US President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced yesterday that they had agreed upon a plan to end the war in Gaza. The New York Times published the full text of the agreement:
Here is the full text of the proposal provided by the White House.
Gaza will be a de-radicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.
Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough.
If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed upon line to prepare for a hostage release. During this time, all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.
Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.
Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after Oct. 7, 2023, including all women and children detained in that context. For every Israeli hostage whose remains are released, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Gazans.
Once all hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful coexistence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries.
Upon acceptance of this agreement, full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip. At a minimum, aid quantities will be consistent with what was included in the Jan. 19, 2025, agreement regarding humanitarian aid, including rehabilitation of infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, and entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads.
Entry of distribution and aid in the Gaza Strip will proceed without interference from the two parties through the United Nations and its agencies, and the Red Crescent, in addition to other international institutions not associated in any manner with either party. Opening the Rafah crossing in both directions will be subject to the same mechanism implemented under the Jan. 19, 2025, agreement.
Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza.
This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the “Board of Peace,” which will be headed and chaired by President Donald J. Trump, with other members and heads of State to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
This body will set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program, as outlined in various proposals, including President Trump’s peace plan in 2020 and the Saudi-French proposal, and can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza. This body will call on best international standards to create modern and efficient governance that serves the people of Gaza and is conducive to attracting investment.
A Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza will be created by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East. Many thoughtful investment proposals and exciting development ideas have been crafted by well-meaning international groups, and will be considered to synthesize the security and governance frameworks to attract and facilitate these investments that will create jobs, opportunity, and hope for future Gaza.
A special economic zone will be established with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries.
No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.
Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors. New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with their neighbors.
A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbors or its people.
The United States will work with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary International Stabilization Force (I.S.F.) to immediately deploy in Gaza. The I.S.F. will train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza, and will consult with Jordan and Egypt who have extensive experience in this field. This force will be the long-term internal security solution. The I.S.F. will work with Israel and Egypt to help secure border areas, along with newly trained Palestinian police forces. It is critical to prevent munitions from entering Gaza and to facilitate the rapid and secure flow of goods to rebuild and revitalize Gaza. A de-confliction mechanism will be agreed upon by the parties.
Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. As the I.S.F. establishes control and stability, the Israel Defense Forces (I.D.F.) will withdraw based on standards, milestones, and time frames linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the I.D.F., I.S.F., the guarantors, and the United States, with the objective of a secure Gaza that no longer poses a threat to Israel, Egypt, or its citizens. Practically, the I.D.F. will progressively hand over the Gaza territory it occupies to the ISF according to an agreement they will make with the transitional authority until they are withdrawn completely from Gaza, save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.
In the event Hamas delays or rejects this proposal, the above, including the scaled-up aid operation, will proceed in the terror-free areas handed over from the I.D.F. to the I.S.F.
An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence to try and change mind-sets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.
While Gaza redevelopment advances and when the P.A. reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.
The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous coexistence.
This proposal is not a peace proposal–it is a land development proposal. Note that Hamas (or any other agent representing the interests of the Palestinian people) participated in forging this proposal. It was conceived by Trump and Netanyahu and it reflects the narrow interests of both men. Creating a transitional government with considerable power before the Palestinians have any effective control:
“This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the “Board of Peace,” which will be headed and chaired by President Donald J. Trump, with other members and heads of State to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.”
Note that the conposition of the “Board of Peace” that has oversight and supervises the transitional committee does has no reference to the Palestinians. And the appointment of Trump as the Chair of this Board of Peace is simply a way to insure that Trump’s vision of a “Middle East Riviera” will indeed serve to give control to Trump over what is built and for whom it is built. In addition, the proposal offers “preferred tariff and access rates” for those who invest in what the proposal calls “New Gaza”. This tactic was no doubt a ploy by Netanyahu to guarantee Trump’s personal support for the proposal by playing to Trump’s ego and self-interest. And I have serious doubts that most Americans would approve of Trump spending a good part of his time as President serving the interests of Israel. Fareed Zakaria explains:
“Netanyahu looked on in the White House on Tuesday as President Donald Trump delivered the most stunning US intervention in the long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The president repeatedly doubled down on his suggestion that nearly 2 million Palestinians should be relocated from battle-leveled Gaza to new homes elsewhere so that the US could send troops to the Strip, take ownership and build the ‘Riviera of the Middle East.’
“’You build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like some place where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they’re going to end up dying,’ Trump told reporters.
“In a few words, Trump conjured up a mind-boggling geopolitical transformation of the Middle East and a political lifeline for Netanyahu – showing why the prime minister, despite their past tensions, was rooting for his host’s return to power in the 2024 election.
“Netanyahu can now bill himself to right-wing factions in his coalition, which incessantly threaten his grip on power, as the unique and vital conduit to Trump. The American president’s views now parallel Israeli hardliners’ desire to see Palestinians ousted from part of what they view as the sacred land of Israel.”
No doubt Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his good friend Crown Prince Salman, will be able to secure the funds for a development project that will cater to the interests of people who wish to live in penthouses overlooking the Mediterranean. I doubt that they will be interested in building affordable housing for the 2 million Palestinians who once lived in the Gaza Strip.
The proposal does state that “Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza”, but Israel does not need to do either. The Council of Peace will decide where the hospitals, the schools, and the police forces are located. It will decide what dwellings are allowed and where they can be built. Moreover, we have seen this movie before. When the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, both Israel and the Palestinians agreed: “It was anticipated that this arrangement would last for a five-year interim period during which a permanent agreement would be negotiated (beginning no later than May 1996). The assassination of Prime Minister Rabin by a right-wing settler scuttled that hope, but the Israelis broke their word, not the Palestinians.
Finally, there is no mention of the West Bank, which is also occupied territory, but is under siege by Israeli settlers. According to the United Nations:
“The report covers the period from 18 June to 19 September. During this time, Israeli authorities advanced or approved some 20,810 housing units in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
“On 2 July, 15 Israeli ministers and the speaker of the Knesset, or parliament, signed a petition calling for Israel to annex the occupied West Bank. Three weeks later, the Knesset adopted a non-binding motion calling for the ‘application of Israeli sovereignty’ across all settlements there.
“Demolitions and seizures of Palestinian-owned structures also increased while evictions continued.
“’Citing the lack of Israeli-issued building permits, which are almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain, Israeli authorities demolished, seized or forced people to demolish 455 structures‘, he said.
The Gaza proposal raises a genuine question: If the Gaza Strip is taken away from Israeli occupation and ultimately from Israeli sovereignty, will the West Bank be annexed to appease the settlers who believe that the two pieces of land are part of “Greater Israel”?
“Judaism defines the land as where Jewish religious law prevailed and excludes territory where it was not applied.[3] It holds that the area is a God-given inheritance of the Jewish people based on the Torah, particularly the books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, as well as Joshua and the later Prophets.[4] According to the Book of Genesis, the land was first promised by God to Abram’s descendants; the text is explicit that this is a covenant between God and Abram for his descendants.[5] Abram’s name was later changed to Abraham, with the promise refined to pass through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham’s grandson.”
Is the plan to trade the West Bank for Gaza, if friends of Trump and Netanyahu control the Gaza?
Hamas will ignore the 72-hour time limit for releasing the hostages, thereby assuring that Netanyahu will be given the green light to “finish the job”? Trump’s position after the proposal was clearly one of take-it-or-leave-it, offering a threat if Hamas rejects the proposal:
“Trump gives Hamas ‘three or four days’ to respond to Gaza plan
“Donald Trump has said Hamas has ‘three or four days’ to respond to his Gaza plan or face the consequences.
“Speaking to reporters as he left the White House on Tuesday, Trump said Israeli and Arab leadershad accepted the proposal and “we’re just waiting for Hamas”.
“Hamas is either going to be doing it or not, and if it’s not, it’s going to be a very sad end.
“Asked if there was room for negotiations, Trump replied: ‘Not much.’”
Israel has launched a ground assault, including tanks, into the Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, the last remaining city in the Strip that has largely avoided devastation. The Associated Press puts the incursion in context:
“Tens of thousands of people have sought refuge in Deir al-Balah during repeated waves of mass displacement in Gaza.
“The U.N. humanitarian coordinator says 87.8% of Gaza is now under evacuation orders or inside Israeli military zones, “leaving 2.1 million civilians squeezed into a fragmented 12 per cent of the Strip, where essential services have collapsed.”
“Israel has taken over large areas of Gaza and split the territory with corridors stretching from the border to the sea as it seeks to pressure Hamas to release more hostages.”
The move comes after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mossad Director, David Barnea, visited Washington for discussions with President Trump. According to Axios, the topic of discussion was the evacuation of the Palestinians in Gaza. The report indicated that the Netanyahu government was talking with Ethiopia, Indonesia and Libya as possible evacuation sites. According to Axios:
Israel has been developing a plan for moving all two million residents of the enclave to a small “humanitarian zone” near the border with Egypt.
That plan has sparked concerns in Egypt and many Western countries that Israel is preparing for the mass displacement of Palestinians out of Gaza, something Netanyahu’s ultranationalist coalition partners and many inside his own party have been pushing for years.
A senior Israeli official claimed that, as part of the understandings with the three countries, the transfer of Palestinians would be “voluntary and not forced,” and that Israel would commit to allowing any Palestinian who leaves to return to Gaza at any time.
There is no question that the forced removal of civilians from the Gaze Strip is a war crime. But what is more unsettling is that the Netanyahu government either believes that the evacuation could be voluntary or that, after at least 59,000 people dying, that any person could believe that the Palestinians have many choices.
The other part of the Netanyahu strategy to encourage “voluntary” evacuation is to starve the Palestinians to death. Israel refuses to allow humanitarian groups to distribute any food, water, or fuel to the Palestinians. Instead, Israel relies upon a corrupt organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, to distribute aid in places where the civilian population can be better controlled. There have been a substantial number of Palestinians killed at these distribution centers as Israeli troops have fired upon them because starving people started looting the supplies. I am not sure what the Netanyahu government considers appropriate behavior under the circumstances. Soumaya Ghannoushi describes the situation:
“She died on the floor of a collapsing hospital, her tiny ribs rising and falling like wings too fragile to lift. Her body had no fat left to burn. Her eyes had sunken. Her voice – once a whisper of laughter – had long since vanished.
“She did not die quickly. She died slowly.
“She died watched by her mother, who begged her to hold on. Watched by a doctor who had no more syringes, no more saline, no more words, and by a world that tuned in – then turned away.
“Her death was not a tragedy. It was a sentence, written not in haste, but in policy.
“Razan is not alone. She is one of thousands.
“Between March and June – well into the total blockade – the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, screened over 74,000 children in Gaza. More than 5,500 were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition. Over 800 were already critical.
“That was months after food was declared a threat. After flour became contraband and milk became memory, now children die in their parents’ arms.
This atrocity is not an accident nor is it merely a sad attribute of what often happens in war. Starvation is a deliberate policy to encourage “voluntary” emigration. Peter Beinart explains the policy well:
“Right. This freedom — phrase “freedom to choose” is so Orwellian. First of all, what kind of freedom is it when you have a territory where most of the buildings and the hospitals and the schools and the bakeries and the agriculture have all been destroyed, where you have more child amputees than any other place on Earth? And now you’re talking about people’s freedom to choose?
“The deeper irony is that Palestinians have actually been — in Gaza and beyond, have been asking for the freedom to choose, the real freedom to choose, since 1948, because the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza are not from Gaza. They were expelled from their homes in what’s now Israel. Many of them can see the lands from which they were — their families were expelled in 1948. So, they do want the freedom to choose. They want the freedom to return to the places from which their families were expelled.”
Israel could not be conducting this slaughter without the active support of the United States. Israelis and Americans both have the blood of innocents on their hands for allowing their governments to commit the slaughter. Netanyahu has consistently prevented the implementation of a ceasefire and the return of the hostages so that he can continue the process of ethnic cleansing. Once the hostages are released, the Israeli people will be able to turn their total attention to the atrocity being committed in the name of self-defense. This war stopped being a war of self defense many months ago. It is now another chapter in the brutal and sordid history of imperialism.
Israel has continued to bomb Gaza and to restrict the flow of vital supplies into the Strip even though there is little evidence to suggest that there is any organized threat to Israel after two years of incessant bombardment. The unwillingness to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza stems from the desire of the Netanyahu government to expel the Palestinian population from Gaza to annex the territory. Arwa Mahdawi, writing for The Guardian explains:
“Omer Bartov is an Israeli-American historian and one of the foremost scholars on genocide in the world. He has spent over 25 years teaching a class on the subject. He deals with atrocities for a living, analyzing some of the very worst things that human beings are capable of. And yet even Bartov has said he can’t bear looking at some of the excruciating images coming out of Gaza any more.
What’s happening, Bartov says, is unprecedented in the 21st century. ‘I don’t know of any comparable situation. Recent estimates show that about 70% of the structures in Gaza are either completely destroyed or severely damaged,’ Bartov says. ‘The argument that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is conducting a war in Gaza is simply cynical, there is no war in Gaza. What the IDF is doing in Gaza is demolishing it. Hundreds of buildings are being bulldozed every week. This is not a secret, but mainstream media coverage has been insufficient.'”
“The consequences of the conditions of life created by Israeli state organs in Gaza are so predictable they are almost banal, in Hanna Arendt’s sense of the term. Israel’s blockade restricts access to fuel required to pump and clean water, equipment to restore damaged systems, and even bottled water. Bombing water infrastructure contaminates drinking water with raw sewage. This causes diarrheal disease like dysentery, which leads to malnutrition and increased vulnerability to further illness. Forced crowding into displacement camps and the spread of antimicrobial resistance worsen the cycle. As a result, many Palestinians have resorted to drinking salty water, damaging their kidneys. This past week alone, over 10,000 new cases of acute watery diarrhea (more than half in children under 5) were added to nearly one million cases, along with 90 new cases of Acute Jaundice Syndrome.”
We have virtually no first-hand reports on conditions in the Gaza Strip. Israel does not allow journalists into the Gaza, notwithstanding its reputation as the only “democracy” in the Middle East. There is no reason to deny access to those who would report on the conditions facing the civilian population other than to limit criticism of Israeli policy. Israel claims that it is permitting supplies into Gaza through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an institution created by Israel and the US (although the funding of the foundation is totally opaque). There are serious criticisms of the GHF, but the most important aspect of the foundation is that it is clearly structured in a way to concentrate the Gaza population in the southern part of the Strip. +972, a website devoted to providing information about Palestine, argues that the GHF is a step toward the ultimate expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza:
“The location of the four centers is no less important. One is in the central part of the Strip along the Netzarim Corridor, and three in the south, west of Rafah. A quick look at the map is enough to understand: there is no connection between the locations of the “distribution centers” and the needs of the people.
“Instead, the goal is to promote “moving the population” southward, ideally into the “concentration zones.” Since this constitutes a crime against humanity, Israel employed concealment tactics: first expelling established aid groups that could provide aid efficiently, then outsourcing distribution to opaque entities like the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
“As early as May 11, Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly stated in a secret session of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that ‘receiving aid would be conditional on Gazans not returning to the places from which they came to the aid distribution sites.’ This policy’s underlying logic was confirmed by Dr. Tammy Caner, a lawyer and director of the Law and National Security Program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a think tank with close ties with the Israeli military.”
I had a hard time accepting the possibility that Israelis would support the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, but a poll conducted by the Israeli Newspaper, Ha’aretz, was shocking:
“The survey, conducted in March and published by Haaretz newspaper on Thursday, found that 82 percent of Israeli Jews support the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“Meanwhile, 47 percent of Israeli Jews answered yes to the question: ‘Do you support the claim that the [Israeli army] in conquering an enemy city, should act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites did when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, ie to kill all its inhabitants?’ The reference is to the biblical account of the conquest of Jericho.”
If Israel does take over the Gaza, then I expect that it will then take further steps to expel Palestinians from the West Bank. Even if that does not happen, Israel will forever bear the shame of committing a crime against humanity. And it will not enhance its security in any meaningful way. The US should stop supporting Israel, militarily and financially. It should also take active steps to organize harsh sanctions against Israel.
While the world is focused on the economic turmoil caused by President Trump’s abandonment of the free trade regime developed by the US and its allies in 1945, Israel has decided to take greater control of the Gaza Strip. First, is has imposed a total blockade of food, water, electricity, and medicine to the Strip, asserting that that blockade will remain in place until all the hostages held by Hamas are released. Second, it has seized direct control of significant parts of the Gaza. According to the BBC:
“The UN says 69% of the territory is now under active Israeli military evacuation orders, within a ‘no-go’ zone running along the borders with Israel and Egypt and the Wadi Gaza valley south of Gaza City, or both. Some 500,000 people have been newly displaced or uprooted once more, with no safe place to go, it estimates.
“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said it has killed ‘”‘hundreds of terrorists’ in strikes while troops have advanced into several areas in the north and the south. It has established a new corridor that cuts the southern city of Rafah off from neighbouring Khan Younis and has designated 30% of Gaza as an ‘operational security perimeter’.”
The Israeli military continues to bomb the Gaza, forcing families to move several times, despite the promise of a cease-fire which the Israelis no longer support. Mondoweiss reports:
Since the resumption of the Israeli assault on Gaza, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is now “the worst it has been” since the war began 18 months ago.
“Israel not only resumed airstrikes across the strip at the same rate as the days before the ceasefire entered into force, but has also sealed it off through a complete blockade of humanitarian aid, closing all crossing points into Gaza and provoking the return of famine conditions, a critical shortage of medicine, fuel, and skyrocketing prices.
“’It has now been a month and a half since any supplies were last allowed through the crossings into Gaza – by far the longest such halt to date,’ OCHA said”
The total blockade is flatly illegal under international humanitarian law since it makes no effort to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. The use of the word “blockade” is a misnomer and euphemism–it is more properly termed a siege. The Foreign Ministers of Germany, Great Britain, and France have issued the following statement:
“Palestinian civilians – including one million children – face an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death. This must end. We urge Israel to immediately re-start a rapid and unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza in order to meet the needs of all civilians. During the last ceasefire, the UN and INGO system was able to deliver aid at scale. The Israeli decision to block aid from entering Gaza is intolerable. Minister Katz’s recent comments politicising humanitarian aid and Israeli plans to remain in Gaza after the war are unacceptable – they harm prospects for peace. Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change. Israel is bound under international law to allow the unhindered passage of humanitarian aid.”
The toll on the civilian population in the Gaza is impossible to measure since no relief agencies or media outlets are allowed to report on conditions there. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been banned by the Israeli government and it has been the primary source of aid to the Gaza Strip. Its most recent report on conditions is dire: the words used are “catastrophic” and “desperate”.
To make matters worse, the Netanyahu government has announced plans for a more intensive war effort, including the call-up of about 10,000 military reservists. Reuters reports:
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday an expanded offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas would be “intensive” after his security cabinet approved plans that may include seizing the Gaza Strip and controlling aid….
“Israeli troops have already taken over an area amounting to around a third of Gaza, displacing the population and building watchtowers and surveillance posts on cleared ground the military has described as security zones, but the new plan would go further.
“One Israeli official said the newly approved offensive would seize the entire territory of the Gaza Strip, move its civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’ hands.”
The forced removal of Palestinians from northern Gaza, and perhaps the entire Gaza Strip eventually, is unquestionably a war crime. It is curious that Netanyahu has made this announcement now since US President Trump is visiting the Middle East next week. Trump has been pursuing the normalization of Saudi Arabian-Israeli ties, but I doubt that bin Salman will be willing to make any commitments because of the treatment of Palestinians. The timing also makes it obvious that Trump has approved the Israeli actions since it is doubtful that Netanyahu would jeopardize US aid by embarrassing Trump with a surprise.
It is long past time for the US to suspend all aid to Israel. The US has already compromised itself by its steadfast support for Israel despite obvious and continued war crimes. The continued refusal to support the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people will only perpetuate the violence and bring shame to those who refuse to condemn the Israeli war of conquest.
I need to correct information I posted yesterday. The news reports yesterday were that Hamas leader Haniyeh was killed in Tehran by a guided missile. Apparently, that information was incorrect. The New York Times is reporting that the bomb that killed Haniyeh had been planted in the apartment in which he was staying months before. According to the Times:
“Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader of Hamas, was assassinated on Wednesday by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official.
“The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran.
“Mr. Haniyeh was in Iran’s capital for the presidential inauguration. The bomb was detonated remotely, the five officials said, once it was confirmed that he was inside his room at the guesthouse. The blast also killed a bodyguard.”
The news (if accurate) would be a debilitating blow to the Revolutionary Guard which had been entruted with security for the apartment complex. The news indicates that there are elements within the Guard cooperating with the Israelis. The conclusion is that the Guard is incompetent and untrustworthy. That conclusion may temper the Iranian response to the assassination. We will find out.
On 8 February 2024, US President Biden issued National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM20) to avoid a showdown with Democratic Senators who were threatening to pass an amendment to restrict US military aids to Israel because of its use of US weaponry in the conduct of the war in Gaza. The Senators believed that the weapons were already being used in a manner inconsistent with international and domestic laws safeguarding humanitarian use of the weapons and wanted the US to enforce the laws more stringently. According to Sarah Harrison, writing for Lawfare:
“Which is why it comes across as misleading that President Biden cites these laws and policies in NSM-20, a document based on the Van Hollen amendment, which was originally intended to put pressure on his administration to comply with them. If applied objectively, the president’s own Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) Policy, the departments of State and Defense Leahy laws, and 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act—all of which are cited in NSM-20—arguably restrict some assistance to Israel. But so far, public reporting and indications from U.S. officials make clear that is not happening. (NSM-20 also references end-use monitoring requirements, though the State Department does not interpret them to mandate monitoring of actual use of equipment, but to strictly prevent diversion.)”
Importantly, NSM20 requires that such a determination be made within 45 days from the onset of a conflict in which US miliatary assistance is being used. The report from the State Department was released yesterday, a few days past that deadline. It is a textbook case in sophistry, holding two conclusions that do not support the policy recommendation.
The first conclusion is: “Nevertheless, given Israel’s significant reliance on U.S.-made defense articles, it is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm.” (p. 22) That conclusion is followed by several pages of examples of Israeli military activity violating international humantiarian law.
That conclusion, however, does not suffice to halt military deliveries; the laws also require the US to assess whether the recipient of US military assistance is taking all necessary steps to follow international humanitarian law. If such measures are being taken, then the US can still legally provide aid, hoping that those measures can mitigate the harm to civilian populations.
However, the second conclusion is: “While Israel has the knowledge, experience, and tools to implement best practices for mitigating civilian harm in its military operations, the results on the ground, including high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions as to whether the IDF is using them effectively in all cases.” (p. 28)
By these criteria, the US should stop all military assistance to Israel until there is more effective implementation of the requirements of international humanitarian law. But that course of action is not what the report calls for. The final policy recommendation (pp. 31-2) is: “While the USG has had deep concerns during the period since October 7 about action and inaction by Israel that contributed significantly to a lack of sustained and predictable delivery of needed assistance at scale, and the overall level reaching Palestinian civilians – while improved – remains insufficient, we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance within the meaning of section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act. This is an ongoing assessment and we will continue to monitor and respond to any challenges to the delivery of aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza moving forward.”
The most benign interpretation of the incoherence of this document is that there are two competing factions in the State Department that failed to reach a compromise. A less benign interpretation is that the State Department had already decided not to follow the law and decided merely to follow the letter of the law with an act of obfuscation. Ni matter, the US should be ashamed of being an accomplice to the crime in Gaza.
The Guardian has published an analysis of the destruction in the Gaza Strip since 8 October 2023. It is an interactive map which explains the significance of the targeting practices of the Israeli Army, including before and after photos of various sites. It is safe to say that we are witnessing urban destruction comparable (if not worse) to the destruction of Dresden and Tokyo in World War II. The red areas on the map are areas that the Israeli Defense Forces have bombed or attacked.
I am not at all qualified to assess what this satellite image actually conveys. To my untrained eye, however, it seems that there are no safe places in the Gaza. Furthermore, the close-up photos in the article also indicate significant destruction of the little agricultural land, including olive orchards, available in the Strip. The Guardian summarizes its close analysis of three neighborhoods in the Strip:
“Using satellite imagery and open-source evidence, the investigation found damage to more than 250 residential buildings, 17 schools and universities, 16 mosques, three hospitals, three cemeteries and 150 agricultural greenhouses.
“Entire buildings have been levelled, fields flattened and places of worship wiped off the map in the course of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, launched after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.
“The destruction has not only forced 1.9 million people to leave their homes but also made it impossible for many to return. This has led some experts to describe what is happening in Gaza as “domicide”, defined as the widespread, deliberate destruction of the home to make it uninhabitable, preventing the return of displaced people. The concept is not recognised in law.”
The New York Times has a similar article, but one which focuses on “controlled demolitions”, which are explosions that do not occur in hot pursuit of the enemy but rather are planned explosions to deny the enemy access to buildings in the future. Such destruction also means that civilians will not have access to these buildings when the active military conflict ends. The World Bank estmates that almost 50% of the residential buildings in the Strip have been damaged beyond repair. The Times of Israel summarizes the damages so far:
“Some 45 percent of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed since war erupted between Israel and Hamas on October 7, leaving over 1 million people homeless, according to a World Bank study based on satellite images and media accounts.
“According to data collected by the international body, over 60% of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, or 132,590 structures, have been damaged amid the war, which has seen Israel bombard the enclave from land, air and sea for over three months in a campaign to destroy the Hamas terror group and free hostages kidnapped on October 7.
“The figure includes 99,601 structures reported to have been destroyed and rendered uninhabitable, out of a projected 218,656 residential buildings in the Strip before the war, according to the World Bank’s estimates.”
It seems clear that the Gaza Strip will not be habitable for many years. The question over what the Netanyahu government foresees for the future of this territory remains unanswered. But there are growing voices within the Netanyahu government that wish to see Israel take full control of the Strip and open it up to Israeli settlements. As reported by The Washington Post:
“As Israel rains bombs down on Gaza, nearly a dozen Zionist organizations have agitated to return to the Gaza settlements from which they were expelled in 2005 as Israel moved to ‘disengage’ from the enclave. The idea has been dismissed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘unrealistic,’ but such views are beginning to enter the Israeli mainstream.
“Since Oct. 7, settlers in the West Bank are feeling an increasing sense of impunity for attacks on Palestinians. In the past two months, armed settlers have raided 15 herding communities, destroying houses, tearing down tents and displacing more than 1,200 people. The United States and Britain have imposed visa bans on the settlers implicated in the assaults.”
That outcome cannot be allowed. The United Nations Charter outlaws wars of conquest, a stance that tried to overturn one of the most common historical justifications for war. But in both Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, it appears as if states still cling to that justification. Conquest must be categorically repudiated by the international community. And an immediate and total cease-fire should be the first step toward that objective.
World Politics News 