The Gaza ‘peace plan’ Donald Trump trumpeted through the last three months of 2025 lies in tatters in the new year as Israel continues to pound Gaza and Zionist settlers heighten daily attacks on Palestinian residents and properties in the Occupied West Bank. Meanwhile, the Databases for Palestine archive shows that almost half the 333 journalists killed by Israel over the past 845 days were targeted at home. Perhaps nothing signifies the irony of violence in West Asia more poignantly than olive trees, a symbol of civilisational pride to Palestinians and of peace to the world, which settlers have been recorded destroying by hundreds in recent days. It reflects the sorry state of the United Nations, whose logo is a world protected by olive branches.