
On Sunday evening (July 19), a group of some of the most repulsive, ghoulish people on the face of the earth marched towards the perimeter fence separating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the world to declare their intention to re-colonize Gaza, to re-establish three Israeli settlements that were dismantled in 2005 when, under Ariel Sharon, 21 settlements in total were abandoned, occupied, at the time, by 8,000 Israeli settlers.
These fanatical Israeli settlers, on what was billed as the “March of Thousands”, although only a few hundred people attended, were led by the two far-right ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government — Itamar Ben Gvir, the Minister for National Security, who is in charge of Israel’s prisons, which, for Palestinians, have become a gulag of torture facilities since October 7, 2023, and Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Finance, and also the minister in charge of settlement affairs within the Defense Ministry, who has played a huge role in the ever-growing, and ever more violent expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Speaking at the rally, Ben Gvir said, “If someone had said three years ago that we would control 70% of the Gaza Strip, no one would have believed it. So today I say: there will be Jewish settlement throughout Gaza. We are returning home. Gaza is ours.”

On February 18, in the apocalyptic wasteland of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian survivors of Israel’s ongoing 28-month genocide celebrated the start of Ramadan with astonishing ingenuity, crafting decorations from the recycled detritus of destruction, powering and stringing up lights, and holding communal meals drawing on the increase of food deliveries since the ceasefire that began four months ago.
This is in spite of the fact that Israel has persistently refused to honor the requirements for the delivery of 600 trucks of humanitarian aid a day under the ceasefire deal, which began on October 10, and which was trumpeted by the US as Donald Trump’s “Peace Plan”, even though most of the hard work had been done by negotiators from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, working with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Much of what has been begrudgingly allowed into Gaza by Israel consists of commercial goods that are unaffordable for the majority of the population, who have been made homeless, are reduced to living in tents with few of their possessions left, and have little or no money.
While the Palestinians’ spirit contrasts buoyantly with the grimness of their surroundings, it cannot disguise that they continue to live in a landscape that is brutally shattered, to an extent that is almost beyond comprehension, and that no salvation is on the horizon. Voices from within Gaza emphasize that the majority of the displaced population haven’t been attending these communal meals, and numerous photos show much more wretched scenes, of families struggling to put together even the most basic meals in landscapes of utter destruction.


If just one photo captures the callous, ghoulish, cruel and heartless opportunism of those who see the world only through a lens of business opportunities and maximum profit-making for themselves and their cronies, it’s the photo above, an AI-generated vision of what was pitched to the world on January 22 as “New Gaza”, a futuristic high-rise coastal tourist resort on the shoreline of the Gaza Strip.
The image is from a PowerPoint presentation by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and a prominent real estate investor, at the official launch of Trump’s “Board of Peace”, which took place at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
Other slides in the presentation showed “New Rafah”, a brand-new city featuring 100,000+ “Permanent Housing Units”, and plans for the eventual expansion of this “new city” model across the whole of the Gaza Strip, with these new residential areas flanked by industrial complexes featuring “data centers” and “advanced manufacturing.”


Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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