Nearly two years after Hamas militants stormed southern Israel, the war in Gaza has entered a darker, deadlier phase. The territory now faces a reckoning its residents describe as annihilation.
Advertisement
Israel’s latest military campaign in Gaza and its West Bank annexation plans have left observers warning that the age-old Palestinian presence across both could soon be erased.
On Wednesday, Israel’s government unveiled plans to annex 82 per cent of the occupied West Bank. The escalation comes despite mounting international alarm.
The United Nations last month declared famine in Gaza, while the International Association of Genocide Scholars has concluded that Israel is carrying out genocide. Yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government continues to act with apparent impunity, shielded by unwavering support from the United States.
Donald Trump’s administration, which abandoned Qatari-mediated truce talks last month amid accusations it was “moving goalposts”, has openly endorsed Netanyahu’s stated objective: the capture of Gaza City – the strip’s largest urban centre – and the forcible displacement of its 1 million residents to the enclave’s far south as a means of forcing Hamas’ unconditional surrender.
Advertisement