Israel says it has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage kidnapped and taken into Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, as it continues its military offensive across the strip, killing at least 22 people overnight, according to health officials.
The prime minister’s office said Saturday that the body of Thai citizen Nattapong Pinta was returned to Israel in a special military operation. Pinta had come to Israel to work in agriculture. He had a wife and son.
Pinta was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and killed in captivity near the start of the war, said the government. His body was retrieved from the Rafah area, Israel’s defense minister said.
Israel said it found Pinta’s body based on information received from the hostage task force and military intelligence. The army said he was taken into Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades, the small armed group that it said had also abducted and killed Shiri Bibas and her two small children.
This undated photo provided by the Hostage’s Family Forum shows Nattapong Pinta, with his wife and son.
Hostage’s Family Forum via AP
A statement from the hostage forum, which supports the hostages, said it stands with Pinta’s family and shares in their grief. It called on the country’s decision makers to bring home the remaining hostages and give those who have died a proper burial.
Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas militants. Many of the Thai agricultural workers lived in compounds on the outskirts of southern Israeli kibbutzim and towns, and Hamas militants overran those places first. A total of 46 Thais have been killed during the conflict, according to Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Before Pinta’s body was retrieved, three Thai hostages remained in captivity and two were confirmed dead. The fate of Pinta was uncertain until today, according to the hostage forum.
This comes two days after the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages were retrieved. Judith Weinstein and Gad Haggai had been killed on October 7, and their bodies taken into Gaza. They had also lived on Kibbutz Nir Oz, CBS News previously reported. They had also been taken into Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades.
The retrieval of Pinta’s body comes as Israel continues its military campaign across Gaza. Hospital officials said they received the bodies of nearly two dozen people Saturday.
Four strikes hit the Muwasi area in southern Gaza between Rafah and Khan Younis. In northern Gaza, one strike hit an apartment, killing seven people, including a mother and five children. Their bodies were taken to Shifa hospital.
Israel said Saturday that it’s responding to Hamas’ “barbaric attacks” and is dismantling its capabilities. It said it follows international law and takes all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted 251 hostages. They are still holding 55 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians.
Former Israeli Defense Minister and opposition lawmaker Avigdor Liberman on Thursday accused Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of authorizing weapons transfers to a criminal gang in Gaza that he likened to the ISIS terrorist group. Netanyahu appeared later in the day to confirm the operation, suggesting it would save the lives of Israeli forces battling Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
“They are receiving weapons from the state of Israel. It’s a total madness,” Liberman said in a radio interview. “It’s unclear to me who approved it.”
Liberman said the head of Israel’s primary domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet was aware of the weapons transfers, “but I’m not sure the [Israel Defense Forces] knows. We’re talking about the equivalent of ISIS in Gaza. No one can guarantee that these weapons will not be directed at Israel. We have no way of monitoring or following.”
Liberman appeared to be referring to a militia called the Popular Forces of Palestine, led by Yasser Abu Shabab. The group is opposed to Hamas, the Israeli- and U.S.-designated terrorist group Israel has been at war with for more than a year and a half.
Popular Forces is believed to be a relatively small armed group based in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. It has been accused of looting trucks trying to deliver aid to Gaza’s starving population, which its leader reportedly denied.
There have been reports that Shabab, the group’s leader, was previously jailed by Hamas for smuggling drugs, as well as reports that his brother was killed by Hamas when the group cracked down on attacks on U.N. aid convoys
Late on Thursday, Netanyahu acknowledged that, “on the advice of security officials, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What’s wrong with that? It’s only good. It only saves the lives of IDF soldiers.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a news conference in Jerusalem, May 21, 2025.
RONEN ZVULUN/POOL/AFP/Getty
Abu Shabab denied receiving weapons from Israel in a statement posted on social media.
“We categorically reject these accusations and consider them a blatant attempt to distort the image of a grassroots force born from suffering — one that stood up to injustice, looting, and corruption,” the group said. “This desperate attempt to link us to the occupation is, in reality, an implicit admission that we have become a powerful and influential force.”
Hamas orchestrated and led the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack on southern Israel that began the war in Gaza. It said, following Netanyahu’s remarks, that “every individual involved in these mercenary gangs [Israel has allegedly been supporting] is considered by us to be an Israeli soldier. We will deal with them with full force.”
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid responded to the claim that Israel is arming Abu Shabab with a warning that it could see a repeat of a grim history for the country.
For decades, including multiple terms in office for Netanyahu, Israel allowed Hamas to grow and entrench its control in Gaza, with millions of dollars in support from the Arab would pouring in. It was seen as a cynical bid to prevent a unified Palestinian leadership from taking hold in Gaza and the much larger territory of the West Bank.
“After Netanyahu finished giving millions of dollars to Hamas, he moved on to giving weapons to organizations close to ISIS in Gaza, all off the cuff, all without strategic planning, all leading to more disasters,” Lapid said on social media.
“Weapons that enter Gaza will eventually be turned against IDF soldiers and Israeli citizens,” he said.
Michael Bennet: Turkey is “acting against our interest” in the Middle East – CBS News
Watch CBS News
Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bennet believes Turkey is “acting against” U.S. interests in the Middle East. In an interview with CBS News campaign reporter Musadiq Bidar, the Colorado senator expressed his disapproval of Turkey’s offensive targeting of Kurds in Northern Syria.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News visits Israeli address of U.S. company working with controversial aid group – CBS News
Watch CBS News
Officials in Gaza say at least 27 Palestinians were killed Tuesday by Israeli troops as they approached an aid distribution site run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israel says it did not fire on innocent civilians. Imtiaz Tyab, in Tel Aviv, has been looking into the foundation.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Proposed Gaza ceasefire deal thrown into doubt – CBS News
Watch CBS News
Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, called the response from the militant group Hamas to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire proposal “totally unacceptable,” adding that it “only takes us backward.” Imtiaz Tyab reports from Tel Aviv.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Israel said Thursday it would establish 22 Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the legalization of outposts already built without government authorization. Neighboring Jordan and Britain slammed the move, with a top U.K. official calling it a “deliberate obstacle” to Palestinian statehood.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. The majority of the international community views settlements as illegal and an obstacle to resolving the decades-old conflict.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the settlement decision “strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria,” using the biblical term for the West Bank. He said it “anchors our historical right in the Land of Israel, and constitutes a crushing response to Palestinian terrorism.”
He added that the construction of settlements was also “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel.”
The Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now said the announcement was the most extensive move of its kind since the 1993 Oslo accords that launched the now-defunct peace process. It said the settlements, which are deep inside the territory, would “dramatically reshape the West Bank and entrench the occupation even further.”
Israel has already built well over 100 settlements across the territory that are home to some 500,000 settlers. The settlements range from small hilltop outposts to fully developed communities with apartment blocks, shopping malls, factories and parks.
Houses in the Israeli settlement of Psagot in the occupied West Bank, located on Tawil hill adjacent to the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and al-Bireh, are seen on May 29, 2025.
Zain Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images
The West Bank is home to 3 million Palestinians, who live under Israeli military rule with the Palestinian Authority administering population centers. The settlers have Israeli citizenship.
Peace Now said the plans call for the authorization of 12 existing outposts, the development of nine new settlements and reclassifying a neighborhood of an existing settlement as a separate one.
“The government is making clear — again and without restraint — that it prefers deepening the occupation and advancing de facto annexation over pursuing peace,” the group said.
Israel has accelerated settlement construction in recent years — long before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, which ignited the war in Gaza. The settlements have confined Palestinians to smaller and smaller areas of the West Bank and made the prospect of establishing a viable, independent state even more remote.
A spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the move a “dangerous escalation” and accused Israel of moving the region into a “cycle of violence and instability.”
“This extremist Israeli government is trying by all means to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” the spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told the Reuters news agency.
In a statement, Hamas — the group that the U.S. and Israel have designated as terrorists that controls Gaza — accused Israel of “an acceleration of efforts to Judaize Palestinian land as part of an explicit annexation project.”
“It constitutes a brazen challenge to international will and a grave violation of international law and United Nations resolutions,” said the Palestinian militant group.
Western ally Jordan also condemned the move as illegal, and said it “undermines prospects for peace by entrenching the occupation.”
The Jordanian foreign ministry warned that “such unilateral actions further erode the viability of a two-state solution by impeding the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.”
Britain’s minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, slammed the decision as a “deliberate obstacle to Palestinian statehood,” saying settlements “imperil the two state solution, and do not protect Israel.”
Palestinians stand as they are blocked by Israeli soldiers from entering the Tulkarm refugee camp to remove their belongings, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 26, 2025.
Reuters/Raneen Sawafta
During his first term, President Trump’s administration broke with decades of U.S. foreign policy by supporting Israel’s claims to territory seized by force and taking steps to legitimize the settlements. Former President Joe Biden, like most of his predecessors, opposed the settlements but applied little pressure to Israel to curb their growth.
The top United Nations court ruled last year that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and called on it to end, and for settlement construction to stop immediately.
Israel denounced the non-binding opinion by a 15-judge panel of the International Court of Justice, saying the territories are part of the historic homeland of the Jewish people.
Israel withdrew its settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, but leading figures in the current government have called for them to be re-established and for much of the Palestinian population of the territory to be resettled elsewhere through what they describe as voluntary emigration.
Palestinians view such plans as a blueprint for their forcible expulsion from their homeland, and experts say the plans would likely violate international law.
Israel now controls more than 70% of Gaza, according to Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental studies at Ben Gurion University, who has examined Israeli-Palestinian land use patterns for decades.
The area includes buffer zones along the border with Israel as well as the southern city of Rafah, which is now mostly uninhabited, and other large areas that Israel has ordered to be evacuated.
The war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which terrorists stormed into Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas still holds 58 hostages, around a third of them believed to be still alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements. Israeli forces have rescued eight and recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties.
London – The controversial U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose operations got off to a chaotic start this week in the war-torn Palestinian territory, says it is winding down its Swiss operation after three months. The move comes as Swiss authorities said GHF was breaching rules for foundations registered in that country. GHF told CBS News that moving forward, its only operations would be based out of the United States.
The legal complication for GHF in Switzerland emerged as the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said one Palestinian was killed and 47 others were wounded when Israeli forces fired shots as people were seeking food at one of its aid distribution hubs in southern Gaza on Tuesday. The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Tuesday that troops had only fired “warning shots” to restore order at the site. GHF later said in a statement that “no shots were fired at Palestinian crowds” and “there were no casualties.” Some injured Palestinians could be seen in video footage of the incident verified by CBS News Confirmed, which showed hundreds of people around the distribution center.
Little has been made public about GHF, including who funds it. CBS News has been told by one source that GHF has employed at least 300 American contractors, all heavily armed, who have been given “as much ammunition as they can carry.”
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said, according to a document obtained by CBS News that appears to have been written by the group, that it was registering in both Delaware and Geneva, Switzerland. The Swiss “affiliate” was established in order to “address donors who would prefer to participate outside of the U.S. structure,” the document says.
“The Swiss GHF Board and Executive team will closely mirror that of the U.S. GHF and will adhere to the same principles, mission and values,” says the document.
A separate document seeking to register the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Switzerland, dated Jan. 31, 2025, was published as part of the country’s commercial register. The foundation is shown as being registered from Feb. 17.
According to the Swiss registration document, “the foundation pursues exclusively charitable and philanthropic objectives for the benefit of people in need of support for material, psychological or health reasons, and more specifically to provide humanitarian aid to those affected by the conflict in the Gaza Strip, including the secure provision of food, water, medicine, shelter and reconstruction.”
Displaced Palestinians receive food packages from GHF, a U.S.-backed foundation distributing humanitarian aid, in western Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on May 27, 2025.
AFP via Getty Images
It lists three individuals as leaders of the Swiss foundation: David Papazian, who the document says is from Armenia but based in the U.K.; Lolk Samuel Marcel Henderson, an American in Arlington, Virginia; and David Kohler, from Switzerland.
Subsequent documents, dated May 19 and May 23 respectively, announced the removal of Swiss national Kohler from the board of the foundation, and then the end of Swiss accounting firm OGH Expertises Comptables et Fiscales SA’s role as an auditor of the foundation.
Switzerland’s Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations, known as the ESA, told CBS News on Wednesday that, according to its assessment, the Swiss branch of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is “currently not fulfilling various legal obligations,” in the country.
The ESA said the aid group’s Swiss branch does not have the required signatory member of its board resident in Switzerland, that it doesn’t have the minimum three board members required by Swiss statutes, and that it did not appear to have a Swiss bank account, a valid Swiss address, or an auditor — all of which are requirements for foundations like GHF which are registered in the country.
“Based on this information, the ESA assumes that the Swiss foundation has not yet commenced its activities and is therefore inactive,” the authority told CBS News. “The ESA has informed the foundation of its legal requirements and requested that it clarify the situation. The necessary clarifications are currently under way.”
A Swiss non-governmental watchdog organization, TRIAL International, said it had filed two legal submissions to the Swiss government on May 20 and 21, with the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations and the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, seeking to assess GHF’s compliance with the Swiss legal system, as well as with Switzerland’s Federal Act on Private Security Services Provided Abroad.
The legal submissions were “intended to urgently remedy potential breaches by the GHF of various rules of national and international law, in particular concerning ‘private security services’ within the framework of the foundation’s activities, such as the militarized security of distribution points and the control of individuals,” the NGO said in a statement.
Switzerland “has a moral but also a particular legal obligation to make sure that entities operating from its territory, themselves, respect the Geneva Conventions. That’s enshrined in the first article of the Geneva Conventions,” TRIAL International director Philip Grant told CBS News.
“So we just wanted to understand what they did” through the Swiss entity, he said.
Grant said it was unclear how much GHF activity had actually taken place in Geneva, which was part of the motivation for his group’s submissions. It was also looking to find out whether GHF had requested and received necessary approvals to engage private military services, the use of which is tightly regulated under Swiss law for organizations registered in the country.
In response to CBS News’ request for clarity, GHF said Wednesday that “the only GHF entity that is in use today is the foundation established in the United States by Loik Henderson in February 2025. That is the only entity through which GHF is operating and will operate moving forward. Swiss entity was created as a contingency; is not operational; and is being wound down.”
James Smith, a doctor who has worked inside Gaza, told CBS News that both the presence of armed contractors at aid distribution centers and the locations of GHF’s hubs in the south of Gaza raise red flags for humanitarian workers. He said the location of the hubs could potentially serve as a way to forcibly displace the population of Gaza to the south of the Strip.
“They are undignified. They are inhumane. We’ve seen people being corralled into cages in the baking heat,” Smith said.
Smith pointed out concerns raised by the United Nations, which has declined to work with the organization, about the methods of GHF and even “some of the people that, until the last couple of days, worked for GHF and have since resigned, saying that they cannot adhere to the humanitarian principles if they continue to work for this entity.”
“The risks posed by armed military actors, particularly those who are parties to a conflict, also providing humanitarian assistance should be and has been roundly condemned and is not something that any reputable humanitarian organization, academic of humanitarianism or humanitarian practitioner should ever support,” Smith said.
Israel strikes Gaza school, saying Hamas militants used it as command center – CBS News
Watch CBS News
Israel struck a school in the Gaza Strip on Monday. It said Hamas militants were using the building as a command center. At least 80 people were killed, according to officials there. Elizabeth Palmer reports.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Israeli strikes killed at least 52 people in the Gaza Strip on Monday, including some 36 in a school-turned-shelter that was struck as people slept, igniting their belongings, according to local health officials. The military said it targeted militants operating from the school.
Israel renewed its offensive in March after ending a ceasefire with Hamas. It has vowed to seize control of Gaza and keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed, and until it returns the remaining 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, from the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
The strike on the school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City also wounded more than 55 people, said Fahmy Awad, head of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service. He said a father and his five children were among the dead. He said the school was hit three times while people slept, setting their belongings ablaze.
Palestinians comb the area following an Israeli airstrike at dawn on a school in the al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City that killed at least 31 people on May 26, 2025.
Dawoud Abo Alkas / Anadolu via Getty Images
The Israeli military said it had targeted a militant command and control center inside the school that Hamas and Islamic Jihad used to gather intelligence for attacks. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in residential areas, adding that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,” according to French news agency AFP.
Israel says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of its over 2 million inhabitants, a plan that has been rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.
Israel’s military campaign has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and internally displaced some 90% of its population. Many have fled multiple times.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the 2023 terrorist attack. More than half the hostages have been returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals, eight have been rescued, and Israeli forces have recovered the remains of dozens more.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza, rendering entire neighborhoods uninhabitable. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to shelter in schools and squalid tent camps for well over a year.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed around 54,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. It says more than half the dead are women and children but does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Growing concern over food shortages in Gaza
Israel began allowing some humanitarian aid into Gaza last week after blocking all food, medicine, fuel or other goods from entering for 2-1/2 months. But aid groups say the supplies that have come in are nowhere near enough to meet the mounting needs of the enclave’s residents.
U.N. World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Sunday on the CBS News’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that the number of aid trucks allowed to enter Gaza last week was only a “drop in the bucket” compared to what’s needed to stave off potential famine in the Palestinian territory.
A new aid system, supported by Israel and the United States but rejected by U.N. agencies and other aid groups, is expected to begin operations as soon as Monday, despite the resignation of the American who was supposed to lead the effort, who said it would not be able to operate independently.
Israel plans to roll out the new aid distribution system, run by a group known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and made up of former humanitarian, government and military officials, to set up distribution points guarded by private security firms. Israel has long accused Hamas of siphoning off aid supplies brought into Gaza, without providing evidence.
Palestinians, struggling with hunger due to an Israeli blockade, wait in line to receive hot meals distributed by charity organizations in Jabalia Refugee Camp, in Gaza City, Gaza, May 17, 2025.
Mahmoud ssa/Anadolu/Getty
The foundation said in a statement that it would begin delivering aid Monday and would reach a million Palestinians — around half of Gaza’s population — by the end of the week.
U.N. agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the planned U.S.-backed system, saying it would force even more displacement, fail to meet local needs and violate humanitarian principles that prohibit a warring party from controlling humanitarian assistance. They also say there is no evidence of systematic diversion of aid by Hamas or other armed groups.
Jake Wood, the American heading the foundation, unexpectedly resigned Sunday, saying it had become clear that the foundation would not be allowed to operate independently. It’s not clear who is funding the group. The foundation said in a statement Monday that it would “not be deterred” by Wood’s resignation and would begin its delivery as planned.
The new Syrian government has agreed to help the United States locate and return Americans who went missing in the war-ravaged country, the U.S. special envoy to Syria said on Sunday, in another sign of thawing bilateral ties between the two countries.
Thomas Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey who was also appointed as special envoy for Syria, described in a post on X that it was a “power step forward” between the two nations.
“The families of Austin Tice, Majd Kamalmaz, and Kayla Mueller must have closure,” he added, referring to American citizens who had gone missing or been killed in Syria during the devastating civil war that erupted in 2011.
“President Trump has made it clear that bringing home USA citizens or honoring, with dignity, their remains is a major priority everywhere,” Barrack said. “The new Syrian Government will aid us in this commitment.”
A Syrian source with knowledge of the talks between the two countries told AFP that there were 11 other names on Washington’s list of missing Americans. All of them are Syrian American.
Syrian President Ahmed Sharaa (C) meets the U.S. Ambassador Thomas Barrack, Jr. (L) in Istanbul, Turkiye on May 24, 2025. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani (R) also attended.
Turkish Foreign Ministry / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
The announcement comes after Barrack met with Syria’s president and foreign minister during their visit to Turkey on Saturday. It also comes as relations between the two nations have steadily improved since former President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December.
On Friday, the Trump administration granted Syria sweeping exemptions from sanctions in a major first step toward fulfilling the president’s pledge to lift a half-century of penalties on a country shattered by 14 years of civil war.
In a statement on Saturday, Barrack said Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa welcomed Washington’s “fast action on lifting sanctions.”
“President Trump’s goal is to enable the new government to create the conditions for the Syrian people to not only survive but thrive,” Barrack said in a statement.
Barrack said he stressed that the cessation of sanctions against Syria will preserve the integrity “of our primary objective — the enduring defeat of” the Islamic State group, also known as IS or ISIS. He added that it will give Syrians a chance for a better future.
“I also commended President al-Sharaa on taking meaningful steps towards enacting President Trump’s points on foreign terrorist fighters, counter-ISIS measures, relations with Israel, and camps and detention centers in Northeast Syria,” Barrack said. He was referring to detention centers where thousands of ISIS members are held and two camps where their families stay in areas currently controlled by the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
The congressional sanctions, known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, had aimed to isolate Syria’s previous rulers by effectively expelling those doing business with them from the global financial system. They specifically block postwar reconstruction, so while they can be waived for 180 days by executive order, investors are likely to be wary of reconstruction projects when sanctions could be reinstated after six months.
