Asharq Al-Awsat, London, October 16
The images broadcast from Gaza this week after the war ended encapsulate the entire tragedy: a city reduced to ashes, its buildings and institutions leveled to the ground – destruction stretching as far as the eye can see.
This city, once one of the most densely populated places on earth, has become a ghost town. Those who survived the carnage returned to find their homes reduced to rubble, their neighborhoods erased. Everywhere, there are stunned faces – bewildered, broken, and vacant. The scenes are almost surreal, like fragments from a dystopian science fiction film.
Amid this devastation, the debate no longer centers on the 20 provisions of US President Donald Trump’s plan. The question has shifted: Who will rebuild Gaza? Where will the mountains of concrete, debris, and wreckage go?
Even before the war, the people of Gaza were struggling with overcrowding – now, their small strip of land can hardly contain the ruins.
It is easy to make promises, open donor pledges, and host conferences under the banner of “reconstruction.” But unless the groundwork is laid upon a firm political foundation, backed by unwavering commitment, billions of dollars will vanish like water poured into sand.
Rebuilding Gaza demands political sponsorship first – confronting the root causes of the crisis before rushing to financial remedies and tackling the intertwined issues of occupation, division, and the absence of statehood. After the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords, businessmen and companies flooded into Gaza, eager to invest in what they believed could become a thriving hub – projects, hotels, industrial zones – a city meant to serve as the nucleus of a future Palestinian state.
But the dream dissolved quickly when the struggle shifted from resisting occupation to competing for power. Gaza’s various factions became consumed by internal governance – fixated on control rather than unity. The project of statehood collapsed before it began, leaving the city trapped in a perpetual limbo between occupation and division.
Now, after a two-year war that has obliterated nearly everything, talk of reconstruction has resurfaced – as if rebuilding were a simple matter of pouring concrete. But what happens when the next round of destruction inevitably comes?
As The New York Times observed, “Rebuilding Gaza will cost tens of billions, but who will invest in a city where there is no guarantee that war will not break out again?” It’s a piercing question. Reconstruction without political security is a ticking bomb, and the warning signs are already visible, with factions declaring victory and revenge talk echoing through the shattered streets.
Rebuilding Gaza is not merely an engineering endeavor; it is a profoundly political act. No nation, Arab or Western, can persuade the world to invest in reconstruction unless it is tied to a genuine, clearly defined political agreement among Palestinians.
Only such an understanding can ensure that Arab and international efforts move forward toward the long-elusive goal of Palestinian statehood – recognized by more than 160 countries as the sole path to a durable peace that secures both Palestinian and Israeli futures and ends the decades-long cycle of destruction and rebuilding.
What Gaza needs today is not only donor pledges but a vision – one that rebuilds its people before its structures, restores the meaning of politics, and revives the idea of the state. Stability must precede reconstruction. Without a just political settlement, Gaza will once again be rebuilt on paper and reduced to dust on the ground. – Zaed Bin Kami
Hamas’s Mistakes
Al-Bayan, UAE, October 17
Hamas has once again handed Israel a free political gift – one that further erodes its claim to be a resistance movement against occupation and reinforces Israel’s narrative that it is nothing more than a terrorist organization.
Videos showing Hamas fighters executing young Palestinians by firing squad, accused of treason and collaboration with the Israeli army, have flooded international media. Even the most restrained commentators could only describe the scenes as inhumane and offensive.
Rather than seeking to repair its already shattered image after the Oct. 7 operation, Hamas has chosen to entrench it further through the public execution of Palestinian youths without trial, due process, or adherence to any recognized legal standard.
Instead of attempting to portray itself as a disciplined political force capable of coexisting within the Gaza Strip with fairness and respect for its own people, Hamas continues to present itself as an unaccountable militia operating above the law, behaving more like an armed gang than a governing body. No society can tolerate treason or collaboration with an occupying army; such acts strike at the core of national integrity.
Yet even when addressing these grave offenses, justice must be administered through recognized legal procedures, guided by the principles of common law, human decency, and the moral foundations of Arab and Islamic tradition.
– Emad El Din Adib
Iran’s Regional Autumn
An-Nahar, Lebanon, October 17
The major event the region witnessed with the end of the Israel-Hamas War and the convening of the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit under the auspices and attendance of US President Donald Trump confirmed that the Middle East has irreversibly moved from the realities that existed before the Al-Aqsa Flood campaign and the beginning of the war to a new era forged by iron and fire over two consecutive years.
Beyond Gaza, the Middle East now faces what could be called Iran’s “Regional Autumn.” The end of the war and the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit emphasized that the region has entered an entirely new phase, one shaped by shifting alliances, diminished powers, and the exhaustion of old ideologies. The Middle East today bears little resemblance to what it was before Hamas launched its deadly Oct. 7 assault that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and triggered the most ferocious and devastating conflict the region has seen since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948.
Perhaps the most consequential geopolitical development to emerge from this tumultuous period is the sharp decline in Iran’s influence – once one of the region’s most formidable powers over the past four decades. The Islamic Republic now finds itself gravely weakened on every front, emerging from this prolonged confrontation with deep and visible wounds.
Since its founding in 1979, the regime has never appeared so vulnerable, standing at a crossroads that many international observers see as the potential beginning of the end for Iran’s ruling system as it has existed in recent years.
The prestige of the regime and its highest leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is eroding rapidly. In the months since the 12-day war between Iran and Israel last June, analysts have noted the regime’s growing fragility, compounded by significant geopolitical losses across multiple arenas – from Syria and Lebanon to Gaza, Yemen, and Iraq.
The so-called “unity of arenas” strategy, once overseen by former Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, has collapsed along with the “Iranian corridor” that once linked Tehran to Lebanon and Gaza through Iraq and Syria. That corridor has crumbled in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza and is increasingly unstable in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the official propaganda emanating from Tehran continues to flood cyberspace with hollow anthems of victory, masking a starkly diminished reality. The Iran of today is but a shadow of the confident, defiant Tehran of previous years, its image reversed by a cascade of strategic defeats.
Taken together, these developments echo the assessment made by Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who recently published a striking 8,000-word essay in Foreign Affairs titled “The Autumn of the Ayatollahs.” In it, he argues that for the first time in nearly four decades, Iran is on the cusp of a change in leadership and perhaps even the regime itself.
As Khamenei’s rule nears its end, Sadjadpour writes, the 12-day war with Israel laid bare the fragility of the system he built. Israel’s bombing of Iranian cities and military facilities, followed by the United States’ use of 14 bunker-buster bombs on nuclear sites, exposed the yawning gap between Tehran’s fiery ideological rhetoric and the stark limitations of a regime that no longer controls its skies and can barely maintain order on its streets.
When Khamenei, at 86, emerged hoarse and frail to proclaim “victory,” the gesture was meant to project defiance but instead revealed the regime’s exhaustion and weakness. Sadjadpour concludes with a sobering question: “In this autumn of the leader, will the theocratic regime persist, transform, or collapse?” His essay deserves close attention, as it lays out a range of scenarios for Iran’s future transformation – one that now seems to be unfolding at an accelerating pace.
The collapse of Iran’s regional strategy over the past two years marks a turning point from which recovery appears exceedingly difficult.
When combined with the regime’s mounting domestic crises – economic stagnation, social discontent, political repression, and cultural alienation, particularly among the country’s restless youth – it becomes clear that the post-Khamenei era will signify not merely a change in leadership but a profound rupture with the past 40 years of Iran’s revolutionary history. – Ali Hamada
Genocide Is a Public Responsibility in Israel
Al-Ahram, Egypt, October 18
It is worth recalling this striking statement, which, despite its gravity, has received far less attention than it deserves – particularly in international media.
During a Knesset session last week, Yair Lapid addressed US President Donald Trump directly, saying: “I speak now to all those who opposed Israel over the past two years – in London, Rome, Paris, and at Columbia University. Know that I do not represent the government; I am the leader of the opposition. And yet, I tell you this: You have been deceived. The truth is that there was no genocide and no deliberate war of starvation.”
The weight of these words, coming from the leader of the opposition and met with applause from Knesset members, cannot be overstated. They expose a recurring misconception among many foreign commentators who continue to assign Israel’s horrific acts – in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and even Qatar – solely to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Many attempt to rationalize or even excuse his role, suggesting that he is merely constrained by the extremists in his coalition.
Some analyses go further, arguing that Netanyahu prolongs the war intentionally to shield himself from prosecution and avoid imprisonment, perhaps for the remainder of his life.
Yet Lapid’s statement, and the Knesset’s enthusiastic response, reveal a deeper truth: Netanyahu is not acting in isolation. The atrocities committed are not the product of a single leader’s strategy but a collective stance supported across Israel’s political spectrum.
The unity displayed between government and opposition reveals that Israel’s political establishment, regardless of faction, stands together in defiance of a world that has grown increasingly outraged. Global condemnation has intensified to the point of formal recognition of a Palestinian state, widespread demonstrations in major cities and universities, and even protests targeting Israel’s soccer team during matches in European countries long considered among its staunchest allies.
Israel is indeed enduring one of the darkest and most perilous chapters in its history, facing existential threats and unprecedented international scrutiny. Yet it is doing so with a shocking degree of consensus – its leaders, both in power and in opposition, no longer denying or concealing their transgressions but defending them, rationalizing them, and silencing those who expose them.
Journalists are obstructed or killed, and the state no longer seems to care that the world is watching – only that it continues, undeterred, in its chosen path, as though accountability itself were a foreign concept. – Ahmed Abdel-Tawwab
Translated by Asaf Zilberfarb. All assertions, opinions, facts, and information presented in these articles are the sole responsibility of their respective authors and are not necessarily those of The Media Line, which assumes no responsibility for their content.