Gaza
cont'd
Israel is by far the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. aid in the world. According to a study by Brown University’s Costs of War Project and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, by the time the Gaza “peace plan” was signed, the Biden and Trump/Vance administrations had provided at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since the start of the war.
This doesn’t include the additional tens of billions of dollars in arms sales that have been committed to for years to come, including the nearly $6.67 billion in weapons sales to Israel the Trump/Vance administration approved in January 2026; the $740 million armored vehicles sale also in January; and the $650 million worth of bombs the Trump/Vance administration sold them in March without the normal congressional review period.
The Trump/Vance administration’s support of the government of Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu didn’t stop at just handing over tons of money. Since inauguration day, the administration has repeatedly imposed sanctions on officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC), largely in retaliation for the Court’s investigations and proceedings involving alleged war crimes by Israel in Gaza.
The administration initially sanctioned ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan in February 2025, followed by four judges in June and two more judges and both deputy prosecutors in August. Additional judges were sanctioned in December 2025, and the administration expanded the sanctions again in August 2026 to include ICC President Tomoko Akane and a senior prosecutor. As of August 2026, nine of the ICC’s eighteen judges, both deputy prosecutors, Prosecutor Karim Khan, and one other member of the prosecutor’s office had been sanctioned by the United States.
< It’s important to note that President Trump’s beef with the ICC extends beyond Israel. It goes back to his first term, when, in March 2020, the ICC Appeals Chamber unanimously authorized an investigation into alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan since May 2003, including alleged crimes by the Taliban and other armed groups, Afghan government forces, and U.S. personnel. The Trump/Vance administration maintains that the ICC has no jurisdiction over American or Israeli officials because neither the United States nor Israel is a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the Court. The ICC takes a different view: it maintains that it can prosecute nationals of non-member states for crimes allegedly committed on the territory of a state that has accepted the Court’s jurisdiction. Afghanistan and the State of Palestine are both parties to the Rome Statute, giving the Court territorial jurisdiction, according to the ICC, over qualifying crimes committed in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories regardless of the alleged perpetrator’s nationality. This matters because, although major countries including the United States, China and India are not parties to the Rome Statute, 125 countries are, and those states have obligations to cooperate with the Court, including with requests for the arrest and surrender of individuals subject to ICC warrants. >
Although there has been significant tension between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu at times during the Iran war, Trump’s defense and support of Netanyahu pre-war extended well beyond money and ICC sanctions. Despite the mounds of evidence suggesting Netanyahu violated the Geneva Convention, the laws of armed conflict, and the laws of humanitarian law, in his speech at Israel’s parliament on October 13th, the U.S. president praised Netanyahu as “a man of exceptional courage and hailing the “victory” he had “won.” He also recommended that Netanyahu be pardoned over criminal charges he faces in Israel before sending an official request to Israeli President Isaac Herzog in a formal letter.
< Netanyahu has been on trial in Israel since 2020 on charges of fraud, breach of trust and, in one case, bribery, stemming from three separate corruption cases. In Case 1000, prosecutors allege that Netanyahu and his wife received nearly 700,000 shekels – about $210,000 – worth of luxury gifts, including cigars and Champagne, from Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer, and that Netanyahu performed favors benefiting Milchan in return. In Case 2000, Netanyahu was secretly recorded negotiating with Arnon Mozes, publisher of Yedioth Ahronoth, a newspaper that had long been critical of him. Prosecutors allege they discussed a deal in which Netanyahu would receive more favorable coverage in exchange for helping curb the growth of Yedioth’s principal competitor, Israel Hayom – a newspaper founded and financed by Sheldon Adelson, the U.S. billionaire, major Republican donor and longtime Netanyahu supporter. The alleged deal was never implemented. In Case 4000, the most serious, prosecutors allege that Netanyahu advanced regulatory decisions benefiting telecommunications giant Bezeq and its controlling shareholder, Shaul Elovitch, in exchange for favorable coverage on the Bezeq-controlled news site Walla. It is the only case in which Netanyahu is charged with bribery as well as fraud and breach of trust.
In a huge coincidence, the legal proceedings have been repeatedly disrupted and delayed amid Israel’s wars in Gaza and Iran. Netanyahu denies all the charges and has repeatedly denounced the prosecution as a… wait for it… politically motivated “witch hunt.” >
After President Trump’s speech at the Knesset, he continued his victory lap in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where he met with other strongmen for “a very important signing,” portraying the “Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity” as a major breakthrough in the decades-long search for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Although he said, “We’re going to be signing a document that’s going to spell out a lot of rules and regulations and lots of other things. It’s very comprehensive,” the document itself had very little substance. And, although they were the reason for the summit in the first place, neither Israel nor Hamas signed the Sharm el-Sheikh declaration or were even represented in any way.
In Egypt, Donald Trump joined Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the President of Egypt, who has been known to detain tens of thousands of political prisoners, including women, children, journalists, and human rights defenders; former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who methodically shifted his country away from the traditions of liberal democracy by embracing far-right, nativist politics, spying on journalists and dissidents, bribing and threatening the media, stacking the judiciary with close allies, sabotaging free and fair elections, and centralizing power for himself and his Fidesz party by placing Hungary’s three branches of government firmly under Fidesz’s control; and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, who has led his country straight into authoritarianism.
Also in attendance were Gulf Arab leaders who have invested heavily in the Trump family’s business interests, including the Emir of Qatar, who gave Donald Trump the $400 million super jet Boeing 747-8 “palace in the sky.” We're sure Donald Trump was super excited to have them there so he could pitch his business partners on the new business opportunity he had announced eight months earlier.
In February, as he stood next to Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House for a joint news conference, the U.S. president proposed that the United States take over the Gaza Strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” because it could be “so magnificent!” To facilitate his plan, the Palestinians who lived there – roughly two million people – would be forced to leave, never to return. He claimed his idea to seize and develop Gaza had gotten “tremendous” support from the “highest of leadership” as a viable plan to bring peace to the Middle East, and described a permanent relocation to sites funded by “countries of interest with humanitarian hearts” – which, after President Trump threatened to cut off their U.S. aid if they refused to take Palestinians, we later learned were Egypt and Jordan (who both said no, by the way).
Even though countries in the Middle East – including key allies – overwhelming rejected President Trump’s idea to forcibly displace Palestinians, Jared Kushner unveiled their vision for postwar Gaza in front of an audience of the World Economic Forum at Davos on January 22, 2026: “We have a masterplan… there is no Plan B.”
Gaza would now be a “futuristic” high-tech metropolis with an airport, a port, and a “coastal tourism” zone that would run along the seafront – long enough for as many as 180 skyscrapers, many likely hotels. “New Rafah” would have more than 100,000 permanent housing units, along with over 200 schools and more than 75 medical facilities. “New Gaza” would be the center of industry, looking an awful lot like Doha and Dubai, with gleaming waterside apartments and office locations.
Kushner and his sidekick Steve Witkoff took their show on the road, pitching their “Project Sunrise” to U.S.-allied nations in the Arab and Muslim world in a 32-page PowerPoint presentation. < The Wall Street Journal reports that Jared was pulling double duty on his trips as one of the U.S. government’s chief negotiators in the Middle East, also trying to raise more money for his private equity firm from governments in the region. >
If anyone is worried about the cost of Gaza’s awesome make-over, they shouldn’t be! The Trump/Vance administration has the perfect solution for that. This project would cost a total of $112.1 billion over ten years, and the United States will commit to being an “anchor,” supporting almost $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt, as well as commit to roughly 20 percent of reconstruction costs over ten years.
For his part, Benjamin Netanyahu has done even more to help lay the groundwork for this “magnificent” deal, taking steps to deepen Israeli control over both Gaza and the occupied West Bank. In the West Bank – in a move widely considered a violation of the Oslo peace process Israel signed decades ago – Israel’s security cabinet approved measures in February 2026 making it easier for Israeli settlers to purchase land while expanding Israeli authorities’ enforcement powers and reducing some of the Palestinian Authority’s powers.
And thanks to additional aggressive moves made by Netanyahu, Israel has also expanded the territory under its control in Gaza since the ceasefire. Israeli forces initially withdrew to the “Yellow Line” (a military deployment line that still left Israel controlling roughly 53 percent of the Gaza Strip) but subsequently pushed restrictions farther into Palestinian territory. Reuters reported in July that Israeli forces had moved the concrete blocks marking the “Yellow Line” (the Israeli military’s initial withdrawal/deployment line inside the Gaza Strip) deeper into Palestinian-controlled territory in several places, including around Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah. Residents have been ordered to leave some of these newly encompassed areas. The UN reported in June that Israel’s newer “Orange Line” placed 64.9 percent of Gaza under tighter and more direct Israeli control. Netanyahu said in May that Israel intended to increase Israeli control to 70 percent.
Already, tens of thousands of Palestinians, along with schools, health facilities, food services and water infrastructure, were located between the Yellow and Orange Lines and under pressure to leave. Israeli demolitions and clearing have also continued in areas under its control, even though much of Gaza’s agricultural land is also within this zone and now inaccessible to Palestinians.
This has gotten so bad that, on September 8, 2026, Britain announced a ban on trade in goods and services with Israeli settlements, while France and Canada announced similar measures and nine other countries backed the initiative. The governments cited accelerating settlement expansion and settler violence, which they believe are undermining the possibility of a future Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, as the eyes of the world turn to the war in Iran, Israel has continued military operations in Gaza despite the ceasefire. Although the fighting isn’t as intense as during the pre-ceasefire war, airstrikes, shelling and shootings have continued. Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 1,250 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire (remember, it doesn’t distinguish civilians from combatants in that figure).
On August 31, 2026, The New York Times reported that, increasingly, former Israeli generals, intelligence officials and prime ministers are accusing settlers in the West Bank of committing ethnic cleansing with government support. General Ben-Reuven – who survived the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, then went on to command a division in the West Bank and lead Israel’s ground forces in the 2006 war against Hezbollah – told the NYT, with “his eyes welling with emotion”: “What the settlers are doing here, is the real threat to Israel. This is more concerning to me than Iran, Gaza or Lebanon.”
“Once a society behaves this way,” Asaf Agmon, a retired Israeli Air Force general, said, “that society is doomed.”
At the end of 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported that, in Gaza, “wintry weather worsened already-desperate conditions in the enclave, especially for the half of the population struggling to rebuild their lives from temporary shelters. Structures made out of bed sheets and clothing – assembled by displaced Palestinians who haven’t received a proper tent – are disintegrating in the heavy rains and winds, leaving many out in the cold. Flooding is bringing raw sewage into the streets, as water-management and sanitation infrastructure is destroyed, and improvised latrines spill over.”
“More than one million of the enclave’s roughly two million residents are without adequate shelter, according to the United Nations. More than 850,000 people are living in some 750 displacement sites that are at high risk of flooding, according to the UN, including along the seashore, where many pitched tents to avoid Israeli airstrikes during the fighting.”
“Since a cease-fire went into effect in the strip in October, little progress has been made in clearing rubble, let alone reconstructing permanent homes. Much of Gaza remains in ruins after thousands of Israeli airstrikes, along with ground fighting and controlled demolitions, destroyed more than 123,000 buildings and left an additional 75,000 damaged, accounting for 81 percent of the structures in the enclave, according to the latest review of satellite images by the UN. First responders in Gaza are urging caution for Palestinians sheltering in damaged buildings, some of which they said have collapsed in the downpours.”
“Aid groups said shelter supplies entering Gaza fall far short of what is needed to deal with the wintry weather. Part of the problem, they said, is that Israel considers many of the things aid groups would like to bring in to be dual-use items that could be repurposed for fighting or to make weapons. That means critical things such as prefabricated structures, tentpoles greater than a certain diameter used in more-robust tents, and heavy machinery to rebuild sanitation infrastructure aren’t allowed into Gaza.”
As rain pounded the cloth of her makeshift tent in central Gaza one night, Jihan Khalaf kept watch with a flashlight to ensure her three children didn’t drown in their sleep. “There are pools of water everywhere, sewage overflowing,” Khalaf, 29 years old, said. “We are always cold. And now my children are sick.”
“My eldest daughter used to be a top student at school, and now she collects things from the ground to use them to light a fire,” said Khalaf. “I cry when I see her.”