A never-ending Nakba as Israel’s land grab continues
At the start of Memorial Day weekend the US appeared mired in a military muddle with no clear exit strategy. Intelligence agencies reportedly found that Iran still has access to 70% of its missiles and missile launchers, while the US stockpile of weapons has dangerously decreased, with the US using more anti-missile weapons to defend Israel from Iranian attacks than Israel fired to defend itself. Iran is still in control of the Strait of Hormuz and its enriched uranium is still somewhere underground. Trump, whose approval rating has sunk to a new low for his second term, seemed to be flip-flopping about whether to resume bombing while the cost of what he insists is not a war rises steadily.
On May 13, the Democrats in the Senate came within one vote of starting the procedure to enforce the War Powers Act of 1973, which requires troops to be withdrawn after 60 days of the beginning of a war unless Congress consents to extend the period of hostilities. On May 14, there was a tied vote in the House, which left the status quo in place. Finally, on their eighth try on May 19, Senate Democrats succeeded by a 50-47 procedural vote in ensuring that the Iran War Powers Resolution gets a debate in the Senate in the coming days or weeks. A similar procedural vote now needs to pass the House to move forward, and Congress would have to overcome an almost certain presidential veto in order to have their say in war-making as required by the Constitution. On May 21, the House vote was scrapped by Speaker Mike Johnson when it seemed that it might be won by war opponents.
Israel-US war plans go badly awry
On May 17 and May 19, Trump and Netanyahu had tense phone conversations during which Netanyahu urgedthe president to resume the war. But after continuing to threaten Iran with eradication and claiming that the ‘ceasefire’ was “on life support,” Trump said on May 18 that he was delaying the new military offensive planned for the next day because Gulf states had asked him to hold off since “serious negotiations are now taking place” and the “Deal will include, importantly, NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN!”
Just four days before, Fox News had aired an interview with Trump in which he commented about the retrieval of enriched uranium that “I don’t think it’s necessary except from a public relations standpoint. I think it’s important for the fake news that we get it. I’m the one that said we are going to get it.” Such political optics had not been on his mind on May 12, when his response to a reporter who asked to “what extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal?” was “not even a little bit. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” He then stated that “I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all. That’s the only thing that motivates me.”
What the stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz was doing to the world – which is described here by Col. Larry Wilkerson (Colin Powell’s former chief of staff) – seemed also far from Trump’s mind. Wilkerson maintains that the US has lost the war in Iran and that Israel, which had established two secret military outposts in Iraq to prepare for attacking Iran, is “losing badly in Lebanon and is being “torn to pieces.” There is no way, he says, that either the US or Israel can make the current mess they have created into a ‘victory.’
Who would have guessed that Iran ‘s most relentlessly antisemitic, fiercely anti-American former president was the great Israeli-US hope for regime change? Astonishingly, an article in the May 19 New York Times revealsthat the Israelis had cooked up a plan to free an apparently co-opted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from house arrest by bombing his house to kill the guards and then, after eliminating the Ayatollah, to install as leader of the country the man who had repeatedly called to “wipe Israel off the map.” He was expected to assume the subservient role that interim president Delcy Rodriguez is playing in Venezuela. According to the report, Ahmadinejad, who had praised Trump as “a man of action” in a 2019 interview, had initially agreed with the plan but was wounded on the first day of the war when his house was bombed. Since then, his whereabouts are unknown.
Then today, on May 24, it was reported that Iran and the US had agreed on a memorandum of understanding (MOU) under which the ceasefire would continue for 60 days, the war in Lebanon would end, the Strait of Hormuz would be opened and Iran - which would agree to never pursue nuclear weapons - would get some sanctions relief. But no deal has yet been signed and the issue of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program has been kicked down the road. An unhappy Netanyahu, who was excluded from the negotiations, reportedly told Trump that “Israel would not compromise on its freedom to act against all threats, including in Lebanon.” Will Israel act the spoiler in this attempt to extract the US from its war of choice?
A novel kind of ‘ceasefire’
The future of Lebanon remains uncertain. No sooner was the ‘ceasefire’ in Lebanon extended by 45 days on May 15 during an Israeli-Lebanese (minus Hezbollah) meeting in Washington DC than Israel ordered the evacuation of 12 villages in the south where 25 towns and villages have been obliterated, carried out strikes containing white phosphorous on agricultural land and drove up the Lebanese death toll to more than 3,000. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, among the fatalities by May 18 were 292 women and 211 children, while 9,301 people were wounded. On May 19, at least 19 more people were killed, among them four women and three children. Lebanese deaths have continued to spiral upwards, with six paramedics among the ten people slaughtered on May 22. Just as in Gaza, several hospitals have been damaged in airstrikes and it is unclear whether Israel will ever allow Lebanese displaced from the south to return.
The Israeli army said that by May 20, 21 Israeli troops had been killed since Hezbollah fired at Israel two days after the Israel-US axis attacked Iran. A ‘ceasefire’ has supposedly been in place since April 17, but Israel’s systematic destruction of Lebanon has not halted, while Hezbollah has adopted increasingly lethal guerrilla war tactics. According to Haaretz, Israel is playing down the extent of Israeli casualties, “emphasizing explosive drones targeting Israeli forces inside Lebanon while largely ignoring rocket fire and drone strikes on northern Israeli communities.” As the morale of Israel’s army declines, one soldier told Haaretz that “the feeling is that the IDF has become like an army of Vikings – they let soldiers loot so they’ll be happy and keep fighting.” Here soldiers describe how they looted houses and shops or simply smashed things for ‘revenge,’ even when brigade commanders were visiting.
“A few hours before we entered Lebanon,” another said, “the brigade commander came to talk to us. ‘This is a historic moment; we’re going to destroy Hezbollah….finally, the residents of the north will be able to live in security, all thanks to you.’ …I had been in this movie before – before entering Gaza, before the previous operation in Lebanon, always the same promises, always the same disappointments. This time it was the same. In the village we entered there were no terrorists; the houses were empty. There was no fighting there, only operations to flatten the houses…The news will report on fierce battles and the destruction of terror infrastructure, but our mission was one thing – to leave no structure standing, to destroy everything….today, they just destroy, even schools, clinics; the only thing we didn’t touch was the cemetery.”
Israel’s expands its footprint on land and sea
On May 19, the Financial Timesreported that Israel has seized some 1,000 square kilometers (600 square miles) of territory across Gaza, Syria and Lebanon since it adopted a “new, more aggressive military doctrine” in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023. It is also treating international waters as its own and appears to think that piracy at sea is fine as long as it is the aggressor.
Beginning on May 18, just weeks after seizing 177 activists who were part of the Global Sumud Flotilla sailing to break the siege of Gaza, Israeli naval boats some 250 nautical miles from Gaza’s coast violently intercepted54 additional Global Sumud Flotilla vessels and abducted 428 unarmed civilians from more than 40 countries. Troops opened fire – it was not clear if they used live ammunition - on some of the boats. The activists include Catherine Connolly, the sister of Ireland’s prime minister, Micheál Martin. The US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent declared that “the pro-terror flotilla attempting to reach Gaza is a ludicrous attempt to undermine President Trump’s successful progress toward lasting peace in the region” and put sanctions on four of the organizers.
Thanks to the video released by a gleeful Itamar Ben-Gvir at Ashdod Port showing the rough and demeaning treatment given the kidnapped passengers while proclaiming “That’s how we welcome the terror supporters. Welcome to Israel,” Israel’s high seas high jinks may have backfired. Italy demanded an apology for the “unacceptable” treatment of the passengers and suggested that sanctions be put on Ben-Gvir, while several European nations and Australia also denounced Gvir’s behavior. While disapproving of the flotilla “which produces no useful effect and burdens diplomatic and consular services,” France’s foreign affairs minister Jean-Noel Barrot barred Ben-Gvir from all French territory. Even US ambassador Mike Huckabee declaredthat “Ben-Gvir betrayed the dignity of his nation.” Such international pressure forced Netanyahu to rebuke his national security minister. Ben-Gvir was unrepentant, declaring that “the days where terrorists want to hurt us and we had to be apologetic, nice and understanding are over.” After the activists were deported to Istanbul on May. 21, shocking allegations of the injuries and abuse (including beatings and at least 15 cases of sexual abuse and rape) that several suffered during their capture and two-day detention by Israel began to emerge. According to Israel’s prison service they were treated “according to procedure.”
While countries condemned the treatment of their nationals by Ben-Gvir, their kidnapping on the high seas, the hijacking and confiscation of private vessels in international waters, and the 19-year-long siege of Gaza which now again has many residents on the verge of starvation appears to be beyond criticism.
The ongoing Nakba accelerates in the West Bank
On May 15, Palestinians commemorated the 78th anniversary of Israel’s biggest land grab, which is ongoing today. For the occasion, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics issued a report on the whereabouts of Palestinians, who now total 15.5 million worldwide. Some 7.4 million Palestinians live within the territory of historic Palestine, including 3.43 million in the West Bank and 2.3 million in the Gaza Strip, demonstrating “a resilience that cannot be broken. A presence that will not fade.”
As the refugee rights organization Badil writes in its Nakba Statement , “Due to the Israeli-perpetrated ongoing Nakba and ongoing inaction and complicity of states, Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are the largest and most protracted displaced population in the world” and make up “66% of the Palestinian people.”
Harrowing stories told by elderly Palestinians who survived the original Nakba (Catastrophe) when some 750,000 people (80% of the population) were expelled from their homeland are here, here and here. Today, the forced displacement of Palestinians - which has been continuous since the State of Israel was declared on May 15, 1948 - is accelerating.
Recent examples of the ongoing Nakba include the relentless settler attacks and land seizures across the West Bank. On May 14, the head of the Israeli organization Peace Now was among those beaten up by settlers, with 20 settler attacks taking place that weekend. Settlers appeared undeterred by the EU sanctionsimposed on four settler organizations and three settler leaders on May 11, a sanctions package that had been stalled by the now ousted Hungarian leader Victor Orbán. Several of the sanctioned organizations have close relations with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who responded by calling for the annexation of “strategic areas” of the West Bank.
Implementing Smotrich’s ‘Decisive Plan’
Smotrich is the author of “Israel’s Decisive Plan,” a document drafted in 2017 that asserts that “there is room for only one expression of national self-determination west of the Jordan River – that of the Jewish Nation.” According to the May 17th Haaretz, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is currently seeking arrest warrants for Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, the Minister of Settlements and National Missions Orit Strook and two army officials.
In what he said was a response to the ICC action, Smotrich on May 19 ordered the destruction of Khan al-Ahmar, one of the seven Bedouin herding communities in the area known as ‘E1’ on the outskirts of East Jerusalem. “Israel has a master plan to relocate thousands of Palestinian Bedouins to a giant ghetto” read the headline of Shatha Hammad’s Mondoweiss piece on May 21 describing the Israeli ‘Shami neighborhood project.’ This plan to force all the Bedouin in ‘E1’ off their land to make way for Israeli settlement expansion would separate the north from the south of the West Bank and make a ‘two-state solution’ impossible to contemplate, much less execute. On May 22, the governments of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the Netherlands lobbed another toothless rhetorical rebuke at Israel for its EI settlement plan which, according to their joint statement, undermines “prospects for a two-state solution.”
A day before Nakba Day, Israel celebrated its independence, and the 59th anniversary of what it calls the ‘unification’ of West and East Jerusalem during the Six Day War. This year, the thousands of Israelis who rampaged through East Jerusalem’s Old City combined their usual chant of “death to Arabs” with “may your villages burn” and “Gaza is a graveyard,” while Minister of National Security Ben-Gvir unfurled an Israeli flag in the Al Aqsa compound and proclaimed “the Temple Mount is in our hands.” Mondoweiss reported that on May 17 the Israeli Ministry of Heritage gave the green light to the confiscation of about 50 ancient Palestinian buildings on Bab al-Silsila street adjacent to the Al-Aqsa compound. In the al-Bustani neighborhood of near-by Silwan, dozens of Palestinian homes are being demolished to make way for a ‘City of David’ theme park. Many residents are being forced to demolish their own homes, as otherwise the Jerusalem municipality would charge about $75,000 per building to do the job.
Palestinians living in refugee camps are also facing forced displacement. Having expelled some 40,000 residents of Jenin, Tulkarem, Nur Shams and al-Fara’a refugee camps in 2025 who are not permitted to return, Israel is now threatening to do the same thing to the 14,000 residents of Qalandia camp on the outskirts of ‘Greater Jerusalem.’ Some of their houses have already been seized by the army and used for detention and interrogation centers.
Meanwhile, Israel is intending to build a military facility in the large East Jerusalem compound which had been the headquarters of the now expelled United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) where the records relating to Palestinian refugees who had been forced to leave their homes were stored. After Israel ordered UNRWA’s office to be closed in Gaza City, a clandestine 10-month operation was undertaken to preserve the records in Jerusalem, as Jason Burke reported on May 13. “For decades,” Burke wrote, “Israel has been hostile to UNRWA, blaming the agency for keeping alive Palestinian hopes of a return to their original homes by granting refugee status to the descendants of those originally displaced.” The records appear to have been successfully transferred to Jordan, thwarting Israel’s attempt to erase the historical record of Palestinian claims to the land that had been taken from them.
The slow motion genocide inGaza
In Gaza, seven Palestinians were killed on Nakba Day, including Hamas military commander Izz al-Din al-Haddad, his wife and daughter. Two days later, three community kitchen workers were killed at a food distribution site in Deir al-Balah along with five others, as the post ‘ceasefire’ toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces reached at least 871. Food, fuel and humanitarian supplies remain severely restricted, with the Gaza Media Office reporting that during May 15-21 period 1,287 humanitarian and commercial trucks were permitted into Gaza, instead of the 4,200 which had been projected to enter. Only 403 people needing medical treatment were permitted to leave through the Rafah Crossing, instead of the 1,400 stipulated by the ‘peace plan.’
On May 12, the World Health Organization reported that some 43,000 people in Gaza have suffered life-changing injuries since the Oct. 2023 war began, 10,000 children among them. Five thousand of these injuries have occurred since the Oct. 2025 ‘ceasefire’ began.
Meanwhile, the Israel-imposed ‘yellow line’ – supplemented by a newer ‘orange line’ - continues to appropriate more land as it moves inexorably west, pushing Palestinian tented encampments toward the sea. On May 19, Tareq Hajjaj described in Mondoweiss how anti-Hamas Palestinian militias backed by Israel are ordering residents to move in order to expand the territory Israel controls. More than two million Palestinians are now confined to only 45% of the tiny Gaza Strip and anyone who approaches the poorly-marked ‘yellow line’ – no matter his or her age - is likely to be shot dead.
In the words of Mahmoud al-Raqab, a resident who has witnessed the ‘yellow line’ shifting west about eight times since it was established as a truce line when the so-called ‘ceasefire’ began, “This is a new apartheid wall being established in the Gaza Strip. Today, they place concrete blocks. Tomorrow, they will build high walls. They are separating our lands, placing barriers between us and our homes, imposing restrictions on our movement to our houses, farms, and lands, separating people from their property and original areas, and gradually swallowing our land before our eyes.”
The crumbling ‘Board of Peace’
After being launched by Trump in January with pledges of $ 7 billion from nine countries and a further $10 billion promised by the US president, only the UAE and Morocco have actually made good on their pledges, putting about $123 million in the Board of Peace coffers. According to The Times of Israel, the $100 million donation from the UAE is supposed to be used for training a new Gaza police force which would be involved in weapons collection. Remaining funds are presumably being used to pay the Board’s ‘high representative’ Nickolay Mladenov his $400,000 salary and possibly the $16,000 - $17,000 monthly salaries of the 12 members of the Palestinian ‘National Committee for the Administration of Gaza,’ who are still stuck in Egypt because Israel has not allowed them to enter the Strip. Reuters reported on May 15 that Trump may ask Israel for some of the estimated $5 billion in taxes on imported goods that Israel is supposed to hand over to the Palestinian Authority but has withheld for many years.
Meanwhile, on the ground there is no sign of reconstruction taking place except that being undertaken by some Palestinians who are leaning how “to make their own cement from rubble.” Because Israel has refused to allow the entry of machinery that could shift the more than 60 million tons of debris, people are using shovels and their bare hands to dig for the remains of their family members.
Presenting a Board of Peace report about the situation to the UN Security Council on May 21, Nickolay Mladenov embraced Netanyahu’s position and put the blame for lack of progress on Hamas’ refusal to disarm. The report stated that ceasefire “violations continue to occur on a near daily basis, some of which are serious, and their human consequences – civilians killed, families living in fear, and continued impediments to humanitarian access – cannot be minimized.” But Israel is not mentioned as the responsible party for these violations including the failure to allow 600 trucks of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza each day, and Hamas is seen as the main obstacle preventing any forward movement. As far as the Board is concerned, unless and until it totally surrenders its weapons, there will be no reconstruction or Israeli withdrawal. How the latter would be guaranteed was not addressed in the report.
As described in two compelling articles – one by Muhammad Shehada and the other by Jeremy Scahill and Jawa Ahmad – the Board of Peace has basically rewritten the October 2025 ‘ceasefire’ agreement which never included the stipulation that Hamas fully disarm before reconstruction could begin and Israel would begin to withdraw. In the words of Scahill and Ahmad, “in the absence of a comprehensive deal with Hamas, the short-term options for Trump’s Board ultimately come down to: authorizing Israel to resume a large scale military assault in western Gaza in the name of disarming Hamas; supporting Israel in formally seizing control of the territory in Gaza it currently occupies while continuing the low intensity siege on the rest of the Strip where Hamas remains in control; and, according to reports in the Hebrew media, splitting Gaza into two cantons, one controlled by Israel and the other under Hamas control, but denied basic goods. Israeli officials, meanwhile, continue to speak of returning to Gaza and re-establishing illegal settlements and continuing efforts to expel Palestinians.”
Hamas has insisted that before it handed over any weapons, Israel had to comply with its obligations under the first phase of the ‘ceasefire’ agreement, including an end to its military attacks and permitting the entry of the agreed upon amount of humanitarian aid. Gaza-born Muhammad Shehada writes that “Israel and its allies have transformed disarmament into a prerequisite for survival, demanding they hand over their only leverage while Israel’s tanks remain on their soil and its drones hum overhead. This is not a pathway to reconstruction, it is a trap dressed in diplomatic language, a formula for permanent subjugation where Palestinians must prove their absolute, verifiable defenselessness before Israel even pretends to withdraw.”
Breaking the silence
With Gaza facing what Scahill and Ahmad call a “suspended catastrophe,” there have been some signs in the US of growing willingness to acknowledge what Israel has done to Palestinians. The May 11th publication by TheNew York Times of Nicholas Kristof’s piece headlined “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians” ignited a huge smear campaign with Netanyahu declaring it was a “blood libel” and his office calling it “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press” and threatening to sue the paper for libel. Rather than cave in, the newspaper staunchly defended Kristof and his article. On May 22, Abdallah Fayyad, a staff writer for The Boston Globe, demonstrated that Israel’s intimidation tactics do not always work by defending Kristof’s piece and adding more details about Israel’s torture, rape and systematic abuse of Palestinian prisoners.
As support for Israel sinks in the US polls, a record-breaking 12 Members of the House cosponsored Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s resolution ‘Recognizing the ongoing Nakba and Palestinian refugees’ rights’ which was introduced on May 14. The number of its supporters has doubled since she first filed the resolution in 2022. On May 15, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani produced a Nakba Day video that explained what the Nakba is and featured the story of a Nakba survivor who is now a resident of New York City. The video, which has been seen on the mayor’s official site some 10.7 million times, was defended by Mamdani despite the outcry it generated.
Change might seem painfully slow, but the trajectory is headed in the right direction.
Nancy Murray, Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
