Analysis
Israel’s version of negotiations: Starvation and occupation
Doctors Without Borders described Gaza as “a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance,” accusing Israel of “systematically” destroying people's lives.
No hope. No room for negotiations. The Israeli army will not leave Gaza, humanitarian aid will not come in, and if that is to change in the future, it can only be under the full control of Tel Aviv, with no international agencies to distribute meals and medicine. Only Israel and its handpicked private businesses will be able to decide whom to feed and whom to let starve, while the population transfer plan will continue to empty out the Strip.
In Israel’s view, there is nothing left to negotiate, not even the release of the hostages: Hamas must release everyone, hand over its weapons, withdraw and accept occupation and total control of Gaza. Otherwise, Israel will move on to the “next phase.” Defense Minister Israel Katz explained the plan in his lengthy statement on Wednesday, stressing before anything else that “Israel's policy” will not allow the entry of any kind of humanitarian aid, at least not until a new “infrastructure operated by civilian companies” is set up.
The declared objective is for Hamas to not get to any of it. The result would be an abomination in terms of law and morality: an occupying and armed state managing the flow and distribution of international aid to the population it has displaced, in the expectation that it will succeed in deporting all the residents one by one. The U.N. immediately responded to this scenario, stating that the mechanisms Katz speaks of are already being used in Gaza and that they are “ready to deliver assistance to those most in need based on humanitarian principles.”
The U.N. stressed that “further control over aid operations by a party to the conflict would risk aid not reaching the most vulnerable at a time when it is needed the most.” On Wednesday, the Government Media Office in Gaza denounced that “complete humanitarian collapse” is imminent and at any moment “mass deaths” from starvation, disease and lack of treatment could start to occur. Doctors Without Borders described Gaza as “a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance,” accusing Israel of “systematically” destroying people's lives.
But some believe the Tel Aviv government is being too kind. Culture Minister Miki Zohar criticized Katz's idea of having any mechanism to distribute aid at all. According to Zohar, there should be no aid in any form: the “despicable murderers in Gaza deserve no humanitarian aid,” he wrote in a post on X, calling for only “hellfire” for the Strip.
The videos of the hostages released by Hamas seem to be exerting no effective pressure on the Israeli government, such as the footage of Rom Braslavski begging the government to negotiate his release. And while the Islamist movement has made it clear that it is unwilling to enter into an agreement that does not include Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, Katz is stressing more clearly than ever that unlike in the past, the army will not leave the areas it controls and that no arrangement of any kind can challenge the occupation, in Gaza as in Lebanon and Syria.
Although the Defense Minister concluded his statements by trying to reassure the Israeli population about the army's unity and determination, the list of those in Israel calling for a halt to military operations in order to work on the release of the hostages is growing longer. More than 200 former police officers have signed a public appeal, joining members of the air force and intelligence who had already signed a similar petition.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday the military bombed the house in Gaza City where journalist Fatima Hassouneh lived together with relatives, killing her along with 10 members of her family. Fatima was a writer and a photographer. In an interview before her death, she recounted that on January 13, 2024, an attack had already killed 11 of her family members and that the only weapon she had to preserve their memory was her camera: “With this memory card, I can change the world, protect myself, show what is happening to me and others, and preserve my family's history from oblivion.”
1,652 Palestinians have been killed and 4,391 wounded since March 18, when Israel resumed the attacks after the ceasefire. Through the day on Wednesday, air strikes killed 25 Palestinians.
Israel’s attacks are not stopping in the West Bank either. Near Jenin, the army shot two young men dead, 23-year-old Mohd Omar Zakarneh and 19-year-old Mirth Yasser Khzemiyeh, and seized their bodies. Since October 7, the Israeli military has killed 957 people in the West Bank.
Targeted attacks and assassinations are also ongoing in Lebanon. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, Tel Aviv had killed two people. According to the UN, 71 civilians have been killed by Israel since the start of the ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/fame-e-occupazione-il-negoziato-su-gaza-secondo-tel-aviv on 2025-04-17