On Jan. 26, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recovered the remains of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, identified as the last remaining deceased Israeli hostage held in Gaza. The body was recovered during an Israeli military operation in a northern Gaza cemetery that disturbed the burial sites of hundreds of Palestinians.
The recovery of Sgt. Gvili’s body triggered the second phase of President Donald Trump’s so-called peace plan, which could begin the enormous task of clearing tons of rubble and reconstruction—but not for Palestinians. More than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza remain at high risk from lack of food, potable water, shelter and medical care. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israel after the so-called cease-fire was declared on Oct. 10 last year. Since the Gaza ceasefire was declared on Oct. 10, 2025, the Israeli military has killed more than 500 Palestinians.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Josh Ruebner, policy director with the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project and an adjunct lecturer in Georgetown University’s Program on Justice and Peace. Here he talks about the continuing humanitarian disaster in Gaza and implementation of the deeply flawed second phase of the ceasefire plan.
JOSH RUEBNER: Well, Israel has continued to attack and kill Palestinians in Gaza despite the fact that in this October agreement that was brokered by Trump, it was supposed to have put an end to all Israeli aerial and artillery bombardments. But nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since October. The conditions of genocide are ongoing, not only because of these killings, but also because Israel continues to block the provision of humanitarian aid that’s needed. Palestinians are still dying because they have inadequate shelter. Their shelter is being blown away in strong winter storms and children are dying from hypothermia.
Israel’s still blocking the importation of the type of sturdy and durable temporary shelters that would be needed to house Palestinians in better conditions. So it’s still extremely a grave situation for Palestinians in Gaza, especially as the Trump administration moves on to the so-called second phase of its plan for Gaza, which really involves a Trump-led corporate-style takeover of Gaza, where the Gaza Strip will be redeveloped for the benefit of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, other family members and political donors and allies of Trump, basically to make money off of Palestinian’s misery and have Gaza be rebuilt not for the benefit of the survivors of Israel’s genocide, but for the benefit of real estate developers who want to cash in on Palestinian misery.
MELINDA TUHUS: So has any progress been made in clearing all the rubble?
JOSH RUEBNER: Well, for the most part, Israel has not been allowing in the importation of the type of heavy machinery that would be needed both to clear the rubble and to allow for a search for the thousands of Palestinians who are believed to be dead underneath the rubble. So it’s really a situation where we’re expecting to see the confirmed fatality figure of now about 72,000 people go up dramatically because there are untold thousands of people under the rubble still.
So no, there’s been no reconstruction so to speak of. There’s been some pilot projects that have been tossed around whereby Palestinians might be confined to these ghettos under Israeli military control, where their access to these ghetto housing complexes that Israel is going to construct will be controlled by biometric data. So extremely Orwellian dystopian type of control that Israel and Trump through his corporate board takeover of Gaza are going to attempt to implement for Palestinian survivors of genocide.
It’s really a toxic mix of this neocolonialism of the Trump administration, along with the disaster capitalism that he and his political allies stand to make money from.
MELINDA TUHUS: And Josh Ruebner, what about the food situation in Gaza right now?
MELINDA TUHUS: The phase two of Trump’s plan was to include the disarmament of Hamas, although I don’t believe they ever agreed to that.
JOSH RUEBNER: This is part of the Trump plan. And the Trump administration’s interpretation of it is that they got Hamas’ consent to disarm. But Hamas disputes that they ever gave their consent to disarmament and decommissioning of their weapons. What they have said is that they would be willing to give their weapons to some kind of an authority that would eventually become a Palestinian state. It’s going to be very hard to stop the Trump administration, to be honest, because they got authorization from the United Nations to implement this plan, which was a really despicable abandonment of the responsibilities of the United Nations because they basically subcontracted out the running of Gaza to Trump and this corporate-style board, giving him almost unlimited powers.
For more information, visit Josh Ruebner’s website at joshruebner.com.
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