The so-called Board of Peace that President Donald Trump officially launched in Davos, Switzerland last week is developing sweeping plans for a U.S.-backed administration to rule Gaza. Leaked documents exclusively reported on by Jonathan Whittall show the Board’s bureaucratic plans for total control of Gaza—without Palestinian participation or input.

Whittall, who was a senior UN official in Palestine before being expelled by Israel last year, joins Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous to discuss the reality on the ground in Gaza, Trump’s installation of himself as the indefinite chair of the Board of Peace, and what Israel is doing to make its presence in Gaza permanent.

Jonathan Whittall is a political analyst with two decades of experience in humanitarian work with Médecins Sans Frontières and the UN. He is now executive director of KEYS Initiative.

Pieces discussed:

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/leaked-board-of-peace-resolution-gaza-trump-us

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/gaza-yellow-line-earth-berms-blocks-physical-barrier-israel-palestinians

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/cmcc-leaked-documents-gaza-residential-zone-surveillance-checkpoints-rafah

Documentary photographer and essayist Kaveh Rostamkhani has been on the ground in Tehran throughout the unrest and bloodshed that gripped Iran over the past weeks, and he published an essay on Instagram on Wednesday under the title, “Iran Unrests: A Feast for Vultures.” Rostamkhani describes some of what he observed and raises questions about the events that took place:

"In what would become the longest internet blackout in Iran’s history, only a semi-functional nationwide intranet was left available. Not only had the security forces clearly underestimated the mobilisation capabilities of the monarchists and their accomplices, but also observers and ordinary citizens were surprised by the excessive riots. By Saturday, January 10th, the nation would wake up soaked in blood.

"Over the next days, eye and ear witnesses recounted harrowing atrocities. One told me that in their neighbourhood there had been so many corpses that the authorities had to patrol through the blocks and load them onto pick-ups. The scale of deaths is beyond deniability, thus, the state TV airs scenes from Tehran’s legal medicine morgue, where scores of corpses are piled waiting to be identified by mourning relatives.

It might be easy to solely accuse the regime of a massacre of thousands, as many activists quickly did, though the reality seems to be more complex. Whilst there is a high number of deaths apparently as a result of a firm crackdown and the use of live ammunition, among the corpses there are also scores who have died due to wounds from knives, carpet cutters, and other improvised sharp blades. Then there are others who have endured gunshots at close range. Still others have succumbed to burns. And this is not an isolated issue limited to Tehran or a certain area, but all over the country there are also numerous corpses that have succumbed to wounds none of which correspond with a crowd and riot control perspective. It doesn’t make any sense for security forces to risk physical engagement and injury when their units have a de facto carte blanche to use lethal ammunition from a safe distance."

Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill spoke with Rostamkhani on Thursday morning.

The U.S. is moving additional military assets into the Middle East amid speculation Trump could green light an attack on Iran at any moment. The sense that an overt war is imminent has abated and the protests, riots, and bloodshed in the streets of Iran that took place earlier this month have, for now, ended, yet the incendiary situation remains liable to develop into wider conflict. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that if Iran sought to assassinate him, “the whole country's going to get blown up.” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that any attempt to assassinate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is tantamount to a full-scale war with the Iranian nation.”

Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill spoke to Dr. Foad Izadi, professor of American studies and international relations at University of Tehran, on Wednesday. They discussed the origins of the protests, the narrative war, how Iran might respond to another military attack by the U.S. and more.

“The U.S. wants to repeat the Libya experience, disintegrate Iran, take out the oil-rich southern part, and then the rest of the country would fall apart. This is the ultimate plan they have,” said Izadi. “I don't think they have given up. I think Trump has basically given the Iran portfolio to Netanyahu. He decides what to do. And then basically Trump implements whatever Netanyahu has decided to do. And Trump is going to be in office for another three years. So I don't think they are done with Iran.”

Behind the war of words between the U.S. and Iran are two competing narratives about what took place in early January. Western governments and much of the corporate media have characterized Iran as an authoritarian regime, one facing widespread protests, that carried out a series of bloody massacres. Opponents of the Islamic Republic, including Iranians who participated in the protests, have characterized this moment as one where a dying repressive regime, desperate to keep its grip on power, has violently crushed protests by those who dare to oppose it.

Iran has pushed back forcefully on both these allegations and this description, saying that the domestic unrest is nothing short of a U.S.-Israeli sponsored violent infiltration in the country that sought to hijack legitimate protests to pave the way for regime change. Iranian officials have charged that what began as peaceful marches—meeting no violent crackdown from the state—turned deadly when agitators, encouraged and supported by the U.S. and Israel, began attacking government buildings, religious sites, and other infrastructure, while assassinating and executing police and other security personnel, along with ordinary citizens. Iran said the events of the past weeks are a continuation of the 12-day war waged against Iran in June that saw the U.S. and Israel bomb the country for 12 days.

For the past 12 days, the government has almost entirely shut down the internet in Iran. The limited internet has made it very difficult to independently verify events on the ground.