Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, one of the most densely populated cities on Earth, combined with its total lockdown so the people can’t escape, has created an unusually cruel environment for the 2.3 million people who are trapped in the city amid the Israeli attacks.

Israel—as with those countries who invade nations that keep selling the murderous line that they are fighting their enemy who is using civilians as human shields—says Hamas fighters use Palestinian civilians as shields. Thus, when Israel bombs hospitals, refugee camps, schools, buildings, homes and destroys cities… they are doing it because Hamas digs tunnels under hospitals etc., and hides out in UN schools in hopes of avoiding the Israeli wrath. 

WSWS noted that Israel has targeted hospitals, schools, and other places of refuge, in hopes of “ensuring that they never return.”

The news outlet reported that this strategy has been years in the making. The dream is to move the population into the barren Sinai Desert in Egypt where Israel can construct military fortifications and barriers to make sure they stay in place. Palestinians have rejected the proposal and said it would amount to ethnic cleansing and a new war, Eurasia Review reported. 

“The Palestinians have a strong attachment to their land and history and have been resisting Israeli occupation and oppression for decades. They have also suffered from multiple displacements and expulsions in the past such as the Nakba of 1948 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes during the creation of Israel,” the report said.

The U.S. continues to try and parse words as to not anger the Israeli government, which has refused any humanitarian pauses until every hostage is released. There are believed to be about 230 Israeli hostages in Gaza. Hamas has claimed that dozens have been killed in indiscriminate Israeli strikes.

Pope Francis used his Sunday sermon to call for a ceasefire. 

“I implore you to stop, in the name of God. Cease fire!” he said.

He called for the release of the hostages and “expressed his hopes that ‘every possible avenue is pursued to absolutely avoid an escalation of the conflict, to provide assistance to the wounded, and to deliver aid to the population of Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is extremely dire,’” according to Vatican News.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once again, rejected appeals for a ceasefire. 

“There will be no ceasefire without the return of our hostages, we say this to both our enemies and our friends. We will continue until we beat them,” he said, according to Reuters. 

Salama Marouf, a Hamas spokesman, said Israel carried out intense bombings around hospitals in Gaza on Saturday evening and into Sunday morning. 

Mohammad Al-Aloul, a photojournalist for Anadolu, lost his four children, four of his brothers, and their children in an Israeli strike on the Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza, Reuters reported. 

“My only daughter was martyred. My son Ahmed, the kind one, may God have mercy upon him. Kenan, may God have mercy upon him. Qais, may God have mercy upon him. What can I tell you?” he said, according to The Guardian. “My nephews were martyred, may God have mercy upon them. My brother was martyred with his children Aboud, Abdelrahim, and Layan. All my brothers were martyred, except one, Mahmoud, who was injured when the walls fell on his back. My wife is in a critical condition.”

Hunger is spreading rapidly in Gaza and Israel is said to have targeted bakeries. Five bakeries have been directly targeted, Al Jazeera reported. The ones that remain open have a shortage of flour and many cannot operate because of the lack of fuel.

Oxfam International said just about “two percent of the food required to feed Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been delivered since 7 October,” the report said.

TRENDPOST: The Biden administration allowed Netanyahu’s extreme right wing government, as termed by the mainstream media, to make life a living hell for Palestinians even before war broke out, so it is no surprise that the White House is impotent now.  (See “NETANYAHU’S GOVERNMENT CONTINUES ITS WAR ON PALESTINIANS,” 12 Sep 2023.)

As we have detailed, Israel’s current government is comprised of politicians who have called for the elimination of the Palestinian state. See:

● “DUH-MOCK-RACY: ISRAEL HOLDING OVER 1,200 DETAINEES—MAINLY PALESTINIANS—WHO HAVE NOT BEEN CHARGED” (8 Aug 2023) 

● “NETANYAHU’S HARDLINE COALITION TAKES HOLD AMID SURGE IN VIOLENCE AGAINST PALESTINIANS” (5 Jul 2023)

● “UN: OK FOR ISRAEL TO KILL PALESTINIAN CHILDREN, BUT SHAMES RUSSIA FOR KILLING CHILDREN IN UKRAINE” (27 Jun 2023)

● “NETANYAHU’S GOVERNMENT TO STEAL MORE PALESTINIAN LAND” (20 Jun 2023)

In July, a military-style raid by Israel in Jenin sparked violence in the West Bank, prompting Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, to attend a high-ranking meeting. Ben-Gvir, an extremist settler himself, called the men who torched homes “good boys,” according to The Jerusalem Post.

He joined Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who called administrative arrests against settlers “anti-democratic.”

Smotrich has called on Israel to stop arrest raids and, instead, carry out a broad military operation on these camps.

“Administrative arrests turn people into heroes,” Ben-Gvir said. “I was the subject of an administrative arrest when I was 18. You’re turning snot-nosed boys into heroes.”

TRENDPOST: By their deeds you shall know them. The facts for who Ben-Gvir is and his hatred of Palestinians and how the Israel War began long before Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October has been reported in The Trends Journal back last November 29th. Here is just one of scores of articles that had forecast the current crisis:

NETANYAHU’S COALITION MAKES DEAL WITH CONVICTED RACIST TO STAMP DOWN PALESTINIANS

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party signed a coalition agreement with the country’s Jewish Power party that was widely seen as a death blow to any chance of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. 

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the head of the Jewish Power party, will likely become the country’s national security minister under the deal. He was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism and belonging to a terrorist organization, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

“We took a big step tonight toward a full coalition agreement, toward forming a fully, fully right-wing government,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement shortly after the deal.

Ben-Gvir used the recent violence between Israelis and Palestinians to appeal to the public. 

The WSJ noted that he has dreams of deporting those he feels undermine the Jewish state and wants to see any “terrorist” nabbed by IDF soldiers executed. He also wants these soldiers to essentially have a license to kill. He said he aims to grant immunity to soldiers who kill Arabs holding stones or Molotov cocktails, “before they throw them.”

All Arabs, which make up about 20 percent of the country, should be deported, he said.

TRENDPOST: Benny Gantz, the outgoing defense minister, told reporters Friday that Netanyahu’s decision to tap Ben-Gvir for the security role means the leader of the Jewish Power party leader is the country’s de facto prime minister. 

“Netanyahu’s conduct is an admission that the real prime minister is going to be Ben-Gvir,” he said.

The Times of Israel reported that the newly created “national security minister” position means it will be Ben-Gvir who will oversee the police force and the Border Police’s West Bank Division.

The Trends Journal has reported extensively on how the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis is worsening due to Israel’s crackdown in these areas. (See “UN COMMITTEE TO ISRAEL: STOP STEALING PALESTINIAN LAND,” “BLINKEN IS SHINING EXAMPLE OF HYPOCRISY, PALESTINIAN LIVES AND LAND DON’T MATTER,” “ISRAEL KILLS 4 PALESTINIAN TEENS” and “UNPROVOKED, ISRAEL BOMBS GAZA, KILLING 43, WOUNDING HUNDREDS.”)  

We have noted that the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice, and the High Contracting Parties to the Convention have all affirmed that this is occupied territory, and Israeli settlements there are illegal.

Furthermore, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Israel have stated that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians meets the internationally accepted definition of apartheid.

Video emerged online on Saturday that claimed to show an Israeli soldier in Hebron, a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, telling an activist that ben-Gvir is “going to make order in this entire place… you’re screwed, it’s over. You’re done making this place into a ‘whorehouse’…everything you do here is against the law. I decide what’s legal.” 

Protesters were also allegedly assaulted by Israeli forces and two had been suspended. 

There was a video that seemed to show an IDF soldier body-slamming an activist. Ben-Gvir raised the suspicions that the protesters could have antagonized the troops.

“I know these extreme leftists who come to Hebron well. They abuse soldiers, insult them, curse them, and many times they also attack them,” he said. “I call on police to investigate if, in this case, the extreme leftists didn’t provoke soldiers and hurt them first so that the photos of the incident would be falsified.”

Aviv Kohavi, the IDF chief of staff, criticized the soldiers and said in a letter to troops, “Incidents such as these tarnish the unit in which the soldier serves, the IDF and the State of Israel.”

Video also claimed to show Ben-Gvir pulling a gun in Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood, and telling the settlers that they should shoot any Palestinians who throw stones at them. 

The BBC noted that Ben-Gvir visited the spot where a bomb went off last week, killing a teenager and wounding 14 in Jerusalem. The bombing was the first in the city since 2016. He said, “Even if it’s in the West Bank, lay siege to them and go from house to house in search of guns and restore our deterrence power.”

Gantz said establishing a “private army for Ben-Gvir in [the West Bank] is dangerous … and will create real security failures,” The Times of Israel reported.