Israel has flagrantly broken the terms of the ceasefire with Hamas, killing over 700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, as it renewed the bombing of Gaza.
It is clear now that Israel never intended go beyond phase one of the ceasefire agreement and actually withdraw from Gaza. It ignored the agreement by keeping troops in the Philadelphi corridor along the Egyptian border with Gaza after the deadline for their withdrawal.
In addition, there have been almost daily reports of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
Now Netanyahu has declared, “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength.”
It is also clear that Trump gave the green light to continue the genocide. Israel began bombing one day after Trump began bombing the Houthis in Yemen. Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said its strikes were “fully coordinated with Washington”.
Since taking office, Trump has welcomed Netanyahu to the White House and approved nearly $18 billion in military aid (including the 2000-pound bombs) to Israel.
In response to Israel’s butchery, Prime Minister Albanese would not condemn Israel. All we got was a mealy-mouthed call for all parties “to respect the ceasefire and hostage deal” and for “peace and security in the region.”
Not a word about what’s needed—action to sanction Israel, or to shut down the US military bases like Pine Gap that are complicit in Israel’s genocide. Yet Israel has violated the ceasefire in Lebanon too and is also routinely bombing Syria as well as Gaza.
Aid withheld
Israel is trying to smash Palestinians into submission. Even before it broke the ceasefire, Israel cut off aid supplies and electricity, crippling water purification plants. The main plant in Khan Younis has reduced production from 17 million to 2.5 million litres per day.
The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said on 11 March, “Israeli authorities are yet again normalising the use of aid as a negotiation tool.
“This policy, which amounts to collective punishment, must be immediately stopped. The blockade on all supplies is … having deadly consequences.”
A United Nations report says Israel carried out genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza by systematically destroying women’s healthcare facilities and that it used sexual violence as a war strategy through forced public stripping and sexual assault.
The report said Israeli forces deliberately attacked the Basma IVF clinic, Gaza’s main fertility centre, destroying about 4000 frozen embryos, along with 1000 sperm samples and unfertilised eggs—an explicit act of genocide.
Shamefully, Labor Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has yet to say a word about these vicious crimes.
Ethnic cleansing
The Trump plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is still alive. Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said the “only solution for the Gaza Strip is to empty it of Gazans”.
She added that Netanyahu’s government is “committed to the idea of encouraging emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza. “God has sent us the US administration, and it is clearly telling us—it’s time to inherit the land.”
An attempt at mass expulsions could trigger anger and upheaval across the region. Because of that Trump is being publicly cautious, saying “nobody is expelling any Palestinians” from Gaza.
But the US and Israel have confirmed reaching out to officials of three East African governments, Somalia, Somaliland and Sudan, to discuss using their territories to resettle Gazans.
The US has rejected a proposal by Egypt for a reconstruction of Gaza that does not involve any further displacement of its population.
Instead, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the government would establish a “migration administration” with the goal of expelling Palestinians as quickly as logistics allow.
Free-fire zones
Meanwhile, Israel is striking at will on the West Bank and in Lebanon and Syria—with no Western condemnation.
Thousands of Palestinians have been cleared from West Bank camps, including Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm. People fled with only what they could carry.
Israel is turning the former camps into free-fire zones while banning the UNRWA aid agency from operating on the West Bank.
Israeli troops killed at least 12 people while clearing Nur Shams, both fighters and civilians. On 11 March in Jenin, the IDF killed at least three armed fighters, wounded another and arrested ten.
Southern Lebanon remains under attack despite the ceasefire deal there. Israel said an airstrike killed the head of Hezbollah’s southern air defence unit, Hassan Abbas Izz Al-Din.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the IDF would remain indefinitely in five parts of the demilitarized zone in south Lebanon “regardless of any future negotiations”.
As Israeli fighter jets struck southern Syria and the capital Damascus, Katz confirmed that Israel would keep also control of 400 square kilometres of Syria. The land is next to the Golan Heights, Syrian territory seized by Israel in 1967. It includes Mount Hermon, which positions Israeli artillery within range of Damascus.
Israel is using defence of the minority Arab-speaking Druze population of southern Syria as an excuse to demand complete demilitarisation of the provinces of Quneitra, Daraa and Suweida.
There won’t be peace in the Middle East until Western imperialism cuts all support for Israel, and the Israeli terror state is smashed.
By David Glanz and Ian Rintoul
