Trump “Board of Peace” for Gaza is stacked with Israel supporters – Not a ceasefire Day 99

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

(While a “ceasefire” is ostensibly in place, Israel has continued its assault on Gaza without interruption. If Americans Knew considers the war to be ongoing, and in its 826th day.)

Thirteen Palestinians were killed on Friday – 4 of them children – in multiple Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip, according to medical officials and field reports. The fatalities occurred in Beit Lahia, Khan Younis, Deir al‑Balah, Nuseirat refugee camp, and Gaza City, marking another day of widespread Israeli violations despite the ongoing “ceasefire” framework announced in October of last year.

Since the “ceasefire” began on October 11, Israel has killed at least 464 Palestinians. At least 1,275 have been injured. Death toll figures are tentative. 

At least 25 Palestinians in Gaza have died due to the extreme cold, including 21 children, since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in October 2023.

Israel has so far violated the 11 October ceasefire deal in Gaza at least 1,193 times (as of Jan. 9, 2026). More statistics below.

GAZA NEWS & HEADLINES:

(For some basic info on the Palestine-Israel conflict, go here. For more critical context, skim this, this, and this. To read about a remarkable but underreported, 20-month-long peaceful protest in Gaza against Israel, go here.)

Israel is killing babies in Gaza

According to two reports by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) in cooperation with the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, between January and June 2025, Gaza recorded approximately 2,600 miscarriages, 220 pregnancy-related deaths, 1,460 premature births, and more than 1,700 low-birth-weight babies.

The groups call the situation the result of Israel’s policy of “reproductive violence” aimed at preventing Palestinians from having children, which under international law could be considered an act of genocide (continue reading here).

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Head of Gaza’s administration committee announces ‘official’ start of work

Ali Shaath, head of the Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, said on Friday the body has “officially” begun work to manage the enclave, with international and US backing aimed at helping Palestinians emerge from the current crisis. Fifteen Palestinians experienced in development, relief, and humanitarian work inside Gaza comprise the committee.

Shaath said it will operate for a two-year transitional period, and that the committee’s goal is “to give the Palestinian people hope that there is a future,” adding that its immediate objective is to bring “smiles on the faces of Gaza’s children, women, and men,” the channel reported (continue reading here).

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Trump announces Gaza’s “Board of Peace,” stacked with Israel supporters

The White House said on Friday that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would be among the founding executive members of so-called “Board of Peace“, alongside Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, as well as Marc Rowan, the CEO of Apollo Global Management; World Bank Group President Ajay Banga; and Robert Gabriel, a US deputy national security adviser.

Ashish Prashar, who worked as an aide to Tony Blair between 2010 and 2012, called for rejecting international trusteeship over Gaza, stating that “the future of Palestine should only be decided by Palestinians”.

“It appears the only qualification for joining the Gaza ‘peace board’ is to have a strong track record of endorsing (and arming) Israel’s project of genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and criminalizing those who oppose it,” Prashar told Al Jazeera in a statement.

“Trump’s Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ was just a pilot project. All states who signed off on it are the ones who paved the way for Trump’s next ‘Boards of Peace’ in Venezuela, Ukraine and any other place the extractionist American regime wants to take next,” he said (continue reading here).

RELATED: Trump’s Board of Peace announcement contradicts Israeli policy, PM says

OCCUPIED WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM NEWS & HEADLINES:

(Every day, Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem endure dozens of incidents like the ones below, at the hands of Israeli soldiers and/or settlers. For background on the West Bank, read this and this. For information on the significance of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, read this and this.)

Israeli Forces Kill a Palestinian Child Near Ramallah

Israeli forces shot and killed a 14-year-old child, Mohamad Saad Sami Naasan, on Friday, while illegal colonizers carried out an incursion into the village of Al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah in the central West Bank.

Naasan suffered critical gunshot wounds to the chest and back during the military operation which coincided with the settler invasion in the area.

Since the beginning of the Israeli military aggression against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, occupation forces have killed 1107 Palestinian citizens in the West Bank, including 230 children and 24 women.

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‘Utensils for olive oil’: Inside the West Bank’s deepening economic collapse

As livelihoods disappear, Palestinian families barter their possessions and risk death crossing into Israel to survive.

Since the war on Gaza began – and Israeli restrictions across the occupied West Bank intensified – women have increasingly offered furniture, toys, kitchenware and even their children’s clothes in return for basic food. Long the barest staples of Palestinian life, olive oil and za’atar (a herb blend) have become shorthand for poverty itself, captured in the saying: “He lives on oil and za’atar” (continue reading here).

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Israeli Colonizers, Soldiers Attack Locals, Internationals in al‑Mughayyer

Israeli Colonizers Target Palestinians in West Bank

Israeli Colonizers Expel Farmer from his Land Near Nablus

Israeli Soldiers Abduct Children, Intensify Invasions Across the West Bank

Abductions and Live‑Fire Injury in Southern West Bank

EU Calls on Israel to Halt E1 and Other Colonial Plans

ISRAEL NEWS & HEADLINES:

(Israel is a tiny country, about the size of New Jersey, with a population smaller than the US state of Georgia – about 10 million (of which about 20 percent are Palestinians), yet it is in the news constantly. As has been demonstrated again and again, however, mainstream media rarely covers Israel accurately. IAK passes along only factual reporting.)

After occupying Palestine, the messianic settlers* have captured Israel

The state is being transformed into one with hollow institutions, driven by messianic religious ideology and sustained by military force (continue reading here).

*NOTE: Read more about these religious extremist settlers here and here.

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2 Lebanese* killed in Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon despite ceasefire

*NOTE: Israel has attacked Lebanon almost every day since the ceasefire was reached on 27 November 2024. committing over 10,000 air and ground violations.

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UN official warns of rising Israeli army incidents endangering peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon

‘The number of villages that are destroyed is extremely high, and civilians have not been able to return,’ says Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

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OTHER NEWS & HEADLINES:

House of Representatives approves $3.3bn in military aid to Israel

Real total of US assistance to Israel is substantially higher than the funds set by a 10-year memorandum of understanding (continue reading here).

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ICYMI, A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:

UN official says every Gaza resident surrounded by 30 tons of rubble

The Arrest of This Widow Shows How Scared Israeli Authorities Are of Palestinians’ Stories

Rights groups warn Israel’s execution bill will legalize state killing of Palestinians*

Ms. Rachel’s Colors That Survived: Gaza’s children share stories of survival through art in New York show

(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – JANUARY 16, 2026*:

• At least 72,655 Palestinians killed, 182,353 injured – including:
• At least 71,548 killed in Gaza (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls)
• At least 1,107 killed in the West Bank (~230 children)
• At least 171,353 injured in Gaza
• About 11,000 injured in the West Bank

*NOTE: Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 10,000 more are still buried under rubble. Additionally, the numbers of injured and starved are very conservative estimates. Only the dead who are brought to hospitals are included in the official fatality count.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 16, 2026: ~1,661 – including ~1,139** on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 471 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, about 52 military and civilians (by one count, there have been 59 victims) in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel. 

By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 275 Palestinian journalists and media workers; Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 215 and 328 Palestinian journalists killed – depending on the criteria used).

**NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.