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Gaza Ceasefire ‘Closer Than Ever’ as Sides Work on Final Details

A woman holds a photo of Israeli hostage Yagev Buchshtab as people hold up pictures of other hostages while attending a protest calling for a ceasefire and hostage deal to halt the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, outside the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, April 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Negotiators were meeting in Qatar on Tuesday hoping to finalize a plan to end the war in Gaza, after US President Joe Biden indicated a ceasefire and hostage release deal was close, after 15 months of conflict that upended the Middle East.
More than five hours after talks began there was still no word on an outcome.
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari told a news conference that the talks on the final details were underway and this was the closest point to a deal reached over the past months.
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas said the talks had reached the final steps and that it hoped this round of negotiations would lead to a deal after mediation by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States.
An Israeli official said talks had reached a critical phase although some details needed to be hammered out: “We are close, we are not there yet.”
Terrorist group Islamic Jihad, which is separate from Hamas and also holds hostages in Gaza, said it was sending a senior delegation that would arrive in Doha on Tuesday night to take part in final arrangements for a ceasefire deal.
Qatari mediators had given Israel and Hamas a final draft of a text for a ceasefire and release of hostages agreement on Monday, an official briefed on the negotiations said, after what he described as a midnight breakthrough in talks in Doha.
US President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Biden’s envoy Brett McGurk have both attended the talks hosted by Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. Israel is represented by David Barnea, director of spy service Mossad, and Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet internal security agency.
“The deal … would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians who suffered terribly in this war that Hamas started,” Biden said on Monday.
If successful, the phased ceasefire — capping over a year of start-and-stop talks — could halt fighting in Gaza that is still ongoing between Israel and Hamas, which launched the war with its invasion of the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023.
That in turn could ease tensions across the wider Middle East, where the war has fueled conflict in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, and raised fears of all-out war between Israel and Iran, which backs Hamas.
Israel would recover hostages from among around 100 who still remain in captivity from the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas that started the war. In return it would free Palestinian detainees, who were largely imprisoned in Israel for terrorism activities.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the ball was in the court of Hamas. He is due to present a post-war plan for Gaza on Tuesday, Axios reported.
An Israeli official said the deal’s first stage would see the release of 33 hostages, including children, women including some female soldiers, men above 50, and the wounded and sick. Israel would gradually and partially withdraw some of its forces.
A Palestinian source said Israel would free 1,000 Palestinian prisoners during the first phase, which would last 60 days.
FIGHTING STILL RAGES
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages to Gaza during their massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. Jerusalem responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in Gaza.
Only one ceasefire has been held so far, lasting for a single week in Nov. 2023, during which around half of the hostages, including most women, children, and foreign laborers, were freed in return for Palestinian detainees.
Both sides have been committed in principle for months to the prospect of a ceasefire accompanied by a swap of remaining hostages for detainees. But all previous talks foundered over the steps that would follow, with Hamas rejecting any deal that stopped short of bringing a permanent end to the war, while Israel said it would not end the war until Hamas is dismantled.
Fighting has meanwhile raged on, focused in recent months on Gaza‘s northern edge where Israel says its forces are trying to prevent Hamas from regrouping and Palestinians say the Israelis are trying to depopulate a buffer zone. Nightly Israeli strikes have continued across the enclave.
Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration is now widely seen as a de facto deadline for a ceasefire agreement. Trump has said there would be “hell to pay” unless hostages held by Hamas are freed before he takes office, while Biden has also called for a final push for a deal before he leaves.
Blinken said negotiators wanted to make sure Trump would continue to back any deal on the table, which made the presence of Trump’s Middle East envoy Witkoff alongside Biden administration officials “critical.”
The post Gaza Ceasefire ‘Closer Than Ever’ as Sides Work on Final Details first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly

US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis

Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.