Occupation and Slaughter: Netanyahu and Taking Over Gaza

To say that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had lost the plot is to assume he ever had one. With a dearth of ideas as to how to come up with a “final solution” to the Palestinian problem, he has received a majority approval from his cabinet colleagues to take over Gaza City. It took a late-night meeting with the security cabinet lasting some ten hours.

A statement released on the morning of August 8 from his office mentioned a five-point plan intended to defeat Hamas and conclude the war. None of this is an improved version of what has come before: the intended disarming of Hamas, the return of all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, assuming security control of the territory and creating “an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.”

There is also not much difference here from recent proposals made by the French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, with one fundamental difference: the Israelis want no current Palestinian representative authority to govern the people they so loathe. What all the proposals share is a core belief that the Palestinians be reduced to subordinate status, forever policed and monitored by watchful authorities. Their representatives are to be vetted by the Israelis and any number of international partners. Genuine sovereignty can sod off.

The Israeli military has announced that it “will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones.” Little change then given the current model of aid distribution that features daily massacres of the desperate and the starving overseen by trigger itchy personnel from both the IDF and the obscenely named Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. OHCHR, the United Nations human rights office, claims that at least 1,373 Palestinians seeking food have been killed since May 27, 859 in proximity of the GHF’s distribution points. Another 514 have perished along the routes traversed by food convoys.

The UN Human Rights chief Volker Türk has done his best to reiterate a certain ghastly obviousness in the plan. The military takeover “runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible, to the realisation of the agreed two-State solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination.” The takeover would entail further escalation, resulting in “more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes.”

The IDF’s chief of staff, Lt. General Eyal Zamier, is not a fan of the plan, concerned that itwould do more to imperil the surviving Israeli hostages held in the Strip. The New York Times reports that the country’s military leadership would prefer a fresh ceasefire, with the IDF suffering from the effects of attrition from the conflict. The head of Israel’s National Security Council, Tzachi Hanegbi, is in furious agreement: such an operation would further endanger the surviving Israeli hostages. Mossad’s director, David Barnea, also adds his name to the list of sceptics.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid did not shy away from excoriating the cabinet decision, something he called “a disaster” that would breed further disasters. The far-right figures of Itamar Ben–Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich had “dragged” the Prime Minister into a strategy that would lead to the death of the hostages and Israeli troops while costing billions to the Israeli taxpayer.

An announcement from Hamas proved suitably contemptuous of the latest Netanyahu gambit. “We warn the criminal occupation that this criminal adventure will cost it dearly. It will not be a walk in the park. Our people and their resistance are resilient to defeat or surrender, and Netanyahu’s plans, ambitions, and delusions will fail miserably.” The group also thought it fitting to name the United States as “fully responsible for the occupation’s crimes, due to its political cover and direct military support for its aggression.”

In a turn up for the books for those opposing Netanyahu’s blood-soaked adventurism, some of Israel’s closest allies are going beyond muttering criticism. Modest as it is, Germany has announced that weapons exports to Israel for use in the Strip had been suspended “until further notice.” (Between 2020 and 2024, the country accounted for a third of Israel’s arms imports.) A statement from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, while acknowledging the usual proviso that Israel had “the right to defend itself against Hamas terrorism,” expressed concern that “even tougher military action by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip” undermined prospects for releasing the hostages and pursuing negotiations for a ceasefire. Merz further warned that Israel “not take any further steps toward annexing the West Bank.”

For his part, Starmer called Israel’s “decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza […] wrong, and we urge it to reconsider immediately. This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages. It will only bring more bloodshed.”

Türk, if somewhat hollowly, demands an end to the war in Gaza with a rosy vision: an arrangement where Israelis and Palestinians are “allowed to live side by side in peace.” Admirable as this aspiration is, optimistic in its transcendence, it misunderstands the currency of hate and vengeance currently traded in Netanyahu’s cabinet and swathes of the Israeli populace. This is not a matter of side by side, but above and below, living in a state of permanent conflict, suppression and suspicion.

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