Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyahu. (AFP)
The fury and intensity of missile strikes and deadly bombings across the besieged Gaza is not only the Israeli regime’s continuation of the genocide, but also a rejection by it of the ceasefire it had signed.
The regime’s leaders — particularly Benjamin Netanyahu — who is on the International Criminal Court’s wanted list, have sought every pretext to resume the killing of innocent civilians.
Overnight, while displaced Palestinians who have been subject to Israel’s inhumane blockade of food, fuel, medication and other essentials — and in the middle of Ramadan preparing Suhoor meals in makeshift plastic tents and bombed buildings — Netanyahu unleashed fiery terror upon them.
Within minutes more than 400 civilians were killed, mainly women and children. A thousand or more were injured.
Reports indicate that the current military strikes are deadlier and wider in scale than the regular series of drone attacks Gaza has been experiencing during the weeks Netanyahu violated the original ceasefire terms that went into effect on 19 January.
Hamas has slammed Israel for disregarding its obligations by overturning the ceasefire agreement.
Israel has sought to fabricate new terms in an effort to justify blowing up the deal.
Analysts Jeremy Scahill and Abubaker Abed point out that, since January, Netanyahu has waged a campaign of sabotage and provocation, openly violating the terms of the agreement by hindering and outright blocking the delivery of aid into the Gaza Strip.
“While food and other supplies were permitted to enter Gaza throughout the first 42-day phase of the deal, Israel refused to allow almost any of the 60,000 mobile homes and only a fraction of the 200,000 tents to enter Gaza,” wrote Scahill.
Though Netanyahu has sought to blame Hamas on fake charges of undermining the ceasefire, the reality is that he imposed a “total blockade on any aid, including food and medical supplies to the Strip and resumed its policy of using starvation as a weapon of war”, he wrote.
On Sunday, Israel also cut off the electricity supply to Gaza, forcing a major desalination plant to slash its water output, severely limiting the amount of drinking water available to 600,000 people in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis.
Hamas said in a statement that “Netanyahu, looking for a way out of his internal crises, preferred to reignite the war at the expense of the blood of our people”.
According to a Haaretz newspaper report, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani demanded immediate international action to compel Israel to implement an immediate ceasefire, abide by the Gaza ceasefire agreement and return to negotiations.
That the demands by a key member of the mediation team is directed at Israel confirms the view that contrary to Netanyahu’s claims, it is not Hamas that has violated the agreement.
This is reinforced by media reports that the Hostages and Missing Families Forum has denounced Israel not Hamas.
“The greatest fear of the families, the hostages and the citizens of Israel has come true – the Israeli government has chosen to give up on the hostages,” a forum spokesperson is quoted in Haaretz.
Indeed, far-right politicians National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have not only welcomed the renewal of scorched-earth policies, but said the plans were prepared weeks ago.
Their endorsement of the slaughter of hundreds of civilians reveals more than mere approval. It confirms that Israel had no intention to honour the agreement and had plotted to blame Hamas to justify the current savagery.
Since the inception of the ceasefire in Gaza 60 days ago, the Palestinian resistance and responsible organisations have tracked repeated violations of the agreement by Israel, says Palestinian Prisoner Network, Samidoun.
“At the same time, in order to protect their people, the Resistance has not once violated the ceasefire agreements nor retaliated against the Zionist war criminals.”
Trump’s greenlighting of Israel’s bloodbath makes him directly culpable of war crimes including genocide and ethnic-cleansing.
By having facilitated the wave of airstrikes by arming and funding Israel, as has been the practice of his predecessor Joe Biden, Trump has proven yet again that far from being a peacemaker, he is in fact a warmonger.
Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of the Media Review Network.