Trump’s Gaza grift and starving children – Not a Ceasefire Day 73

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Trump’s Gaza grift and starving children – Not a Ceasefire Day 73
Palestinian children sleep in a tent, but exposed to the elements, in Gaza. (social media)

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 802nd day.)

12 bodies arrived at hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including four new fatalities and eight recovered from under the rubble, along with seven injuries, during the past 48 hours.

Since the “ceasefire” began on October 11, Israel has killed at least 405 Palestinians. Among the dead are at least 136 children. At least 1,115 have been injured. Death toll figures are tentative. 

Israel has so far violated the 11 October ceasefire deal in Gaza at least 813 times in 73 days. More statistics below.

Palestinians, displaced by Israeli attacks, struggle to survive in makeshift tents in Gaza City, Gaza on December 15, 2025.
Palestinians, displaced by Israeli attacks, struggle to survive in makeshift tents in Gaza City, Gaza on December 15, 2025. (Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency)

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.) 

‘Alarming’ medicine shortages in Gaza amid Israeli restrictions

Gaza’s Ministry of Health warned on Sunday of severe shortages of medical and lab supplies after more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza and a crippling blockade.

Doctors in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory have long warned that they are struggling to save lives because Israel is not allowing the most essential medical supplies in. During Israel’s genocidal war, which has spanned more than two years, nearly all of Gaza’s hospitals and healthcare facilities were attacked, with at least 125 health facilities damaged, including 34 hospitals (continue reading here).

GAZA HEADLINES:

OCCUPIED WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM 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.)

New Land Seizure as Israel Razes Yasuf Fields

Israeli Minister of Settlements Joins Invasion of Hebron

Sunday: Invasions, Violations And Abductions In West Bank

Army Shoots A Palestinian, Abducts Five In Jerusalem, Beit Jala

Israeli soldiers block roads and restrict Palestinian movement as illegal Israeli settlers, under the protection of Israeli forces, carry out a raid in the Old City of Hebron in the southern West Bank on December 20, 2025.
Israeli soldiers block roads and restrict Palestinian movement as illegal Israeli settlers, under the protection of Israeli forces, carry out a raid in the Old City of Hebron in the southern West Bank on December 20, 2025. (Amer Shallodi – Anadolu Agency)

NEWS & HEADLINES ABOUT ISRAEL:

(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.)

‘I think we will do it by force’: Israel’s energy minister says only Israel can disarm Hamas

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen has cast doubt on whether an international force deployed to Gaza can successfully disarm Hamas, saying he believes ultimately Israel will have to step in and “do it by force”.

“Either Hamas disarms itself, which will not happen, or an international force acts against Hamas, but I doubt they will do so,” Cohen told Israeli media. “We have to give it a chance, but it’s clear to me that we will have to do it.”

Israeli military vehicles are gathered along the border following the implementation of the ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal, on October 14, 2025.
Israeli military vehicles are gathered along the border following the implementation of the ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal, on October 14, 2025. (Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency)

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Israeli ‘spy device’ found in South Lebanon, authorities say

Lebanon’s Army Command, stated, “As part of the ongoing engineering survey operations in the southern regions in light of the continued Israeli attacks, a specialized military unit found a disguised Israeli spy device equipped with a camera in the town of Yaroun – Bint Jbeil, and dismantled it.”

Israel’s intelligence network in Lebanon was brought into sharp focus last year when it orchestrated a massive attack on Hezbollah, causing pagers used by the group to explode, killing and wounding many civilians in the process.

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ISRAEL HEADLINES:

Netanyahu finally announces October 7 inquiry: Why are Israelis furious?

Israeli death penalty bill violates international law: Palestinian analysts

Israeli minister proposes keeping Palestinian detainees in facility ’surrounded by crocodiles’

1 killed, 2 wounded in Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon* in new ceasefire violation

*NOTE: Since the “ceasefire” went into effect in November 2024, Israel has struck Lebanon on a near-daily basis, killing at least 331 people.

Israeli raids continue in southern Syria*

*NOTE: The Israeli army has carried out over 1,000 airstrikes and 400 cross-border raids on Syria since December 2024.

HEADLINES FROM ISRAELI MEDIA:

(Get a glimpse inside this country that is rife with turmoil and contradictions that receives $63 million a day from America.)

Israel Is Becoming a Role Model to the Fascist Madmen of the World

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, was among the first to congratulate Chile’s new president-elect, “Son of a Nazi: José Antonio Kast,” who has a dark family past intertwined with Nazism and declared sympathy for the bloody dictator Augusto Pinochet, who drowned Chile in a sea of blood and torture.

Above all, Kast is an ardent supporter of Israel. Amazingly, Sa’ar’s congratulations to the son of a Nazi raised barely an eyebrow in Israel, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 

Why does Mr. Kast find in Israel a friend? What attracts him to the Jewish state? Have the neo-Nazis changed their minds? If so, how did they suddenly become friends of the Jews*?

I think the answer to these questions is that although the core of Nazism and fascism was and still is hatred of the other, especially Jews, the far right attaches great importance to unbridled cruelty, blind ultranationalism and a blatant disregard for the world and for international norms (continue reading here).

*NOTE: This author is expressing a common pitfall in thinking about Israel: he falsely equates Jose Antonio Kast’s attraction to Israel with love for “the Jews.” In reality, Kast is attracted to Zionism, the supremacist ideology on which Israel is built. By its very nature, Zionism requires an exclusively Jewish population – or a Jewish overclass – and has necessitated Israel’s policies of occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and more. Many Jews are antizionists – a position that opposes supremacism and demands equality.

United States President Donald Trump (L) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) in the White House in Washington DC., United States on April 7, 2025
United States President Donald Trump (L) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) in the White House in Washington DC., United States on April 7, 2025 (Avi Ohayon (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu Agency)

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Government announces 11 new West Bank settlements*, recognizes 8 outposts and neighborhoods

The Israeli government formally announced that 11 new settlements* will be established in the West Bank, along with the legalization or recognition of eight illegal outposts and settlement “neighborhoods” as official settlements.

The new settlements spanning the length and breadth of the West Bank were approved by the security cabinet on December 12, but were only formally announced Sunday.

Smotrich said the announcement was aimed at blocking a Palestinian state (continue reading here).

Israel has approved 69 new settlements in the past 3 years to 69.

*NOTE: Israel has illegally built around 280 settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are home to more than 700,000 illegal settlers. Some settler groups have a history of violence against Palestinians, often with the assistance of Israeli military forces (a phenomenon that has grown significantly worse since October 7th, 2023).

In a landmark advisory opinion on July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

A general view of Efrat Jewish Settlement in Bethlehem, West Bank on March 30, 2024.
A general view of Efrat Jewish Settlement in Bethlehem, West Bank on March 30, 2024. (Wisam Hashlamoun – Anadolu Agency)

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HEADLINES FROM ISRAELI MEDIA:

There’s No Such Thing as Settler Violence. It’s Israeli Violence

‘Come home!’: FM Gideon Sa’ar urges Diaspora Jews to make aliyah to Israel

OTHER NEWS & HEADLINES:

Is Israel setting US up to preemptively attack Iran again?*

Israeli officials warned the Trump administration over the weekend that an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps missile exercise could be preparations for a strike on Israel, according to three Israeli and U.S. sources with knowledge of the issue.

The sources said Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, told U.S. CENTCOM head, Adm. Brad Cooper, that recent Iranian missile movements and other operational steps could be a cover for a surprise attack. Zamir urged U.S. and Israeli forces to coordinate closely on defensive preparations.

*NOTE: For decades, Israel has tested the limits of international law by bombing its enemies when it says it feels threatened. Under international law, states are prohibited from using force against each other, except in self-defense or if authorized by the U.N. Security Council. And even when the self-defense exception applies, the force must be limited to what is necessary and proportional. It is not a carte blanche for military conquest.

Trump admin denies it will spend $60B to rebuild Gaza* as high-tech, luxury destination

The Trump administration on Sunday denied a Wall Street Journal report that it will be paying $60 billion to turn Gaza Strip into a destination with luxury resorts, high-speed rail, and AI-optimized energy networks.

The report said on Friday that the United States has presented a proposal to potential donor countries that would reconstruct Gaza as a high-tech coastal area over the next two decades, at a projected cost of $112 billion, with the US contributing $60 billion.

“This is fake news. Nowhere in the plan does it say the US will pay $60 billion,” The State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs Bureau said in a post on X, while avoiding commenting on the other revelations in the report (continue reading here).

*NOTE: This plan for Gaza was developed without input from Palestinians, does not explain where Gazans will live during the redevelopment phase, and is based on a number of assumptions that are not rooted in reality.

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MORE HEADLINES:

Anti-Palestinian Billionaires Will Now Control What TikTok Users See

Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition Joins in the Increase of 2026 Flotilla Sailings to Gaza

ICYMI (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT) – A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:

Jenin: Israeli Occupation Forces Kill Two Palestinians, One a Youth

Israel is imploding

StopAntisemitism Takes Credit for Getting Hundreds Fired. A Music Teacher Is Suing.

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