expect the Democratic Party to return to its historic pro-Israel posture. Instead, the group wants to see a permanent shift in how Washington supports Israel militarily, even if its endorsees hold a range of views on that question. 

“We’re not looking for complete ideological fealty from our endorsees. We just don’t ask for that,” J Street’s vice president of political and digital strategy, Tali deGroot, told JI. “We want to see candidates affirm that U.S. aid to Israel should conform to U.S. law, that Israel’s use of our aid should comply with international law and that our aid to Israel shouldn’t be viewed as a blank check.” 

Israel is nearing the end of a 10-year security agreement with the U.S. that provides it $3.3 billion in annual foreign military financing (FMF), along with $500 million for cooperative missile-defense programs, though the funding needs to be approved by Congress every year. That memorandum of understanding expires in 2028, and the question hanging over the next MOU is, if the Trump administration comes to a similar agreement with Israel, whether the political will still exist in Congress to appropriate it over another decade. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surprised even some of his closest backers by telling President Donald Trump last month that he wants to wind down U.S. FMF to Israel as part of a bid to increase Israeli self-sufficiency. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a staunch pro-Israel advocate, said he intends to work with Netanyahu to achieve that goal. It’s a rare position where Netanyahu and Graham now find themselves aligned with a J Street policy position. 

“I agree with Bibi Netanyahu and Lindsey Graham. It’s time to wind down the FMF piece of this,” Goldenberg said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t sell Israel weapons. It doesn’t mean we don’t cooperate on joint research together on things like Iron Dome.” 

The “exceptional” way that the U.S. treats Israel — particularly Israel being the largest recipient of U.S. FMF — “actually is bad for Israel in that it draws all this extra attention to the relationship,” said Goldenberg. Instead, he argued that the U.S. should “put the relationship on normal grounds,” meaning withdrawing unconditional support. 

“When [other allies] do things we disagree with, we don’t go along with that, and don’t necessarily give them weapons for that, or necessarily sit in international institutions and defend them when we disagree with their policies,” Goldenberg said. 

J Street’s influence in electoral politics is relatively limited. The group’s war chest does not come close to that of rival AIPAC. Save for a handful of races, J Street largely does not play in primaries, although the group is planning to roll out a super PAC this year that is “pretty large,” at least by “J Street standards,” according to deGroot. On top of that, J Street’s policy priorities almost certainly stand no chance of getting adopted during the Trump administration. 

And while large Jewish groups like the Jewish Federations of North America and the Anti-Defamation League have deepened their support for Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks, J Street has continued to test the boundaries of just how critical one can be towards the Jewish state while remaining in the Zionist camp. J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in August that he would no longer push back when people claim that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide. “I simply won’t defend the indefensible,” he wrote. And J Street has endorsed candidates who use the term genocide, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). 

“That’s up to the candidates of how they’re going to say it,” deGroot said regarding the word “genocide.” “We’re looking for broad values alignment, and if they are extremely concerned about the situation for Palestinians in Gaza, so are we.” 

At the conclusion of the 12-day war in June of last year, both Israel and Iran suspected that the ceasefire brokered by the U.S. would be a pause, not a final cessation of hostilities. That truce has lasted for more than six months, with both sides wary of entering another military conflict — one likely to be more deadly and destructive than the first. 

But now, amid destabilizing world events from Venezuela to the Middle East — compounded by growing domestic pressure on the Islamic Republic amid nationwide protests — that ceasefire is even more tenuous, with officials in Tehran and Jerusalem closely watching the other’s every move, careful not to make a potentially disastrous miscalculation — even as both sides make overtures at de-escalation.

Speaking at the Knesset on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “President [Donald] Trump and I have expressed a firm stance — we won’t allow Iran to rebuild its ballistic missile industry or to renew the nuclear program, which we damaged severely in Operation Rising Lion.”

In response, Iran’s newly formed Defense Council warned on Tuesday that the country could act preemptively if it detects clear signs of a threat. “The long-standing enemies of this land … are pursuing a targeted approach by repeating and intensifying threatening language and interventionist statements in clear conflict with the accepted principles of international law, which is aimed at dismembering our beloved Iran and harming the country’s identity,” the council said.

Recent reports suggest that Israel, in an attempt to de-escalate tensions, has used Moscow as an intermediary, communicating through Russian President Vladimir Putin that it has no intention of launching a preemptive strike on Iranian soil. Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are unconvinced. 

In a post on X, Khamenei accused Israel of deception: “What makes the enemy first request a ceasefire during [12-day] war with the Iranian nation, then send messages saying he doesn’t want to fight us?” 

“Now if he doesn’t believe the messaging and thinks that Israel is about to attack then you can understand why Israel is worried Iran is about to miscalculate and attack. Very tense days/weeks ahead of us,” Nadav Pollak, a lecturer on the Middle East at Reichman University, commented on Khamenei’s post.

Pollak told Jewish Insider that he sees the perception gaps between Israel and Iran as the “No. 1 risk for miscalculation. As we’ve seen from Khamenei’s tweet, he doesn’t believe the messages that came from Jerusalem about Israel not planning to attack. In his mind, Bibi just came back from Washington with Trump supporting action against Iran if some red lines are crossed. Bibi also continues to talk about the Iranian ballistic missile threat every week and that Israel will need to do something.”

Israeli commentator Nadav Eyal noted on Dan Senor’s “Call Me Back” podcast that “Israeli security officials are extremely worried about what’s happening vis-a-vis Iran, first and foremost because the Iranians are so tense and they are constantly fearing an Israeli attack themselves. So their first worry is miscalculation … If Iran senses that Israel might attack, it wants to preempt that. If Israel thinks that Iran is going to do that, it would want to preempt that.”

Tehran is also facing trouble at home, amid protests that have spread across the country over the last two weeks. The growing unrest, coupled with the Islamic Republic’s economic and climate woes, has put added pressure on the ayatollahs.

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told JI that due to the Iranian regime’s vulnerable position amid nationwide protests over a severe economic crisis, “hardliners” within the IRGC could be weighing using a strike to “divert the public” and create national unity. However, he expressed that the decision would be a “strategic mistake,” suggesting that an Iranian strike this year is “highly unlikely.”

“It’s hard to see what the Iranians would gain,” said Miller. “A strike is simply going to wreak additional havoc on what the vast majority of the Iranian public is protesting against, which is inflation, a devaluation of the Iranian currency.”

Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, echoed those sentiments, adding that any Iranian strike now while the regime in Tehran is “on the ropes” would be “suicidal.” 

“It seems unlikely that Iran would choose this moment to attack Israel,” said Misztal. “While it certainly might be looking for some way to distract its citizens from their grievances, all the evidence suggests that external aggression would have the opposite effect.”

Misztal said the Iranian regime is facing skyrocketing inflation and crumbling infrastructure “because it has chosen guns over butter and Iranians know it.” 

“To once again pick up guns would only further inflame Iranians’ rightful anger,” said Misztal. “Not to mention that a direct Iranian attack against Israel would surely invite a devastating Israeli, if not also American, response.”

The lingering question is whether the fear of miscalculation will push either side toward action.

The U.N. Security Council adopted a U.S.-led resolution on Monday backing President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, including the creation of an international security force, in a move that could boost efforts to advance into the next phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire. 

“Congratulations to the World on the incredible Vote of the United Nations Security Council, just moments ago, acknowledging and endorsing the BOARD OF PEACE,” Trump posted to Truth Social following the vote. “This will go down as one of the biggest approvals in the History of the United Nations.”

In the first phase of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, originally presented in September, the Israel Defense Forces have partially withdrawn to a “yellow line” dividing Gaza, while Hamas has returned all of the living hostages and all but three of the deceased hostages’ bodies. 

However, the plan has faced significant roadblocks, and questions remain about the feasibility of implementing the following phases, including effectively disarming Hamas and determining who will govern Gaza. 

Monday’s vote follows coordinated diplomacy between Washington and Arab partners aimed at reviving momentum behind the U.S. plan, including hosting a summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, last month and issuing a joint statement of support last week. 

With the adoption of the resolution, the U.N. showed a rare consensus on Gaza — 13 countries voted in favor and none against, with Russia and China abstaining. Experts told Jewish Insider that moving to the second phase of the plan now becomes more plausible — even if challenges remain. 

“The vote on the U.S.-drafted resolution is incredibly significant,” said Dana Stroul, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who added that it provides “an international legal framework for the international stabilization force to deploy in Gaza, which is required for certain countries to send forces, like Indonesia.” 

Prior to the vote, the White House has had difficulty recruiting countries to provide troops for the security force. 

“What is being proposed is an enormous logistical feat, not to mention a high-risk environment where a terrorist organization is still active, the civilian population is in desperate need of humanitarian aid and local security, and Israeli forces remain on the ground,” said Stroul. “Foreign governments are concerned about their forces being attacked by Hamas, or being caught in the middle of Israeli security operations, and want clarity on the command and control, important details like logistical support and lodging, and the specifics of the actual mission.”

A key hurdle will be defining the role of the stabilization force. David May, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said there has been confusion over whether the ISF would “maintain the peace or enforce it.” 

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, echoed the importance of determining the role such a force would play in Gaza.

“The ISF likely will have lots of participants if the mission is limited to non-kinetic roles like aid distribution, border security, guarding camps, etc., all of which are important,” said Ruhe. “But Hamas thinks it won the war, and it won’t give up without a real fight. Phase 2 will be difficult for everyone if Israel has to do all this heavy lifting, so the success of Trump’s plans depends heavily on resolving the question of who, other than Israel, will actually enforce the peace?”

With the terror group still active in Gaza, few countries have been willing to risk sending soldiers into a conflict that “doesn’t involve them,” according to May. 

“Without foreign forces on the ground, the options are either hoping that Hamas will disarm itself and give up its governance position, or leaving Israel to resume military options to do the disarming,” said Stroul.

At the same time, Hamas has sought to deter the implementation of the next phase — which calls on the group to relinquish its arms and governing authority. 

“Hamas blew by the 72 hours for returning all hostages, living and dead, and continues to attack Israeli forces,” said May, referring to commitments the terror group agreed to in the first phase of the ceasefire. “Hamas always tests the limits of agreements with Israel, and it has little incentive to carry out a ceasefire plan that ultimately calls for the terrorist group’s destruction.” 

“It should not be a surprise that a terrorist organization will try a variety of means to survive, from inflicting violence against Palestinians outside the yellow line to intimidating them into submission, insisting on distinguishing between different kinds of weaponry it may be willing to relinquish to appear reasonable, or attempting to present itself as a legitimate representative of the Palestinian national dialogue,” said Stroul.

Even as Washington and Arab governments moved the plan forward diplomatically, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and right-wing members of his government reiterated their opposition to a Palestinian state over the weekend, a stance that contrasts with the resolution, which contains language on creating “a pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” This wording was also present in the original plan released by Trump and agreed to by Netanyahu. 

“The rhetoric coming out of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition this weekend is incredibly ill-timed and will fuel those looking to blame Israel for failure to move from Phase 1 to Phase 2 of the plan,” said Stroul. “By appearing to renege on this issue, Netanyahu is setting himself to be on the opposite side of the Palestinian question from Trump, and risking serious daylight between the U.S. and Israel on Gaza at a high-risk moment.”

May said the inclusion of the clause “may have helped make the resolution more palatable to the other Security Council members,” but added that it will likely be out of the question for Israel moving forward.

“Following the popular support among Palestinians for the Oct. 7 atrocities, a Palestinian state on Israel’s borders is a nonstarter for most Israelis,” said May. “It is not worth it for Israel to risk the stabilization of Gaza on the lip service paid to a two-state solution that is dead in the water for most Israelis.”

Leading up to the vote, Russia had presented a counterproposal that diverged from the U.S. draft resolution in advocating that the West Bank and Gaza be joined as a state under the Palestinian Authority. 

“This is really Russia seeking any way to assert influence in an attempt to make itself relevant,” said Stroul. “Moscow sees anything that keeps the U.S. tied down in the Middle East in a state of conflict, in tension with its longstanding allies and partners, as beneficial.”

Ruhe said Russia’s counterproposal was an attempt to throw “wrenches in America’s gears.”

“Russia was conspicuously absent from the Egypt peace summit, so this is one way Moscow tries to reassert itself,” said Ruhe. “The U.S. decision to mention a pathway to a Palestinian state probably owes more to our partners’ priorities than to Russian pressure, though Moscow certainly will try to claim this as a win anyway.”

The next part of Trump’s proposal also includes the increased entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the rebuilding of critical infrastructure. However, like other key elements of the plan, experts said it remains contingent on Hamas’ presence. 

May said the full recovery of Gaza will remain incomplete “until Hamas is disarmed and there are troops on the ground to keep the peace.”

“No one is willing to start reconstructing Gaza if Hamas is still active on the ground,” said Stroul. “This is the fundamental choice for Hamas: it can choose to disarm and stay in Gaza, or receive amnesty and leave. But if it insists on having a say in the future governance of the Strip, then nothing beyond humanitarian aid will flow into Gaza; Palestinians will have no prospects for rebuilding their lives; and the potential for a return to open conflict rises.”

A new poll from a leading Democratic pollster finds Democrats broadly support the ceasefire and hostage-release deal reached between Israel and Hamas and a majority of them think President Donald Trump played at least a “somewhat important role” in reaching the agreement.

The poll, released Monday by the Democratic Majority for Israel and conducted by the Mellman Group, surveying 800 Democrats between Oct. 15-26 with a 4.9% margin of error, found an overwhelming share (72%) of Democrats favored the Trump peace plan when all aspects of the agreement were spelled out.

Details provided about the first phase included Hamas returning all of the hostages, alive and dead, and Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners, as well as an influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The poll described the second phase as disarming Hamas, economic redevelopment in Gaza and “setting the conditions for a pathway to Palestinian statehood.” 

Respondents favored the plan at 72% with only 4% opposed. 

The description did not specify that Hamas has slow-walked the release of the hostage bodies, which it was meant to return shortly after the deal was reached, only saying that “While there have been flare-ups of violence, spokesmen from both sides have said they are still trying to make the agreement work.” 

Almost all Democrats (83%) said the deal is an important achievement. Fifty-six percent called it a “very important” achievement, with majorities across all ideological, age, gender and race categories.

Sixty-one percent of respondents said Trump played at least a somewhat important role in securing the deal, with 31% of them calling his role “very important.” Trump remained universally unpopular with those Democrats polled, holding an unfavorability rating of 92%.

A majority of the Democrats polled (56%) said they believe that the U.S. should keep its alliance with Israel, though only 32% felt so “strongly.” Three-quarters (75%) said they support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish homeland, with 12% saying they don’t believe Israel has a right to exist.

After an agreement was reached between Israel and Hamas to initiate the first stage of President Donald Trump’s ceasefire proposal in mid-October, the IDF retreated to an “initial withdrawal line,” leaving Israeli forces in control of 58% of the enclave as Israel and mediators push Hamas to release the remaining deceased hostages and comply with the rest of the agreement, including disarmament and relinquishing power. 

The line divides Gaza in two: an “East,” controlled by the IDF and serving as a buffer zone to Israel, and a “West,” run by Hamas and host to the concentrated Palestinian population.

In interviews with Jewish Insider, experts painted a picture of two Gazas, explaining that the area Israel holds can be used strategically to root out Hamas and maintain leverage if hostilities resume. But challenges lie ahead in rebuilding the enclave and moving Palestinians back into the eastern region.

“There are virtually no Palestinians living in the eastern part of Gaza beyond the yellow line. The eastern part does not see the movement and the maneuvers of Hamas. That’s still confined to the western part,” Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gaza native and resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told JI. “Actual civilians of Gaza are all entirely under Hamas’ control in the west.”

Alkhatib said Israel has kept Palestinians from returning to the east over security and operational concerns, but also as leverage.

“How do you ensure that you don’t have Hamas members embedding themselves into the civilians, as they have done time and again? How do you ensure that Gazans coming into the east aren’t hindering clearance operations of tunnels or unexploded munitions?” Alkhatib asked. “I also think that the return of Palestinians to beyond the ‘yellow zone’ is leverage that Israel is holding onto until phase one is thoroughly and fully complete.”

Vice President JD Vance, in Israel last week, said during his trip that Palestinians should be able to move into a “Hamas-free zone” in southern Gaza “in the next couple months.” But experts warned that the timeline will be difficult given the conditions on the ground.

David May, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Israel has developed technology to recognize Hamas fighters and could use it to allow non-combatants access to the area under Israeli control. But even if Israel can vet who enters, eastern Gaza has endured destruction comparable to the west, and serious concerns await displaced civilians.

“The ubiquitous tunnel system that Hamas has dug in Gaza, which no doubt traverses the yellow line that serves as the ceasefire line, limits Israel’s ability to provide a safe zone in the eastern portion of Gaza,” May told JI.

Palestinians who move into the Hamas-free zone and those working on rebuilding would also face the issue of land ownership, Alkhatib noted.

“Who owns these lands, and where do people have their homes? Every plot of land in Gaza is accounted for,” he said. “You can’t just rebuild Gaza without taking into consideration that you’re doing so over pieces of land and properties that belonged to people.”

“There could be a process in which that happens, regardless of any claims to the land,” Alkhatib continued. “Basically there could be a fund established that allows for the compensation of rightful owners. But beyond that, eastern Gaza could be developed to create a compelling example that others in Gaza want to be part of.”

Despite these challenges, experts say finding ways to take in Palestinians to east Gaza could isolate Hamas in the west — a strategy Israel could use to undermine the terrorist group’s authority and bring in international support for rebuilding.

“East Gaza under IDF control would become a Hamas-free zone where the world comes together to support the emergence of thriving new political, social and economic institutions where the lives of average Gazans would flourish,” said John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. 

“Hamas-controlled west Gaza, by contrast, would be condemned to repression, stagnation and sustained misery. Over time, the east would become a huge magnet for the vast majority of Gaza’s population who would vote with their feet to live within a ‘free Gaza,’ fatally isolating and undermining Hamas rule and legitimacy,” Hannah continued.

May said this contrast can show Gazans “an alternative to life under Hamas’ corruption and oppression” and make donors more likely to contribute to rebuilding projects knowing aid won’t be intercepted by Hamas.

“If there is running water, sewer, electricity, internet, fixed roads and infrastructure, if there is something that resembles jobs and economic opportunity, and you create vetted methods for accepting incoming civilians into that area, then absolutely there could be a way in such that slowly drains the population out of west Gaza,” said Alkhatib.

However, Hannah argued that keeping half the enclave as a buffer zone could also serve Israel’s interests if fighting resumes.

“Right now, Israel controls an extensive buffer zone containing very few hostile Gazans standing between its border communities and Hamas-controlled west Gaza,” said Hannah. “How eager should [Israel] be to attract over a million or more Gazans to pick up and move much closer to Israel’s borders?”

May said Israel may have plenty of time to decide on how to proceed should Hamas continue to be uncooperative with the implementation of the rest of the first phase of the agreement. 

“There is still a lot up in the air,” said May. “As ceasefire lines in the Middle East have a tendency to become permanent borders, Israel needs to plan for the possibility of the yellow line becoming a long-term territorial marker.” 

Vice President JD Vance landed in Israel on Tuesday with the charge to lead efforts to stabilize the fragile ceasefire in Gaza and assist in the implementation of the second phase of President Donald Trump’s peace deal.

Following the release of the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages from Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, there was little indication that Hamas would abide by the other elements of Trump’s 20-point plan, which calls on the terrorist group to disarm and cede governance to a technocratic group of Palestinian leaders. In the last week, Hamas began executing Palestinians, clashing with rival groups and reasserting itself as the security and governing force in the Gaza Strip.

Over the weekend, Hamas terrorists shot an anti-tank missile at IDF machinery and killed two soldiers and Israel retaliated with airstrikes in Rafah, further jeopardizing the status of the ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefly halted the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but reversed course following pressure from the Trump administration.

The vice president will now step into the conflict, visiting Israel at an important juncture as the Trump administration looks to avoid another breakdown into renewed hostilities and ensure full compliance with the deal.

“Hamas is going to fire on Israel. Israel’s going to have to respond, of course. There are going to be moments where you have people within Gaza that you’re [not] quite sure what they’re actually doing. But we think it has the best chance for sustainable peace,” Vance told reporters on Sunday, referring to the peace proposal.

The decision to dispatch Vance to Israel is a sign of the Trump administration’s continued engagement in the Middle East after securing the hostage-release deal, according to experts.

“We are in a moment of really intense American engagement and influence that have got us to a stage one that no analyst a month ago would have told you was possible, and so there is a moment of opportunity here,” said John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “In order to be sustained, it’s a ceasefire and peace process that is going to require intense and continuous U.S. engagement at the most senior levels.” 

While Vance’s foreign policy experience was limited during his time in the Senate, the vice president has remained deeply engaged on issues regarding Israel during the second Trump administration. Hannah said this continued high level involvement will be key to sustaining any peace deal.

David May, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said deploying Vance shows the significance of this issue to the Trump administration.

“This is a huge legacy item for President Trump, and so trying to make sure that the ceasefire holds is a highly important item for him. They had to send someone of a high profile, and sending the vice president shows that you are serious,” said May.

May said it would be a “huge accomplishment” if Vance is able to keep the ceasefire from collapsing — and secure progress toward other elements of Trump’s peace plan. 

“This is now an opportunity for Vance to build on his portfolio and show his vice presidential experience,” said May. “There’s very often vice presidents that sit in the background and don’t do much and don’t have much to show for it. This is an opportunity for him to get in the foreground.”

The key, May says, will be for Vance to leverage the U.S. relationship with Israel and convince Netanyahu’s government to show restraint in responding to Hamas’ provocations.

“In order for the ceasefire not to collapse, the exchanges of fire have to stop. It’s very difficult to get Hamas to stop firing, but if you can get the Israelis to stop responding, or at least to respond less forcefully, then maybe that can lower the temperature a little bit and allow for some of the benefits of the ceasefire to start kicking in,” said May. 

But beyond keeping the pause in hostilities afloat, the administration still faces a significant challenge in completely disarming Hamas and removing them from Gaza, a hurdle May says could require further confrontation with the terrorist group. 

“I don’t think any power besides maybe the United States or Israel can be trusted and would have the commitment to actually disarming Hamas,” said May. “Unless Hamas is able, or willing, to resume its previous role as being a more religious and cultural and social organization without the same political power or weapons, I don’t foresee a way of implementing the ceasefire without maybe another round of fighting with Israel actually taking out Hamas.”

Vance is slated to stay in Israel until Thursday, according to reports. The vice president will join White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, both of whom played vital roles in securing the first phase of the deal, who are already in Israel and met on Monday with Netanyahu.  

Democratic lawmakers who have been stridently critical of Israel and its operations in Gaza offered tepid support for the ceasefire and hostage-release deal, the first phase of which was signed on Thursday, while reiterating their criticisms of Israel and the U.S.’ support for the Jewish state. Few offered any words of support for the Israeli hostages who have been held by Hamas for over two years. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has led a series of efforts to block arms transfers to Israel, didn’t explicitly praise the deal negotiated by President Donald Trump, but said he hopes the deal would lead to the end of a “horrific war.” He made no mention of the Israeli hostages set to be released, but asserted one-tenth of the Gazan population was killed or injured during the war. 

“As of today something like 10% of the Palestinian people in Gaza have been killed or wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. The United States has put tens of billions of dollars into an effort which has led to mass destruction,” Sanders told Jewish Insider. “So I hope — and I’m sure everybody else does — that this horrific war can end as soon as possible.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said on X that the ceasefire is a “hopeful step” but quickly pivoted to expressing unvarnished opposition to Israel. She also made no mention of the Israeli hostages expected to be freed from their Hamas captors.

“For the sake of humanity, let’s hope this will be a lasting and permanent ceasefire,” Omar said. “While this is a hopeful step, we must demand accountability for every war crime committed during this genocide and continue to call for an end to the occupation.”

Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), the lead sponsor of legislation that aims to place strict conditions on critical arms sales to Israel, said on X she plans to continue to pursue that legislation.

“Immediately after October 7, I called for a ceasefire and for a path that honors our shared humanity. It is unfortunate that it took this long. However, I am hopeful that today’s ceasefire agreement will bring the hostages and prisoners home and end the bombing and starvation of the Palestinian people,” Ramirez said. “We must save Palestinian lives and pursue an end to U.S. complicity in Israel’s war crimes, atrocities, and genocide.  I will continue to work to Block the Bombs, as we pursue a future of self-determination for the Palestinian people and a just and lasting peace for all residents of the region.”

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), tamping down on enthusiasm for the deal, reposted an X post suggesting that Israel may violate the deal.

“There is certainly some hope that the Gaza deal will hold but it’s important to remember that the last ceasefire agreement collapsed in March before ever reaching phase 2 when Israel reimposed a blockade on Gaza and bombings on the strip resumed,” the post, from an NBC News correspondent, reads.

Other prominent critics, particularly on the far-left, have remained unusually mum about the deal.

Squad members Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) and Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) did not respond to requests for comment and did not comment publicly.

Some other lawmakers who have been vocally critical of Israel’s operations in Gaza offered more fulsome praise for the deal.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said in a statement that the deal is “the first hopeful moment in a long time,” noting both the release of hostages and the surge of aid into Gaza. He credited U.S. pressure on Israel, however, rather than the reported increased pressure from Qatar, Turkey and Egypt on Hamas, for the breakthrough.

“Pressure from the U.S. and others has always been necessary to reach this moment — something that could have been achieved much earlier and prevented the staggering loss of civilian life, starvation, and devastation in Gaza,” Van Hollen said. “U.S. leadership will be essential to enforce this plan and convert this moment into real progress toward lasting peace — which can only be achieved by sidelining the extremists on all sides and committing to security, dignity, human rights, and justice for all.” 

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who led an effort calling for the U.S. to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, also praised the deal and led with the return of the Israeli hostages in his comments.

“It’s obviously very welcome news. Finally, the hostages are going to come home. The bombing hopefully is going to stop. Israel is going to withdraw,” Khanna said on Fox Business. “Everything I have read seems that this is a welcome development. And I’m really glad that after two years of a war, this seems to be finally coming to a resolution.”

“Now, we need to work for 2 states & ensure the bombing does not resume later in the year,” he added on X.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) told JI, “For the sake of humanity, I pray this holds. It is so far past time to end this genocide, free the hostages, and surge food, water, and baby formula to starving families in Gaza.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) declined to comment, saying she had not reviewed the deal.