ICE Must Release Final Columbia Activist | Palestine Policy Roundup 02.02.26
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Rep. Lloyd Doggett: “Trump’s Board of Peace, more accurately known as his “Board of Hypocrisy,” composed of war criminals, thugs, and the intimidated. Not focused on Gaza, since Palestinians excluded. Only about Trump wanting to be king of the universe.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen: “Violent settlers in the West Bank are burning Palestinian villages & beating residents with impunity. These attacks have been met w/ silence from the Trump Admin & Netanyahu govt. US taxpayers shouldn't be giving the Netanyahu govt an annual $3 billion blank check for weapons.”
DC DEVELOPMENTS
💣 TRUMP SENDS WEAPONS TO ISRAEL BY BYPASSING CONGRESS
Last Friday, the Trump administration announced that it is pushing the delivery to Israel of more than $6.5 billion worth of weapons, which are presumably funded by American taxpayers.
ERODING OVERSIGHT: The Trump administration’s choice to “disregard Congressional oversight” on this weapons package, in the words of HFAC Ranking Member Rep. Gregory Meeks, is just the latest example of the president’s circumventing standard Congressional practice.
This isn't the first time that the Trump administration has ignored Congressional oversight norms to send weapons to Israel: in February 2025 and in March 2025, the administration expedited the delivery of more than $10 billion in presumably US taxpayer-funded weapons to Israel.
As with other weapons deliveries under both the Biden and Trump administrations, this weapons package violates US law, particularly the Arms Export Control Act and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act. Weapons transfers to Israel should be immediately halted in response to Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
💡 POLICY ASK: Members of Congress should introduce, cosponsor, and vote for Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRD’s) to block these weapons deliveries and assert Congressional oversight authority over weapons transfers.
ZOOM IN: The chairs and ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, known as the “Four Corners”, can place holds on weapons transfers by questioning the State Department about them. The Four Corners were informally notified about this weapons package in September 2025–during Israel’s invasion of Gaza City.
The weapons package includes $3.8 billion in Apache helicopters, $1.9 billion in infantry assault vehicles, and $750 million in Koala light helicopters and power parts for armored personnel carriers (APCs).
Some of these weapons were documented in Israel’s genocidal crimes in Gaza City and elsewhere in Gaza. Palestinian journalists documented Israel’s use of Apache helicopters to open fire on Palestinians during the Gaza City invasion, and explosive-laden unmanned APCs were used to flatten infrastructure there.
📖 LEARN MORE: Check out IMEU Policy Project’s policy memo on why Congress must block the delivery of these weapons.
PREVENTING GENOCIDE: In addition to asserting its oversight authority, Congress should act to stop these weapons transfers and uphold US obligations under the Genocide Convention, which are enshrined in US law, amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and blocking of humanitarian aid there. Providing weapons to Israel would further endanger Palestinians in Gaza.
📖 LEARN MORE about US obligations under the Genocide Convention, including the obligation to suspend weapons deliveries to Israel, in IMEU Policy Project’s policy memo.
👑 TRUMP’S BOARD GRANTS HIM TOTAL CONTROL OVER GAZA
New details emerged of President Trump’s sweeping powers in his role as chairman of the corporate-style shadow UN body known as the so-called “Board of Peace.” While this is a direct threat to the self-determination of Palestinians today, it also demonstrates how President Trump seeks to dominate a new world order.
KING TRUMP: A leaked draft resolution of Trump’s board revealed that he would wield unchecked power to enact new laws in Gaza and modify or repeal existing laws through his Executive Board. As a reminder, the Executive Board is handpicked by President Trump, who chairs the board in his personal capacity with little limits on his power.
This also solidifies the exclusion of Palestinians from the governance of Gaza. Neither the Executive Board nor the Gaza Executive Board have Palestinian members, and the committee of technocratic Palestinians is only given a narrow mandate of providing day-to-day services in Gaza under the takeover plan.
NEW MEMBERS: The leaked resolution also revealed new members of the Executive Board. Susie Wiles, President Trump’s Chief of Staff, is one of these members–bringing the total number of current or former administration officials on this board to five. The other, Marty Edelman, is a real estate attorney with deep ties to the United Arab Emirates.
ATTACK ON UNRWA: The draft resolution also states that Trump’s Executive Board and his High Representative in Gaza Nickolay Mladenov will set the standards by which organizations and people can participate in the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
This is an especially dangerous provision considering that the Trump administration has spent the last year demonizing UNRWA and promoting Israel’s unsubstantiated claims against it. Handing this power to Trump’s handpicked Executive Board virtually guarantees that UNRWA will be excluded from providing humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.
The Trump administration and Israel’s claims about UNRWA were once again debunked by a Government Accountability Office report which found that there was little supporting evidence.
Israel has also attacked international NGOs–including Doctors Without Borders–with similarly unsubstantiated claims. This could serve as a pretext for the Trump administration to bar NGOs that Israel has de-registered from operating in Gaza in the future.
The resolution also allows for the restriction of resources and aid from Palestinians not considered to be compliant with the Trump board vision.
CORRALLING PALESTINIANS: The resolution empowers the multinational force known as the “International Stabilization Force” to patrol the ghettos to which Palestinians would be restricted and confined, and to control Palestinian movement in Gaza.
These provisions–coupled with the attacks on UNRWA and NGOs, and the board’s charter giving the multinational force the responsibility for the oversight of humanitarian aid–replicate the conditions which led to the massacres of Palestinians by the Israeli military and US contractors at sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund by forcing them to seek food and other essentials from a militarized force.
IN THE NEWS
⏳ LEQAA KORDIA: THE LAST COLUMBIA ACTIVIST DETAINED BY ICE
Last Tuesday, nearly three dozen Texas state lawmakers sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security asking for the release of Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian student activist who is still detained by ICE in retaliation for her activism in support of Palestinian rights.
FIRST AMENDMENT VIOLATION: The letter reported that Kordia has been denied access to halal food and that she has lost a significant amount of weight as a result of this denial; it also details that she has been denied prayer accommodations and that she is forced to share her prayer mat with several women after the detention facility stopped providing them to Muslim women.
These are clear violations of the First Amendment right of freedom of religion, which is one of many constitutional rights that ICE has a track record of violating.
The letter also notes that due to overcrowding, women are forced to sleep on the floor, face inadequate medical care, and are given inedible food, which reflects the inhumane conditions in which ICE holds immigrants all over the country.
WHO IS LEQAA?: Leqaa Kordia is the last Columbia activist to be detained for her support for Palestinians rights. She was caught up in Columbia University’s and the NYPD’s crackdown on student activism there in April 2024, but charges filed against her were dropped. Nevertheless, this incident put her on ICE’s target list.
Kordia lived with and supported her mother and brother in New Jersey prior to her abduction by ICE. Nearly 200 members of her family have been killed by Israel during its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
ICE agents abducted her just days after Mahmoud Khalil was abducted when she voluntarily attempted to clear an issue with her immigration status after agents asked to speak with her. Like Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, she was then whisked away more than 1,000 miles to a detention facility in Texas.
This followed surveillance by ICE agents, which reportedly included the questioning of her community members and agents taking pictures of a sign that said “Palestine” outside her family home.
The Department of Homeland Security has explicitly stated that she was targeted and continues to be detained because of her support for Palestinian rights.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Kordia highlighted President Trump’s assault on support for Palestinian rights in an op-ed published in USA Today: “Through my continued detention, the Trump administration aims to send a chilling message: People who speak out for Palestinian rights or criticize Israel will face retribution. This is not only morally outrageous and unconstitutional; it is deeply unpopular among Americans…Why is his administration spending taxpayer dollars keeping me and others locked up for protesting a genocide instead of funding schools and health care?”
FREEDOM DENIED: Since Kordia was detained, an immigration judge has ordered her release twice. However, DHS has used a post-9/11 regulation to keep her detained to circumvent the judge’s decisions. Kordia is far from the only person to be held indefinitely this way: ICE invoked this regulation more than 800 times between July and mid-September 2025.
🏛️ WHAT CONGRESS CAN DO: Members of Congress should amplify the message of these Texas lawmakers and call for Kordia’s release.
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
🚨 ISRAEL ESCALATES CEASEFIRE VIOLATIONS AMID TRUMP PLAN TRANSITION
As the Trump administration advances its takeover plan of Gaza to the second phase, Israel is continuing its violations–for which the Trump administration has refused to hold it accountable–that it started during the first phase.
MORE STRIKES: Last Saturday, Israel killed at least 30 Palestinians in strikes across Gaza in some of its deadliest attacks in months. This raises the total number of Palestinians killed during the so-called “ceasefire” to more than 500.
Israel once again attacked displaced Palestinians who were sheltering in tents, reportedly sparking a fire that killed seven. Israel also targeted an apartment building that killed five more Palestinians.
Israel also attacked a police station on Saturday, killing at least 10 Palestinian police officers and inmates who were held there.
Israel’s attacks continued throughout the weekend–on Sunday, it attacked a home in the Al-Nasr neighborhood of Gaza. Israel carried out this attack using a US-supplied Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kit and what was likely a US-supplied MK-80 series bomb; the delivery of both of these types of weapons would be immediately halted by the Block the Bombs Act.
💡 POLICY ASK: Israel is clearly still using US-supplied weapons to violate the so-called “ceasefire” and continue its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Representatives should respond by supporting the Block the Bombs Act.
📖 LEARN MORE about how Israel has used the weapons that would be blocked by the Block the Bombs Act during its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in our policy memo.
📣 TAKE ACTION: Write to your Representative and ask that they cosponsor the Block the Bombs Act.
RAFAH GATE RESTRICTIONS: As Israel continued to kill Palestinians, it also continued to refuse to open the Rafah border crossing according to the terms outlined in the first phase of the Trump plan.
While Israel finally announced the opening of the Rafah crossing–for the first time in nearly two years since it closed the crossing during its 2024 invasion of Rafah–it also announced restrictions on the number of Palestinians who can cross into and out of Gaza.
Israel will only allow 50 Palestinians to enter Gaza per day while allowing only 150 Palestinians to exit. Only Palestinians who left Gaza during Israel’s genocide will be allowed back into Gaza, and only Palestinians who require medical evacuations will be allowed to leave.
Palestinians who attempt to enter Gaza will also be forced to go through a checkpoint operated by the Israeli military–entrenching its control over the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi corridor. The Israeli military has a well-documented track record of abducting and massacring Palestinians at checkpoints and similar sites, such as those operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
These restrictions come after reports that the Israeli government was devising plans to ensure that more Palestinians left Gaza than were allowed to enter–possibly facilitating Israel’s long-standing plans for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the area.
📌 TWO YEARS SINCE ISRAEL KILLED HIND RAJAB
Last week marked two years since Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza, was killed by the Israeli military as she and her family were being forcibly displaced from Gaza City. Her killing is a reminder of US complicity in Israel’s genocidal crimes in Gaza and the need to uphold US obligations under the Genocide Convention.
335 BULLETS: According to an investigation by Forensic Architecture, Israeli troops shot at the car in which Hind and her family were traveling at least 335 times. The investigation also noted that the sound of the gunfire captured on a phone call to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PCRS) by Hind’s cousin, 15-year-old Layan Hamada, was consistent with the gun that Israel uses on its Merkava tanks, which were in the area on that day.
The investigation also concluded that the tank was only 42 to 75 feet from the car when it opened fire on it during Layan’s call to the PCRS. This close range suggests that the tank gun’s operator would have had a clear view of Layan and Hind–two children–who were in the car.
PREVENTING CARE: Hind was the only survivor of this round of attacks on her family, but she was badly wounded. Hind called the PCRS for help, but it never came. Her body was found two weeks later after the Israeli military withdrew from the area.
The investigation noted that the ambulance sent by the PCRS following Hind’s call for help was likely destroyed by an Israeli Merkava tank. It also found that the tank likely used a 120mm M830A1 tank shell to destroy the ambulance and prevent Hind from getting the care that could have saved her. The tank shell was likely provided by the US–making the US directly complicit in the killing of Hind.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Wesam Hamada, Hind’s mother, reflected on Israel’s continued violence in the New York Times: “Protecting the children in Gaza must mean real protection. For a start, it means a cease-fire that actually saves lives, not one that exists only on paper; more than 100 children have been killed since the cease-fire officially began. It means stopping the bombing, and the international flow of weapons to a regime that clearly seeks to crush our spirit and erase us. It means opening more medical corridors and allowing more food in. It means ensuring accountability, not only for Hind’s death but for those of the thousands of children whose lives were stolen. When the world is silent as children are killed, starved and displaced, that silence is complicity. Every child who dies waiting to be saved represents a failure of humanity.”
HONORING HIND: Hind was one of the more than 70,000 Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli military over the course of its genocide in Gaza–and Israel’s carnage still isn’t over. Israel has killed more than 500 Palestinians, including more than 100 children, in its violations of the Trump takeover plan. Honoring Hind requires bringing an end to Israel’s genocide, which is ongoing.
Photo: Peter Serocki, via Shutterstock. Stock Photo ID: 2683835991