JERUSALEM, Israel – As fighting flares again in Syria and diplomacy intensifies over Gaza, new questions are emerging about who will shape the next phase of Middle East peace.
President Donald Trump spoke directly with the president of Syria, Ahmed al-Shaara, amid growing concern over ISIS detainees, regional instability, and renewed fighting in the country’s northeast.
Trump stated, “The president of Syria is working very, very hard – strong guy, tough guy, pretty rough resume. But you’re not going to put a choir boy in there and, you know, get the job done. I spoke with him yesterday because we were talking about the prisons and, you know, what was going on. We have some of the worst terrorists in the world in those prisons. And he’s watching it.”
To order Troy Anderson’s new book, Designated Disrupter, visit Amazon.com.
Syria’s government and the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced a new four-day truce after a previous ceasefire collapsed. The two sides have been clashing for two weeks following a breakdown in negotiations over a plan to merge their two forces.
Meanwhile, attention is turning back to Israel and the Gaza Strip, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that he received an invitation to join President Trump’s proposed Board of Peace, but raised objections to its structure.
“Turkish soldiers and Qatari soldiers will not be in the Strip,” he insisted. “We have a certain disagreement with our friends in the United States regarding the composition of the advisory council, as it’s called, the advisory council that will accompany the processes in Gaza.”
U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff defended the effort.
If you would like to read the full story, you can visit our content partners at CBN News.
Reprinted with permission from cbn.com. Copyright © 2026 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.
