Weekly Briefing: Hamas dissolved its government in Gaza, and Israeli settlers eye West Bank expansion

Hamas formally dissolved its government in Gaza this week, handing administrative control to a technocratic committee overseen by Trump’s “Board of Peace” and removing what it called Israel’s pretext for delaying reconstruction. Israel immediately dismissed the move and doubled down on a demand for full disarmament, a condition analysts say is designed to be impossible to meet. Tareq Hajjaj reports on why demanding the impossible is the point . The ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran has broken down again, and the war has entered a new phase built around breaking Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz. Mitchell Plitnick explains how a war without a clear purpose found one . A coalition of Israeli settler groups submitted a plan to build 100 new outposts inside Areas A and B of the West Bank, territory nominally under Palestinian Authority control since the Oslo Accords. Backed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the plan would gut what remains of the Oslo framework. Qassam Muaddi reports on the settler movement’s next phase of annexation . ➡️ Need a refresher on the Oslo Accords? See Yumna’s video from the 30th anniversary. Twelve Palestinian families in the West Bank village of Masoudiyya have fenced off their homes and taken to round-the-clock watch shifts to survive near-daily attacks from a nearby settler outpost. Shatha Hammad reports from a community trying to hold its ground . 📺 WATCH: How Israel, with the help of FIFA, stole Palestine’s football team Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 🇵🇸 West Bank and Gaza This week, we reported on a doctor left to die in administrative detention, toxic waste dumped on Palestinian land, and a Jerusalem church stripped of its property under the pretext of gardening. READ MORE → Israel is murdering Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. The U.S. media is covering up the crime. — James North READ MORE → Israel is drowning the West Bank in hazardous waste. Palestinians are paying the price with their health. — Aseel Mafarjeh READ MORE → Israel’s seizure of Palestinian church land raises renewed fears of efforts to erase Christians from Jerusalem — Majd Jawad 🚨 Repression and resistance A lifelong reader canceled his New York Times subscription over the paper’s Gaza coverage, a Columbia professor examines the McCarthyism aimed at campus organizers, and a new history traces the ADL’s decades-long project of policing the left in the name of civil rights. READ MORE → The New York Times enabled the Gaza genocide and lost its legitimacy in the process — Elliott Colla READ MORE → Palestine and the role of the activist intellectual — Philip Weiss READ MORE → A new important book shows why the ADL has never been a civil rights organization — Michael Arria 🇺🇸 U.S. Politics In Michigan, a closely watched Senate race has put AIPAC spending under scrutiny, House Democrats scrambled to avoid an on-record vote on weapons to Israel, and the UAW became the first major U.S. union to divest from Israel Bonds. READ MORE → The Shift: Israel front and center as Michigan Senate race narrows — Michael Arria READ MORE → How Congress manipulates its own rules to make sure Israel still gets its weapons — Mitchell Plitnick READ MORE → UAW becomes the first major U.S. union to vote to divest from Israel Bonds — Michael Arria