Israel announced on Thursday that there would be no humanitarian exceptions to its siege of the Gaza Strip until all hostages held by the terrorists were released.
Already, the 2.3 million people living in Gaza are running out of fuel. Even gas for hospital generators will run out in hours, according to Reuters.
Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz posted on X, “Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be lifted, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home. Humanitarian for humanitarian. And nobody should preach us morals.”
“Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” ICRC regional director Fabrizio Carboni said. “The human misery caused by this escalation is abhorrent, and I implore the sides to reduce the suffering of civilians.”
What’s happening in Israel is beyond war. It’s a place where “war crimes” are an idea that’s little more than a quaint throwback to a previous, more civilized era. There are no rules when your people are butchered in their homes like cattle, when your women are stripped naked, raped, and paraded in front of leering men for their amusement.
And there are no rules when the civilians in Gaza celebrate the death of Israeli citizens, laughing and dancing while screaming praise to their god.
In this conflict, there’s no bothsiderism or neutrality. And if that means supporting Israel in its stated purpose of destroying Hamas and killing a lot of Palestinian civilians, so be it.
That’s a tragedy. But what Hamas has done was not tragic; it was targeted, deliberate, cold-blooded murder. The fact that it’s been done to achieve a political end only makes it worse. And those who support the political ends of Hamas must now acknowledge complicity in the means that Hamas is using to achieve those ends. No moral equivalency. No mealy-mouthed platitudes about “freedom fighters.”
In addition to the siege of Gaza, Israel has been planning a ground assault that, from what we know, is likely to level most of Gaza, probably killing hundreds if not thousands of civilians.
This is no longer retaliation. For Hamas, it will be the closest thing to extermination that Israel can achieve.
The scale of Israel’s counterattack led a group of independent experts at the United Nations to warn, while condemning the “horrific” war crimes committed by Hamas, that “indiscriminate military attacks against the already exhausted Palestinian people of Gaza” amounted to “collective punishment,” which the group said was “absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime.”
No “collective punishment”? Perhaps they need to speak to American activists who keep pushing for the “collective punishment of reparations from white people in the U.S.”
But as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel in a clear show of support, the expectation was that the war would soon escalate, as Israel’s military said it was “preparing” for a widely expected ground offensive in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Israeli forces have massed along both the Gaza border and Israel’s northern frontier with Lebanon in recent days, amid fear that another front could open up in the war if the Hezbollah group — based in Lebanon but backed by Iran, just like Hamas — is drawn into the conflict.
In another sign of Israel’s war footing, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior opposition figure Benny Gantz created a war-time cabinet Wednesday after years of bitter division. Netanyahu said he, Gantz and other Israeli leaders “have put aside every other consideration because the fate of our country is at stake.”
Another sign that this upcoming offensive is going to be the biggest and bloodiest in the wretched history of Gaza is that the United States has completely removed any restrictions on the use of American weapons.
“This is a professional military led by professional leadership and we would hope and expect that they do the right things in the prosecution of their campaign,” Austin said in Brussels. “We will leave it to them to define what their operations are going to look like, but we have no reason to believe they would do anything differently,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
This is a different kind of war and it’s entering a new, bloodier phase. Even if Hamas starts executing hostages, it’s doubtful Israel would call off the attack. There is iron behind this thrust by Israel, and nothing will deter Prime Minister Netanyahu from ridding the threat of Hamas from his nation once and for all.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member