After Hamas agreed to a roadmap for implementing the next phases of the Gaza “ceasefire,” Israel escalated its assault on Gaza, and the Board of Peace backtracked, showing how “the special relationship” undermines American sovereignty
Three articles:
By Khaled Elgindy, reposted from Responsible Statecraft, August 5, 2026
A lot can change in a week. Barely five days after President Donald Trump hailed the “historic agreement” on Hamas’s disarmament by the Board of Peace (BOP) — the body Trump created to oversee his Gaza Peace Plan — the very same Board of Peace has now effectively reneged on its own agreement.
The deal emerged from eight months of intensive negotiations between BOP High Representative Nicolay Mladenov and Hamas, along with various regional stakeholders, and was expected to pave the way for implementing the long-delayed second phase of Trump’s 20 Point Plan. This would have included desperately needed reconstruction and the establishment of a Palestinian governing body and police force, alongside the disarmament of Hamas and withdrawal of Israeli forces from the devastated enclave.
Trump and his BOP had already given Israel an effective pass on most of its Phase 1 obligations, refusing to call out Israel’s daily violations of the ceasefire. Israel has persisted in carrying out near daily airstrikes across Gaza, killing at least 1,250 Palestinians since the ceasefire was signed last October, even as it continues to severely restrict aid, seize more territory, and block the return of Palestinian governing and policing bodies.
Last week’s agreement would’ve required each side, notably Israel, to meet all of its outstanding obligations. The two most contentious points — distinguishing between heavy weaponry and small (private) arms, and the sequencing of weapons decommissioning and Israeli withdrawal — were finally agreed after intense pressure on Hamas by the Egyptians and other interlocutors.
Most crucially, the deal called for a parallel, phased process in which Israeli military withdrawal and the decommissioning of Hamas weapons occurred concurrently — a pragmatic provision that would ensure progress and prevent either side from exercising a “veto” over the process. Keen to make the deal work, Trump administration officials even lodged an implicit threat, warning that if Israel rejected the plan, “obviously President Trump would be very, very disappointed.”
But Israel rejected the terms of the deal, insisting there would be no Israeli withdrawal unless Hamas was fully disarmed and Israel maintained the freedom to continue conducting military operations in Gaza. Instead of calling Israel out, the Trump-aligned BOP did a complete about-face, adopting the Israeli position wholesale. “Contrary to inaccurate reports,” read Monday’s BOP statement, “we note that the withdrawal of the IDF beyond the Yellow Line will take place only once decommissioning is complete, as Hamas committed to the mediators [emphasis added].”
Of course, the agreement said no such thing. Article 8 of the BOP’s Road Map expressly states that the decommissioning “process is linked to a phased Israeli withdrawal from the areas it controls in Gaza and the inventorying of weapons held by armed militias.” Indeed, Mladenov himself had said “Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning.” As such, Trump’s Board of Peace has essentially rewritten its own peace plan, requiring Hamas to meet all of its Phase 2 obligations even before Israel has met any of its Phase 1 obligations.
The implications of the Trump administration’s whiplash-inducing turn will be serious and far-reaching. First and foremost, it badly undermines Mladenov’s credibility as a broker. If anything he negotiates can be so quickly and easily negated by the White House, why should Hamas — or for that matter other regional actors like Egypt and Qatar — talk to him?
Trump is also undercutting his own peace plan more broadly, jeopardizing one of his few concrete foreign policy achievements. Hamas is unlikely to go along with this latest shifting of the goalposts; after all, the demand that the group unilaterally disarm even as Israel entrenches and expands its control over Gaza while carrying out deadly attacks on a daily basis would be widely (and accurately) viewed as surrender.
Most devastatingly, for Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants, who have already withstood unspeakable horrors and are now living in the most horrid of conditions, Trump’s U-turn will indefinitely delay desperately needed relief, recovery and reconstruction.
Israel Vetoes Trump in the Middle East—Again
By Andrew Day, reposted from The American Conservative, August 6, 2026
If not for Israel’s veto power over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the Trump administration might have secured peace in Gaza, stabilized relations with Iran, and clinched a deal with Saudi Arabia to help build a nuclear program for the kingdom.
OK, that last “opportunity” deserved a hard pass, unless you reckon nuclear proliferation in the world’s most volatile region somehow serves U.S. interests. But in journalism, three makes a trend, so I’ve got myself a column.
And America has got itself a big problem: Israeli pushback on President Donald Trump’s efforts to build a better Middle East shows how our most entangling of alliances undermines U.S. sovereignty.
The Gaza example is the most recent. Washington has enabled Israel’s assault on Gaza, and Trump would now like to use his Board of Peace, which he oversees, to bring peace to the Palestinian enclave. That’s quite the task, and Israel, an ostensible client state of the U.S., isn’t making it any easier.
Last Thursday, Trump announced on social media that the Board had reached “a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza.” Trump added, “As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw.”
Sorry, Mr. President, but you’ve been reading fake news.
“Contrary to inaccurate reports,” the Board of Peace said in a statement this Monday, the Israeli military would withdraw forces only after Hamas handed over all its weapons.
That’s not what Trump had said, and it’s not what Hamas had understood the phased agreement to require. So, what happened? The Times of Israel reports:
The US-backed Board of Peace appeared to change its conditions for the IDF to withdraw from Gaza after its top officials held a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, shortly before a fresh Israeli airstrike was reported in the enclave.
It’s déjà vu all over again. In late July, the Trump administration announced an agreement to develop a Saudi civilian nuclear program. But there was a catch. The very next day, Trump clarified on Truth Social that the deal “is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”
By “Trump clarified,” I mean that he retroactively decreed a new stipulation apparently designed to kill a deal opposed by Israel. The chances in the near future of Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords—which normalize relations between Muslim nations and Israel—are approximately, checking my math, consulting my copy of Introduction to Statistical Concepts: not gonna freakin’ happen.
Again, the death of the U.S.–Saudi nuclear deal is a good thing, but it was brought about by a very bad thing, namely, Israel’s de facto veto power over Trump’s Middle East policy.
One Mideast nuclear agreement that actually would be good for American interests is the one with Iran that Trump was on the verge of securing in 2025. Early in his second term, Trump aimed to strike a deal that would deny Iran a pathway to the bomb. Statements by White House officials indicated Tehran could still be allowed to enrich uranium for civilian nuclear purposes.
But in spring 2025, something changed, and the Trump administration adopted the hardline position that Iran must commit to zero enrichment. That was a non-starter for Tehran, as the Islamic Republic had repeatedly declared.
Comments by Joe Kent, who resigned this March from a top counterterrorism position in the administration, shed light on what happened: Israel pressured the White House to move the goal posts. In an interview with The American Conservative, Kent recounted that Israel and its American supporters promoted the zero-enrichment demand to “break up the agreement” and set Trump on the path to a regime-change war.
I expect we’ll soon have a fourth “Israeli veto” example to sustain the trend, and this one might illustrate the fundamental problem best of all. In July, Trump said that he’ll consider selling America’s F-35 fighter jet to Turkey. Apparently, that’s not the kind of thing American presidents are allowed to do.
Weeks after Trump’s comments, the State Department said Turkey hasn’t met “conditions” necessary to receive the plane. The main problem is legitimate: Turkey possesses a surface-to-air missile system made by Russia, raising intelligence risks since that system can spy on nearby aircraft. But even if Ankara relinquished it, a major hurdle would still stand between the Turks and the F-35.
You’ll never guess the hurdle.
“Israel reportedly has pressed Trump not to provide Turkey with the aircraft, amid fears that a sale could weaken Israel’s qualitative military edge,” Fox News reports.
That last phrase is key. Since the Cold War, Washington has followed a policy of maintaining Israel’s military superiority in its region. In 2008, the policy was codified into law by the Naval Vessel Transfer Act, which obliges the president to monitor and uphold Israel’s ability to defeat “any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors.”
It’s an odd policy. Realism 101 says the U.S. should foster a balance of power in other regions, but this law requires the commander-in-chief to do the opposite: underwrite Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. Obviously, the three episodes dealt with above are part of a problem that transcends the Trump administration.
For America First patriots devoted to safeguarding our nation’s independence in foreign affairs, this problem demands attention and concern. Though of course, our special friend in the Holy Land will move heaven and earth to veto our efforts to solve it.
As the Board of Peace Cosplays Diplomacy, Israel Once Again Ramps Up Killing in Gaza
By Abdel Qader Sabbah and Sharif Abdel Kouddous, reposted from Drop Site News, August 6, 2026
GAZA CITY—Ahmed Abu Al-Kas was sifting through the debris of an apartment in the Al-Sousi Tower in western Gaza City in the aftermath of a pre-dawn Israeli airstrike on Sunday that killed a pregnant woman, her husband, and their five-year-old son. Among the broken concrete, strewn blankets, children’s toys, and backpacks lay the body of an unborn baby, curled in a fetal position and covered in grey dust. Al-Kas watched as another man picked up the tiny figure with a hand towel and gingerly placed it on a pile of blankets.
He had been nearby when the bombing happened. “All of a sudden, we heard the sound of an explosion. We started running and we came next to the tower,” Al-Kas, 32, told Drop Site News later that day. “I broke down the door and went in with the other young men. I found body parts scattered everywhere. Over there, I found a small child. I shined my flashlight into the other part of the apartment, and found that half of it had collapsed. Since this morning, I’ve been searching through the rubble for the body parts left behind overnight. While searching, I found this baby.”
The force of the blast had apparently torn the baby from the mother’s body. Al-Kas was distraught. “I found a baby thrown from its mother’s womb,” he said. “His mother was torn apart, and I found [the baby] just like this.”
The attack on the family home in the Al-Sousi Tower came on one of the deadliest days in Gaza in recent weeks, with at least 18 Palestinians killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—just as President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace was claiming that an agreement had been reached on a new phase of “the ceasefire.”
Remnants of the munition found at the site appeared to be from an Israeli weapon, likely a suicide drone—a type of highly precise attack drone—that has been used frequently in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, according to Trevor Ball, an analyst with Armament Research Services (ARES) and a former U.S. army explosive ordnance disposal specialist, after reviewing images provided by Drop Site.
The surge in Israeli attacks came in the wake of a deal with Hamas, first announced by Trump on Thursday, on a roadmap for implementing the next phases of the Gaza “ceasefire.” Shortly after Trump’s announcement, mediator countries said Hamas had, “for the first time,” formally committed to “an actionable plan for relinquishing all its weapons.”
The following day, Hamas said it had engaged “responsibly and positively” with mediators’ proposals but stressed that implementation of the deal would only proceed if Israel fulfilled all of its obligations under the first phase of the October 2025 agreement. The group said discussions over handing over its heavy weapons were conditional on a permanent end to Israeli attacks, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, early recovery and reconstruction, the entry of a Palestinian technocratic committee and international forces, the dismantling of Israel-backed armed militias, and progress toward Palestinian self-determination and an independent Palestinian state.
While Tel Aviv did not initially issue a formal response, Israeli officials were quickly quoted in the press saying they rejected the deal as the escalated weekend assault began.
On Saturday, at least six Palestinians were killed in a series of airstrikes, including one targeting the area of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, damaging an adjacent medical storage facility and destroying essential medical supplies as well as a number of tents sheltering displaced families.
“We went to sleep under a [new ceasefire deal]. Trump announced a ceasefire and things were going in the right direction.…We slept peacefully and happily, thinking that the situation would get better from the next day onward,” Fatima Sharab, who was displaced from her home and living in a tent near Al-Aqsa Hospital, told Drop Site. She said she was woken up at around 2 a.m. on Saturday morning with instructions to flee the area before it was bombed.
Sharab stood among shredded tents and belongings that littered the ground next to a massive crater in the sand. “The camp here is made up of tents and a warehouse for kidney medications for dialysis patients. So what was the problem? What did we do wrong?” She added, “You can’t even tell where your own tent was or where your belongings are. Today, we have no shelter. I don’t even know what to say anymore.”
According to the director of Al-Aqsa Hospital, Raed Hussein, the warehouse that was targeted on Saturday was the main one of four the hospital established in coordination with the World Health Organization to help deal with a storage crisis. “This warehouse contained all the solutions and equipment needed for kidney dialysis,” Hussein told Drop Site. “We were shocked to wake up today and find that this warehouse had been targeted…Over the past three years, supplies have never been fully available, and when they do arrive, they come only in limited quantities. So you can imagine the consequences of this attack.”
The heavy assault continued the next day when an Israeli missile slammed into Al-Thawra street in western Gaza City, killing a child and a bridegroom in his tent.
“He was preparing his tent for his wedding, then he was torn apart in it,” said Rasem Asaliya, 35, an eyewitness. “They said there would be a ceasefire, no more strikes, no more assassinations. But they struck anyway.”
The torn, blood-spattered tent barely stood upright next to a small crater where the missile struck. “They are still attacking us and our children. Nothing has changed. They’re liars. They broke their word,” said Mohamed Yassin, 37, who rushed to the site in the aftermath of the attack. “All the news we’re hearing [about a new deal] is a lie. This isn’t news; it’s all false propaganda.”
On Monday, three countries that have served as mediators—Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey—issued their first joint statement condemning the Israeli attacks. They denounced Israel’s targeting of healthcare facilities and medical infrastructure, and the killing of civilians, including women and children, calling the attacks “a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law.”
At the same time, Nickolay Mladenov, the High Representative of Board of Peace, along with other board members, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The board issued a statement shortly afterwards saying “Israel and the Board of Peace share a common understanding of the ultimate objectives.”
The statement clarified a series of measures that contravened the board’s own roadmap, saying Hamas must first fully disarm before Israel took any steps. “Contrary to inaccurate reports, we note that the withdrawal of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] beyond the Yellow Line will take place only once decommissioning is complete, as Hamas committed to the mediators. This applies to light weapons, heavy weapons, and the tunnels alike,” the board said.
In his first public comments on the agreement on Tuesday, Netanyahu flatly rejected the deal. “They sent us a draft. We did not agree. It is not our draft. We sent our comments,” he said in a video posted on social media. “We’re not withdrawing from our current lines until Hamas is totally disarmed.”
Since the “ceasefire” agreement went into effect nearly 10 months ago, Israel has violated the terms of the deal on a daily basis. Over 1,250 Palestinians have been killed, including over 300 children, in routine airstrikes, shelling, and shooting. Israel has not allowed in the agreed upon levels of humanitarian aid and life essentials, blocked the entry of reconstructions equipment and shelters, refused to fully open the Rafah border crossing, and has gradually pushed in its ground troops further westward from what was supposed to be an initial line of withdrawal of 53% of Gaza to now controlling nearly 70% of the enclave.
The pace of killing has been gradually increasing. Gaza’s Health Ministry recently noted that 152 people were killed during the month of July, including 21 children, marking the highest monthly death toll recorded since the beginning of 2026 in what has been a steady escalation over the past few months.
The official death toll since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal assault in October 2023 has now topped 73,300 with over 174,200 injured. Thousands more are missing and trapped under the rubble. Denied proper equipment and resources, Civil Defense crews have been unable to properly retrieve the bodies.
Over the weekend, first responders managed to complete intensive efforts to recover the remains of 112 Palestinians, including 40 children, killed in one of the deadliest single incidents of the genocide—an Israeli attack on a residential block in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City on November 22, 2023 that killed over 300 members of the Hassayna and Abu Sharia families in what Amnesty International called “a chilling illustration of a pattern of Israeli attacks wiping out entire multi-generational families.”
A mass funeral ceremony was held on Tuesday for the 112 retrieved bodies in what was understood to be the largest funeral in Gaza’s modern history. The bodies, wrapped in Palestinian flags, were carried on stretchers through the destroyed streets of Gaza City before being laid in rows on the ground for the funeral prayer. They were then brought to a nearby cemetery to be laid to rest.
“This overwhelming scene reminds us of the crimes and attacks committed by the Israeli occupation, and its brutality and criminality against these families,” Fares Affana, the Civil Defense Director of Ambulance and Emergency Services in North Gaza told Drop Site. “This massacre is one of the largest carried out in the Gaza Strip.
We could hear the cries and screams of the wounded from beneath the rubble of such massacres. Some were wounded and still alive. But because of our lack of equipment, we couldn’t reach them.”
Another mourner watched as the martyrs were carried through the streets. “Those whose bodies were recovered from beneath the rubble and debris embody for the world the devotion to the Palestinian cause,” he said. “This is not a funeral for one family alone. It is a funeral for all of Gaza.”
Khaled Elgindy is a senior research fellow in the Middle East Program of the Quincy Institute and the author of ‘Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump’, published by Brookings Institution Press in April 2019.
Andrew Day is the senior editor of The American Conservative. He has a PhD in political science from Northwestern University. You can follow him on X @AKDay89.
Abdel Qader Sabbah is a journalist and videographer in northern Gaza
Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a journalist and editor at Drop Site News.
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