War

November 12, 2026 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Gaza’s Board of Pieces Morphs into War on Iran

**Pulitzer prize-winning photo by Palestinian** Saher Alghorra. The family, pictured amidst the rubble of Beit Lahia, shares a meal to break the Ramadan fast in the devastated remains of their home. Israel violates agreements with daily violence, starvation, eviction, and killing of Palestinians. Prizes such as the Pulitzer magnify the hypocrisy that the world will honor recording such suffering but refuse to take real action to end it.

By Chris Hedges

Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza is a mirage, a conjuring trick in which peace is unilaterally declared as Israel seizes more Palestinian land and brings the genocide to its grim conclusion.

There is no ceasefire in Gaza. There is no functioning “Board of Peace.” There is no roadmap to ending the genocide or mechanism to creation of a Palestinian state. Israel has refused to implement or abide by any of the conditions of Trump’s “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict” since its inception. It won’t begin to honor them now.

There is only genocide. It changes shape and intensity. But it does not change its essence.

Trump’s plan is a mirage, a conjuring trick, a fleeting vanity project. In October 2025, Trump gathered world leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to announce his peace deal, which he said “took 3,000 years” to achieve, before disappearing offstage. The peace plan, like the smoke-and-mirrors act that defines the Trump era, has been relegated to a dark memory hole, as our P. T. Barnum commander-in-chief trots out another bloody spectacle: war on Iran.

Trump announced an “historic” agreement on July 30 that entailed “the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza.” He called the 15-point plan, credited to the Board of Peace, which has no Palestinian representatives and installed Trump as its chair for life, “a monumental step toward lasting peace and security.”

But Hamas swiftly qualified the demand by saying that handing over its heavy weapons was only contingent on Israel ending “all forms of” its “aggression” and withdrawing its occupying forces from Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu blithely dismissed Trump’s proposal. Israel, he said, will not withdraw its forces until Hamas is “genuinely” disarmed. Read this to mean never.

The peace plan — which was endorsed by the United Nations in a stunning disregard for Palestinian sovereignty and international law — was never more than a publicity stunt. It exists to provide Israel with the diplomatic cover to bring the genocide to its intended conclusion — the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza — a euphemism for ethnic cleansing.

Since the “ceasefire” went into effect on Oct. 10, 2025, two months before the Trump “peace plan” was formalized, Israel has killed 1,258 Palestinians in Gaza.

Ceasefires with these body counts are not ceasefires. Once Gaza is emptied, the West Bank will be next. Of the myriads of peace plans over the decades, [this] one is the least serious.

Aside from a demand that Hamas release the hostages within 72-hours after the ceasefire began — which took place — it lacks specifics and imposed timetables. It is filled with caveats that allow Israel to abrogate the agreement. That is the point.

“It is not designed to be a viable path to peace, which most Israeli leaders understand,” I wrote when the plan was announced. “Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Israel Hayom, established by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to serve as a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and champion messianic Zionism, instructed its readers not to be concerned about the Trump plan because it is only ‘rhetoric.’”

Israel, I noted, in one example from the proposal, will “not return to areas that have been withdrawn from, as long as Hamas fully implements the agreement.”

“Who decides if Hamas has ‘fully implemented’ the agreement?” I asked. “Israel. Does anyone believe in Israel’s good faith? Can Israel be trusted as an objective arbitrator of the agreement? If Hamas — demonized as a terrorist group — objects, will anyone listen?”

“How is it possible that a peace proposal ignores the [United Nations] International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion, which reiterated that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must end?” I continued. “How can it fail to mention the Palestinian’s right to self-determination?”

“Who gave the U.S. the authority to send to Gaza an ‘International Stabilization Force,’ a polite term for foreign occupation?” I wrote. “Why is Israel, which has destroyed Gaza, not required to pay reparations?”

Ninety-two percent of Gaza’s residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed and around 81 percent of all structures are damaged, according to UN estimates. The Strip has been reduced to 61 million tons of rubble, including nine million tons of hazardous waste that includes asbestos, industrial waste, and heavy metals, in addition to unexploded ordnance, and an estimated 10,000 decaying corpses. Israel has demolished some 1,500 buildings since the ceasefire went into effect.

How can anyone believe that Israel, intent on leveling Gaza, will reverse itself to allow Palestinians to rebuild what it spent so much time, money and blood to destroy?

Retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a former head of Israel’s National Security Council, echoed this sentiment [August 9] on Israel’s 103FM radio station. “Israel has no interest in Gaza being rebuilt, it is better for us that it be destroyed for generations to come,” Eiland said.

“The greater the despair in Gaza and the greater the destruction, and the greater the monument to what they did on October 7, years to come, that is good,” he added.

Israel will never permit reconstruction in Gaza. It will never restore health facilities or water treatment systems. It will never turn over authority to an International Stabilization Force (ISF), one which only exists on paper. It will never permit the creation of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza or agree to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.
Trump promises a Gaza Riviera that will function as a “special economic zone” — a territory operating outside of state law governed entirely by private investors, such as the Peter Thiel-backed charter city in Honduras. But Trump’s Gaza Riviera is nothing more than a pathetic temporary camp along the ceasefire line near Rafah. It consists of “portable cabins” under Palestinian administration and a tiny international security force, according to The Guardian. It is touted, in desperation, as a pilot scheme.

Despite some $17 billion in pledges to the Board of Peace, as of late May 2026 not a single dollar had reached its official World Bank-administered Gaza reconstruction fund. Only about $23 million had been received through alternative channels for operating costs, with a further $100 million pledged by the United Arab Emirates that was earmarked for a future Palestinian police force, though it remains “frozen,” according to The Financial Times.

This amounts to about $0.72 for every $100 pledged.

Given the heavy economic costs incurred by Gulf and regional donor countries because of the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran — including Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the UAE — it is very unlikely the pledged funds will be paid.

The European Union, the U.N. and the World Bank, in an assessment published in April, estimated that $71.4 billion is needed for recovery in Gaza.

The Board of Peace, for which Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov is the principal official, is desperate for funds. The U.S. attempted to pilfer $11 billion in Palestinian tax revenues and frozen bank funds withheld by Israel, which was rejected by the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Israeli withholding of tax revenues has deepened the ⁠financial crisis in the West Bank, with the PA slashing salaries in half of thousands of Palestinian civil servants. The ISF, a multinational peacekeeping force that is supposed to be composed of troops from Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Uganda and Indonesia — the latter of which has since suspended its commitment, is also nonexistent.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Settlements and National Missions Minister Orit Strook have demanded that Netanyahu reconvene the Security Cabinet so that its July 26 vote authorizing the entry of ISF troops can be reversed.

The entire Trump project is an Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy.

Anyone in Gaza who strays close to the Yellow Line — which is constantly shifting and poorly marked — is shot. Police are shot. Hamas leaders, along with their families — including Azzam Khalil al-Hayya, the son of Khalil al-Hayya who was the head of Hamas’ political bureau and the faction’s lead negotiator — are assassinated. Palestinians lining up at food kitchens and those handing out aid to them are obliterated by Israeli bombs. Israel restricts food and humanitarian aid to half of the trucks stipulated in the ceasefire agreement.

Palestinians, 90 percent of whom have been displaced, continue to live in tent cities amid rubble and open pools of raw sewage. They lack toilets or electricity. There is an 80 percent unemployment rate. Tens of thousands of children suffer acute malnutrition in Gaza. A child, on average, is killed every day.

Tacitus understood. They made a desert and call it peace.

Trump’s plan was not designed to end the conflict. It was not designed to provide an equitable settlement for the Palestinians. It was not designed to halt the ongoing mass slaughter. It was designed to allow Israel to complete its genocide and drive surviving Palestinians from their homeland — the culmination
of the Zionist dream.

Trump, however obtuse, has at least figured this out.

— Hedges wrote this piece for his Chris Hedges Report, Aug. 10, 2026

August 1, 2026 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Unavailable, Unethical, Unhinged: U.S. H-bomb Unit in Germany Should be First to Go

Anti-nuclear activists placed sunflowers, a symbol of nuclear disarmament, in the fence at Germany’s Büchel air base Thur., July 24, marking the 30th anniversary of protests at the base. Photo by Luthar Lange.

For the last four years, the U.S. hydrogen bombs stationed in Germany have been stranded at Büchel Air Force Base, southeast of Cologne, unavailable to the fighter jets and pilots that are rehearsed and ready to detonate them against Russia. These WMD have been unusable for nuclear attacks or threats — i.e. ‘deterrence’ — since 2022 because the base is getting a makeover.

The deterrence that the U.S. and Germany say the nuclear weapons provide disappeared in 2022 when massive remodeling of the base began. A total rebuild of its runway and more forced the base’s 46 Tornado fighter jets to be moved to Nörvenich Air Base, 28 miles away, to practice their take-offs, attacks, and landings.

Because the base’s reconstruction has left the ‘nuclear deterrent’ unavailable for years, the unoccupied and redundant U.S. Air Force’s 702d Munitions Support Squadron (or MUNSS) should be the first unit withdrawn from Germany under Trump’s recent orders.

The Department of War says the 702d MUNSS is needed because it ‘receives, stores, maintains, controls, and employs war reserve munitions in support of [Büchel’s] 33rd Tactical Air Wing’s role in NATO’s strike mission.’ This, of course, has been mission impossible for at least four years, a pause that means relief from the self-destructive threat of nuclear strike missions aimed at Russia.

The ‘Commander’s Welcome Letter’ for new arrivals, on Büchel’s website, explains: ‘The 702d consists of approximately 170 personnel across 26 different Air Force Specialties, responsible for maintaining, operating, and securing $6B [billion] in Protection Level-1 assets….’ And according to a Shaw Air Force Base manual, ‘Protection Level 1’ resources ‘include nuclear weapons and … systems critical to the success of active nuclear missions….’

Büchel’s nuclear mission involves twenty U.S. B61 H-bombs — the only remaining nuclear weapons in Germany — which are polished on base by the 702d MUNSS. This arsenal is the crux of a so-called ‘nuclear sharing’ arrangement between the United States and Germany (and four other NATO countries). But neither ‘active nuclear missions’ nor any other kind have flown out of Büchel since 2022, leaving the 702d on holiday.

Declaring he would reduce Germany’s U.S. military presence, Trump said May 2, “We are going to cut way down, and we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.” Liana Fix reported for the Council on Foreign Relations that 5,000 troops were about one-seventh of the roughly 38,000 GIs currently stationed in Deutschland. Secretary Hegseth promptly had the Pentagon claim that the decision on withdrawals had followed a ‘thorough review of the force posture in Europe.’

The actual fatuous reason for the potential drawdown was a Trump tantrum over German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s derisive public assessment that the U.S. was being ‘humiliated’ by Iran. Merz said to students last April, ‘[T]he Iranians are … letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result. An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership’, The Guardian reported. Trump’s reactionary fit opens a door to the long-sought-after removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Germany, something that the Parliament/Bundestag — moved by mass public pressure — formally instructed the government to pursue in March 2010.

For decades, Tactical Air Force Wing 33 has reportedly been operating 46 Tornado jet fighters. The Tornados are flown by German pilots who train to carry the U.S. H-bombs and to detonate them against Russia if a U.S. president so orders. While the Tornados returned to Büchel this year, the first F-35s are set to replace them starting in 2027.

Indeed, the two billion Euros being spent on the Büchel rebuild (widening taxiways and airfield intersections; new runway; new cargo apron; and a new so-called fighter jet ‘campus’), is in preparation for the delivery of new U.S. ‘B61-model 12’ thermonuclear bombs, and the arrival of new F-35A fighter-jets to carry them.

The F-35s from Lockheed Martin cost Germany over ten billion euros, or $11.4 billion, according to Aero.de, Dec. 12, 2022. And Aero reported June 24, 2025, that the F-35s are ‘intended to support Germany’s so-called “nuclear sharing” program — a NATO deterrence strategy under which allies have access to U.S. nuclear weapons in the event of war.’

If there is any seriousness to Trump’s erratic outburst about troop withdrawals from Germany, nothing could be more reassuring, more stabilizing, and more de-escalatory than throwing out the 702d MUNSS along with its nuclear suicide mission.

John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and edits its newsletter.

June 21, 2026 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

European States, Vatican Reject U.S. War on Iran

By John LaForge

Advisory warns of 'heightened threat environment' in US after Iran ...

Spain and Austria have refused to allow their airspace to be used by U.S. warplanes in the bombardment of Iran. Additionally, Italians so overwhelmingly oppose the U.S. and Israeli war, that even their right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has spoken out.

Meloni told Parliament March 14, “Threats are becoming more and more frightening. They’re multiplying, and the unilateral interventions carried outside the perimeter of international law — which is where we must place the American and Israeli intervention against the Iranian regime — interventions in which I say immediately, at the expense of any mistake, Italy will not take part and does not intend to take part.”

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was more emphatic, calling the war “absurd, cruel and illegal,” and saying on March 25: “Of course we are going to put all the resources of the state at the service of the people, to protect them from a war, a war on Iran which is not endorsed by the government of Spain. And I say to the right, and the far-right, that they cannot be supporting those who set fire to the world and then complain about the smoke….”

Mark Botanga, a Belgian Member of European Parliament outraged by the killing of children, said in Parliament March 11: “Most of you don’t condemn and even support Trump’s & Netanyahu’s war on Iran, yet claim to stand with the Iranian people. Now I dare you to say that to the eyes of that 7-year-old girl … that was killed when a U.S. Tomahawk missile hit her elementary school. Dare to admit to the 167 other victims in that school that you are offering European bases to U.S. killing machines. Tell the families of Tehran, a city of 10 million people, that you support the chemical warfare of Israel as it poisons the air with toxic fires and black rain that will cause cancers for decades…. Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq: your bombs never brought democracy and never will. They bring chaos, death, destruction, and the unbearable silence of children who will never come home.”

And António Costa, President of the European Council, wrote on social media, “Any targeting of civilian infrastructure … is illegal and unacceptable.”

Pope Rebukes Hegseth’s War Prayer

During a March 29 Palm Sunday mass in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo denounced the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran as “atrocious” and indirectly rebuked U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for a war prayer delivered in Washington, D.C.

Quoting a passage from the Christian Bible, the Pope said: “‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.’”

Hegseth ⸺ a white supremacist and religious fundamentalist tattooed with the papal Crusader cross, who titled his book “American Crusade,” and who paid $50,000 to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017 ⸺ used a March 25 “Christian” worship service for military and civilian workers in Washington to pray for merciless killing. Hegseth prayed: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give [U.S. warriors] wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

In his apparent rebuttal four days later, Pope Leo told tens of thousands of worshippers, “This is our God: Jesus, king of peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

In March, when Trump demanded military help in forcing open the Strait of Hormuz, even Nigel Farange, the leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party, said England shouldn’t participate in “another foreign war.” Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini bluntly refused saying, “Italy isn’t at war with anyone.” And when Trump asked allies for naval help, Boris Pistorious, Germany’s defense minister said “This is not our war; we have not started it.”

Elsewhere around the world, Oman declared the U.S. war a violation of international law and warned of regional destabilization. Algeria called it a “flagrant violation of sovereignty” and “American-Zionist aggression.” On April 2, over 100 U.S.-based international law experts signed an open letter calling the war “a clear violation of the UN Charter” involving possible violations of international humanitarian law, and “potential war crimes.” Detailing profound concerns about the war, the letter was signed by senior professors, leaders of prominent international law associations, non-governmental organizations, and legal clinics, former government legal advisors, and military law experts including former (U.S. military) Judge Advocates General.

Contact Us

Donate To Nukewatch

Contact Us

Donate To Nukewatch

Stay Connected