by Kirill Semenov
| In which the writer demonstrates the blatant double standards of the contemporary |
“The actions of the Israeli leadership grossly violate international law and demonstrate its open disregard for both the calls of the international community and the decisions of the Security Council,” the Russian diplomat said.
In addition, Polyansky added, the Israeli authorities are dealing a serious blow to the prospects of ensuring a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
| Nah. We have it on good authority that Israel’s capture of Jerusalem in 1967, demanded by the Palestinians as their capitol, put paid to any possibility ever of a division of the territory that would be acceptable to the Palestinians. |
The harshness of Russia's language was only eclipsed by Germany's unprecedented demarche: Berlin imposed an embargo on arms exports to Israel, a step previously considered a political taboo for a country that had avoided direct pressure on the Jewish state for decades for historical reasons.
The "diplomatic whisper" tactics that have defined the German approach for years have given way to a public ultimatum: the EU's position, according to a German spokesman, is now based on "a rejection of collective punishment of the Palestinian people."
| The Mertz government far prefers to collectively punish the Jews instead. |
| Go to Hell your Excellency. |
| And yet in other circles Israel’s friendship is now being eagerly sought. It’s almost as if those whose good opinion is not worth having are noisily taking themselves out of the way, with much pouting and stamping of little feet. |
Ironically, Netanyahu himself is presenting the operation as a means to speed up the release of the fifty remaining Israeli prisoners held by Hamas (about twenty of whom are estimated to be alive).
| Hamas already murdered thirty of them, and may succeed in murdering the rest before they’re done. |
| Who is paying for the protests this time? |
| Interestingly, other hostage relative groups have protested against stopping the war before Hamas is wiped out… |
The decision to expand the operation and occupy Gaza was a direct consequence of Netanyahu's compromise with his far-right coalition partners, without whose support the government would collapse and the prime minister himself would go to prison.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a radical Zionist, demands "all of Gaza, resettlement [of Palestinians] and colonization," while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also a radical, criticizes the prime minister's plan as "half-hearted" because it only calls for military occupation, but says nothing about settling Gaza with Jewish settlers.
Netanyahu said Israel controls three-quarters of the Strip, but Hamas's last two strongholds - the densely populated Gaza City and the central refugee camps in the al-Mawasi area - remain an unresolved threat.
The five-stage occupation plan, scheduled to last five months, would begin with the forced “evacuation” of about a million Gaza City residents to the already overcrowded Al-Mawasi, where half a million refugees are huddled, followed by the seizure of the remaining areas.
Along with the five stages, Netanyahu outlined strategic goals known as the "five principles": the complete disarmament of Hamas and the return of all hostages; the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip; the establishment of Israeli control over security for an indefinite period; and the establishment of an "alternative civil administration" without the participation of either Hamas or the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
The prime minister’s key thesis: “We don’t want to govern Gaza… The goal is to free it from Hamas and hand it over to Arab forces.”
However, the details of this “liberation” and “transfer” remain extremely vague. Potential candidates for control – Jordan and Egypt – have already categorically refused to enter Gaza “on Israeli bayonets” and directly accuse Israel of “ethnic cleansing.”
Saudi Arabia publicly insists on the immediate creation of an independent Palestinian state as the only way to end the conflict and bring stability, and any steps to normalize relations with Israel without this condition are unacceptable, according to the Saudis. Polls published in the Saudi Gazette show that 96% of the kingdom's citizens demand a complete severance of all ties with Tel Aviv.
The proposed local administration that Israel plans to establish must, according to Netanyahu, “refuse to finance terror and live in peace with Israel,” but the mechanism for forming such structures in the destroyed enclave, where the majority of its residents, despite all polls, support Hamas, is completely undeveloped.
Even the Palestinian Authority faces criticism and accusations of collaboration with the occupiers, so the Israeli-created puppet government to govern Gaza will be perceived by its residents as a fifth column.
“Today, Netanyahu wants to occupy Gaza, but the Israeli army has still not been able to take control of the northern part of the strip, has not captured Shujaiya to the east of Gaza City, and even Beit Hanoun, a border area in the northeast of the strip,” Palestinian expert Abuarkub Mohammed told Regnum.
“A logical question arises: if the Israeli army, in 22 months of the most brutal war against Gaza, with all its strength, equipment and resources, was unable to achieve these goals, then will it be able to do this now, in a state of exhaustion, with a decrease in the level of mobilization? ”
According to the expert, more than 80,000 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers are in rehabilitation centers, and the army is still unable to replace soldiers who have been in service for more than 300 days.
In addition, Haredim (religious Jews) are refusing to serve, many are dodging the draft, and protests and demands for an end to the war and a comprehensive deal are growing.
“Moreover, Netanyahu was forced to create a unit of retired veterans to compensate for the lack of reservists,” the Palestinian noted.
WHY THE RADICAL SCENARIO BECAME REALITY
Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to establish full control over the Gaza Strip did not arise spontaneously, but was the culmination of a months-long strategy adopted back in May 2025.
Without openly announcing its occupation plans, Israel then began systematic preparations: it called up tens of thousands of reservists, stepped up the forced displacement of residents of northern areas to declared “humanitarian zones” in the south, and began to form support “axes of control” – military corridors that would dismember the sector into isolated enclaves.
Even then, it was planned to maintain a permanent IDF presence in the captured territories, including the interior of Gaza, and one of the main tasks was to gradually push the Palestinians into neighboring countries.
"The Israeli army created a so-called 'security zone' in Rafah, the purpose of which was to attract people for humanitarian aid, while preventing them from returning to their tents and temporary accommodations," says Abuarkub Mohammed.
Then, according to the Palestinian expert, the army built the Mirage corridor, whose purpose was to allow residents to go south toward Rafah to receive aid, but not to allow them to return. At a later stage, the army was planned to leave the Philadelphia corridor and remain in the Mirage.
"Leaving the Palestinians face to face with the Egyptians, after which the Israeli military would blow up the Egyptian border and blame it on Hamas. In that case, the Palestinians would rush in panic to the Egyptian side, where they would be left to their own devices and doomed to die, while the blame would be placed on Egypt. However, the Palestinians realized this danger and managed to avoid it," the Palestinian activist summed up the Israeli efforts.
The formal justification for these actions was the need to create “additional leverage” on Hamas in hostage negotiations. However, by May 2025, the military-political leadership of Israel had already decided to fully occupy the sector.
Bezalel Smotrich, a key figure in the far-right coalition, publicly declared in May: "Israel will not withdraw from the captured territories, even in exchange for hostages. After the occupation and maintaining our presence in Gaza, we can begin the discussion about sovereignty."
These words, initially perceived as fringe rhetoric, now reflect the official strategy of the government. The lack of alternatives played a decisive role in the approval of the plan of Smotrich and his allies.
AFTER 22 MONTHS OF WAR, THE NUMBER OF THOSE RESISTING HAS ONLY INCREASED
Israel has yet to present a coherent vision for a post-war Gaza. Proposals to hand over control to the Palestinian Authority (PNA) or international forces have been rejected by Netanyahu's coalition.
As a result, the only “working” plan left was a radical project that assumed permanent occupation with the creation of buffer zones and “stimulation” of the complete exodus of Palestinians through the organization of their murders, starvation and other humanitarian pressure.
“This plan, the ‘eviction plan’, is being implemented throughout the Gaza Strip: every time the army orders residents to move to the so-called ‘safe zones’, it bombs the tents and the people in them, starves them and takes revenge on them for their failures, thus trying to force them to so-called ‘voluntary emigration’,” said Abuarkub Mohammed.
Such brutal treatment of civilians, he said, forced many to return to the north and never leave again, as death lurked everywhere.
"We have repeatedly heard residents state in front of cameras: 'We prefer to die in our homes than to die in tents and temporary shelters,'" the Palestinian said.
At present, the humanitarian catastrophe has already reached unprecedented proportions: according to UN data from December 2024, 80% of the population (1.9 million people) are internally displaced, while the number of killed Palestinians is approaching 70 thousand. Of these, 217 people, including 100 children, died of hunger.
In turn, the Israeli army openly criticizes politicians: Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir warns that the occupation will turn into a “trap,” and former Southern Command commander Yom-Tov Samia said that the government is acting “contrary to the concept of national security.”
Many Israeli military officials believe that these actions will not defeat Hamas, as this has not happened yet, but will cost new victims and internal destabilization.
In turn, nothing changes for Hamas, and the movement will continue to resist.
According to Abuarkub Mohammed, at the beginning of the war, the Israelis estimated the number of Hamas fighters at 25-30 thousand people, plus about 10 thousand from other factions of the Palestinian resistance, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
“Currently, despite 22 months of a monstrous, barbaric war that has no analogues in modern history, Hamas already has about 40,000 fighters,” he said.
The expert said they operate in small groups, move freely and autonomously, set up ambushes and deal heavy blows to enemy forces, posting video and audio evidence.
"This shows that Netanyahu's plan is doomed to failure. It is not new and will not be more successful than the previous ones: everything that the Israeli army was able to do against Hamas, it did only in the first two months of the war, and after that, it was only mass genocide and war crimes against civilians," the Palestinian analyst concluded.
At the same time, as Igor Subbotin, an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council and a specialist in the Middle East, told Regnum, “the protracted military actions in Gaza are connected, among other things, with the extensive tunnel system created by the Hamas group over many years.
In Israel, they openly say that the Palestinian armed organization has accumulated a significant missile potential underground, which has not yet been exhausted by the current war. Apparently, there are still opportunities for home-made ammunition production there, because sporadic rocket launches towards Israel are still taking place - after 22 months of military campaign."
According to Subbotin, the obvious protracted nature of the war in Gaza plays into the hands of Hamas, because the humanitarian crisis in the current conditions is only deepening, and this forces Western countries to put pressure on Israel. The parade of states ready to recognize Palestine is one element of pressure.
“This, apparently, is what the PNA has decided to take advantage of, planning to unilaterally proclaim a state in the Palestinian territories in September, even though the PNA does not have actual control over Gaza and is unlikely to ever have it,” the expert concluded.
HAMAS AS A SYMBOL: ISRAEL'S MILITARY AND POLITICAL COSTS
The plan to occupy Gaza, initially considered too radical a fantasy, became reality not because it was well thought out, but because of a systemic crisis of governance. At the same time, the very lack of a clear end to the operation undermines its legitimacy.
Israel risks becoming a global pariah, with its economy reoriented toward military needs and cultural and diplomatic ties destroyed.
Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to present a full-scale occupation of Gaza as “the best and only way to quickly end the war.” However, this plan is steeped in deep systemic contradictions.
The military operation in the heart of Gaza City directly threatens the lives of those very hostages whose release is declared to be one of its main goals, drawing the Israeli army into battles among the city ruins, convenient for urban guerrilla warfare.
Establishing "temporary" Israeli control over security without a clear and realistic plan for transferring power to acceptable local or regional forces threatens to result in a long-term, exhausting and costly military operation.
And perhaps most importantly, the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe not only undermines the moral and legal basis for Israel's actions in the eyes of the world, but also creates the perfect breeding ground for the revanche of radical ideas and future violence.
As former head of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency Ami Ayalon aptly warned : "From a military point of view, Hamas may be destroyed as an entity. But as an ideology, it gains more weight... The only way to truly defeat it is to offer the Palestinians a better future."
Meanwhile, the expansion of the Israeli operation is leading to the exact opposite result. Leading Western countries such as Australia, Great Britain, Canada and France are accelerating plans to officially recognize the State of Palestine.
A war launched to completely destroy Hamas risks turning it into an eternal symbol of Palestinian resistance and burying prospects for a political settlement for generations to come, leaving Israel in a strategic impasse and deep international isolation.
| To defeat Hamas is to show Hamas has lost Allah’s favour. Not to mention that Hamas, like Hezbollah, has no intention of ever accepting a political settlement that anything less than the conquest of Israel for Islam. And since Israel’s millions of Jews have nowhere else to go, there is no impasse for them, strategic or otherwise. Not to mention that as long as they keep inventing all those clever things the rest of the world dearly wants, they will never be isolated. |