Ever since October 2023, when the genocide conducted by Hamas militants within Israel led to the murder of around 1,200 Israeli civilians, with over 200 being taken hostage, it has been an endless night for the civilian population of Gaza. The response of Israel to the Hamas assault had been even more savage: it first ordered a “complete siege” of the already blockaded and impoverished Gaza Strip, cutting off supplies of food, water, fuel and electricity to its 2.3 million residents, trying to starve them into submission, thereby committing a war crime under UN laws. Next, it launched indiscriminate missile attacks on that thin strip of land, unmindful that hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children, were slaughtered and non-military infrastructure, including hospitals and other medical facilities, was destroyed. Finally, it physically intruded into Gaza – so far almost sixty thousand Palestinians, half of them children and women, have been killed, yet the international community has displayed total inability to bring such a vindictive war to an end. The UN, as usual, has been revealing its impotence during times of conflict, with the Secretary General merely reiterating the organisation’s condemnation of excessive brutality on the part of the current extreme-right regime in power at Tel Aviv. Indubitably, the key to resolving the Gaza situation and bringing about a permanent truce between Israel and Hamas lies with US President Donald Trump.
But, unfortunately, more and more Tel Aviv has been behaving as though it is a law unto itself, spurning even calls for ending the war by the US administration, which renders doubtful how much hold Trump has over Benjamin Netanyahu! The protracted nature of the conflict and Israel’s lukewarm attitude to the ongoing “peace talks” in Doha is indicative of the certainty that Tel Aviv’s intentions as far as the Gaza Strip’s future are insidious. This is borne out by the latest statement from Israel’s Defence Minister indicating that he has instructed the military to prepare a plan to move all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp in the south of the territory, in order to establish a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of the city of Rafah to initially house about 600,000 Palestinians – and eventually the whole 2.1 million population. He added that the goal was to bring people inside after security screening to ensure they were not Hamas operatives, and that they would not be allowed to leave. Such treatment of Palestinians, as though they were not human beings but a herd of sheep, gives rise to the suspicion that the ultimate objective of Israel is to annex as much of Palestine it can possibly do so as to enlarge its own boundaries. If this, indeed, is the case, it would continue to be an endless night for Palestinians, with no dawn in sight!