Hamas: Netanyahu’s inclusion in ‘peace council’ threatens justice
Al Mayadeen | January 22, 2026
The Hamas Resistance movement has condemned the inclusion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the so-called “Peace Council” for Gaza, calling it a dangerous sign that undermines justice and accountability.
In an official statement issued Thursday, Hamas said, “We strongly condemn the inclusion of war criminal Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, in the Peace Council for Gaza.”
The movement stated that Netanyahu’s participation contradicts the very principles such a council should represent. It warned that “the war criminal Netanyahu continues to obstruct a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and carries out the most heinous violations by targeting unarmed civilians.”
Hamas stressed that “the first step toward stability lies in ending the occupation’s violations and holding all those responsible for genocide and starvation accountable.”
The statement came after US President Donald Trump and several international leaders signed a decree on Thursday establishing the “Peace Council” concerning the Gaza Strip. The signing took place during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Netanyahu confirmed his participation on Wednesday, saying: “I will join the Peace Council in response to President Trump’s invitation.”
Others who joined the so-called “Peace Council” include Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and others, bringing the total number of those who accepted Trump’s invitation up to 25.
After the headlines fade: Gaza, abandoned while the genocide persists
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | January 21, 2026
A colleague, an editor at a widely read outlet that centered Gaza throughout the two-year genocide, recently voiced his frustration that Gaza is no longer a main focus in the news.
He hardly needed to say it. It is evident that Gaza has already been pushed to the margins of coverage — not only by mainstream Western media, long known for its structural bias in Israel’s favor, but also by outlets often described, accurately or not, as ‘pro-Palestine.’
At first glance, this retreat may appear routine. Gaza during the height of the genocide demanded constant attention; Gaza after the genocide, less so.
But this assumption collapses under scrutiny, because the genocide in Gaza has not ended.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded since the so-called ceasefire was declared in October 2025, despite repeated claims that large-scale massacres had ceased. These are not isolated incidents or “violations”; they are the continuation of the same lethal policies of the last two years.
Beyond the daily death toll lies devastation on an almost incomprehensible scale. More than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, with entire neighborhoods erased, infrastructure pulverized, and civilian life rendered nearly impossible.
To grasp the depth of Gaza’s crisis, one must confront a brutal reality: well over one million people remain displaced, living in tents and makeshift shelters that collapse under winter storms, floodwaters, or strong winds. Infants have frozen to death. Families are swept from one temporary refuge to another, trapped in a cycle of exposure and fear.
Beneath Gaza’s ruins lie thousands of bodies still buried under rubble, unreachable due to Israel’s destruction of heavy machinery, roads, and emergency services. Thousands more are believed to be buried in mass graves awaiting excavation and dignified burial.
Meanwhile, hundreds of bodies remain scattered in areas east of the so-called Yellow Line, a boundary claimed to separate military zones from Palestinian “safe areas.” Israel never respected this line. It was a fiction from the start, used to manufacture the appearance of restraint while violence continued everywhere.
From Israel’s perspective, the war has never truly stopped. Only Palestinians are expected to honor the ceasefire — compelled by fear that any response, however minimal, will be seized upon as justification for renewed mass killing, fully endorsed by the US administration and its Western allies.
The killing has merely slowed down. On 15th January alone, Israeli attacks killed 16 Palestinians, including women and children, across Gaza, despite the absence of any military confrontation. Yet as long as daily death tolls remain below the psychological threshold of mass slaughter — below 100 bodies a day — Gaza quietly slips from the headlines.
Today, more than two million Palestinians are confined to roughly 45 percent of Gaza’s already tiny 365 square kilometers, with only trickles of aid entering, no reliable access to clean water, and a health system barely functioning. Gaza’s economy is effectively annihilated. Even fishermen are either blocked entirely from the sea or restricted to less than one kilometer offshore, turning a centuries-old livelihood into a daily risk of death.
Education has been reduced to survival. Children study in tents or in partially destroyed buildings, as nearly every school and university in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
Nor has Israel abandoned the rhetoric that laid the ideological groundwork for genocide. Senior Israeli officials continue to articulate visions of permanent devastation and ethnic cleansing — language that strips Palestinians of humanity while framing destruction as policy, a strategic necessity.
But why is Israel determined to keep Gaza suspended at the edge of collapse? Why does it obstruct stabilization and delay movement to the second phase of the ceasefire agreement?
The answer is blunt: Israel seeks to preserve the option of ethnic cleansing. Senior officials have openly advocated permanent occupation, demographic engineering, and the denial of Palestinian return to their destroyed areas east of the Yellow Line.
And the media?
For its part, Western media have begun rehabilitating Israel’s image, reinserting it into global narratives as if collective extermination never occurred. More troubling still, even parts of the so-called ‘pro-Palestine’ media appear to be moving on — as though genocide were a temporary assignment, rather than an ongoing moral emergency.
One might attempt to justify this neglect by pointing to crises elsewhere — Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Greenland. But that argument collapses unless Gaza has truly emerged from catastrophe, though it has not.
Israel has succeeded, to a dangerous degree, in systematically dehumanizing Palestinians through mass killing. Once violence reaches genocidal proportions, lesser — yet still deadly — violence becomes normalized. The slow death of survivors becomes background noise.
This is how Palestinians are killed twice: first through genocide, and then through erasure — through silence, distraction, and the gradual withdrawal of attention from their ongoing collective suffering.
Palestine and its people must remain at the center of moral and political solidarity. This is not an act of charity, nor an expression of ideological alignment. It is the bare minimum owed to a population the world has already failed — and continues to fail — every single day.
Silence now is not neutrality; it is complicity.
US announces Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ amid ongoing Israeli ceasefire breaches
Press TV – January 17, 2026
The administration of US President Donald Trump has announced the executive members of Gaza’s so-called Board of Peace, a body purportedly tasked with managing transitional governance in the territory, as Israel continues to violate its ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
On Friday, the White House published the names of the Gaza Strip’s so-called “Board of Peace” members and the head of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), marking the launch of the second phase of Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.
Ali Sha’ath, a former Palestinian deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA), will lead the NCAG, according to the White House.
The so-called Board of Peace will be chaired by Trump himself, with key members including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The statement also listed members of a “Gaza Executive Board”: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan; United Arab Emirates’ Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al-Hashimy; veteran Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi; Egypt’s intelligence chief Hassan Rashad; UAE-based Bulgarian diplomat and former UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov; Cypriot-Israeli businessman Yakir Gabay; Dutch politician Sigrid Kaag; as well as Witkoff, Kushner, and Blair.
Mladenov will act as High Representative for Gaza, linking the Board of Peace with the NCAG, while Major General Jasper Jeffers will lead the International Stabilization Force (ISF).
The US also appointed Aryeh Lightstone and Josh Gruenbaum as senior advisers to the Board of Peace to supervise “day-to-day strategy and operations.”
More appointments to the Executive Board and the Gaza Executive Board are expected in the coming weeks.
The announcement follows Witkoff’s Wednesday statement launching the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan.
The second phase is said to focus on “demilitarisation, technocratic governance, and reconstruction.”
However, most of the goals in Trump’s 20-point plan that became the basis for a ceasefire in Gaza three months ago never became a reality on the ground.
Phase one was designed to immediately halt the fighting, facilitate the exchange of Israeli and Palestinian captives, set a boundary for Israeli withdrawal from parts of Gaza, allow the full entry of humanitarian aid, and open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
While the daily number of Israeli attacks has decreased since the start of the ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 451 Palestinians and injured 1,251 – an average of nearly five killed every day – since October 10.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hamas released all 20 living Israeli captives in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas has also returned 27 of the 28 bodies of deceased captives, while the search is still on for the remaining body, believed to be buried under the rubble of buildings bombed by Israel.
However, according to Hamas, Israel has failed to release all women and child prisoners as stipulated in the agreement.
Moreover, the Israeli military did not fully withdraw its troops to an area dubbed the “yellow line” and continues to restrict aid.
The opening of the Rafah crossing did not happen, either.
Since Israel launched its genocidal campaign on October 7, 2023, more than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 172,000 wounded, the majority of them women and children.
Hamas: Israeli minister’s boasting over Gaza’s destruction an open admission of genocide
Palestinian Information Center – January 17, 2026
GAZA – Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said on Saturday that the Israeli war minister’s public boasting about the destruction of the Gaza Strip, and his congratulation to the soldiers for criminal acts, amounts to an explicit and unprecedented admission of genocide.
Qassem said the remarks, made in light of revelations by Western media about the scale of devastation in Gaza, constitute further proof of a level of contempt for international law and humanitarian norms unseen in modern history.
He added that what has unfolded in the Gaza Strip, genocide and ethnic cleansing, constitutes a full-fledged crime under international law, now accompanied by a clear and public confession from those responsible. This, he said, necessitates genuine accountability for the entire Israeli occupation system behind these crimes.
Israel launched a genocide in the Gaza Strip in October 2023 that continued for more than two years, resulting in the killing of more than 71,000 Palestinians and the wounding of over 171,000 others. The assault caused massive destruction to approximately 90 percent of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, with the United Nations estimating reconstruction costs at around $70bn.
The Gaza ceasefire’s Phase 2 only exists in the media and at UN meetings
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | January 14, 2026
As the debate continues to rage regarding what Phase Two of the Gaza Ceasefire will look like, it has become clear that there is no such thing occurring on the ground. From start to finish, the entire process has been a US-Israeli gambit to achieve their regime change goals, while removing Gaza’s suffering from the headlines.
Through December 2025, reports emerged claiming that this January would see the implementation of a second phase to the so-called Gaza Ceasefire agreement. As expected, there has been even more stalling on this front, as only vague comments made regarding the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s plan.
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2803, passed on November 17, 2025, laid out the agenda for the Gaza Strip as clear as day. There were no guarantees for the rights of the Palestinian people, all references to precedents set for decades on the issue of “Israel’s” occupation were absent, instead, there was a vague outline of a regime change plot.
Contrary to the Trump administration’s claims that it no longer seeks to be involved in “nation building”, UNSC Resolution 2803 gives approval for what is labelled the “Board of Peace” (BoP) in Gaza. It also approves the deployment of an “International Stabilisation Force” (ISF).
In essence, the BoP is an undemocratic rule set to be imposed upon the Palestinian people, with Trump taking over the role as de facto dictator of the Gaza Strip, while the ISF is set to be a multi-national invasion force tasked with regime change. Phase Two of the ceasefire will hedge upon the success of both these pillars of the so-called “peace plan”.
The failure of Phase Two
When it comes to the BoP, there is no clear strategy that has been set forth for making this work on the ground. A number of different vague proposals have been floated through the media in recent months, all pointing towards the imposition of the BoP for areas still under Israeli occupation.
The Zionist regime’s forces not only refused to respect the so-called “Yellow Line” barrier in the Gaza Strip, which was supposed to demark 53% of the territory from the remaining 47% in the hands of the Hamas-led administration and security authority. The Israelis are now operating inside nearly 60% of the territory.
Under the control of the Israeli occupation forces are five ISIS-linked militant groups that have been established, with the purpose of fighting the Palestinian resistance. The only people living in the seized territory are these militants and their families, whose numbers reportedly reach only into the thousands.
Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump’s so-called “Project Sunrise” was being seriously pitched to regional governments. The proposal advances a rather ridiculous model featuring luxury resorts on the sea, high-rise buildings, high-speed rail, and an advanced AI-driven grid. All of this will allegedly cost at least 112 billion dollars over 10 years, according to the 32-page document put forth by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
This model aligns with an AI generated video published by the US President in early 2025, called “Trump Gaza”, featuring a sleazy billionaire’s playground where Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu are sitting at a resort together.
In the world, what has actually been laid out by more serious officials within the Trump and Netanyahu administration’s, is the idea of reconstruction in the areas of Gaza where the Zionist regime is currently based. This is of course failing the complete disarmament of the Palestinian resistance, which evidently is not going to happen.
This is where the so-called ISF comes into the picture. This multi-national force is intended to be composed of troop contributions from around the world. According to what has been revealed publicly, it appears as if the plan is for the ISF to number into the tens of thousands at most, meaning they will be outnumbered by the Palestinian resistance.
At this stage, although the ISF was supposed to have already been deployed to Gaza, Israeli authorities have been making huge issues regarding which armies will be permitted to join this force. Zionist officials have publicly opposed the inclusion of Turkish or Qatari forces, yet they now appear unable to secure even Azerbaijan’s agreement to agree to contribute troops.
The Egyptians, on the other hand, who are a guarantor of the ISF project, have publicly suggested that it be set up as a “peacekeeping force” that could be comparable to the UNIFIL forces deployed in Southern Lebanon. The US and Israelis are, however, adamant that the ISF not be a peacekeeping force, and according to UNSC 2803, it is not a UN-aligned force. If Cairo says no, getting the ISF off the ground will be difficult.
In the spirit of trying to reach some level of compromise in this regard, the US has floated the idea that the ISF would only work to ensure the security of the borders, train a new Palestinian security force and perhaps coordinate on other issues like securing the transfer of humanitarian supplies.
Yet, even such a limited ISF mission is already showing signs of disaster if it does go ahead. The security firm, UG Solutions – which was responsible for employing private military contractors to lead the defunct Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) scheme – was revealed as early on during the ceasefire to have been interviewing new recruits to deploy to the Gaza Strip.
According to the investigative reporting of Drop Site News, the role of these military contractors could be to coordinate with the ISF and again participate in aid distribution. The GHF project resulted in what Palestinians called a “death trap”, luring starving civilians to aid sites, where American private military contractors and the Israeli military would open fire upon them. The result was over 2,000 civilians murdered, primarily by the Zionist regime, over a period of 6 months. The GHF was directly funded by the US Trump administration.
Under the worst-case scenario, which the Israelis are pushing for, the ISF will be tasked with disarming the Palestinian Resistance. It does not take a military expert to understand that bringing together hundreds of soldiers from one foreign army, with thousands from another, all of whom speak different languages, have never encountered a situation like Gaza and operate under different doctrines, is a recipe for disaster.
The ISF is intended to be the regime change force that finishes the job that the Israeli military failed at. Bear in mind that the Israelis had deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, on rotation, inside the Gaza Strip and still failed.
Prior to the announcement of the ceasefire on October 8, 2025, the Israeli military was in the process of launching its failed “Gideon’s Chariots 2” Operation. According to internal Israeli estimates at the time, the goal of this campaign, which was to occupy Gaza City, would have required up to 200,000 soldiers and possibly taken up to a decade if it was to mirror a West Bank style occupation.
The Israelis were never willing to fight the Palestinian Resistance head on, instead they carried out a genocide, and the majority of their military tasks on a day-to-day basis were destroying civilian infrastructure. In other words, the Israeli army has not changed its primary function, during the war, since the beginning of the so-called ceasefire.
It has continued to demolish buildings and feed its own private industry that has developed behind this demolition work, throughout the ceasefire period. The only difference has been that it no longer experiences the high levels of danger it did previously, due to the resistance adhering to the ceasefire.
This entire genocide has gone down in a similar manner to the way the ceasefire is being implemented. The US-Israeli alliance has no idea how to achieve their desired victory, so they come up with scheme after scheme, military operation after military operation, then when they fail, they simply escalate the violence against civilians and try again.
The way that the US and Israeli military have managed the conflict in Gaza is perhaps the most embarrassing failure in the history of modern warfare. The combined power of the region’s most advanced military, alongside the world’s dominant military power, were not capable of defeating Palestinian Resistance groups who were armed primarily with light weapons they produced themselves under siege.
In every conceivable way, the Israelis and Americans have the upper hand, yet they have to resort to calling in an international invasion force to do their job for them, after committing genocide for over two years and destroying almost every standing structure in all of Gaza. Quite frankly, it is pathetic, not only that they have failed militarily and instead fought against civilians, but that they are so irrational that they cannot even accept defeat.
On the first day the ceasefire was declared, I predicted this exact predicament, that countless schemes would be set forth and that the agreement would be frozen between Phase One and Phase Two for some time. This is precisely what has happened. There was never any real ceasefire, because only one side has adhered to it, Hamas and the Palestinian Resistance. The exact same scenario has played out in Lebanon. The inevitable outcome on both fronts is more war.
Satellite images reveal extensive bulldozing of rubble in Beit Hanun amid signs of broader plans
Palestinian Information Center – January 12, 2026
GAZA – An analysis conducted by Al Jazeera of satellite images has revealed that the Israeli occupation army has carried out large-scale operations to remove the rubble of destroyed homes in the city of Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, raising fundamental questions about the objectives of these actions and whether they are limited to security considerations or extend to broader plans.
The analysis relied on high-resolution satellite images captured between October 8, 2025, two days before the start of the ceasefire in Gaza, and the most recent images dated January 10 of the current year. These images show the continued bulldozing and removal of rubble in devastated neighborhoods, particularly in the Al-Boura area and along the outskirts of Al-Masriyin and Al-Na’ayma streets in northeastern Beit Hanun.
Geographic measurements indicate that the area from which home rubble was removed, along with land that was leveled, amounts to approximately 408,000 square meters, roughly 100 acres. The number of homes whose rubble was cleared is estimated at around 329, in addition to agricultural structures, rooms, and property belonging to farmers in an area considered one of the city’s agricultural zones.
The images also show bulldozers operating among the destroyed homes undergoing debris removal, within a zone that includes several active and inactive Israeli military positions.
The data suggest that the rubble-removal operations began at the start of Beit Hanun’s urban boundary, adjacent to the security fence separating it from nearby Israeli settlements close to the northern border, including the settlement of Sderot.
These scenes contradict recent statements by the Israeli army reported by the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth regarding the purpose of “recruiting” civilian tractors belonging to settlers in the Gaza envelope for use inside the Strip, including in Beit Hanun.
According to the newspaper, the army explained that it had borrowed these tractors for a military unit to carry out tasks behind the border aimed at improving visibility by removing dense vegetation, clearing shrubs, and leveling the ground, without mentioning the removal of rubble from hundreds of homes.
The Israeli army also denied that the purpose of these works was to prepare Palestinian land for Israeli agricultural needs.
The use of agricultural equipment belonging to settlers inside the Gaza Strip is considered unprecedented since 2005. The newspaper noted that the Israeli army’s Southern Command had previously expressed reservations about such a step.
Beit Hanun lies at the extreme northern edge of the Gaza Strip within what are known as the “zero zones,” areas under full Israeli military control. The city has suffered unprecedented levels of destruction due to continuous bombardment and bulldozing over two years of war, including during the ceasefire period, and its residents have only been able to return for short, partial periods.
In the same context, Israel has not concealed its settlement intentions in the Gaza Strip. References to Beit Hanun have repeatedly appeared in speeches and slogans by leaders of the far-right within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
In January 2024, ministers and Knesset members from the ruling coalition signed what was termed the “Charter of Victory and the Renewal of Settlement in the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria” during a conference held in Jerusalem, where a map was displayed showing planned settlement points, including a settlement nucleus on the outskirts of Beit Hanun.
In December of the same year, ministers and Knesset members visited a site overlooking the Gaza Strip from the settlement of Sderot and discussed establishing settlements inside it. Meanwhile, Hadar Bar-Hai, director of a settlement group, stated that Beit Hanun and Beit Lahiya are uninhabited areas, affirming that more than 800 Jewish families are ready to settle immediately once permitted.
Last December, Israeli Army Minister Israel Katz made statements about the future of the Gaza Strip, revealing during a conference at the settlement of Beit El a plan to establish military-agricultural “Nahal nuclei” in northern Gaza, asserting that Israel “will never withdraw and will never leave Gaza.”
Katz described these bases as an alternative to the settlements evacuated in 2005, prompting discontent within the US administration, which demanded clarifications, viewing the plan as contradictory to US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues, in parallel, to demolish homes and expand its areas of control within what is known as the “Yellow Line” in the Gaza Strip, including leveling thousands of dunams of land and residential buildings.
The ceasefire agreement ended a genocidal war launched by Israel against Gaza Strip on October 8, 2023, which lasted two years and resulted in more than 71,000 Palestinian martyrs and over 171,000 wounded, in addition to widespread destruction affecting nearly 90% of civilian infrastructure. The United Nations has estimated the cost of reconstruction at approximately $70 billion.
35,000 ‘Partially or Completely’ Deaf in Gaza Due to Israeli Bombings – Report
The Palestine Chronicle | January 9, 2026
An estimated 35,000 children and adults “have partially or completely” lost their hearing due to bombings during Israel’s two-year genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, according to a Le Monde report, citing a survey by a local non-profit organization.
“Hearing loss can result from injuries to the head or neck, brain trauma causing ruptured eardrums and damage to the auditory system. But it can also be caused by exposure to sound waves, even if a person was not physically injured,” Dr. Ramadan Hussein, an audiologist working with the Atfaluna Society for the Deaf, reportedly said.
“These hearing disorders are, most often, irreversible,” he stressed.
‘Power of Explosion’
One such child whose hearing was affected by the bombings is a 12-year-old girl by the name of Dana. She was resting in her room in Gaza City when an Israeli missile hit the building just across from hers, the report said.
Dana’s father stressed that the explosion “was extremely violent”, with the door to her room torn off and the windows blown out. Although she survived the blast, Dana lost her hearing.
Specialists at the Atfaluna organization confirmed that Dana is suffering from “a very severe hearing loss”.
They said that “Because of the power of the explosion, the auditory nerve was severely damaged, perhaps even completely destroyed.”
Five-Day-Old Baby
In another case, a baby who was just five days old was thrown and buried under the sand when an Israeli missile struck one meter from his family’s tent in the al-Mawassai area of Khan Yunis, the report said.
His mother, Safa al-Qara, said, “We found him thanks to his feet sticking out. He was in a terrible state; we thought he was going to die.” Four months after his birth, his mother noticed that “something was wrong.”
She said that only movement “got his attention, not sounds.” He was subsequently diagnosed with a zero level of hearing.
The report stated that he urgently requires a hearing aid or cochlear implant to avoid sever developmental delays – an impossible task in the besieged enclave with Israel having blocked the entry of some medical equipment and medicines.
“For nearly a year, not a single hearing aid has entered the Gaza Strip,” Dr. Hussein warned, adding that “even those who already have them will soon be unable to use them, because batteries are also banned.”
Infrastructure Destroyed
In addition to the shortages, laboratories to make custom ear molds and much of the infrastructure needed to treat hearing disorders has been destroyed by Israel’s ground offensive, the report stated. Many specialists in this field have also already left the enclave due to the genocidal war.
Dr. Hussein warned that “Forced displacements, continuous bombings, famine and the lack of medicine affect pregnant women and fetuses and can lead to the birth of children with disabilities, including hearing loss.”
At the same time, with the worsening conditions in displacement camps, malnutrition and the lack of primary care, there is the risk of infections.
Fady Abed, the director of Atfaluna, warned that even minor infections, “like ear infections, can cause permanent hearing loss if not treated in time,” the report stated.
Staggering Death Toll
Starting on October 7, 2023, the Israeli military, with American support, launched a genocidal war against the people of Gaza. This campaign has so far resulted in the deaths of over 71,300 Palestinians, with more than 171,000 wounded. The vast majority of the population has been displaced, and the destruction of infrastructure is unprecedented since World War II. Thousands of people are still missing.
In addition to the military assault, the Israeli blockade has caused a man-made famine, leading to the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians—mostly children—with hundreds of thousands more at risk.
Despite widespread international condemnation, little has been done to hold Israel accountable. The nation is currently under investigation for genocide by the International Court of Justice, while accused war criminals, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are officially wanted by the International Criminal Court.
As Israel bans aid orgs in Gaza, notorious mercenary firm seeks “Targeter”
Are Israel and US planning to revive the dystopian GHF scheme that spawned famine and death under cover of humanitarian aid?
By Max Blumenthal | The Grayzone | December 31, 2025
In its bid to continue the genocide in Gaza, Israel has banned 37 international aid organizations from entering the decimated, militarily occupied coastal enclave. This leaves only five humanitarian groups still able to operate inside Gaza.
At the same time, one of the US mercenary firms responsible for securing the notorious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites which were present during the worst periods of famine in Gaza, when at least 3000 Palestinian civilians were gunned down while seeking aid, has posted an ad soliciting former special forces soldiers for offensive operations.
UG Solutions, the scandal-stained private mercenary firm, announced this December that it was hiring an “experienced Targeter to support intelligence-driven operations through the identification, development, validation, and maintenance of operational targets.” The targeter will be expected to “Develop, validate, and maintain operational target packages in accordance with approved targeting processes.”
Anthony Aguilar, the retired United States Army Lt. Col and former Green Beret who blew the whistle on UG Solutions’ human rights abuses in Gaza, told me he believes that Israel’s ban on the 37 international aid organizations signals the return of UG Solutions as part of a restructured version of the Israeli-controlled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation scheme.
While it’s unclear where the UG Solutions targeter position will be deployed, if they are being hired for upcoming operations in Gaza, Aguilar says “this shows that the US, through paramilitary contractors, is now going to either directly target, or feed target data to the IDF.”
To set the stage for its blanket ban on international aid organizations, Israel’s intel-tied Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has demanded that all staffers of aid NGOs prove they do not support calls to boycott Israel, that they do not support armed struggle or oppose Israel’s existence as an exclusivist Jewish state, and that they do not “actively advance delegitimization activities against the State of Israel.”
Aid staffers must also demonstrate that they have never questioned the established history of the Holocaust or challenged official Israeli narratives about October 7 – including, presumably, that Palestinians committed “mass rape” or beheaded babies.
Israel has also demanded that Doctors Without Borders provide COGAT occupation administrators with the personal data of its staff and donors, an unprecedented move by a belligerent in a conflict which few, if any, aid groups could ever honor.
It seems obvious that the Israeli government is using the absurdly onerous new registration standards as cover to ban virtually every credible international aid organization from entering Gaza. In doing so, the apartheid entity seemingly seeks to deprive Palestinians living inside the yellow occupation line of sustenance, forcing them to leave Gaza, or to move into one of the high-tech, concentration camp-like “smart cities” mapped out in the dystopian new “Project Sunrise” proposal marketed by Trump cronies Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
And it is there that they would be “secured” by a mercenary outfit like UG Solutions – and targeted if they dared to resist.
Below is a list of all the aid orgs banned by Israel from operating in Gaza:
1. Accion contra el Hambre – Action Against Hunger
2. Action Aid
3. Alianza por la Solidaridad
4. Artsen zonder Grenzen (Medecins Sans Frontieres Nederland)
5. Campaign for the Children of Palestine (CCP Japan)
6. CARE
7. DanChurchAid
8. Danish Refugee Council
9. Handicap International – Humanity and Inclusion
10. Japan International Volunteer center
11. Medecins Du Monde (FRANCE)
12. Medecins du Monde Switzerland
13. Medecins Sans Frontières Belgium
14. Medecins Sans Frontieres France
15. Medicos del Mundo (Spain)
16. Mercy Corps
17. MSF Spain – Doctors Without Borders Spain
18. NORWEGIAN REFUGEE COUNCIL
19. Oxfam Novib
20. Premiere Urgence Internationale
21. Terre des hommes Lausanne
22. The International Rescue Committee (IRC)
23. WeWorld-GVC
24. World Vision International
25. Relief International
26. Fondazione AVSI
27. Movement for Peace – MPDL
28. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
29. Medico International
30. PSAS – The Palestine Solidarity Association in Sweden
31. Defense for Children International
32. Medical Aid for Palestinians – UK
33. Caritas Internationalis
34. Caritas Jerusalem
35. Near East council churches
36. OXFAM Quebec
37. War Child holland
Gaza races to preserve what remains of its 5,000-year-old archaeological legacy
Under constant Israeli bombardment, Palestinians dig through rubble to prevent the erasure of a history thousands of years in the making.
Volunteers carry an antique pillar from the ruins of the Guerrara Museum after it was damaged in Israeli bombing [TRT World] / TRT World
By Doaa Shaheen | TRT World | December 29, 2025
For more than five millennia, Gaza has stood at the crossroads of civilisations, an ancient port on the Mediterranean linking Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia.
Long before it became synonymous with siege and war, the narrow coastal strip was a passageway for empires, armies, pilgrims, and traders, each leaving traces still buried beneath its soil.
Today, as Gaza’s cities are reduced to rubble from Israel’s brutal assault, another, quieter destruction is unfolding: the systematic loss of cultural memory embedded in museums, artefacts, textiles, and archives that document thousands of years of human history.
Across the devastated enclave, historians, volunteers, and museum founders are risking their lives to rescue what remains, often with bare hands and improvised tools, believing that preserving heritage is inseparable from preserving identity.
Amid the rubble of bombardment and beneath the ominous hum of drones in the so-called Zero Line area east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Mohammed Abu Lahia and his companions risk their lives.
Their mission is to rescue archaeological and heritage artefacts from the ruins of the Al-Qarara Cultural Heritage Museum, in a desperate attempt to prevent the erasure of Palestinian cultural memory after Israeli forces destroyed the museum during the war.
![Historical artefacts displayed at a Gaza museum before Israel launched its war on the enclave in October 2023 [TRT World]](https://d2udx5iz3h7s4h.cloudfront.net/2025/12/29/673300eacfcbfe8e438b6a7c/image/7a5d28d8c8a428a2c55e5e7b306ce95fd39c83a17770c17f4280cfc7150d3ff0.webp)
Historical artefacts displayed at a Gaza museum before Israel launched its war on the enclave in October 2023 [TRT World]
The urgency reflects Gaza’s extraordinary historical density. Over centuries, Canaanites, Philistines, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Mamluks, and Ottomans all ruled or passed through the territory.
Legendary figures such as Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte once stood on its soil. Each era left behind material traces – pottery, mosaics, inscriptions, textiles – many of which ended up in local museums like Al-Qarara.
“The Al-Qarara Cultural Heritage Museum was founded in 2016 in response to the community’s need for a cultural institution to preserve Palestinian heritage from being lost,” says Abu Lahia, the 30-year-old founder.
From its inception, the museum relied on donations from local families who entrusted it with heirlooms and antiquities meant to testify to Palestine’s long history and everyday life across generations.
Before its destruction, “the museum housed about 3,500 pieces narrating 5,000 years of Palestinian history, from Roman, Byzantine, and Mamluk eras to traditional jewellery,” Abu Lahia adds.
“Only about 1,000 pieces have been saved from the destruction through arduous manual search, due to the lack of specialised excavation machinery.”
Gaza’s antiquities are dispersed across public institutions and private museums established by enthusiasts driven by a desire to protect what they see as shared inheritance.
The Israeli war machine has impacted all museums, causing varying degrees of damage and the loss or theft of parts of their collections.
UNESCO has verified damage to at least 110 sites of cultural, historical, and religious significance across Gaza since the war began, including mosques, churches, archaeological sites, museums, and historic buildings, figures that continue to rise as access remains limited.
Abu Lahia explains the rudimentary salvage operation: “We are racing against time to pull out archaeological pieces. Every passing moment is from the lifespan of Palestinian history and these antiquities. We don’t want to lose what remains.”
With no access to modern tools, the team wraps artefacts in cloth and blankets, pads them with plastic and sponge, and stores them in vegetable crates, fruit boxes, or discarded humanitarian aid cartons. Heavy stone columns are dragged out using strong ropes and moved to safer locations.
Twenty-five volunteers, young men and women trained in history, archaeology, architecture, and fine arts, are participating in the effort. They view their work not as cultural preservation alone, but as resistance to erasure.
Alongside physical rescue efforts, the team is building a digital archive, recognising that memory must survive even when objects cannot.
Using a makeshift mobile studio, salvaged items are photographed, catalogued, assigned serial numbers, and uploaded under the museum’s name, ensuring that even if the artefacts are lost, their documentation endures.
![Mohammed Abu Lahia sorting artefacts after they were retrieved from under the rubble of Al-Qarara Museum [TRT World]](https://d2udx5iz3h7s4h.cloudfront.net/2025/12/29/673300eacfcbfe8e438b6a7c/image/09d39a5f38a4bb205b72586e60c012ee03e9e3259922a7283c4d3f1189d39fe4.webp)
Mohammed Abu Lahia sorting artefacts after they were retrieved from under the rubble of Al-Qarara Museum [TRT World]
Abu Lahia emphasises, “The museum has not ended despite the destruction. What survived under the rubble and what was documented digitally confirms that Palestinian memory is still alive.”
Saving the Palestinian Thobe
In another corner of Gaza, Suhaila Shaheen is fighting a parallel battle to preserve a different form of heritage: embroidered Palestinian dress.
The Palestinian thobe, known for its colourful stitches, encodes geography, social history, and identity—distinguishing villages, cities, and even family lineages.
For many Palestinians, it functions as a textile archive passed from one generation to the next.
Founded in December 2022, the Palestinian Thobe Museum in Rafah was both a personal dream and a cultural statement for Dr Shaheen. The university professor specialising in art and technology views safeguarding embroidered dress as preserving stories often excluded from official archives.
The museum, funded entirely by Shaheen and her fundraising efforts, became the first Palestinian museum dedicated to embroidered thobes founded by a woman.
Its collection grew to more than 5,600 heritage items, including around 340 hand-embroidered Palestinian thobes representing villages of the Gaza district, alongside original historical documents, rare photographs, agricultural tools, and a Bedouin tent.
Israeli bombardment on October 10, 2023, erased the museum entirely.
From beneath the rubble, Shaheen was able to recover only 64 thobes, some intact, others torn or eroded by the bombing.
“These are what remain of the museum’s memory,” she says. “I carry them with me wherever I go.”
Unable to save most of the collection physically, Shaheen turned to digital preservation, compiling photographs and records taken by herself, journalists and visitors.
“I’m working on gathering everything available digitally, so the story isn’t completely lost,” she explains.
Looting Gaza’s antiquities
Gaza-based Palestinian heritage expert Hammoud Al-Dahdhar describes the current situation as catastrophic.
In Gaza City’s Old Quarter, the iconic Great Omari Mosque, one of the oldest mosques in the Strip, has been left partially destroyed, its distinctive minaret reduced to a broken stump.
Nearby, the 700-year-old Qasr al-Basha, once a Mamluk palace and later the National Museum, has been struck and bulldozed. Thousands of artefacts it housed are now missing or unaccounted for.
![A broken plaque is all that remains of the Al-Qarara Museum [TRT World]](https://d2udx5iz3h7s4h.cloudfront.net/2025/12/29/673300eacfcbfe8e438b6a7c/image/f7395cc9d21597d1f1cbc9436ef97861991255a41a2a97f9eec0f63a3d7baf02.webp)
A broken plaque is all that remains of the Al-Qarara Museum [TRT World]
Al-Dahdhar points an accusatory finger at the Israeli occupation for looting thousands of archaeological pieces from Gaza’s historical sites, citing the disappearance of more than 17,000 artefacts from Qasr al-Basha alone.
Manual rescue efforts, he says, are carried out amid unexploded ordnance, shortages of equipment, and ongoing bombardment. Digital documentation faces its own risks, including cyberattacks aimed at erasing records.
“These are emergency first-aid operations. We document what is missing, what is looted, and what is destroyed, under impossible conditions,” Al-Dahdhar tells TRT World.
International institutions have also sounded the alarm.
During the war, the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem reported that tens of thousands of archaeological artefacts from Gaza, including material excavated from the UNESCO-listed Byzantine monastery of Saint Hilarion, had been stored in a facility in Gaza City for safekeeping.
The site was managed and secured by Premiere Urgence Internationale, a humanitarian organisation that has worked for years on the protection of Gaza’s historical heritage while providing vocational training and livelihoods for young Palestinians.
Despite the facility’s protected status under the UN’s deconfliction system, the Israeli military ordered its evacuation ahead of an air strike.
![A mannequin on display at the Palestinian Dress Museum before its destruction [TRT World]](https://d2udx5iz3h7s4h.cloudfront.net/2025/12/29/673300eacfcbfe8e438b6a7c/image/ae1e5b20d835c73edd4acb9aaed3aa1913cbfd4c24c1db9b8cfbd1b21812a978.webp)
A mannequin on display at the Palestinian Dress Museum before its destruction [TRT World]
Under sustained risk of bombardment and amid severe shortages of time and resources, 70 percent of the collection, representing more than 25 years of archaeological research, was moved before the Israeli attack. The rest, destroyed.
Scholars and heritage experts have warned that the destruction of such material constitutes an irreparable loss, not only to Palestinians but to global understanding of early Christian and ancient Middle Eastern history.
Al-Dahdhar stresses that the stakes extend beyond preservation for its own sake.
“This is about protecting collective memory. Without it, identity itself is endangered.”
Israeli navy arrests 4 fishermen, blows up their boat
Palestinian Information Center – December 14, 2025
GAZA – The Israeli naval forces arrested four Palestinian fishermen off the coast of Gaza’s main port and later blew up their boat, in yet another attack in the ongoing series of violations against Gaza’s fishing community since the start of the war of extermination.
Zakaria Bakr, head of Gaza’s Fishermen’s Union, confirmed the arrests and the destruction of the boat, adding that the Israeli navy has killed around 230 fishermen since the war began. He also noted that 28 fishermen remain in Israeli detention.
According to Bakr, Israel has banned the entry of engines and fishing equipment into Gaza since the beginning of the assault, effectively crippling the fishing sector and depriving roughly 5,000 families who depend on it for their livelihood.
He estimated that the fishing industry is losing $5 million monthly, with total losses exceeding $70 million since the start of the war, due to the destruction of ports, boats, and fishing tools.
The Fishermen’s Union said the sector has suffered systematic destruction, with over 90% of fishing infrastructure, equipment, and private property wiped out in what it described as a campaign to eliminate this vital economic sector and starve thousands of Palestinian families.
Meanwhile, on Sunday morning, Israeli air and artillery strikes targeted areas inside the ceasefire zones in Gaza. Witnesses reported heavy bombardment, especially in the eastern parts of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza and eastern Gaza City.
Israeli naval forces also opened fire indiscriminately off the coast of Khan Yunis, sparking panic among fishermen and local residents.
These attacks are part of continued violations of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas. Since October 11, these breaches have resulted in 391 Palestinians killed and 1,063 injured.
Tony Blair ‘dropped’ from Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ shortlist; Hamas welcomes move as ‘step in right direction’
MEMO | December 9, 2025
A senior figure in the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, Taher al-Nunu, said on Monday that reports about removing former UK prime minister Tony Blair from the “Gaza Peace Council” is “a step in the right direction”.
He said the movement had repeatedly urged mediators to exclude Blair because of what he described as his clear bias towards Israel.
In comments reported by Al Jazeera, al-Nunu confirmed that Hamas is ready to agree to a long-term truce, provided that Israel fully commits to a complete ceasefire.
He explained that the resistance’s weapons would form part of the defence system of a future Palestinian state, stressing that the movement firmly rejects any proposal for an international force to seize these weapons by force. “This proposal is rejected and has never been discussed,” he said.
Al-Nunu added that the movement has not yet received any clear plan regarding the structure of the proposed international force for Gaza, its duties, or the areas where it would be deployed.
He expressed his belief that “no state will agree to join a force tasked with forcibly disarming Gaza”.
He also said that “Benjamin Netanyahu’s ambitions go beyond the borders of Palestine and pose a threat to all countries in the region”.
In a separate remark, al-Nunu announced that Hamas is ready to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip immediately to an independent national committee of technocrats, noting that this idea was proposed by Egypt after the Palestinian Authority refused to take on the role.
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Guaido’s true colors: “President” to fix Venezuelan relations with Israel
By Jim Carey | Geopolitics Alert | February 13, 2019
Caracas – In an interview over the weekend, “interim President” of Venezuela Juan Guaido promised he would work on restoring relations with Israel.
Despite not actually having a government or being in any type of official position of power within Venezuela Juan Guaido is still somehow making big promises. Last week it was the promise to sell oil he doesn’t control to the US and this week he is setting foreign policy for a state, a military, and a diplomatic core that he doesn’t have.
Regardless of Juan Guaido’s material position, Israel has been more than willing to indulge in the US fantasy in Venezuela and was one of the early states to recognize the fraud as “interim President.” Now it seems Guaido is more than willing to repay the favor should he ever actually hold office.
Guaido made this promise in a recent interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper where he told the interviewer that he was “very happy to announce that the process of stabilizing relations with Israel is in full swing.” While what exactly that means when you’re a President with no power is rather ambiguous, for some reason Guaido has said restoring relations “is very important for us.”
Regardless of all these factors, there are still several reasons the new President has made this a high priority. Even without any actual diplomatic staff recognized by the state, Guaidó has still been in contact with Israel and has even discussed opening a new Venezuelan embassy in Israel, saying it “is one of the subjects we are talking about.”
Another reason Guaidó claims he wants to restore relations with the Zionists is due to the fact that there “are many Venezuelans in Israel and many Jews in Venezuela.”
According to Guaidó, this Venezuelan Jewish community “is very active and prosperous”… continue
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