That would be dealing the death blow to any effort to end the genocidal war, however.
The Israeli premier is fooling himself and the Israeli public if he believes that further intensifying military operations in Gaza and seizing more territory, both tactics he has tried in the course 19 months of relentless fighting, would achieve his declared goals.
The only result of Netanyahu’s plan, clearly aimed to please his extremist, right-wing base, will be inflicting more tragic suffering on over 2.4 million Palestinians who continue to live in Gaza. It would result in a new wave of forced displacement of Palestinians living in northern Gaza towards the south, and yet another massive campaign of bombing and destruction killing more civilians, topped with women and children.
The situation has already been hellish for Gazans since Israel breached the shaky, temporary ceasefire on 18 March after barely two months. More than 2500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in only seven weeks, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed since Israel’s genocidal war started on 8 October, 2023 to over 52,500. Thus, when the Israeli premier declares a new stage of intense military action on Monday, he certainly means setting a new record in the arbitrary killing of innocent Palestinian civilians.
The threat to escalate military action in Gaza coincides with the United Nations and all leading humanitarian organisations warning of the dire consequences of the continued starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza after the Israeli army declared a total siege of the Strip on 1 March, preventing the entry of any kind of food, fuel or medicine.
In a statement by UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher, he noted that more than two months ago, the Israeli authorities made a deliberate decision to block all aid to Gaza, and halt UN efforts to save survivors of their military offensive.
“They have been bracingly honest that this policy is to pressurise Hamas. Yes, the hostages must be released, now. They should never have been taken from their families. But international law is unequivocal: As the occupying power, Israel must allow humanitarian support in,” Fletcher said. “Aid, and the civilian lives it saves, should never be a bargaining chip. Blocking aid starves civilians. It leaves them without basic medical support. It strips them of dignity and hope. It inflicts a cruel collective punishment. Blocking aid kills.”
Fletcher also reiterated the UN’s rejection of a new modality proposed by Israel to distribute aid within Gaza, placing it under the control of an independent body and using American contractors while providing security from outside to areas where aid would be distributed. Israeli soldiers would not distribute aid themselves due to opposition from the army’s chief of staff, but they would provide security for distribution areas. Each Palestinian family would be given a box of food including the bare minimum once a week.
Fletcher said the Israeli aid distribution plan “does not meet the minimum bar for principled humanitarian support.” Feeling helpless and deserted by a world watching indifferently the daily death and starvation of Palestinians, the UN top official appealed, “to the Israeli authorities, and those who can still reason with them, we say again: lift this brutal blockade. Let humanitarians save lives.” He added, “to the civilians left unprotected, no apology can suffice. But I am truly sorry that we are unable to move the international community to prevent this injustice. We won’t give up, even if the world has given you every reason to give up on us.”
The Israeli plan to escalate fighting in Gaza comes at a time when the region is expecting more intense effort to renew the ceasefire ahead of a trip to the region next week by US President Donald Trump. That will be Trump’s first trip to the region since taking office in late January, and the assumption is that the American leader will not want his tour to be overshadowed by continued fighting in Gaza or continuation of the devastating humanitarian situation that has been literally starving Palestinian children.
All leaders of Arab countries that have maintained close relations with the United States for decades had welcomed Trump’s pledge to be a peacemaker who would stop the war in Gaza. While Trump did indeed make good on his promise by pressuring Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire that lasted for two months, the effort to reach a permanent ceasefire faded, and Netanyahu has been acting on the basis that he has a green light from Washington to do whatever he wants not just in Gaza, but also in Lebanon and Syria.
Giving Israel a free hand to spread havoc and war in the region cannot be a prescription for peace, and will certainly jeopardise the interests of all Arab countries in the region, as well as the United States itself. All US ambitions to attract trillions of dollars in Arab investments in the United States, or to revive effort to normalise relations between Israel and Arab countries will certainly remain wishful thinking as long as the genocidal war in Gaza continues.
Nearly all military experts agree that the Israeli policy of pressuring Hamas with massive force and indiscriminate killing of civilians have been exhausted. Thus, the only clear aim of yet another round of large-scale Israeli killing of Palestinian civilians is for Netanyahu and his government to stay in power.
If he is sincere in his desire to make peace in the region and serve US interests, Trump should certainly prevent this scenario and use his visit to the region to restrain his closest ally and declare that enough is enough.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 8 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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