You try to buy a kilo of flour in Gaza.

You open your wallet; what’s inside?  A faded 10-shekel note, barely held together by a strip of tape. No one wants it; it is all rubbish now.

The 10-shekel note, normally worth about $3, was once the most commonly used bill in daily life. Now, it is no longer in circulation. Not officially—only practically. It has been worn out beyond recognition. Sellers will not accept it. Buyers cannot use it.

There is no fresh cash. No replenishment.

Other banknotes are following the fate of the 10 shekels, especially the smaller ones.

If you pay with a 100-shekel note for an 80-shekel purchase, the seller will likely be unable to return the remaining 20 due to the poor physical state of the banknotes.

Many notes are torn or taped together, and entire stalls now exist just to repair damaged currency so it can be used again. Anything is better than nothing.

But the disintegration of banknotes is not the only problem we have in Gaza.

Civil servants have gone months without pay. NGOs are unable to transfer salaries to their employees. Families cannot send remittances. What once supported Gaza’s financial structure has vanished. There is no mention of when it will return. Just silence.

Money is stuck. Trapped behind closed systems and political barriers.

If you manage to obtain money from outside sources — perhaps from a cousin in Ramallah or a sibling in Egypt — it comes at a cost. A brutal one. If you get sent 1,000 shekels ($300), the agent will hand you 500. That’s right, the commission rate on cash withdrawals in Gaza is now 50 percent.

There are no banks to offer such withdrawals or oversee transfers.

The signs are still there. Bank of Palestine. Cairo Amman Bank. Al Quds Bank. But the doors are shut, the windows are dusty, and the inside is empty. No ATMs work.

There are only brokers, some with connections to the black market and smugglers, who are somehow able to obtain cash. They take huge cuts to dispense it, in exchange for a bank transfer to their accounts.

Every withdrawal feels like theft disguised as a transaction. Even so, people continue to use this system. They have no choice.

Do you have a bank card? Great. Try using it?

There is no power. There’s no internet. No POS machines. When you show your card to a seller, they shake their head.

People print screenshots of account balances that they cannot access. Some walk around with expired bank documents, hoping someone will think they’re “good enough” as a pay guarantee.

Nobody does.

There are a few sellers who accept so-called “digital wallets”, but those are few, and so are people who have them.

In Gaza today, money you can’t touch is equivalent to no money at all.

And so people have to resort to other means.

At the market, I saw a woman standing with a plastic bag of sugar. Another was holding a bottle of cooking oil. They did not speak much. I just nodded. Traded. Left.

This is what “shopping” in Gaza looks like right now.  Trade what you’ve got. A kilo of lentils for two kilos of flour. A bottle of bleach for some rice. A baby’s jacket for several onions.

There is no stability. One day, your item will be worth something. The next day, nobody wants it. Prices are guesses. Value is emotional. Everything is negotiable.

“I traded my coat for a bag of diapers,” my uncle Waleed, a father of twins, told me. “He looked at me as if I were a beggar. I felt like I was giving up a part of my life.”

This is not a throwback to simpler times. This is what happens when systems disappear. When money dies. When families are forced to sacrifice dignity for survival.

People don’t just suffer—they shrink. They lower their expectations. They stop dreaming. They stop planning. What future can you plan when you can’t afford tomorrow?

“I sold my gold bracelet,” Lina, my neighbour by tent, told me. “It was for emergencies. But now, every day is an emergency.”

Gaza’s economy did not collapse due to bad policy or internal mismanagement. It was broken on purpose.

The occupation has not just blocked goods entering Gaza; it has also blocked currency and with it, any sense of financial control. It has destroyed the banking system. It has made liquidity a weapon.

Cutting off Gaza’s money is part of a larger siege. There is no need to fire a bullet to destroy a people. Simply deny them the ability to live.

You can’t pay for bread, for water, for medicine, so how do you sustain life?

If this trend continues, Gaza will be the first modern society to completely return to barter. There are no salaries. There is no official market. Only personal trades and informal deals. And even those will not last forever. Because what happens when there is nothing left to trade?

If this isn’t addressed, Gaza will be more than just a siege zone. It will be a place where the concepts of money, economy, and fairness will die forever.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Ghislaine Maxwell, the jailed associate of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has told US officials she did not witness any inappropriate conduct by Donald Trump or former President Bill Clinton.

The Trump administration has faced pressure to disclose information about Epstein, who the US president was previously friendly with.

Maxwell was interviewed from prison in July and, according to the newly released transcript, told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that a much-discussed Epstein “client list” does not exist.

She also called allegations of Prince Andrew having sexual relations with an underage girl in Maxwell’s home “mind-blowingly not conceivable”.

Maxwell is seeking a pardon from Trump and has been accused of lying to federal officials.

Shortly the interview with Blanche – who previously worked as Trump’s personal attorney – she was moved from her from a Florida prison to a new minimum-security facility in Texas. It is unclear why the move was made.

She is currently serving a 20-year sentence in a sex-trafficking scheme, and has petitioned the US Supreme Court to overturn her conviction. Her lawyer has said they would “welcome” a pardon from the president.

The White House has been adamant that “no leniency is being given or discussed” in Maxwell’s case.

Trump has maintained that he fell out with Epstein in 2004.

The president has accused his political opponents of using the case to distract from what he sees as his administration’s victories.

But he has also faced pressure from his own Republican Party for more transparency around investigations of Epstein.

In the transcripts – which amount to 300 pages, some heavily redacted – Maxwell said that while she believed Trump and Epstein were friendly “in social settings”, she did not think they were close friends.

“I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting,” she said – alluding to the massage services that some Epstein victims have mentioned. “The president was never inappropriate with anybody.”

“In the times I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects,” she added.

She also said she did not recall Trump sending Epstein a 50th birthday note in 2003, which drew recent headlines after the note was reported in the Wall Street Journal.

In the interview, Blanche also asked Maxwell about the alleged “client list” of high-profile personalities that has become the object of conspiracy theories in recent years.

Maxwell was asked about several well-known figures, including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, actor Kevin Spacey, model Naomi Campbell and Prince Andrew – whom she denied she introduced to Epstein.

The list of his high-profile associates had become a focal point for conspiracy theorists who insisted that it was being kept hidden by the “deep state” to protect prominent participants in Epstein’s crimes.

Several figures in Trump’s administration – including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino – repeated those claims in the past, although they have since backtracked.

“There is no list,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell also spoke about Prince Andrew, whose relationship with Epstein eventually led to his stepping down from royal duties.

She called it a “flat untruth” that she’d been the one who introduced the Duke of York to Epstein.

“First of all, let’s just state, I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew,” she said.

She spoke at length of Epstein’s relationship with both Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson.

Prince Andrew has previously said that Maxwell introduced him to Epstein. But Maxwell said she believed it was the duchess who was responsible.

When approached by the BBC about Maxwell’s claim, Sarah Ferguson’s representatives declined to comment.

Maxwell also spoke about Prince Andrew’s alleged relationship with a woman whose name has been redacted in the transcript.

She said she found the allegations against the Duke of York “mind-blowingly not conceivable”, partly due to the size of her house where the events allegedly took place.

She was also asked about a “famous photo” of Prince Andrew and the unnamed woman, with Maxwell in the background. She told Blanche this photo was fake.

The prince was accused by Virginia Giuffre, who is not named in the transcript, of sexually abusing her when she was 17. He denied the allegations but reached a financial settlement with her in 2022, which contained no admission of liability or apology.

A widely circulated photo shows him alongside Giuffre with Maxwell in the background. Andrew has previously disputed its authenticity.

Giuffre took her own life earlier this year. Her family has condemned the justice department for interviewing Maxwell and said she is a “monster” whose testimony cannot be trusted.

According to Maxwell, she first befriended Epstein in 1991, and subsequently developed a sexual relationship with him.

Even after that relationship ended, she said she was still paid by Epstein – up to $250,000 (£184,782) a year by 2009 – and remained “friends with benefits”. She added that their relationship was “almost non-existent” between 2010 and his death.

Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

“I do not believe he died by suicide, no,” Maxwell said when asked, although she added that she did “not have any reason” to believe that he had been killed in a bid to silence him.

“It’s ludicrous,” she said of theories that he was murdered. “I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would’ve had plenty of opportunity when he wasn’t in jail.”

“And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would’ve been a very easy target,” she added.

Earlier this year, reports emerged that Trump had been told by US Attorney General Pam Bondi that his name appeared in the official files of the investigation into Epstein .

Trump has never been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the case – and on the campaign trail last year said he would publicise more information about the case.

But he reversed his position several months into his administration, saying the case was closed, and criticised supporters and journalists who continued to press him on it.

US Vice President JD Vance hit the road on August 21 to promote President Donald Trump’s legislative accomplishment, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act tax and spending bill.

The law permanently extended tax cuts from a 2017 law Trump signed, which would have expired at the end of 2025 had Congress not reauthorised them. The law also included some new tax cuts, including for tips, overtime and Americans 65 and older.

Speaking in Peachtree City near Atlanta, Vance said, “We had the biggest tax cut for families that this country has ever seen.”

The tax cuts were significant, but they weren’t the biggest in US history, which was a phrase Trump has often used to inaccurately describe his 2017 tax cut law. The 2025 tax cuts rank either third-biggest since 1980 or tied for seventh, depending on the yardstick.

At the same time, many Americans could see relatively modest changes to the taxes they owe starting in 2026, because the 2025 law mostly extended existing tax cuts.

The White House did not provide a response before publication.

Comparing historical tax cut laws

We examined the tax revenue decreases from major laws passed since 1980. (On balance, most tax laws prior to 1980 either raised taxes or cut them modestly.)

Tax bill dollar amounts tend to rise over time because of inflation, so we looked at tax cuts as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), which evens out the differences over time. And because some early laws have tax cut data available only for the first five or six years of the law’s life, we compared laws by looking at the cumulative tax savings during a law’s first five years in effect.

We found that the law with the biggest tax savings was 1981 legislation passed by the Democratic Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan, who won office promising large tax cuts. That law cut taxes by 3.5 percent of the nation’s cumulative five-year GDP.

A 2012 bill passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Barack Obama ranked second. That bill, which cut taxes by 1.7 percent of GDP, extended the tax cuts passed in 2003 under President George W Bush.

Based on current projections, Trump’s 2025 law ranks third, at 1.4 percent of GDP when factoring in Trump’s 2017 cuts.

Trump’s 2017 law ranks fourth at 1 percent, tied with a 2010 law Obama signed that extended Bush’s 2001 tax cuts. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts ranked sixth and seventh, with 0.7 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.

If considering only new tax cuts and not the re-upped 2017 tax cuts, then Trump’s 2025 law would tie for seventh at 0.5 percent of GDP.

Joseph Rosenberg, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, said that it’s legitimate to measure the scale of the cuts in the 2025 tax law either way.

What will Americans see in their taxes starting in 2026?

There could be a disconnect between the historical scale of Trump’s 2025 bill and the impact that Americans will notice when filing 2026 taxes.

Because Americans are already paying the lower rates that began in 2017 and that the 2025 law extended, they won’t necessarily notice a sizeable reduction in taxes owed.

“For most families, they are going to see a child tax credit that increases by a maximum of $200 per child, from $2,000 to $2,200,” said Margot Crandall-Hollick, principal research associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “Some are going to pay a little less because of the tips and overtime provisions and a slightly higher standard deduction.”

The law preserves a more generous standard deduction that had been set to expire and increases it slightly to $15,750 for single filers and $31,500 for joint filers in 2025, to be indexed to inflation annually.

At the same time, Crandall-Hollick said, some families, especially those with lower incomes, will pay higher taxes because of the expiration of health insurance premium tax credits, which were not extended by the Big Beautiful Bill.