1) NGO Monitor provides a report on ‘Hamas’ Coercive Grip on Aid and NGO Operations in Gaza’.
“All NGOs operating in Gaza are required to adhere to strict Hamas security protocols, which include regular engagement with the terror group’s Ministry of Interior and National Security (MoINS) and Ministry of Social Development (MoSD), and other ministries relevant for specific projects, such as the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and Ministry of Education (MoE).
NGOs – both local and international, including ones operating under the auspices of UN projects – are not permitted to provide services or operate projects in Gaza without Hamas’ approval and maintaining an ongoing line of coordination with the abovementioned Hamas ministries.”
2) At WINEP, Hanin Ghaddar and Assaf Orion discuss ‘Salvaging the Lebanon Ceasefire Amid Looming Deadlines and Threats of War’.
“Under last year’s deal, Beirut agreed to disarm Hezbollah via a mechanism carried out by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and monitored by the United States and France. Recognizing that this effort would be difficult and lengthy, Washington also acknowledged Israel’s right to remove threats by force in the interim as necessary. The process began well enough—with support from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the LAF deployed to the south, made progress in dismantling Hezbollah military infrastructure there, and submitted a plan for completing the rest of the mission in phases: south of the Litani River by the end of 2025, and then throughout other parts of the country. Yet the bulk of the proposed disarmament process did not have a defined timetable, and further problems soon arose, including Hezbollah threats of civil war.”
3) The Alma Center reports on ‘Syria’s Unresolved Chemical Weapons Threat’.
“One of the requirements set for Syria’s new regime by Western countries as a condition for lifting sanctions and providing economic assistance was full cooperation with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The Syrian regime agreed to allow OPCW representatives to visit sites and facilities that were used by the Assad regime to develop and store chemical weapons and to conduct investigations into the use of chemical weapons during the civil war.”
4) The IPF discusses ‘Making the PA’s “Martyr” and Prisoner “Martyr” and Prisoner Payments Reform Real’.
“The Palestinian Authority (PA) claims to have reformed welfare payments to prisoners and the families of dead terrorists—often called “pay to slay”—by making them need-based in accordance with the rest of the PA welfare payments system, rather than tied to the length of a prisoner’s sentence, thereby rewarding larger attacks. This reform is aimed at getting the PA financial relief from two 2018 laws—America’s Taylor Force Act and Israel’s “Freeze Law”—which respectively bar funding to the PA and partially withhold clearance revenue transfers as long as the prisoner and martyr payments exist. However, the reform has yet to be fully enacted, and concerns remain that the old system will continue through different channels.”
5) At the INSS, Batsheva Neuer analyses ‘Resolution 3379: “Zionism is Racism,” Fifty Years Later’.
“Recent accusations that Israel is committing genocide, enforcing apartheid, and practicing settler-colonialism did not arise in a vacuum. Their intellectual lineage traces back to UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, adopted fifty years ago, which declared that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Although repealed in 1991, the resolution’s underlying logic endures. This paper traces how the Zionism = racism formula—conceived in Soviet Cold War propaganda—was institutionalized through UN bodies, NGO networks, and academic activism, and how it evolved into the moral vocabulary of contemporary discourse.”
