EDITORIAL: Even as Israel continues its relentless bombardment of Gaza, killing more than 100 people on May 15 alone, the international community’s response, as always, remains woefully inadequate in halting this senseless cycle of violence.
Since March 2, critical humanitarian aid to the enclave has remained suspended, exacerbating famine-like conditions and leaving civilians with no reprieve from destruction and deprivation.
Most importantly, there just hasn’t been enough of an outcry or pushback from global powers with respect to Tel Aviv’s brazen announcement earlier in the month of an “intensified” offensive in Gaza, which entailed Israeli troops holding on to seized territory and forcibly displacing Palestinians.
While President Donald Trump and his Gulf allies prioritised the signing of multi-billion dollar deals during the former’s Middle East trip, there was scarcely any meaningful mention of the Israeli security cabinet approving plans to effectively “conquer” Gaza and establish a “sustained presence” there.
Even the chilling vision articulated by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has failed to have the kind of impact on global conscience that is warranted. He has explicitly declared that within six months, Gaza’s two million inhabitants would be squeezed into a narrow strip of land within the enclave while the rest of the territory will be “totally destroyed”, forcing Palestinians to relocate elsewhere.
This only confirms what many had long feared — that since November 2023, Israel’s true objective has been the violent depopulation of Gaza and its indefinite military occupation. To make matters worse, President Trump has now revived his February 2025 proposal to displace Palestinians from the enclave, declaring that the US should help turn it into a “freedom zone”.
Israel’s murderous campaign, which effectively amounts to executing a strategy of ethnic cleansing, is precisely why it continues to block all vital humanitarian aid into Gaza. For weeks, the UN has repeatedly warned that critical supplies — food, clean water, fuel, medicine — are dwindling to catastrophic levels. Meanwhile, the executive director of Human Rights Watch has unequivocally asserted that “Israel’s blockade has transcended military tactics to become a tool of extermination”.
Given the context, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent statement that the US was “not immune or in any way insensitive to the suffering of people in Gaza” would be laughable if the situation wasn’t so horrifically tragic. His announcement that he has conveyed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Washington’s concerns regarding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza rings hollow — a superficial response utterly divorced from the urgent action needed to halt Tel Aviv’s military onslaught.
It is pertinent to note here that the persistent indifference of successive White House administrations to the plight of the people of Gaza increasingly stands in contrast to the growing disillusionment among the American public with US policy in the region.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier in the year revealed a clear shift in American public opinion, with 53 percent now holding unfavourable views of Israel. Back in 2022, this figure hovered around 42 percent. The significant 11-point increase in negative sentiments pertaining to Israel in just a three-year period marks a notable transformation in how Americans view their traditional ally.
Despite this erosion of public support for Israel, the Trump Administration keeps taking steps that have bolstered Israeli officials seeking more destructive actions in Gaza.
It is sobering to realise that a single decisive intervention by President Trump — like his efforts that proved instrumental in achieving a temporary ceasefire in January — could force Israel to abandon its brutal campaign. That he refuses to act reveals how deeply Israeli interests dictate US policy, even while the cost of this complicity grows daily.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.