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.
“We Are Being Drawn Into a War We Don’t Want to Fight”: What Jordan’s Alliance with Washington Is Costing It
By Muhammad Hamid ad-Din – New Eastern Outlook – September 6, 2026
The growing public discontent with the presence of American troops in Jordan, fueled by the regional conflict and Iran’s strategy, is putting the country’s government in a serious crisis of trust, forcing the authorities to choose between a strategic alliance with the United States and the internal stability of the state.
Some 4,000 U.S. troops, bases used for strikes against Iran, Iranian missiles crossing Jordanian skies, and American soldiers killed on Jordanian ground—all raise an increasingly urgent question: has the strategic alliance with Washington become a threat to the very existence of the country?
A Letter That Could Not Be Ignored
More than 200 Jordanian politicians, cultural figures, tribal leaders, and retired military officers did something extremely rare in Jordan—they publicly challenged their own government. In an open letter to the authorities, they demanded the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country, the cancellation or revision of the security agreement with the United States, and its submission to parliament for review.
“We affirm that their presence exposes Jordan to security, political, and economic risks that serve no national interest, and increases the likelihood of our country being dragged into a regional conflict in which it has no part,” the appeal stated.
The initiative was led by former minister and lawmaker Amjad Khazza al-Majali. Among the signatories were former secretary-general of the Islamic Action Front, Salem al-Falahat; 90‑year‑old political activist Sufyan al-Tell; retired military figures including Ali al-Habashneh; and former secretary-general of the Jordanian Communist Party, Saud Kbeilat.
The diversity of the signatories—from leftists to Islamists, from tribal chiefs to secular intellectuals—prevented the authorities from dismissing the letter as the work of a single political faction. But it would be an exaggeration to claim that it reflects the views of all Jordanians; on such sensitive matters, the kingdom simply does not conduct opinion polls, and open disagreement with the authorities has always been a risky undertaking here.
When an Ally Becomes a Target
Jordan has long been one of the United States’ main military partners in the Middle East. Some 4,000 American troops are stationed on its territory. However, the war between the U.S. and Iran, which resumed after the collapse of the June ceasefire, has turned that presence from an abstract diplomatic arrangement into a tangible threat.
Iranian missiles and drones aimed at Israeli or American facilities regularly cross Jordanian airspace. Some strikes hit installations used by U.S. forces. As a result, American soldiers are being killed—and this is no longer just news from another continent, but events occurring on Jordanian soil.
As The Jerusalem Post noted, the Iranian strikes against Jordan were a calculated move: Tehran sought to “sow discord within Jordan and create governmental chaos.” Professor Ronen Itzhak commented on the situation as follows: “This is exactly what Iran was trying to achieve by launching missiles at Jordan. Its goal is to pressure the Jordanian population into demanding the removal of the American presence.”
And Iran is succeeding. Every new attack reinforces the position of critics of the U.S. presence: the alliance with Washington is costing Jordan in direct security losses.
Storm in Parliament: Condolences to “Child Killers”
A particularly telling episode occurred in the Jordanian parliament in late July. Deputy Ali al-Khalayleh proposed sending official condolences to the U.S. Congress over the deaths of American servicemen on Jordanian soil.
The proposal sparked a storm. Other legislators fiercely attacked al‑Khalayleh. They called the United States “the biggest supporter of Israel, which has committed a massacre in Gaza,” and branded American soldiers “child killers.” “The Jordanian people are above such condolences,” their opponents declared.
What made the situation especially delicate was that al‑Khalayleh himself had earlier described the U.S. military presence in Jordan as “a walk with shepherds.” Now he was proposing that parliament express formal condolences to Washington—and he was jeered by his colleagues.
What matters is that opposition to American policy in parliament came not from fringe activists, but from elected representatives within an official political institution. This indicates that discontent with the U.S. alliance is penetrating the highest levels of Jordan’s political system.
Trump’s Double Game
U.S. President Donald Trump, for his part, also fanned the flames. After the deaths of American soldiers in Jordan, he effectively blamed Jordanian forces for incompetence. “If we had different air defense operators, this would not have happened,” Trump said, hinting that the Jordanians had failed to provide adequate protection for U.S. troops. “When you let others do your work… sometimes things go wrong,” the president added.
For Jordanian critics of the American presence, these words were yet another confirmation of their position: Washington itself does not consider Jordan a safe place for its troops and is ready to shift the blame for their deaths onto local authorities.
The Jordanian government, by contrast, could have used the same attacks as proof of the need to strengthen air defense in cooperation with the United States. But amid growing public dissatisfaction, that argument sounds increasingly weak.
Iran Plays on the Divide
Iran’s strategy in this conflict is anything but subtle, yet at the same time highly professional. Tehran consistently draws a distinction between the Jordanian people and the Jordanian government. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued a direct appeal to Jordanians, stating that Iran is “not hostile to Jordan” and that its grievances are only with the American military presence.
“America is using bases on Jordanian soil to wage aggression and commit massacres against our people. It is our legitimate right to strike the aggressor wherever he launches his attacks,” the Iranian military declared. And in the view of many analysts, Tehran has a point on this issue.
Moreover, Iranian propaganda went further: the IRGC claimed that information about the location of U.S. troops in Jordan had been provided by Jordanian civilians and military personnel themselves and expressed gratitude to the Jordanian people for their cooperation.
In this way, Iran is trying to deepen the rift between the authorities and society, using the Palestinian cause as a lever. Support for Palestine is deeply rooted in Jordanian society, and the war in Gaza and Washington’s backing of Israel have only intensified anti‑American sentiment. That is precisely why Iranian statements fall on fertile ground.
Media Blockade and Information Gap
Paradoxically, despite the significance of the letter and the many prominent signatories, major Jordanian media outlets did not publish it in full. Critics of the government saw this as evidence of severe restrictions on political and media space in Jordan. Analysts argued that the limited room for dissent means that the level of opposition visible in the media is likely lower than the actual discontent in society.
As a result, the letter was disseminated mainly through social networks and foreign media. The Jordanian government, for its part, sought to frame the conflict not as a geopolitical problem but as a matter of national security. Official statements emphasized border defense and Jordan’s refusal to take part in the war.
However, in the age of social media, traditional methods of managing information are working less and less effectively. Citizens see videos online, read international reports, and compare them with official statements. The growing gap between the official version and what people see with their own eyes is undermining trust in the authorities.
The Price of Alliance
Jordan’s economy was already under severe strain due to inflation, unemployment, and declining purchasing power. The conflict dealt an additional blow to the tourism sector, which accounts for up to 18% of the country’s revenues. In the first half of 2026, income from tourism and Jordanian expatriates fell by 12%, from American tourists by 25%, and from European tourists by 28%. At the same time, the United States provides Jordan with about $1.65 billion annually in economic and military aid.
King Abdullah II’s government finds itself between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the alliance with the United States brings billions in aid and security guarantees. On the other hand, that same alliance turns the country into a target, undermines internal stability, and erodes citizens’ trust in the authorities.
As Professor Itzhak noted, “The King of Jordan has the sovereignty to make independent decisions in accordance with the constitution, so it is unlikely that he will change the country’s policy.” But the question is how much longer Jordanian society can endure being held hostage to a geopolitical game in which it has no voice.
The open letter from Jordanian public figures is not just a protest against foreign troops. It is a symptom of a deep crisis of trust between the authorities and society, between the government’s strategic calculations and the real interests of its citizens. War, the Palestinian question, the American military presence, and national sovereignty have become tightly interwoven—a knot that Amman is finding increasingly difficult to untie.
Traditional methods of managing public opinion are working less and less effectively in the age of social media. Jordanians are no longer passive recipients of official messages—they actively seek out alternative sources of information and compare them with government statements. And this growing comparison may prove to be the biggest challenge for the Jordanian government, because in today’s world, controlling the flow of information is far harder than controlling the country’s borders or its airspace.
Muhammad Hamid ad‑Din is a prominent Palestinian journalist
Follow new articles on our Telegram channel
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.
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.
SCO leaders sign Bishkek Declaration against ‘western unilateralism’
The Eurasian bloc condemned the US war on Iran as Washington widens secondary sanctions on Tehran’s trading partners
The Cradle | September 1, 2026
Leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) adopted the Bishkek Declaration on 1 September, marking the organization’s 25th anniversary and setting out a joint position on West Asia, global security, and economic cooperation.
The 10-member Eurasian bloc used the anniversary text to press for a “representative, democratic, and equitable multipolar world order,” rejecting bloc-based and confrontational approaches to international affairs.
Member states opposed unilateral coercive measures, such as banking restrictions, asset freezes, and secondary sanctions on third-country firms, that contradict the UN Charter and World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. They also condemned the unlimited buildup of global missile defense systems, calling attempts to secure one state at the expense of others unacceptable.
The declaration reiterated the bloc’s condemnation of the unprovoked US-Israeli attacks on Iranian territory, which have stretched on for 6 months and caused significant economic damage and disruption to global energy and shipping markets.
Member states called the attacks a violation of international law and the UN Charter that created “serious risks to international peace, security and stability.”
On Palestine, the declaration stated that a comprehensive and just settlement of the Palestinian question is the only possible route to peace and stability in the region.
Member states committed to expanding the use of national currencies in mutual settlements and backed reforms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to increase developing-country representation.
The declaration noted progress toward establishing an SCO Development Bank during Kyrgyzstan’s chairmanship, with leaders also supporting Iran’s expedited entry into the SCO Interbank Consortium.
Eight of the 10 SCO member states – Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – reaffirmed support for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), while India declined to join the statement.
Chinese President Xi Jinping called on members to build “universal security” and prevent external interference in the internal affairs of states.
Meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines, Xi said unpredictability in the international situation had risen sharply and that Beijing was ready to work with Moscow to advance a multipolar order and reform of global governance.
Putin told the summit that national currencies now account for more than 98 percent of Russia’s trade payments with SCO partners, and named expanded intra-bloc trade as a priority.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov opened the meeting, saying member states account for over 40 percent of the world’s population and about a quarter of global GDP, and that the organization had grown from a border security mechanism into a global actor.
The summit convened six months into the US war on Iran, and four and a half years into the war in Ukraine, with Washington also pursuing trade disputes with China and India, and threatening to impose secondary sanctions on any country or company trading with Tehran.
Beijing, the main purchaser of Iranian crude, said it would firmly defend its interests.
Trump Censorship Machine Loses Again in Court
By James Bovard | Mises Wire | August 31, 2026
The Trump administration’s crusade to crush campus criticism took another wallop on Friday in a California courtroom. Federal judge Noël Wise ruled that the Trump administration’s “ideological-deportation policy” brazenly violated the US Constitution.
The Stanford Daily—one of the best-known college student newspapers in the nation—sued the Trump administration for changing its “immigration policy and pattern of enforcement, namely by arresting, detaining, and deporting students with F-1 visas when those students use their freedom of speech to express opinions that the government does not like.” It asserted that the Trump administration’s “actions have specifically impacted Stanford Daily by decreasing the quantity and diversity of opinion pieces The Stanford Daily is able to publish on the conflict between Israel and Palestine.” Foreign students who had written on the issue requested that their previous articles be deleted, and other foreign students were no longer willing to comment on hot issues.
The Trump administration claims unlimited discretion to silence foreign students by deporting those whose opinions it disapproves of. Judge Wise wrote, “The language of the [First] Amendment makes clear that it is not the government that gives freedom of speech to the people. Instead, that freedom is imbued in the people. . . . It is not the government’s to take.” This is a notion that conservatives instinctively understand when it comes to the Second Amendment and the right of self-defense. But many people fail to recognize the same right for freedom of speech. Conor Fitzpatrick—the chief supervising attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)—which represented the student newspaper, declared, “Today’s ruling proves that free speech isn’t a privilege, but the inalienable right of every man, woman, and child.” FIRE president Greg Lukianoff clarified the scope of the ruling:
This ruling does NOT say the government must admit anyone, issue anyone a visa, or grant anyone citizenship. It says that once a person is lawfully here, the government cannot deport them because they engaged in protected speech. The government cannot tell a legal immigrant: An American is free to say this, but if you say it, you’re out.
George Porteous—Editor in Chief of Stanford Daily—hailed the decision: “The reporters in our newsroom shouldn’t have to fear that writing a story will result in their deportation. Today’s victory means they won’t have to.” But it remains to be seen whether this latest judicial rebuff slows the Trump censorship juggernaut.
When former president Donald Trump was campaigning to get elected as president in 2024, he openly promised at a campaign event, “One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave.” This was a linchpin of the promise on Trump’s campaign website to “make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.”
Trump presumed that non-citizens have zero right to free speech and his appointees have enforced that policy with an iron fist. On March 25, 2025, masked ICE agents seized Rumeysa Ozturk—a Turkish graduate student—off the streets outside Boston. Ozturk was locked up for 45 days and her student visa covertly canceled because she co-authored an op-ed criticizing Tufts University for failing to divest from Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza. Secretary of State Marco Rubio vilified her as a “lunatic” and implied that the feds had ample evidence of her crimes and abuses. Rubio later justified targeting Ozturk because she met the standard of “people that are supportive of movements that run counter to the foreign policy of the United States.” (Ironically, a large majority of Americans now oppose Trump’s foreign policy regarding his war on Iran). A leak to the Washington Post revealed that the feds had nothing on her—except that op-ed. Federal Judge William Sessions ordered Ozturk released because her arrest “potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of people in this country who are not citizens.” But that was the whole point.
Last September, in a case similar to the Stanford Daily case, federal judge William Young ruled that the Trump’s administration’s implementation of the Executive Orders (on foreign students),
. . . was targeted intentionally at specific viewpoints in order to chill speech. The evidence presented at trial included the Public Officials’ many public statements suggesting that they wished to staunch public protest related to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, including the President’s campaign promise that he would put an end to the student protests on this issue by kicking out protestors.
A Trump Executive Order interpreted “support” for terrorists “to be centered on core First Amendment speech and expressive conduct, such as attending public protests, leading such protests, or even publishing op-eds.” Judge Young declared that he “saw virtually no evidence that anyone along the way [any Trump official] seriously questioned whether pure political speech in support of Palestine or against Israel could be construed as support for terrorism.” Instead, that was the self-evident truth driving the crackdown.
The Stanford Daily case vivified how far the Trump administration will go to snuff dissent. A New York Times headline captured the essence of the case: “Judge Rules Trump Unlawfully Targeted Foreign Students Who Criticized Israel.” If a foreign student engaged in violence at a protest, that would be sufficient to deport them regardless of their opinions. But the Trump administration cast a far wider net, relying heavily on a list of 5,000 foreign students provided by the Canary Mission, which, according to Wikipedia, is “an Israel-based anonymously-run doxing website established in 2014 that publishes the personal information of students, professors, and organizations that it describes as anti-Israel or antisemitic.”
Judge Wise’s decision included stunning examples of how far the Trump administration stretched its definition of terrorist support or antisemitism to justify deporting aliens. John Armstrong—the chief of the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs—carried out Secretary Rubio’s crackdown on non-citizens. During legal proceedings, Armstrong was asked if a “statement calling for limiting military aid to Israel could be covered” (i.e., sufficient to deport). He answered, “[i]n my opinion, yes.” When did foreign aid become sacred?
Judge Wise concluded her 90-page ruling by declaring that the strength of American democracy,
. . . is diminished when members of our society—citizens and noncitizens alike—must self-censor and “behave” or suffer the government’s retaliation. In March 2025, that retaliation was directed at those engaged in pro-Palestine and anti-Israel speech. In September 2025, caught in the government’s net were people critical of Charlie Kirk. In May 2026, it potentially included “weighing in on a peace deal that’s being negotiated” in Iran regarding the Strait of Hormuz. Tomorrow, or perhaps even today, targets may include anyone in the United States who exercises their freedom of speech to simply express opinions the government does not like.
That warning reverberates as the Trump administration further decimates the privacy of Americans returning from abroad, claiming the right to seize and copy all the contents on their cell phones. The Trump administration proposed that foreign visitors will have to surrender their social media passwords before getting a visa to visit here. How long will it be until the same policy is imposed on American citizens?
Judge Wise declared, “Free speech, including the freedom to criticize the government and its leaders, is not a sign of our democracy’s fragility. It is evidence of its strength.” But is that “strength” increasingly a mirage in the United States? And how many other illegal actions has the Trump administration taken to suppress dissent that Americans have not yet heard about?
Final question: Is the Trump administration seeking to vindicate every leftist stereotype about conservatives and Republicans being intolerant authoritarians?
James Bovard is an American libertarian author and lecturer whose political commentary targets examples of waste, failures, corruption, cronyism and abuses of power in government. He is a USA Today columnist and is a frequent contributor to The Hill.
The exodus Israel cannot afford
New data: Israelis heading for the exits include doctors, engineers, tech workers, and high-income taxpayers on whom the occupation’s war economy depends.
By Kamran Yeganegi | The Cradle | August 31, 2026
In the early hours of 7 October 2023, an Israeli journalist identified only as Asaf booked flights for himself, his wife, and their two daughters. The next day, carrying only hand luggage, the family boarded a flight to Berlin. What began as an emergency exit became permanent. Two years later, they had not returned.
Asaf told +972 Magazine that he already believed Israel’s education and healthcare systems were deteriorating. But that morning destroyed his remaining confidence in the state and its military: “By the afternoon of 7 October, we understood that even this wasn’t true.”
His story reflects a larger structural trend. Israel is disproportionately losing the doctors who staff its hospitals, the engineers who sustain its technology sector, the academics who reproduce its scientific capabilities, and the taxpayers who finance its wars.
The numbers Israel struggles to define
Emigration cuts against the Zionist claim that Israel offers Jews security and permanence. Hebrew itself reflects the tension: immigration is aliyah, or “ascent,” while emigration is yerida – “descent.”
An August 2026 Tel Aviv University study, based on Central Bureau of Statistics data, found that 90,922 Israeli citizens remained abroad for at least three consecutive months in 2025, following 91,499 in 2024 and 86,509 in 2023. In total, 268,509 Israelis left for at least three months between 2023 and 2025 – 47 percent more than during 2013–2015.
The three-month measure is not equivalent to permanent migration. But the researchers found a correlation of 0.96 between three-month departures and remaining abroad for at least one year. On that basis, they estimated that 45,000–50,000 Israelis became long-term emigrants in 2025 alone.
Citing official and research data, +972 Magazine put the long-term total above 150,000 over two years and suggested it may have surpassed 200,000 since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government was formed.
Israel’s National Insurance Institute reported 35,625 residency terminations in 2025; 6,651 were requested voluntarily. This administrative measure is neither a count of citizenship loss nor a clean measure of permanent emigration, but it shows that thousands were formally loosening their ties to the state.
Follow the taxpayers
The Israeli Tax Authority has documented a deeper demographic and fiscal shift. Until 2019, emigrants earned approximately the national average. By 2024, their average pre-departure income had reached around 200,000 shekels – 50 percent above the national average and 60 percent higher in real terms than before the pandemic.
As the study’s authors put it: “The pace of emigration among the strong and affluent strata increased, while among the weaker strata it remained almost unchanged.”
According to the Hebrew-language economic daily Calcalist, the departure rate among Israel’s highest income decile rose from approximately 0.3 percent in 2015–2019 to more than 0.5 percent in 2023–2024 – an increase of around 80 percent. That decile accounted for 67 percent of emigrants’ combined income and 86 percent of the income tax they had paid before leaving.
Compared with the 2015–2019 period, the number of people leaving high-tech increased by approximately 150 percent in 2023–2024, while the number departing healthcare more than doubled. Among people aged 40–50, the share of adult emigrants rose from 13 to 20 percent, and their combined pre-departure income tripled to 2.7 billion shekels.
Established professionals, rather than mainly younger workers at the outset of their careers, are increasingly taking their skills, families, savings, and capital abroad. The number reporting overseas transfers exceeding 500,000 shekels quadrupled in 2023–2024.
A new geography of exit
Official statistics record absence more reliably than destination, but a new geography is visible. A Haaretz investigation found a growing demand for relocation to Portugal, Cyprus, and other European states. Cyprus has become a contingency base for some: in the first days after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023, Reuters reported that more than 2,500 Israelis sought refuge there.
Greece is another destination. According to Le Monde, Greek authorities reported an approximately 70-percent rise in “golden visas” issued to Israelis after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Not every visa or property purchase becomes permanent migration, but each relocation lowers the informational, social, and financial barriers facing the next family considering departure.
The fiscal cost of a shrinking base
Each annual cohort that emigrated in 2023 and 2024 had paid approximately 1.2 billion shekels in income tax before departure, compared with around 500 million shekels for cohorts before 2019. The Tax Authority estimates a potential loss of about 700 million shekels per cohort. Some emigrants retain Israeli tax residency, but if similar cohorts accumulate, annual revenue at risk could approach 3.5 billion shekels within five years.
Israel’s high-tech sector produces roughly one-fifth of GDP, more than half of exports, and about one-third of salaried income tax. It also provides expertise in cyberintelligence and military technology. Sustained outflow could weaken both commercial innovation and capabilities central to Israel’s security doctrine.
Israel’s war economy rests heavily on a relatively small, highly productive section of the population, even as its policies push more of these workers and taxpayers abroad. Their departure leaves fewer people to shoulder a growing fiscal and military burden.
The Bank of Israel has separately warned that low labor-force participation among Haredi men and the need to broaden military service remain structural challenges.
For some, relocation is a silent political withdrawal – a vote with their feet against a state increasingly defined by religious polarization and permanent mobilization. Economist Itai Ater warns: “If there is no change, emigration could increase in a way that endangers Israel’s security and economy.”
The state’s attempt to buy time
In March 2026, the Knesset Finance Committee approved a graduated five-year income-tax exemption for qualifying immigrants and long-term returning residents. The ceiling reaches one million shekels in 2027 and 2028; the Finance Ministry initially estimated the five-year cost at 560 million shekels.
Officially, the measure promotes immigration and growth. In practice, it also reveals the scale of the concern: Israel is losing some of those it can least afford to lose and must pay a premium to recover or replace them.
Tax incentives cannot easily compensate for prolonged war, repeated reserve mobilization, political instability, institutional polarization, or an increasingly militarized future.
Physical war damage can be repaired with money. Buildings can be reconstructed and weapons replenished. But when a state loses the people who generate its technology, operate its hospitals, staff its universities, and finance its military, the damage becomes cumulative and structural.
Israel’s most consequential wartime losses may ultimately be the people who quietly conclude that their future lies elsewhere.
