UN slams Israel over plan to occupy 70% of Gaza

from Daily Sabah

The United Nations on Friday criticized Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to take control of 70% of Gaza, saying the Palestinian territory must remain for Palestinians and reaffirming support for international law and Palestinian self-determination.

"One hundred percent of Gaza should be for the Palestinian people," spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters at the U.N.'s New York headquarters. "That's what we want to see, and we've been calling on Israel to pull back from its occupation from the so-called yellow line, and that will continue to be our position."

Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel currently controls 60% of the Gaza Strip and signaled plans to expand it further to 70%. He did not elaborate on how such plans would be implemented.

The Israeli army announced in October last year that it controlled 53% of the Gaza Strip after redeploying to the so-called "yellow line” under the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza...

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Putin calls for data on Romania drone incident to be shared

(The president of Romania says it may have been an accident caused by a disabled drone flying off course. Let's see how fast Kyle K. and Ben from Meidas Touch STFU about Russia attacking Romania now) 

from RT

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for an “objective investigation” into a drone incident in Romania in which two people were injured. Moscow is ready to share its assessment if it is provided with either the debris of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or the data about it, he told journalists on Friday.

A drone crashed into an apartment block in the eastern Romanian city of Galati near the Ukrainian border early on Friday. The Romanian Defense Ministry claimed the UAV had originated from Russia.

Putin noted that drones have previously crashed in various EU nations, including Finland, Poland, and the Baltic States.

“A short time later, it would emerge that these incidents had nothing to do with Russian aircraft at all. Rather, they involved drones of Ukrainian origin that had gone off course due to electronic warfare… or technical shortcomings,” the president said during his visit to Kazakhstan.

Putin called on the Romanian authorities to share “objective evidence” with Russia, adding that Moscow did the same when the Ukrainian military targeted a Russian presidential residence in a drone strike. “Let them [Romanians] do the same and provide the evidence to us,” he added. 

Romanian President Nicusor Dan, who visited the drone crash site on Friday, told journalists that the incident could have been caused by Ukrainian air defenses. According to him, the drone was a part of a group of Russian UAVs deployed against targets in Ukraine.

“Some of them were shot down over Ukrainian territory, and one of them was probably hit above the city of Reni. Its trajectory changed and it came toward Galati,” he said, adding that the Romanian authorities have data on the drone’s movement. According to Dan, the incident was not considered a deliberate attack by Russia but rather the consequence of military operations not far from the Romanian border...

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Incident Involving Drone in Romania

from Sputnik News

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had just learned of an incident involving an alleged Russian drone in Romania.

"I was just told... It may seem strange, but I just learned, before entering this hall, that something happened with what was supposedly our drone," Putin told reporters. 

No one can say who the drone that crashed in Romania belongs to until an examination is carried out, the Russian president said, adding that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen did not visit Romania and did not examine the wreckage of the alleged Russian drone.

 

"We know that Ukrainian drones have flown into Finland, Poland, and some of the Baltic states. The initial reaction was exactly the same as now in Romania: look, the Russians are coming, the Russians are shooting. Then, a short time later, it turned out that these had nothing to do with Russian aircraft, but were drones of Ukrainian origin," Putin said.

 

Russia will conduct an objective investigation and provide an appropriate assessment if it receives objective data on the drone that crashed in Romania, Putin also said.

 

Earlier in the day, the Romanian Defense Ministry said that a drone had struck the roof of a building in Galati, injuring two people. Romanian authorities blamed Russia for the incident but provided no evidence. Furthermore, the Romanian military did not intercept the drone, although it was tracked by radar systems.

 

On Electronic Intifada, Norman Finkelstein and Trump's Board of Peace

On Electronic Intifada, Norman Finkelstein and Trump's Board of Peace

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Humiliating Reality of Trump’s Giant Peace Grift Exposed

 

from the Daily Beast

Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which vowed to help rebuild Gaza, has no real funding despite receiving billions of dollars in pledges, according to a new report.

The president formally announced the board in January. Countries could join by contributing $1 billion, and members included Azerbaijan, Israel, Qatar, and Bahrain.

Nine countries later pledged more than $9 billion toward a Gaza “relief package” for the war-torn territory following years of fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

However, the Board of Peace’s World Bank-backed fund has still not received any substantial donor funding, four people familiar with the matter told The Financial Times. “Zero dollars have been deposited,” one source said. 

Of the nine countries that pledged money to the relief package, only the United Arab Emirates and Morocco have actually sent any funds.

Morocco’s $20 million contribution has gone toward funding an office for Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat serving as “high representative” for post-war Gaza, as well as salaries for a Palestinian technocratic committee formed by the board to help govern the strip.

The UAE provided $100 million to train a new police force for Gaza, but the funds are currently frozen, and no progress has been made on the initiative, sources told the FT. 

Elsewhere, the State Department pledged to redirect around $1.2 billion in aid toward projects linked to Trump’s Board of Peace. However, the money—which the board would not manage directly—has reportedly not yet been spent.

“None of that money [has gone to the board]. None of that money is being managed by the Board of Peace. And State tells us there’s no intent to have any of that money managed by the Board of Peace,” a senior congressional aide told the FT.

Sources also said that “not one U.S. dollar” has gone toward rebuilding Gaza, four months after Trump’s board was established...

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The Plot to Eliminate Gaza What Trump’s Board of Peace really means for the future of Palestine.

from The New York Magazine (paywalled so I posted the entire article w/ byline)

By Mohammed R. Mhawish, a Palestinian writer and journalist from Gaza  

 

On January 22, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jared Kushner presented a “Master Plan” for the future of Gaza. Kushner’s slideshow featured glossy images of coastal skyscrapers, a new tourism district with 180 towers, an airport, a seaport, and industrial complex zones. A phased reconstruction timeline promised to transform “New Rafah” and “New Gaza” into modern metropolises. “In the Middle East, they build cities like this in three years,” Kushner said. “This is very doable.” Gaza’s GDP, he claimed, would exceed $10 billion by 2035; more than half a million jobs would be created; private investment for utilities and public services would reach at least $25 billion. New Rafah alone would contain more than 100,000 housing units; 200 education centers; 180 cultural, religious, and vocational institutions; and 75 medical facilities.

The Master Plan was shared as part of the establishment of President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace. An earlier variation of the plan envisioned the construction of artificial islands with luxury resorts offshore — part of a broader ambition for what has been dubbed the “Gaza Riviera.” Rendered in artificial-intelligence graphics, skyscrapers hovered like a vision overlooking the coastline where decades of blockade and war have reduced seaside infrastructure to rubble.

Tellingly, the Davos slideshow just briefly mentioned basic services like water, electricity, and sewage for Palestinians in war-decimated Gaza. Kushner’s presentation mentions Palestinians in the context of “demilitarization principles,” claiming this process will be “led by Palestinians, internationally verified.” The Palestinian public were not involved, not even consulted, in the drafting of these visions. Almost every decision about where they will live, how they will move, and what kind of life they may rebuild was made without them. “From the private sector,” Kushner added, “there will be amazing investment opportunities.”

Trump’s board of peace is flailing – just like the president

from The Independent

The glittering jewel in Donald Trump’s (self-declared) crown was his “board of peace”, a multi-country body nominally created to implement a truce plan for war-ravaged Gaza, but with a global remit.

Inaugurated in a grand ceremony in January in Switzerland, signatories heralded from 19 countries, including Hungary’s former authoritarian leader Viktor Orban, the head of Gulf states, Mongolia and Azerbaijan.

Among the glaring absences were some of America’s closest Nato allies, including the UK, alarmed by Russia’s potential membership and the board’s role “beyond Gaza”.

Concerns were that the charter was so broad it amounted to an attempt by Trump to replace the United Nations (an institution he has made no secret of hating) with his own private members’ club. Trump had declared: “We can do pretty much anything we want to do.”

But fast forward to May, and as Trump overcomplicates an already impossibly hard peace deal in Iran, his Board of Peace brainchild is flailing.

It seems a bit broken: promised US funding has reportedly yet to materialise, other funds are frozen, and its mission is “stuck in limbo”...

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Trump wants the Palestinians to pay for the U.S. occupation of Gaza

from Mondoweiss

US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan has finally surfaced its central contradiction. The so-called “Board of Peace” cannot fund its own reconstruction project, and Washington is now considering asking Israel to redirect part of $5 billion in clearance revenues it has been withholding from the Palestinian Authority (PA) toward the Gaza Strip – money that belongs to Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, whom the PA nominally represents.

The Trump administration has not formally decided whether to make the request, and as of late May, neither Israel nor the PA had reacted to the idea on the record. Yet the PA may be asked to pay for the reconstruction of Gaza despite not being invited to join the Board of Peace, which treats Gaza as a wholly separate jurisdiction from the West Bank, while the Palestinian population in the West Bank is already living through the deepest fiscal crisis the Authority has faced since its creation, engineered by the very withholding that now serves as a slush fund for an external reconstruction authority.

Ramallah has historically refused any cooptation of its funds, even for purposes that would benefit civilians in Gaza, treating it as a violation of its sovereignty. A PA official has now told reporters that the Authority is reconsidering that position, out of desperation to access even a fragment of its money held by Israel. The coercion, in other words, is already working...

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A Quick Note on TrumpyBear's New Demands for a Peace Deal with Iran - It's Stupid

Back to the old setup with a new mic I hope will make things sound a little better. Give me a little time to work the kinks out.

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I got a YT Strike for Talking About Fiveish

Stick around til the end to see me give in and do the Fiveish dance in hopes YouTube and our masters forgive me. 

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