Israel goes ahead with its wrecking ball in Gaza
A Palestinian boy sits at the site of an overnight Israeli military attack on structures and tents housing displaced families in Gaza City, on May 28. AFP
#opinion
Peace in Gaza requires Israeli restraint and an institutional credibility capable of assuaging Palestinian fears. Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest order does precisely the opposite
The past few weeks have not gone Netanyahu’s way. Tel Aviv has largely been sidelined in the talks between Tehran and Washington aimed at ending a war that the US and Israel jointly initiated.
In a clear violation of the October 2025 Donald Trump-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had ordered the military to take control of 70% of Gaza, where the population is crammed into the little territory that remains habitable. That Israel was not abiding by the ceasefire had long been evident from its continued strikes on Gaza, even as West Asia was engulfed by the Iran war. Yet it is difficult not to wonder if Netanyahu’s decision to escalate further, at this particular moment, serves his political objectives ahead of the country’s first elections since Hamas’s horrific October 7, 2023, terror attack.
Trump and Netanyahu’s tense phone call a few days ago underscored their differing approaches to Iran, an inevitable divergence given the war’s growing unpopularity in the US and the mounting political costs for the Trump administration. Netanyahu’s apparent pursuit of eternal war follows a familiar script: prolonged conflict for political self-preservation and to defer domestic accountability for the October 7 security failure. In more than two years, Israel has failed to achieve its stated objective of destroying Hamas, even as it has killed at least 75,000 civilians and reduced Gaza to dust and ashes.
When Trump emerged as the unlikely peacemaker in Gaza, there was a sense of optimism about resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Announcing his 20-point plan and the “Board of Peace”, the US president had declared: “The people of Gaza have suffered long enough. The time is NOW.”
Since then, however, Israel’s repeated violations of the ceasefire have effectively shredded the plan, while the peace board is yet to receive any of the billions of dollars pledged by donors.
Peace in Gaza requires Israeli restraint and an institutional credibility capable of assuaging Palestinian fears.
Netanyahu’s latest order does precisely the opposite. And the one man who claims he can make the Israeli PM do “whatever I want him to do” has turned a blind eye.
-Khmer Times-
