For three months, the Israeli government blocked all aid to Gaza, starving the over two million Palestinians trapped there. Now, they are carrying out a vicious air assault and full-scale ground invasion that has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands in a matter of days.
Brazen as ever, Israel’s right-wing leaders have made their genocidal intentions abundantly clear. They have openly recognized that mass starvation, and the global outcry it has prompted, are inhibiting their drive to take control of all of Gaza. When minimal aid was allowed in, Netanyahu admitted it was only for appearances’ sake, promising that the Israeli military would take control of the entire territory.
Israel’s ultra right-wing finance minister Bezalel Smotrich put it more bluntly: “Just as we levelled Rafah, we will level all of Gaza.”
The hard truth is that this is Israel’s final solution for Palestinians in Gaza.
“Pulled straight from the Book of Judges”
The Israeli government launched a devastating ground offensive into Gaza on Sunday, following several days of near constant airstrikes that pounded Gaza’s already destroyed hospitals and killed over 500 Palestinians.
Israel’s latest assault — dubbed Operation “Gideon’s Chariots” after the biblical figure who led a “divinely sanctioned massacre” — has killed hundreds more Palestinians and displaced upwards of 100,000 in a matter of days.
During a press conference this week, Smotrich laid out the final stage of Israel’s genocide: to “conquer” and “cleanse” Gaza, “leaving it as piles of rubble” and pushing Palestinians to a tiny area in the south — “and from there, God willing, to third countries, as part of President Trump’s plan” to transform Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
“We need to do it in a way that they won’t stop us.”
Just as it launched a brutal ground offensive in Gaza, the Israeli government announced it would allow in a “minimal” amount of aid. Amid 11 weeks of total siege that has left Gaza on the brink of famine, a handful of aid trucks were permitted to enter Gaza on Monday — what the UN called “a drop in the ocean.” A day later, as Israel pushed forward with its assault, that aid had yet to be distributed. Across Gaza, Palestinians are starving to death — including at least 14,000 infants that U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said would die in a matter of days should Israel not allow more aid into Gaza.
The Israeli government has no intention of reversing the conditions it created to kill as many Palestinians as possible. But by announcing it was resuming aid, Israeli leaders hoped to quiet international outrage long enough to allow the Israeli military to carry out the last stage of its genocide: ethnically cleansing the Palestinians it hasn’t yet killed so that it can “take control of all of Gaza,” in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own words.
He admitted as much in remarks meant to placate his genocidal base, for whom even “minimal” aid is a cause for outrage:
“Our best friends in the world — senators I know as strong supporters of Israel — have warned that they cannot support us if images of mass starvation emerge,” Netanyahu said. “We must avoid famine, both for practical reasons and diplomatic ones. He continued: Without international backing, we won’t be able to complete the mission of victory. We need to do it in a way that they won’t stop us.”
A “tool” for “forced displacement.”
The Israeli government’s genocidal aspirations are even baked into its heavily-criticized plan to control the distribution of aid in Gaza — in a way that facilitates its plans to depopulate the entirety of the territory.
Under the Trump-approved scheme, Israel would circumvent the systems already established by the UN, deploying its own private contractors to distribute what little aid it allows into Gaza. Already the most surveilled people in the world, Palestinians would be forced to navigate military checkpoints and an oppressive security vetting process, including facial recognition scans, before being able to collect food and medicine.
Aid would be distributed primarily in Gaza’s far south, meaning hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be forced to relocate to Rafah in the hopes of feeding their families — and risk never being allowed to return to their homes.
Pushing Palestinians as far south as possible is a cornerstone of the plan to depopulate and “conquer” Gaza that Smotrich laid out earlier this week, and the UN has rightfully condemned it. UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini called it a “tool…for forced displacement,” and the UN agencies and relief groups that operate in Gaza have said they will refuse to cooperate.
In this moment of utter devastation, it’s essential we remember two things:
- Despite its best efforts to stifle global outcry, Israel’s right-wing government is more isolated than ever before. Even Israel’s allies saw through its aid ruse: Soon after Israel launched its latest assault, the governments of Canada, the UK, and France issued a joint statement condemning the “wholly inadequate” amount of aid allowed into Gaza, and promising to take “concrete action” should the Israeli government not halt its current ground offensive. Yesterday, British foreign secretary David Lammy announced he was suspending negotiations with Israel over a new free trade deal, slamming Netanyahu for “planning to drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the strip to the south and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need.”
- That’s because of the power of the Palestine solidarity movement. We have meaningfully shifted the Overton window of mainstream discourse on Israel, making possible what once felt inconceivable — like liberal Democrats calling to block the bombs. But it’s still not enough.
Our ‘strongest possible contribution to the fight for Palestinian liberation’
In the face of an ascendant global fascism, and as Israel implements its final solution in Gaza, we know we cannot afford to turn away now, or to give into despair or fear. We also know that we are at a crossroads, one that has left many unsure of what can be done to end the genocide. In this devastating and urgent moment, we have a moral imperative to act with as much strategic clarity and organizational rigor as possible.
That’s why over 2,000 JVP members and partners came together in Baltimore earlier this month for the largest multi-day convening of Jews in solidarity with Palestine in history: to ensure we’re making our strongest possible contribution to the fight for Palestinian liberation.
In the coming weeks, you can expect a full report on JVP’s 2025 National Member Meeting.
Published at www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org
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