Eight Arab and Muslim states reject Israeli displacement plans for Gaza
Palestinian Information Center – September 6, 2026
GAZA – Eight Arab and Muslim countries have condemned remarks by far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Israel Katz on plans to forcibly displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
The foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Türkiye and Qatar said in a joint statement released on Sunday that such Israeli plans violate international and humanitarian law and pose a direct threat to the Palestinian people’s legitimate and inalienable rights.
The ministers voiced rejection of any Israeli attempt to displace Palestinians from or within the occupied territory, warning against transforming extremist rhetoric on forced displacement into official state policy.
The ministers warned that the displacement of Gazans would destabilize the region and derail global peace efforts, undermining US president Donald Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war, which clearly rejects forced population transfers.
The ministers stressed that Gaza is an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories, calling for preserving the unity of Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
They reiterated their countries’ support for a two-state solution establishing an independent Palestinian state along the June 4, 1967 lines, with east Jerusalem as its capital.
They urged the international community and UN Security Council to oppose Israeli attempts to impose a new demographic or geographic reality in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Lebanese man tells RT how Israeli strike killed his bride
Saja Sharara lost her life when a missile struck the couple’s home just 48 hours after their wedding
RT | September 6, 2026
The husband of a 28-year-old Lebanese woman killed in an Israeli airstrike just two days after their wedding has told RT how he was speaking to his wife on the phone moments before their home was hit.
Saja Sharara was killed at the couple’s home in Arabsalim, southern Lebanon, on August 27. Six other people, including a child, were wounded.
Hussein said he called Saja after hearing about an Israeli strike nearby. Minutes later, she called him back and suddenly said: “A rocket, a rocket is coming towards us, Hussein.”
The connection was lost. “The rocket fell on her,” Hussein recalled. “And then I realized that it was over.”
Israel has not said specifically what it was targeting at the house. It said its wider attacks in the Nabatieh area targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in response to drones launched at IDF troops. No Israeli casualties were reported.
Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon have continued despite a US-mediated ceasefire. More than 4,000 people have been killed and over 12,000 wounded in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March, according to Lebanese authorities.
Hussein said the continuing Israeli military presence and air operations mean there is no ceasefire in practice.
“There is no ceasefire as long as this enemy is on our land and the aviation is flying above us,” he told RT.
RT’s Steve Sweeney spoke exclusively with Hussein in southern Lebanon about the future he and Saja had planned together.
Anti-War Activists Are Getting ‘Debanked’ In The UK
The UK’s decent into authoritarianism continues
By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | September 5, 2026
The UK has been, for years, waging an all-out war on its own people, particularly on those who are anti-war and anti-Zionist.
Journalists like Richard Medhurst and Asa Winstanley have had their devices seized by UK “counterterrorism” authorities for their reporting on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, while thousands of peaceful activists have been arrested on terrorism charges for holding signs stating they support Palestine Action, a non-violent direct action group which was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK government at the behest of the Zionist lobby.
The war on anti-war and anti-Zionist figures continues, with multiple anti-war figures recently losing their bank accounts within a short time period.
George Galloway, a former Labour MP, known for his staunch firebrand opposition to Zionism and empire, had his bank account closed without explanation, preventing him from receiving his parliamentary and old age pensions, which he paid into throughout his career.
On X, Galloway wrote: “39 years ago I opened a personal bank account with Bank of Scotland in Byres Rd, Glasgow. Yesterday, without explanation or notice, they closed my accounts. My parliamentary and old age pensions are paid into these accounts. The mortgage on our family home is paid out of them. The mortgage is with them. They haven’t heard the last of this.”
Shortly before Galloway was debanked, the independent news outlet The Canary reported that it had its Bank account closed for the second time within months, the first time being in July.
“This has meant that once again, some staff were not paid for August,” the outlet noted, adding that, like Galloway, it received no explanation for why it lost its Bank account.
Due to the debanking, the outlet was forced to “suspend operations” which “is a necessary step to protect what remains of the Canary and to give us the opportunity to rebuild on a stable foundation.”
It wrote that “recent events have created circumstances in which we have been left with no responsible alternative but to suspend the Canary’s operations with immediate effect,” adding that, “It is the direct consequence of the debanking of the Canary’s funds, the resulting financial disruption, and the serious internal consequences that followed.”
It seems clear that this is a coordinated effort, almost certainly spearheaded by the British state, to debank voices critical of Zionism and warmongering, in yet another attempt to shut them down.
Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s sewage system triggers algal bloom, shutting down Israeli desalination plants

The Cradle | September 5, 2026
Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s water and sewage infrastructure has backfired into a domestic water emergency, with five of Israel’s six desalination plants supplying over 80 percent of Israeli drinking water shut down after an enormous algal bloom choked the coastline, Haaretz reported on 3 September.
Scientists cite two aggravating factors behind the algae – elevated sea temperatures and nutrient loads from Gaza’s sewage – which has poured untreated into the Mediterranean since Israeli bombardment deliberately destroyed the besieged enclave’s sanitation network.
The algae originated as microalgae in the Nile Delta and traveled east on sea currents, according to the satellite imagery firm Satalize, which recorded dense chlorophyll readings in the water as far north as Tel Aviv and lighter traces up to Caesarea.
With flow through the national supply lines weakening, the Israel Water Authority ordered local councils to curb consumption for farming, gardening, and other public use, while the Israeli government completely shut off external water supplies to Gaza.
The self-inflicted blowback comes after nearly three years of Israeli bombardment left close to 90 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure damaged or destroyed throughout the genocide in the strip, including desalination units, wells, reservoirs, and distribution networks.
All six of the besieged enclave’s wastewater treatment plants have been knocked out of service, along with the overwhelming majority of sewage pumping stations during Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Roughly 40,000 cubic meters of untreated waste now empties into the sea every day, with a further 15,000 cubic meters draining into the ground through cesspits and broken lines.
The collapse has poisoned Gaza’s coastal aquifer and driven cholera and other water-borne diseases through a population already facing starvation and lacking proper healthcare due to Israel’s genocide, with the rainy season set to deepen the contamination.
Israeli blockade on fuel, spare parts, and equipment classed as dual-use has strangled every attempt to repair the ruined facilities.
Israel’s targeting of Gaza’s water and sewage systems was a deliberate campaign to manufacture the conditions for the spread of disease throughout the enclave, and render life unbearable for its almost 2 million residents by stripping them of the basic requirements for survival.
German sponsorship of Zionist settlements exposed
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | September 5, 2026
Exploiting academic institutions as a cover, between 2017 – 2021 the German government surreptitiously funnelled millions into a highly discriminatory project facilitating expansion of Zionist settlements in the occupied West Bank. Under its auspices, public money and knowledge production were committed to an inherently unlawful, immoral enterprise in flagrant breach of Berlin’s international legal obligations, and domestic restrictions on academic research efforts. The unknown scandal is just one component of how, in plain sight, Germany covertly assists Zionist settlement expansion, and Palestine’s total erasure.
These are the shocking findings of a collaborative investigation by a cluster of German student Palestine solidarity organisations, including Not In Our Name, and Academic Opposition. Their report is a groundbreaking effort, critically examining German state-sponsored water research in conjunction with Zionist entity institutions. It’s a silent conspiracy vast in scope, involving multiple state and quasi-state entities in Berlin and Tel Aviv financing academic research in seemingly innocuous fields, which directly abets Zionist ethnic cleansing and land seizure in the West Bank and beyond.
The investigation focuses on a single project to emerge from the dark alliance between German and Israeli academia, known as MedWater. For four years, Berlin funded a consortium coordinated by the Technical University of Berlin, alongside Göttingen and Würzburg universities, to the tune of €1,818,348. Their successfully fulfilled objective was to develop a tool modelling the impact of adding or removing water wells. That feature, defined in direct conjunction with “Israel’s” water authorities, was then transferred to Tel Aviv’s national water company.
Specifically, the tool identifies ideal areas for construction of new wells, in a territory where Palestinian water sources are systematically demolished, and Palestinians are refused permits to drill new ones. Known as the Western Mountain Aquifer, it’s the largest and most productive groundwater body shared between “Israel” and the occupied West Bank. Palestinians were completely absent from working sessions convened in Al-Quds [Jerusalem] related to MedWater, and there is no apparent way in which Palestinians will, or even can, benefit from the effort in any way.
This is despite the consortium explicitly stating in submissions to German state ministries their tool sought to advance the UN’s sixth Sustainable Development Goal: “By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.” The completed MedWater system was unveiled in October 2020, at a Berlin conference. Its public demonstration included calculating the impact of adding four new wells to the West Bank’s Al-Khalil [Hebron] Governorate. Only Zionist settlers could realise that vision on-the-ground, of which the consortium was well-aware.
Even more damningly, at the project’s end the tool was contracted to “Israel’s” national water company Mekorot, which manages wells in Zionist settlements throughout the West Bank. By contrast, the Palestinian Water Authority, officially named as a MedWater partner, was not provided a subcontract and is not publicly listed among its beneficiaries today. Unreported at the time, and tacitly concealed from view ever since, it’s just one way Germany has been unaccountably supporting a genocidal Zionist enterprise begun back in 1967.
‘Near Impossible’
In its July 2024 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice ruled unambiguously that all states are obliged “to distinguish, in their dealings with Israel, between Israeli territory and the territory occupied since 1967, and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining that situation.” A decade earlier, Berlin seemingly enshrined a codified commitment to this principle in its dealings with Zionist entity academic institutions. Under the so-called Territorial Clause, Germany won’t fund, and Tel Aviv won’t solicit, research projects outside the entity’s pre-1967 borders.
However, when asked how Mekorot’s MedWater contract was remotely compatible with the Clause, Berlin’s ministry of research argued its terms merely limit where research partners may be headquartered. As Mekorot is based in Tel Aviv, there was in fact no legal, regulatory or ethical impediment to the project’s German government funding, despite the company’s well-documented criminal conduct in the West Bank since 1982, when Zionist Occupation Forces handed management of all local water infrastructure it controlled in the territory to Mekorot.
The Territorial Clause is evidently replete with gaping loopholes, which we can assume have been resultantly exploited to provide arm’s length German state sponsorship to completely illegal Zionist settlement expansion all along. Strikingly, this ambiguity is in itself in contravention of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion. The Court specifically honed in on the Zionist entity’s life-threatening restriction of Palestinian water access within the Occupied Territories, as inconsistent with Tel Aviv’s obligations under international law. This may explain why MedWater, while formally undisguised, remained effectively secret.
To get to the bottom of the project, investigators drew on an enormous, disparate corpus of information. This included MedWater reports filed with Germany’s Education and Research Ministry – some not intended for public view, and released in redacted form – presentation materials from numerous project conferences throughout its development, since-memoryholed websites, and peer-reviewed publications by German and Israeli participants. No mainstream outlet has hitherto reported not merely on MedWater, but any illegal German state investment in academic research projects expediting settlement expansion.
An initiative to better manage water resources anywhere in the world may seem benign. But MedWater was born in a context of methodical, longstanding Zionist denial of Palestinian access to water, and a segregationist legal apparatus explicitly assisting Jewish settlement, particularly in regard to vital natural resources like water. In August 1967, two months after the West Bank’s occupation began, Zionist Occupation Forces issued Military Order 92, seizing total control of water resources in territory they illegally controlled.
Three months later, Military Order 158 further prohibited Palestinians throughout the West Bank from constructing new water installations and/or associated infrastructure, without first obtaining a permit from the ZOF. Amnesty International judges such permissions “near impossible to obtain.” Deliberately intended to deprive Palestinians of water, Zionists are not subject to equivalent constraints. Meanwhile, Mekorot has over the past four-and-a-half decades deliberately sabotaged Palestinian wells while tapping occupied West Bank springs to supply the entity, and illegal settlers, with water.
This in itself produces an apartheid in daily water consumption. Zionists, including settlers, use an average of 247 litres of water a day per person – three times that of Palestinians in the West Bank, at 82.4 litres. Palestinian water consumption collapses to just 26 litres per capita on average daily, in communities unconnected to the water grid. Such consumption is comparable to active disaster zones. Mekorot also routinely shuts off supply to Palestinian communities when reserves run low, such as during summer.
‘European DNA’
The Zionist strategy is gruesomely simple – neutralise Palestinian control over the West Bank’s water resources and progressively diminish their access, creating an environment in which the territory is literally uninhabitable and they’re forced to leave. Research jointly published by the UN and Germany’s federal institute for geosciences and natural resources indicates 212 million cubic metres of water flows from the West Bank to Israel annually. The report explicitly records how since 1967, Palestinians “have not been authorised to drill a single well” locally.
All along, discriminatory laws and ratcheting settler land grabs have increasingly deprived Palestinians of access to other basic fundamentals of existence too. An ever-expanding network of ZOF checkpoints and roadblocks, combined with prejudicial and arbitrary restrictions on movement, vandalism and demolition of farming machinery, greenhouses, and roads, and savage Occupation Force and settler violence makes it progressively dangerous, if not impossible, for farmers to tend crops or rear livestock. Palestine’s agricultural industry is all but decimated, with Zionists literally harvesting the pestilential spoils.
That these genocidal machinations have endured untrammelled for so many decades is a testament to the impunity with which “Israel” is permitted to act by its international partners – Germany being a particularly perverse example. Proudly, it is the only country to make public remembrance of its criminal past the cornerstone of its collective national identity. But Berlin’s much-vaunted “memory culture” has only ever atoned for historic sins by encouraging and undergirding comparable contemporary crimes, as long as they’re committed by the Zionist entity.
WaterMed is a minor fragment within a much wider, silent framework of German state-supported repression and erasure of Palestinians, sustained via unadvertised academic partnerships and joint research efforts with Zionist entity-based institutions. A new initiative, Academic Complicity, exposes how dozens of German universities have over many years conducted projects large and small, one way or another justifying and aiding never ending settlement expansion. One might hope this triggers accountability and consequences for Berlin, given its domestic and international legal obligations.
However, the bonds between Germany and the Zionist entity are so deep and cohering, it transcends trivial considerations of law. In October 2025, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo made a number of highly revealing disclosures on how his personal and professional experience has convinced him “Germans are committed to Israel.” After all, “our DNA is much closer to the European DNA than the American one,” as “most of the Jews who settled in Israel came from Europe…not North America”:
“European history is part of our identity in terms of family connections, culture, even politics. Europe’s borders resulting from wars were constantly shifting, and Europeans wandered throughout the continent, settling in one place before moving on to the next. In that sense, and in terms of depth, discourse, and history, this is all very familiar to us, and is something that manifests itself in every interaction I have with German partners.”
Two Palestinians killed, others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza

Palestinian Information Center – September 4, 2026
GAZA – Two Palestinians were killed and several others injured on Friday as Israeli forces continued attacks across the Gaza Strip, including airstrikes, artillery shelling and gunfire, amid ongoing violations of the ceasefire.
An ambulance and emergency services source said one Palestinian was killed and others were injured in an Israeli drone strike west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, announced that one of its fighters, Fadi Ali Saeed Al-Abadla, a member of the Al-Qarara Battalion in the Khan Yunis Brigade, was killed.
Providing details of the incident, the Brigades said that at around 3:30 a.m. Friday, a force belonging to what it described as “collaborator militias,” backed by Israeli drones, advanced towards Al-Jumeiza Street in the Al-Qarara area north of Khan Yunis in an attempt to abduct one of its fighters.
The Al-Quds Brigades said its fighters detected the infiltrating force during the attempted abduction and engaged it at point-blank range with grenades and medium weapons, saying that several members of the force were killed or wounded.
The Brigades said Israeli drones then intervened to provide cover for the force’s withdrawal. It added that members of the force shot and killed Al-Abadla, leaving his body at the scene before withdrawing with their dead and wounded.
Three Palestinians, including a girl, were also injured by Israeli fire near Hamad City, north of Khan Younis.
Israeli artillery shelled areas east of Khan Yunis, while Israeli military vehicles opened heavy fire near the Al-Matahin area north of the city.
Israeli military vehicles also opened heavy fire towards northern areas of the Bureij refugee camp.
Israeli airstrikes, artillery shelling hit Gaza City
In Gaza City, an Israeli warplane carried out an airstrike near Mushtaha Street in the Al-Shuja’iyya neighborhood, east of the city, as Israeli artillery simultaneously shelled eastern areas.
Israeli military vehicles and drones also opened fire toward Palestinian homes in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, northeast of Gaza City, while Israeli forces fired illumination flares over the eastern part of the neighborhood.
A local source reported heavy gunfire from Israeli tanks near the Al-Sanafour area, east of Gaza City, as an Israeli Apache helicopter opened fire toward eastern parts of the city.
In the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, an Israeli quadcopter drone opened fire, while another quadcopter fired east of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza City.
Since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, 2025, 1,338 Palestinians have been killed and 4,429 others injured, while 815 bodies have been recovered, according to the latest figures.
The cumulative death toll since the start of the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023, has risen to 73,474 Palestinians killed, while 174,540 others have been injured.
A proposal seeks to exploit Americans’ debt to force them into wars against Israel’s enemies
MEMO | September 3, 2026
The debt of Americans should be exploited to force them to fight in wars against Israel’s enemies, a Jerusalem Post commentator has argued, proposing that indebted young Americans be offered full debt forgiveness in exchange for military service.
Writing in the Israeli newspaper, security analyst AJ Jaff said a “federally administered debt-forgiveness enlistment program” that discharges Americans’ student loan, credit card and other debts after 24 or 36 months of service “would produce voluntary enlistment at scale”.
Jaff, described by the paper as “a senior strategic security strategist and analyst with 20 years of experience across corporate security, military, and geopolitical intelligence”, wrote that “the war with Iran will not be won through airstrikes” and that a ground invasion would require between 750,000 and 1.5 million American troops, against a current active US Army of 452,000.
The article proposed debt relief as the way to fill that gap. “The economics of the indebted American 20- and 30-something make this the most efficient conversion mechanism available,” said Jaff while explaining that “states generate the soldiers they need through the incentives that work on the population they have”.
The proposal has been condemned as confirmation that Israel expects Americans to fight and die in wars fought on its behalf. The Mises Institute, a US think tank, said the article amounted to a call for more Americans “to enlist – to die for Israel”, adding: “The whole point being to further subsidize the state of Israel.”
Users on social media described the proposal as an attempt “to exploit the crippling debt young Americans are carrying by offering them a chance at forgiveness if they’re willing to go die for Israel in the Persian Gulf.”
Responding to the plan, prominent American commentator Glenn Greenwald said: “ Israel pays scummy US politicians in both parties and DC vultures in the lobbying firms to ensure that Americans are forced to send billions to Israel. Then they argue that the debt of Americans should be exploited to force them to fight in wars against Israel’s enemies”.
The proposal to exploit the debt of Americans to fight wars against Israel’s enemies follows a string of remarks by senior Israeli officials suggesting they see US military power as a tool to be wielded on their behalf, while Israel itself stays out of the fighting. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told the Katif Conference for National Responsibility on 21 July that a US war against Iran fought without Israeli participation was “the best for us”, adding, “Israel has no interest in joining the campaign.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, boasted on Israel’s Channel 14 on 30 August that he had used “close to a thousand hours” on American television and his “influence in the United States” over almost 40 years to persuade Washington to take military action against Iran, saying, “It took a long time to bring the US in.” The US had launched military action against Iran on 28 February, an escalation Netanyahu had reportedly been pressing Washington to undertake for months.
Israel’s plan for forced transfer with international complicity remains on the table
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | September 3, 2026
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that the military would not withdraw from the territory it occupied in Gaza, Defence Minister Israel Katz asserted that the plan for forced displacement was merely frozen.
Speaking at a conference hosted by Ynet and Yedioth Ahronot themed “Decision Time: Democracy and Society”, Katz spoke of forced transfer under the euphemism of emigration as the only solution for Gaza. However, he said, the plan required US support which is currently not forthcoming. According to Katz, Arab countries pressured the US to halt the forced transfer plan in return for agreeing with disarming Hamas. Egypt, Katz said, is refusing to cooperate in the plan.
According to Katz, although no sources were reported, 80 per cent of Palestinians in Gaza want to emigrate but Hamas and the international community are placing obstacles in their way. “There are no countries in the world willing to take them in,” he said. “What is delaying this is that the countries willing to take them in want US support.”
Palestinians have been unable to leave Gaza freely for decades before the genocide. Leaving under threat of forced displacement does not constitute freedom of movement. Israel wants Gaza emptied of Palestinians by any means necessary – forced transfer dressed up as travel is the option that lends itself to less scrutiny, despite it being classified as a war crime.
But when the international community approved of Israel’s genocide by refusing to acknowledge it, it also approved the forced transfer that happened as a result of the destructive and relentless bombing. If countries eventually cooperate with Israel’s plan and Palestinians are forcibly transferred out of Gaza, the complicity would render even the usual string of condemnations void of any meaning.
“I think there is no other solution in the end that is in everyone’s interest,” Katz stated. Everyone being anyone except the Palestinian people. Katz’s message is that if enough countries agree to commit war crimes, Palestinians have no say in their forced transfer.
If, as Katz said, forced displacement is still being discussed, the Board of Peace is merely buying time for Israel. Whether or not Hamas agrees to disarmament, forced transfer remains the ultimate goal for Israel. In the interim, the usual back and forth rhetoric on what happens if Hamas disarms continues as background noise for diplomacy to grasp at. For at the periphery of all the futile diplomatic overtures, there is genocide, Netanyahu and a plan to empty Gaza of Palestinians by all means possible. As Katz said, Israel needs US help, which he said would happen at the right moment. “Then we will get the green light to advance militarily, territorially and in other areas as well,” Katz declared.
In that scenario, Israel would colonise Gaza, and the UN would have one less item on its agenda to write statements about. No more talk about genocide except perhaps a commemoration in graphic imagery at the UN and a hypocritical statement about human rights and hope.
Hope, elusive and ambiguous, was all the UN offered in return for its complicity in allowing Zionism to colonise Palestine. What hope brought in the end, was genocide.
Blair directed PA to eliminate mention of ‘Palestine’ from textbooks, former UK envoy reveals
Press TV – September 2, 2026
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has been tasked by a body set up by US President Donald Trump to approach the Palestinian Authority (PA) and propose removing the term “Palestine” from school textbooks, replacing it with the Jewish name “Samaria.”
Jeremy Greenstock, who served as Britain’s ambassador to the UN from 1998 to 2003, said on Wednesday that Blair sought to influence the Palestinian Authority.
He stated that if the PA wished to be recognized by the so-called Board of Peace as a legitimate partner capable of negotiating a resolution with Israel to conclude the genocidal war in Gaza, the term “Palestine” should be removed from educational materials.
Greenstock said in an extensive interview on the David Hearst Podcast that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the request.
Greenstock further noted that his former superior was facing “challenges” in his new position managing the postwar administration of Gaza for the board.
“He recently, I understand, was asked by the Board of Peace to go to Ramallah and ask to remove from the Palestinian curriculum any mention of the word Palestine if they were to be treated by the Board of Peace as capable of coming to an agreement with Israel to end the current conflict that had stemmed from October 7 onwards,” Greenstock said, adding that the information was obtained from a source at the ministerial level.
“President Mahmoud Abbas said he would do no such thing,” he said.
“But the very fact that the Board of Peace could ask for that to be done in the Palestinian educational curriculum makes me wonder what principles the Board of Peace is working on, and what understanding they have of justice, of the sense of fairness, of the history of all of this,” Greenstock added.
A spokesperson for Blair refuted the claim that the former UK prime minister made such a request. “This is not true and a complete fabrication.”
Blair is known to have travelled to the Israeli-occupied territories in mid-August alongside Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for the so-called Board of Peace.
The trio engaged in intense discussions with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has dismissed the proposed roadmap for Gaza. They then proceeded to Cairo, where they met with a Palestinian technocratic group expected to assume control of Gaza, along with representatives from the Hamas resistance movement.
During the interview, Greenstock was critical of Blair’s current role in the Board of Peace, saying he did not think Blair could engage with both sides with the same level of respect.
“Because of his record on Iraq and on Palestine since he left government, he will be seen as prejudiced. So I think he will have, and is having, difficulties.”
Greenstock, who left government service in March 2004, called the Board of Peace an “abstract and arbitrary committee” whose composition would not have any real effect on the ground with either Israel or the Arab side to the question of Palestine.
“I don’t think the Board of Peace is a strong enough construct to bear the weight of the difficult decisions that are going to have to be made about the future of the Palestinian territories.”
As part of an international campaign, Israel and its allies have been amplifying their endeavors to remove the word Palestine from educational materials and museums.
On Tuesday, Israeli authorities began imposing their curriculum on more than 45,000 Palestinian students in state-run schools in East al-Quds, as part of a wider crackdown on education in the occupied territory.
A revised curriculum is reported to be circulating privately for consultation in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Is Israel paving streets with Gaza rubble containing bodies – and is the Board of Peace funding it?
By Kathryn Shihadah | If Americans Knew | September 2, 2026
Muhammad Shehada (@muhammadshehad2) – the journalist at the center of this story – is an accomplished reporter and political analyst, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and contributing writer to the London Review of Books, Newsweek, Al Jazeera English, Zeteo, The New Arab, Israeli media 972Mag and Ha’aretz, and others.
Shehada tweeted on August 26 and 27:
EU diplomats told me last week Israel has been quietly moving hundreds of thousands of tons of rubble mixed with dead bodies out of Gaza to bury evidence of its genocide.
When the EU asked Israel why or whether they filter human remains out of the rubble, no answer ever came!
I’ve been informed Trump’s Board of Peace is paying the expenses of the IDF’s covert transfer of rubble (mixed with dead bodies) out of Gaza. The money is taken from Gaza’s reconstruction funds!
The Board of Peace official X account replied on August 28:
This is categorically farcical and unfounded — total fake news. At a minimum, we would expect such an “intrepid” reporter to reach out to us for comment or clarification before recklessly spreading lies based on anonymous sources who have erroneously “informed” you.
Shehada responded the same day:
Dear Board of Peace,
1- I have a tender issued under your name on 20 May 2026 that includes “leveling & compacting” work in occupied Gaza, do you deny that document?
2- Is the Israeli company Terra Firma NOT doing “rubble clearance” in Gaza allegedly with machines that take rubble & spit out dust while the IDF is doing road-paving work (specifically near Erez)?
3- Are you NOT in any way paying, compensating, subsidizing or aiding Israeli companies, contractors, individuals, the Israeli army or government for rubble removal & road paving in Gaza?
4- If you are involved, can you explain whether any effort is being made to separate human remains from rubble or detect potential mass graves under the roads being paved? The Israeli government is silent on this.
5- I have satellite images that show clear & significant rubble removal work in East Gaza in the months of May & June. Do you deny any involvement in this?
6- Do you have anything to say on Israel killing over 1,200 Palestinians under your watch since your ceasefire started?
How about Israel restricting humanitarian aid and preventing prosthetic limbs from going to largest cohort of child amputees in modern history?
How about Israel preventing repairs of basic infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage, hospitals, bakeries), or releasing all children & women still in detention without trial or charges?
All of those unfulfilled commitments were part of phase one of President Trump’s 20-point plan!
Remarkable how none of Israel’s violations of your ceasefire ever caught your attention once in 323 days, but my sole tweet did in mere hours.
The Board of Peace account has yet to reply.
Excavation equipment for me, but not for thee
United Nations figures indicate that about 200,000 buildings – 82% of the structures in Gaza – are damaged or destroyed. Buried beneath these buildings, thousands of Palestinians await retrieval and dignified burial.
Israel has hundreds of pieces of heavy engineering machinery, and is spending a fortune demolishing what is left in the roughly 70% of Gaza under its control. Ha’aretz reports that a single piece of equipment may be rented for $1,500 a day; the operator may collect $400 a day. Nearly $1 million a day is spent on fuel.
But while part of Gaza is being demolished with massive quantities of equipment, at unprecedented speed and cost, the rest is moving slowly with primitive tools. Only a handful of excavators in Gaza are working at all – the rest were targeted by Israel, or in some cases simply wore out – Israel has blocked the entrance of spare parts. Fuel costs are prohibitive anyway.
Palestinians work long hours with shovels, wheelbarrows, and their hands to dig out the remains of their loved ones, or clear debris from what is left of the roads or their homes as legions of bulldozers demolish neighborhoods nearby.
(The IDF said, in response to the Ha’aretz report cited above, “According to army orders, property destruction is only carried out when there is an operational basis that requires it, and the IDF has never had a policy that allows for the deliberate destruction of civilian property.” It added, “The IDF is taking various measures to minimize damage to civilian structures as much as possible.” The reader can decide whether the IDF’s statement rings true.)
The Wall Street Journal placed the quantity of rubble in Gaza at 68 million tons, and the number of dead bodies buried beneath the rubble at 10,000.
EuroMed Human Rights Monitor estimates that Israeli civilian companies are operating “400 heavy pieces of excavation, demolition, crushing, and transport machinery” to demolish remaining structures, crush the rubble, and load the debris onto trucks.
The rubble is reportedly taken to “undisclosed sites” in Israel and the West Bank. Israeli authorities have neither revealed details nor permitted independent groups to observe the procedure. This lack of transparency does not imply innocence.
If the Israeli company Terra Firma is indeed doing “rubble clearance” in Gaza as Muhammad Shehada alleges, in the same areas where the IDF is paving roads, the similarity to accusations against the Nazis is eerie, to say the least.
If the Board of Peace is indeed bankrolling an effort to hide incriminating evidence about genocide, it would be no exaggeration to say Trump and the rest of the board are covering up a genocide.
What do we know about the Board of Peace?
The so-called Board of Peace is a pay-to-play group of wealthy and powerful Israel supporters, dictators, and authoritarians, as well as Israeli prime minister and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu and two Israeli real estate tycoons – but no Palestinians. In fact, the organization’s charter makes no reference to Gaza.
The lower-tier technocratic committee, made up of Palestinians, will do the grunt work in Gaza – if and when Israel allows the group to enter the Strip.
BoP is problematic in multiple ways, not the least of which is its tendency to view the world through a real estate lens, rather than human rights, justice, or humanitarianism.

