Trump's Board of Peace Rewrites Gaza "Ceasefire," as Israel Expands Occupation of Gaza

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]In October of 2025, you had this the signing of this uh ceasefire agreement.

[00:00:06]And as I said, it was very narrow in its scope. And what Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the other Palestinian factions that that were engaged in the armed resistance and therefore were at the table, what they said was that we're we can only make a deal that comes to the the sort of ending this acute phase of this war and all these other issues. We have to have a dialogue among all Palestinian factions. You know, for as much as people portray Hamas a certain way in Western media, the position that Hamas took in these negotiations was we don't have the right to speak for all of Palestine. And so what what has happened is that now Trump's board is pretending as though that's not true and that Hamas somehow endorsed or signed uh up for all 20 of Trump's uh you know in in the 20 point Trump plan and and they didn't. So what what's been happening is that the Madanov, this this high commissioner, high representative for Gaza that Trump put in power, he's been saying to the Palestinian resistance, you need to unilaterally disarm. And if you don't, then Israel is not going to abide by the terms of the agreement that it actually signed. So what they're saying, I want people to understand this. What they are saying right now, what Trump's border of peace is saying is that if the Palestinians don't agree to conditions that were not in the agreement that they signed with Israel, but go far beyond it, then Israel is not going to abide by the terms of the agreement that it actually signed. That's what they're saying right now. And that means that they're saying that Israel may be able to resume full-scale military operations in the western part of Gaza. that Israel could potentially reinstall a full spectrum blockade on Gaza, that if the Palestinians do not essentially surrender their liberation cause and agree to go into this kind of Trump board inspired re-education process that the full intensity genocide can resume again. I mean this what we're looking at right now is that they have completely shredded the agreement that the Palestinian side made with Israel that brought an end supposedly to the genocide. Israel has refused to ever respect any of the terms of the agreement that it actually signed. It's threatening to go back into the west of Gaza at a very large scale. While already, as Sharif mentioned, they've killed more than 900 Palestinians since the so-called ceasefire went into effect. We're talking about a few thousand people killed in Lebanon since the so-called ceasefire went into effect. And the world is just watching as this all unfolds. And meanwhile, Shadif, you and Forensic Architecture have done another story that we broke last night looking at satellite images on how Israel is expanding not only its occupation or reoccupation of Gaza, roughly 60% right now, but also building new military infrastructure for itself on Gaza's territory.

[00:03:09]>> Right. um you know as part of the agreement in October uh Israeli as part of phase one Israeli troops initially withdrew uh to what's known as the yellow line and so this is a line that runs roughly parallel to Gaza's coastline and then it cuts off large chunks of territory at the northern and southern ends. Um this gave Israel uh control of 53% of the Gaza Strip and the plan was to set the stage for a further phased withdrawal of Israeli troops. So since October, over the past, you know, seven and a half months, Israel has encroached further west, uh, you know, now effectively controlling over 60% of that territory. And so you have all of Gaza's population crammed into an even smaller piece of land on, um, on the western side. And on the eastern side that Israel controls, it's been essentially establishing what looks to be a permanent presence uh to take over that part of of Gaza and not even pretending to consider further withdrawals which were supposed to be uh part of the subsequent phases of the ceasefire. In January, we first reported with forensic architecture that satellite imagery showed that Israel has been begun constructing these BMS, these large raised mounds of earth, essentially like walls of earth to create a physical separation between the area that Israel controls and the area that where the Palestinian population is has been forced into. And these latest findings that we we published yesterday show that Israel has now built more than 25 kilometers of these earthn barriers um physically dividing Gaza uh between along Israel's line of control. And much of this barrier runs west of the yellow line. So it goes even deeper into Palestinian territory. And in places like Jabalia um in northern Gaza, the Israeli military even created a buffer zone beyond the yellow line. you know, destroying everything in a 300 meter vicinity, creating an effective no man's land uh west of the line. Um, and then yes, another thing that Israel's been engaged in is fortifying these newly constructed military bases, many of them along the yellow line in in strategic locations. Uh there's there's something like a total of 38 bases that are currently operational that are east of the yellow line. And what fortifying means is that it's Israel's clearing the surrounding rubble. It's paving roads leading to the bases. Uh and it's adding new structures. And another thing that they're doing is that they're building even higher BMS, these these earthn BMS as a protective wall around the bases.

[00:05:49]And these higher BMS are are flattened on the top, creating kind of a walkway for patrol and surveillance. And you can see a video that we link to in the piece filmed by the Israeli military and and published by Israeli media outlets. It shows Israeli troops using these higher BMS surrounding the bases as a firing position. So they're they're lying down on these very elevated positions and um pointing their guns at, you know, the area where Palestinians are concentrated. Um and the yellow line itself just topographically runs along a sandstone ridge. So these are very very high up. Um and if you look at the images, the bases look like these elevated military forts overlooking Gaza's devastated landscape. The images are quite shocking. Um and I shared the findings yesterday with Abdul Jawed Omar who's an assistant professor at Bit University in the West Bank who we've interviewed before and he said a couple of things that that that I'd like to quote. You know one first he said this is the whole grammar of settler colonial space in miniature. The line is never where the line is said to be. The yellow line like the green line before it like every ctographic fiction Israel has authored exists in order to be exceeded.

[00:07:04]It is drawn not to mark a limit but to generate the next transgression of that limit. Control of 53% becomes control of 60% becomes the buffer that eats 300 meters more.

[00:07:15]And he also said that the you know the 25 kilometers of these earth berms this barrier dividing Gaza the fortification of Israeli military bases along it. He said this is an admission dressed as an achievement.

[00:07:28]A power that had promised for two years the total unmaking of Gaza, its ethnic cleansing, its rendering uninhabitable, the conversion of a place into a non-place, now finds itself doing the most ancient and most defensive thing a colonizer can do, building a wall and standing behind it. The Burm is not the signature of victory. It is the new stalemate that Israel cannot name as such. And I thought that was a very uh compelling insight to to to note that that essentially Israel has failed in in its um ethnic cleansing project to completely clear Gaza and has now seems to be building uh this this massive wall, establishing military bases and pointing all its guns at the Palestinians in Gaza who are coralled into this uh small space that is still undergoing a genocide.

[00:08:27]while uh the Israeli cadess uh just took the initial step by voting to dissolve itself. Uh this could potentially lead to early elections in in Israel. And you know because that entire society uh has has just been gripped by this open genocidal mentality and posture. The the election campaign between Netanyahu and the opposition is is basically in in part coming down to like who can be more genocidal. And you know, if you look at it, even though Netanyahu claims that he kind of ran the deck on the axis of resistance, that he killed Hassan Nosallah, that he uh, you know, decimated Hamas, um, that he he finally got the United States into a full-blown, you know, large-scale war against Iran.

[00:09:21]Um, that they regularly bombed Ansarah in Yemen. that they bombed Syria's entire conventional military infrastructure um after a regime change that both Trump and Netanyahu have openly said that they were responsible for. Um now you know the reality is complicated but both of them have publicly said that. So Netanyahu has sort of portrayed himself as kind of the great savior of the greater Israel project and moving it forward. But the reality is that Hamas did not surrender.

[00:09:54]That the armed resistance in Palestine never waved or uh or or lifted the white flag. And in fact, they are fighting against any attempt to disarm them through quote unquote diplomatic processes when Israel failed to do it on the battlefield.

[00:10:10]which Netanyahu claimed had been thoroughly destroyed, has been ferociously resisting and fighting against Israel's land invasion as well as retaliating against its aerial bombardment campaigns. Iran responded to the USIsraeli attacks by unleashing unprecedented ballistic missile and drone attacks on Israel and on US military infrastructure throughout the Persian Gulf. Ansar Allah still retains its capacity and is standing by. Perhaps if the US and Israel resume their attacks against Iran, we'll see Ansar law more directly uh enter the the frey.

[00:10:50]So the reality is that while Netanyahu similar to Trump claims that he's won all of these victories, the reality is that in none of these fronts has he been able to secure what objectively can be called a victory. And so going into this election cycle, Netanyahu has uh you know to his advantage if he is still perceived as being at war on on the one hand or by uh saying that he's involved with a a a full-blown attempt that is going to erase Gaza as a Palestinian territory. You know, all all of this means that you're going to see more genocidal behavior, more attacks. It's part of why Iranian officials have said that in this 11th hour of a potential agreement between the United States and Iran, Israel is doing everything it can to try to sabotage it. And just parathetically, Sharief, what I'll add is that last night I I asked an Iranian official about Trump's u sort of attempt to include all of these Arab and Islamic countries joining the Abraham Accords as part of the the Iran deal. uh which you know several of those countries have already said you know this this is not going to happen. Um but just to put on the record for people what I was told uh by an Iranian official was the following quote. These issues have no connection whatsoever to the ceasefire negotiations between us and the Americans. From our perspective Trump is attempting to extract lastminute concessions from the Arab countries in the final stages of concluding the interim agreement. So, you know, that that's clear that that, you know, this this isn't going to blow up the deal. Iran and Iran said they've heard nothing about this from any mediator, that this is all Trump's theater. But what it underscores, I think in part, is that, you know, Trump is really desperately throwing stuff at the board hoping that it sticks and he's managing the narrative. And, you know, again, just to reiterate, what Iran told us is that the American side has accepted our red lines. This was just this morning that I was told this in the latest revisions to the text of the ceasefire declaration and that they've indicated this is referring to the Trump administration talk telling mediators that they need time to manage their domestic public opinion before formally announcing acceptance of the provisions of the interim agreement. This is quite interesting. The US is constantly saying, "Oh, the Iranians are in disarray and it takes a long time for them to respond."

[00:13:24]As you know, Sharief, we have gotten in pretty much real time Iran's answers to a range of things that the United States says in this and then it's the US that sort of fumbles and takes Iran has been remarkably consistent as you've as you've reported. It it's held kind of what its conditions are. hasn't wavered and you see kind of this flailing uh US response with different kinds of uh pronouncements of you know victory in negotiations that they're winning huge concessions and and it hasn't hold and then this latest thing with Abraham Accords is just just patently ridiculous. There is no way. I mean there was just I think the most interesting response was that there was silence uh you know Saudi Arabia didn't even acknowledge uh this and there's no way Saudi Arabia will sign a normalization agreement with Israel uh at this moment and there has been um you know for over 20 years the Arab peace initiative you know in 2002 put forward signed by almost every Arab country said that they would normalize relations with Israel if it uh you know withdrew settlers pulled and created a a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders. And it's a very reasonable deal that Israel has just denied every year.

[00:14:39]Um so yeah, I mean that was >> I mean I I think it's more likely that this Chinese sponsored um diplomatic effort to try to you know repair the relations between Iran and many of its Gulf neighbors. that's more likely to happen in a formalized way than most of those countries agreeing to join the so-called Abraham Accords. Um, you know, I mean, we we often talk about the position that the GCC countries have taken, and it's it's true that in their UN resolutions, uh, or their attempted UN resolutions, they've pretended as though there's no such place as the United States or there's no entity called Israel and that Iran just woke up and started attacking its allies. It's true. they've had a unified position in terms of uh I think really inaccurately portraying Iran as the aggressor in this um in this war.

[00:15:34]But on the flip side of it, Qatar is a very interesting country in this um configuration. The the Qataris have become a much more significant player in the past 72 hours or the past four or five days um in mediating between the United States and Iran. And I was told by uh you know Iranian officials that the Qataris are uh are playing a significant role. Um in fact uh the foreign minister of Iran Basarachi and the speaker of the parliament uh Alibaba were just in Doha and they were meeting with senior Qatari officials as well as finance officials from Qatar which indicates that we may see an unfreezing of uh Iranian funds that are held in Qatari banks or where they would need Qatar to to lift it. um the Qataris and the Iranians prior to the outbreak of this war uh and this is true of a number of Gulf nations um they were in a moment of reprosh of its Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf. Um, you you also have the Saudis, you know, the Saudis were in the first Trump administration just completely uh on a path to try to get Trump to escalate war against Iran. There was even, you know, meetings involving Israelis going to Trump Tower, the Saudis, the the Amiradis, etc. The Amiradis, of course, it's a lost cause.

[00:16:57]They are fully in Israel's camp. But the point I'm making here is that when you look at some of these other countries and how the Iran war and the Gaza genocide have kind of shifted the the political calculations, it's quite interesting. Oman also got burned by Steve Witkoff and JD Vance and the Trump administration. They were mediating an end to this crisis in February and the Omani foreign minister meets with JD Vance comes out and says, "We're on the verge of a deal." and two and and and 24 hours later, the US and Israel launch a war against Iran. You know, the Omanis are the only other nation that has a legitimate border with the strait of Hormos and they need to make an agreement with Iran.

[00:17:36]>> None of these countries wanted a war.

[00:17:38]They publicly signaled and they said, "Saudi Arabia and other countries, we won't allow the US to use our airspace.

[00:17:43]We won't allow the US to use our territory to launch attacks." They did not want this war. Um, you know, and and and it was forced on them regardless.

[00:17:51]>> Yeah. Yes. I mean, yes, that that's true. They said all of those things. At the same time, uh, you know, they're playing loose with facts here because sure, uh, those bases were used in the attacks and the more evidence that comes out. But, but I think they were trying to urge them not to do it in that way and absolutely they and I think parts, you know, >> but they they I think they also felt abandoned by the US that there's now missiles raining down on them and and it's like what does this allyship actually provide us? And I think that's what you're pointing to. These things are shifting in a very very serious way and and internally as well within the GCC. On behalf of uh Sharief and myself, I want to thank uh all of our uh listeners, our viewers, our readers. You know, Drop Site News would not exist if it wasn't for the generosity and support of people who become paid subscribers.

[00:18:42]Um when you do that, it also underwrites uh an ability for us to keep all of our journalism outside of a payw wall. We have a ethical commitment not to paywalling any of our content. Um, but it's only possible to do this work because of the support that we receive uh from people like you who are watching this or listening to this um or who read our work on a regular basis. And we're very fortunate to have a very dedicated team of journalists uh working to produce drop site news. It's a small team, but we like to believe that we punch above our weight, and it's because we believe in doing journalism with heart. So, if you can support us, we would appreciate it. On behalf of the entire team at Drop Site News, I want to thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time. I'm Jeremy Scill.