Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.

👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT

Rep. Delia Ramirez: “IDF soldiers raided a public university in the West Bank. They threw tear gas and fired gunshots into the crowds of students and professors. The violence and genocide of Palestinians must end. We must hold ALL perpetrators accountable and that starts with passing the Block the Bombs Act.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen: “Another outrageous action. The Netanyahu govt is banning over 30 aid orgs — including CARE, Mercy Corps & Doctors Without Borders groups — from providing life-saving aid to people in Gaza. Another betrayal of humanity. And, once again, the Trump Admin says and does nothing.”

DC DEVELOPMENTS

👀 PRESIDENT TRUMP EXPECTED TO ANNOUNCE GAZA BOARD

LOOKING AHEAD: President Trump is expected to name the members of the corporate-style board to rule over Gaza as soon as this week, according to a report published by Axios.

The UK, Germany, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey are some of the countries expected to be included on the body. The board will also be headed by President Trump.

The human rights records of some of these countries should raise even more concerns about the wellbeing of Palestinians who will be forced to live under this board. For example, just a few months ago, President Trump publicly asked Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who orchestrated the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, to become a member of the board.

BLAIR OUT: Axios also reported that Nikolay Mladenov, a former UN envoy to the Middle East, will be the board’s representative in Gaza.

Following the announcement of President Trump’s Gaza plan, it was widely reported that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair–who supported President George W. Bush’s disastrous war in Iraq–was a candidate for the position.

Blair’s personal think tank also crafted a proposal to facilitate President Trump’s stated desire to occupy Gaza and expel Palestinians from the area.

BIG ISSUES REMAIN: This board is still an unelected leadership body that will rule over Palestinians in Gaza with minimal input only from unelected, unaccountable Palestinians.

A handful of technocratic Palestinians who are appointed by and accountable only to this foreign board will only be tasked with the resumption of day-to-day government services in Gaza–shutting out Palestinians from major decision-making, such as the proposed reconstruction of the area.

President Trump’s Gaza plan still has no timeline for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. An Israeli military leader recently endorsed the idea of Israel occupying Gaza along its redeployment line–commonly referred to as the yellow line–leaving more than half of Gaza in Israel’s hands in perpetuity.

The plan also lacks a clear timeline for any sort of Palestinian sovereignty–instead it premises the opportunity of a Palestinian state in the indeterminate future on Palestinians abandoning their quest for accountability for Israel’s violations of international law in international judicial forums.

📖 LEARN MORE about the problematic nature of President Trump’s plan for Gaza in our recently published policy memo.

🔎 GAO REPORT EXPOSES FALSEHOODS AIMED AT UNRWA

DEBUNKED: A new report by the Government Accountability Office has rebutted talking points used by the Trump and Biden administrations to justify the halt to US funding for UNRWA, the UN agency that provides aid and services to six million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, and other countries in the Middle East.

The report clarified that UNRWA uses textbooks provided by the Palestinian Authority (PA), in line with its practices in other countries where the agency operates, and supplements these textbooks with curriculum designed to instill the values of human rights.

The report also clarified that the charges made against these PA textbooks are spurious and politically charged. Examples examined by the GAO of so-called “incitement” often contained expressions of Palestinian national identity–like claiming Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital and noting the massive toll that Israel’s brutal occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza has taken on Palestinians.

This makes clear that attacks on UNRWA and its crucial education services are rooted in animosity toward the very concept of Palestinian national identity and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the land from which they were ethnically cleansed by Israel.

The report also, once again, cast doubt on falsehoods pushed by the Israeli government that pressured more than a dozen countries, including the US, to suspend their funding of UNRWA.

Contrary to Israel’s unsubstantiated claims, the report cited an April 2025 report by USAID’s Office of the Inspector General that affirmed that the vast majority of UNRWA’s current or former employees are not connected or affiliated with Hamas–less than 0.001 of its current workforce in fact. 

REFORMS DISRUPTED: The GAO report also notes that UNRWA’s efforts to implement human rights reforms recommended by the US have been hampered following the US cutting its funding for the agency.

REFUND UNRWA: Once again, this report demonstrates that Israeli and extremist MAGA attacks on UNRWA are unfounded and are really aimed at denying the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland–which is affirmed under international law.

Israel has used these falsehoods to effectively ban UNRWA and work to dismantle it. While UNRWA continues to provide crucial services to Palestinians, thousands of its trucks carrying humanitarian aid have been prevented from entering Gaza.

Israel’s ban on UNRWA is a violation of its obligations to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the land it illegally occupies.

UNRWA is the only agency capable of providing humanitarian aid and essential services to Palestinians at the necessary scale. Members of Congress concerned with Israel’s starvation of Palestinians should act in support of the agency.

💡 POLICY ASK: Members of Congress should express their opposition to attacks on UNRWA by cosponsoring the UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act of 2025 in the House and the Senate

IN THE NEWS

🗽 MAMDANI RESCINDS EXECUTIVE ORDERS THAT TARGETED SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS

PROMISES KEPT: On his first day in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani revoked two executive orders that targeted speech in support of Palestinian rights and restricted efforts at holding Israel accountable for its violations of human rights.

One executive order revoked the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) controversial definition of antisemitism, which was criticized by the ACLU of New York as stifling protected political speech by equating legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies with anti-Jewish hatred.

The other executive order effectively restricted city agencies from heeding the calls of New Yorkers in support of Palestinian rights who call on them to boycott and divest from corporations profiting from Israel’s atrocities.

The two executive orders were issued during the waning days of the Adams administration and were likely part of the Adams administration’s response to the election of Mamdani on his progressive platform in support of Palestinian rights.

By rescinding these First Amendment-violating orders, Mamdani recommitted to his support for Palestinian rights and for New Yorkers who continue to advocate for an end to US complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid. According to a July 2025 poll by IMEU Policy Project, these voters played a role in propelling him to victory over Andrew Cuomo during their first match up in the Democratic mayoral primary.

THE ISSUE WITH IHRA: The IHRA definition of antisemitism falsely conflates criticisms of Israel and its actions with antisemitism and has been broadly criticized for infringing on free speech and silencing Palestinian voices.

The IHRA definition has been criticized by civil rights groups, liberal Jewish organizations, and more. A federal judge in Texas ruled that universities’ use of the definition violated the First Amendment.

Seven of the eleven contemporary examples of antisemitism are explicitly focused on Israel, including statements that conflate Judaism with Zionism–which would cast anyone who advocates for equal Palestinian rights as antisemitic.

Another example stigmatizes all mention of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land by Zionist militias and Israel as antisemitic, and rejects a growing consensus among legal experts and human rights organizations that Israel is practicing apartheid.

To be clear: antisemitism, like all forms of hatred, bigotry, and violence directed against people based on their identity, is abhorrent. But as Jewish Voice for Peace and Palestine Legal note, the IHRA definition does nothing to stop actual antisemitism.

📖 LEARN MORE about how the IHRA definition of antisemitism has been used to stifle speech in support of Palestinian rights in an explainer from our sister organization the IMEU.

PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS

🚧 ISRAEL BANS NGOs FROM PROVIDING AID TO PALESTINIANS IN GAZA, WEST BANK

DE-REGISTERED: Israel banned more than three dozen humanitarian organizations from delivering crucial aid and services to Palestinians in Gaza at the beginning of this year, and more organizations may be added to the list.

Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, American Friends Services Committee, Caritas Internationalis, Save the Children, and more than 30 other organizations have been banned.

This de-registration stems from Israel’s attempts to hamstring humanitarian NGOs that are operating in Gaza as they attempt to provide critical aid in response to Israel’s genocidal crimes.

These regulations include handing over lists of Palestinian and international workers, along with their passport or identification numbers to Israel, which raises concern for their safety. Israel has killed more than 500 humanitarian aid workers, including US citizen Jacob Flickinger. Information required under this new registration system would make it easier for Israel to target additional humanitarian workers.

The regulations also disqualify organizations that supported efforts to hold Israel accountable at the International Criminal Court and other venues, and those that engage in even the most basic recognition of Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza–making clear that the registration requirements are political in nature.

US LAW VIOLATED: This move is a likely violation of US law, specifically Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.

Many of these NGOs have received funding from the State Department and USAID to provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinians. That means that at least some of the blocked goods and services are likely paid for by the US.

Israel is also banning international humanitarian workers from some of these organizations from entering Gaza, crippling their ability to relieve workers who are already in Gaza and all but ensuring their organizations’ ultimate expulsion from the area. The blocked workers include medical workers, who are a lifeline for Palestinians suffering from injuries caused by Israel’s attacks and the effects of Israel’s deliberate and manufactured starvation.

By making it illegal for these NGOs to provide this assistance, it’s likely that Israel is directly obstructing US-provided aid from being provided to Palestinians–a clear violation of the law.

Section 620I compels the US to immediately halt all weapons transfers to Israel in response to this obstruction.

PALESTINIANS STILL STARVING: This de-registration came days after a new report revealed that this bureaucratic blockade is a key factor that could increase the risk of famine in Gaza.

The report, released by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification hunger monitor, stated that more than a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza–more than 500,000–will face “emergency” levels of food insecurity, which is marked by even higher malnutrition rates and excess mortality. 

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: 53 international NGOs issued a joint statement on the devastating consequences of this de-registration, which stated in part: “This is not a technical or administrative matter, but a deliberate policy choice with foreseeable consequences. If registrations are allowed to lapse, the Israeli government will obstruct humanitarian assistance at scale. Humanitarian access is not optional, conditional, or political. It is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law.”

Members of Congress should exercise their oversight authority over weapons transfers and immediately work to bring the US into compliance with the law by blocking any further weapons transfers to Israel.

❌ ISRAEL CONTINUES KILLING PALESTINIANS, DEEPENS MILITARY OCCUPATION

ISRAEL’S LATEST ATTACKS: Israel killed 14 Palestinians on Thursday as it continues to bomb, shoot, and kill Palestinians in violation of the Trump plan for Gaza. Israel has killed more than 400 Palestinians since the first phase of the Trump plan for Gaza went into effect in October.

Four Palestinians were killed in a drone strike on a tent in which displaced Palestinians were sheltering. The tent was in Al Mawasi, which at one time was dubbed a humanitarian zone by the Israeli military despite its repeated attacks on the area. Israeli strikes also killed two more displaced Palestinians in a strike on the Abu Hussein School in Tuffah.

One of the Palestinians killed on Thursday was Hamsa Housou, an eleven-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli soldiers as she slept in her family’s home in Jabalia. Her family’s home is behind the Israeli redeployment line, in the so-called safe zone where Israel has crammed Palestinians.

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: In an interview published by Drop Site News, Hamsa’s uncle Aouni Housou asked, “Every night there is bombing, shooting, fire belts, robots. Every night. Shrapnel hits our home. What ceasefire? This ceasefire is just theater in front of the world. What caused them to kill her?” Abu Hassan Alwan, who was next door to a residential building in Tuffah that Israel attacked, told Drop Site, “Whoever tells you there is a safe area, don’t pay him any mind. The Israelis are allowed to strike wherever they strike. Whatever ‘targets’ they find, they strike. There are no safe areas. This ceasefire is not in effect like this.”

SHIFTING LINES: As Israel continues to attack Gaza and kill Palestinians, it has also violated the Trump plan by expanding its military occupation of Gaza as it prepares for a long-term division of the area.

The Israeli military reportedly pushed its redeployment line eastward in the areas of Tuffah, Shujayea, and Zeitoun near Gaza City last week.

A new analysis published by The Washington Post revealed that Israel has established new positions and expanded the so-called “yellow line” as the Israeli military builds fortifications along it.

The analysis also interviewed several Palestinians who relayed their experiences with the Israeli military moving yellow blocks meant to demarcate the Israeli redeployment line in order to incorporate more territory under Israeli occupation, as well as the constant killing of Palestinians who approach the line. Israel has killed more than 250 Palestinians near the line.

This corroborates reporting by Drop Site News and Forensic Architecture which found that Israel is seemingly preparing for a permanent occupation of Gaza through the construction of military infrastructure in the area it currently occupies–which is more than half of the entire area.

The Trump plan for Gaza explicitly precludes the possibility of a long-term Israeli occupation within or annexation of Gaza, but Israel’s preparation of military infrastructure should heighten concerns that Israel is seeking to permanently occupy Gaza along the Israeli deployment line.

Photo: Anas-Mohammed, via Shutterstock. Stock Photo ID: 2485771593