He was speaking after his security cabinet gave its approval to a new plan for tens of thousands more Israeli soldiers to seize and occupy parts of Gaza, forcing its 2.3 million population into an even smaller enclave of shattered buildings in the south.
Israel stopped all aid entering Gaza on 2 March and ended the ceasefire on 18 March. Since then a further 2,200 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli bombardment. The escalation by Israel is scheduled to take place after Donald Trump completes his visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates that begin on 13 May.
Netanyahu may have been surprised by the lack of push-back from the West, as well as the Arab and Islamic countries, as the destruction of Gaza has proceeded over the past 18 months since Hamas launched an attack that killed 1,200 Israelis. At that time, any Israeli intention to destroy Gaza, expel its population and replace them with Israeli settlers was only openly espoused by extreme ethno-nationalist right-wing parties. But open expression of such an aim has now become normalised without facing much international opposition.
“This deadly siege is enabled by the international community in an abdication of its responsibility to protect human lives,” says B’Tselem. “The Israeli government and other decision-makers continue to deliberately and openly order the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity that exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”
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In Gaza, we are seeing the normalisation of evilRead More
Israeli military reservists are already beginning to receive their call-up notices. “It is time to launch the concluding moves,” Netanyahu says Israeli officers told him, claiming that it could help bring home surviving hostages. However, many families of the hostages believe it will inevitably lead to their deaths, as they are killed by Israeli bombs and shells, or by their captors, if Israeli forces get close to rescuing them. “We are not done,” Netanyahu is quoted as saying. “We are before the finish line.”
Netanyahu’s opponents in Israel say the expanded military campaign would not fundamentally alter the balance of force between Israel and the Palestinians. But this is not really the case, because Israel won a number of decisive military and political successes in 2024. Backed unwaveringly by president Joe Biden’s administration, it defeated Hezbollah in Lebanon and saw president Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s main ally in the Middle East, overthrown in Syria. Despite Biden’s support for Israel in the Gaza war, Netanyahu’s far-right government was pleased to see him replaced by Trump and the Republicans, who are even more committed to Israel.
Israel is now very much a Middle East superpower, with its aircraft bombing Lebanon, Syria and Yemen at will. Arab states that once might have put up some military resistance to Israel – Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Libya – have either disintegrated entirely or are much weaker than was once the case.
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