Israeli military actions have killed more than 18,000 people in Gaza since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants operating in the enclave carried out an unprecedented strike on southern Israeli towns and kibbutzim, marking the bloodiest day in the history of the Jewish state. Even according to Israeli analyses, civilians, mostly women and children, may account for some two-thirds of that Palestinian death toll.

Roughly 1.9 million people in Gaza, or 85 percent of the territory’s population per United Nations data, are displaced. They are being crammed into facilities and spaces that cannot accommodate them close to adequately. Sanitation conditions are deplorable, clean water is difficult to find, disease is spreading, and hunger is rife. An analysis by the U.N. World Food Program found that half the population of Gaza is starving and 9 out of 10 people cannot eat every day. Aid workers operating in a tiny stretch of bare land by the sea known as al-Mawasi, where Israeli authorities urged Palestinians to go for safety, said they encountered people who had not eaten for three days.

At a regional forum in Doha, Qatar, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warned of the possibility of mass displacement into Egypt. “There is no effective protection of civilians in Gaza,” he said. “I expect public order to completely break down soon, and an even worse situation could unfold.”

But to many in the Arab world, the idea of a Palestinian exodus pouring into Sinai is a nonstarter. For weeks, Arab governments have rejected the prospect of taking in refugees from Gaza – partially because of economic and security considerations, but primarily out of fear that Palestinians who flee Gaza will not be allowed to return. Given the 75-year history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, their concerns are not without credence. Numerous Gazans speaking to journalists say they would rather die in their own land than leave for a life in indefinite exile, a fate that has befallen generations of Palestinians elsewhere.

Some Arab officials accuse the Israelis of deliberately engineering this outcome. “What we are seeing in Gaza is not just simply the killing of innocent people and the destruction of their livelihoods, but a systematic effort to empty Gaza of its people,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said over the weekend, arguing that Israel’s conduct of the war was “within the legal definition of genocide.”

There may be no concrete government plan, but there’s plenty of talk. A document leaked in late October from the Israeli Intelligence Ministry appeared to propose the permanent and forcible transfer of Gaza’s Palestinian population into Egypt. A leading Israeli think tank published a paper encouraging the country’s wartime cabinet to exploit the “unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip.” A host of right-wing Israeli politicians and former senior officials have openly called for the removal of Palestinian civilians, the destruction of their homes, the resettlement of Gaza by Israelis or some combination of the three.

(T)op diplomats are mincing their words less. “This is a war that cannot be won,” Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, said at the forum in Qatar. “Israel has created an amount of hatred that will haunt this region, that will define generations to come.”

Courtesy Wapo

We repeat for emphasis -

There may be no concrete government plan, but there’s plenty of talk. A document leaked in late October from the Israeli Intelligence Ministry appeared to propose the permanent and forcible transfer of Gaza’s Palestinian population into Egypt. A leading Israeli think tank published a paper encouraging the country’s wartime cabinet to exploit the “unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip.” A host of right-wing Israeli politicians and former senior officials have openly called for the removal of Palestinian civilians, the destruction of their homes, the resettlement of Gaza by Israelis or some combination of the three.


The Israeli actions are certain to fail, certain to make matters worse for decades to come.

History has shown you cannot kill an idea by simply killing its believers.

You have to show a new idea. Namely rebuilding the destruction and providing a two state solution.