Graveyard Gaza: On Israel’s Netanyahu and control over Gaza.
The West must pressure Israel to end the war immediately.
The decision by Israel’s Security Cabinet to expand the war and seize control of Gaza City is a direct affront to mounting international concerns over the appalling humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave. The world’s leading genocide scholars, along with international and Israeli human rights organisations, say Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians. Two former Israeli Prime Ministers have come out against the war, while most former IDF and intelligence chiefs have called for its end. Global outrage intensified over Israel’s forced starvation, which caused famine and the deaths of children from malnutrition. Even France, the U.K. and Canada, some of Israel’s closest allies, have demanded a ceasefire and promised to recognise Palestinian statehood. Yet, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s discredited Prime Minister, who is facing an arrest warrant at the International Criminal Court, has not paid any attention. He has said that there was no starvation in Gaza even as images of skeletal children have shocked the world. He has gone against the concerns of the IDF’s top command to secure approval from the Security Cabinet for his plan to take control of Gaza. This would extend the offensive into the coastal strip stretching from Gaza City in the north to Khan Younus in the south, where thousands of displaced Palestinians have now squeezed themselves into tents, makeshift shelters and bombed-out buildings.
Mr. Netanyahu says that he intends to take full control of Gaza, but does not wish to keep it. He cannot be trusted. In April 2024, he claimed Israel was “a step away from victory”. In March 2025, he broke a ceasefire and resumed the assault, and imposed a blockade on Gaza, which triggered the starvation crisis. Two of his Cabinet colleagues have repeatedly called for Israel to seize Gaza, expel its Palestinian population and resettle the enclave with Jews. The way Israel has been conducting the war and its decision to expand the offensive only reinforce the argument that its intention has always been to take over the enclave, even at the cost of expelling its over two million residents. Israel is able to pursue this course only because of its military, financial and political support from the West, particularly the U.S. European governments must move beyond verbal criticism and adopt concrete measures to hold Israel accountable for its crimes, like they do with other rogue states. And if U.S. President Donald Trump, who calls himself ‘a man of peace’, does not want to be complicit in these atrocities, he should demand that Mr. Netanyahu end the war immediately.