How Gaza was reduced to rubble and starvation as the world watched

Nineteen months of carnage: How Gaza was reduced to rubble and starvation as the world watched

By BEL TREW, The Independent, 23 May 2025

Amid an apocalyptic humanitarian crisis in Gaza and mounting global pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed ahead with a deeply controversial new plan to deliver supplies to the besieged Strip.

In a rare press conference on Wednesday night, Netanyahu said that in the “coming days” they would enact the scheme, which would replace the existing UN-led aid distribution system in Gaza with a new arrangement under full Israeli control.

He said his forces would begin corralling the 2 million-strong population of Gaza into a “sterile zone” in the south of the Strip, free from Hamas militants, where the Israeli military would oversee the delivery of supplies at a small number of distribution hubs directed by a private US-backed group known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Armed private contractors would guard the distribution. The UN and other humanitarian groups say it enables Israel to use aid as a weapon and forcibly displace civilians.

The situation in Gaza, after Israel imposed a full three-month total blockade on supplies and launched a renewed “intensive” expanded operation in Gaza, is so catastrophic that it has pushed the entire population to the brink of famine, according to the UN’s global hunger monitor, the IPC. So far only a handful of trucks of supplies have been let back in.

This has sparked rare global action from Israel’s allies, as the country increasingly becomes a global pariah.

This week, Foreign Secretary David Lammy described Israel’s blockade and intensified fighting as “monstrous”, before announcing a formal pause in free trade negotiations with Israel and summoning Israel’s ambassador to London.

The UK, which is an arms supplier to Israel, also imposed sanctions on three Israeli citizens, two illegal settler outposts, and two organisations supporting violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank.

Canada and France also issued statements saying they were poised to take concrete action.

Yet these responses have been criticised in some quarters as too little, too late.

How did we get here?

In 19 months Israel’s unprecedented bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 53,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The United Nations says that over 90 percent of homes in the besieged 25-mile-long Strip have been destroyed or damaged. The UN estimates it could take as long as 80 years to restore the destroyed housing units — and that is if the conflict were to stop now.

The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which reached new, unimaginable levels this month, has been “intolerable” since the earliest weeks of the war.

From the second day of the conflict in 2023, the Israeli government made clear its intention to collectively punish the population of Gaza for the events of 7 October, primarily through cutting off aid.

On 9 October 2023, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said he had ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza in the wake of the horrific and bloody attacks by Hamas militants on southern Israel, during which over 1,000 people were killed and more than 250 taken captive to Gaza.

He said: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals.”

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has repeatedly reiterated that the goal is for Gaza to be “totally destroyed” and, aside from a tiny patch of land into which two million people would be corralled, it would be “empty” of its population – echoing Netanyahu’s new “aid” plan.

The aim – as Smotrich framed it a few weeks ago at a conference – was to make Gazans so “totally despairing” and devoid of hope that they would seek relocation elsewhere to “begin a new life”, according to Israeli media.

Timeline

Israel’s first total siege on Gaza began on 9 October 2023 and was only alleviated on 21 October when aid trucks were first allowed through the Rafah border crossing to the south. But six days later, Israel launched a ground offensive into Gaza.

Aid was again allowed into Gaza in larger numbers during a seven-day ceasefire in November 2023, when around half of the hostages were released. But that was short-lived; the war resumed on 1 December, along with renewed restrictions. Desperation reached such catastrophic levels that, at the start of 2024, foreign states began attempting to airdrop aid into northern Gaza and open maritime corridors — both of which proved largely unsuccessful.

By 25 June last year, the global hunger monitor (IPC) stated that Gaza remained at high risk of famine.

Ahead of his inauguration, then US President-elect Donald Trump applied pressure for a ceasefire, warning there would be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if hostages in Gaza were not freed before his 20 January swearing-in.

Finally, on 15 January, negotiators reached a deal for a Gaza ceasefire after 15 months of conflict. The phased agreement included hostage and prisoner releases, and a massive surge in aid delivery.

But that expired on 1 March without agreement on a second phase. Israel blamed Hamas for scuppering the talks and cut off Gaza aid as a pressure tactic, to massive international criticism.

Now, after the IPC announced famine-like conditions again, with half a million people facing starvation, the Israeli government is pushing ahead with plans to put all supply deliveries under Israeli control.

Israel, which has defended its actions by accusing Hamas of stealing aid to “fuel its war machine”, this week boasted that it had allowed nearly 100 trucks containing baby milk and flour – among other goods – into Gaza.

But UN officials and humanitarian workers told The Independent that the number was woefully small, especially given that thousands of trucks with supplies were poised to enter.

“What can five or nine or even one hundred trucks do for a population that has been made to suffer from hunger as a weapon of war?” asked Tamara Rifae, spokesperson for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA.

“To avert famine, at least 500 to 600 trucks of food, humanitarian, and commercial goods must enter Gaza every day. This is the minimum required. Right now, there are goods sitting in warehouses in Jordan and Egypt that could be brought into Gaza within hours – if Israel allowed their entry.”

Amed Khan, a humanitarian who has coordinated aid into the besieged Strip, told The Independent that the problem was “the system – if one could even call it that – is set up to fail” and accused Israel of paying “lip service” to the Trump administration.

“The whole thing is smoke and mirrors. People need the war to stop, the genocide to stop. People need a ceasefire,” he told The Independent.

“It’s hard to see how any real volume of trucks will be distributed in this system because they are constantly carrying out operations everywhere. There are no secure, reliable routes that trucks full of food can take.”

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has shown no indication of changing direction, despite widespread international condemnation. Trailing in the opinion polls and facing trial at home on corruption charges he denies, as well as an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, he has made clear the war will continue.

After he claimed Israel has probably killed Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar at a press conference this week, he added: “All of Gaza Strip will be under the security control of Israel.”

Saving Gaza from Starvation

Saving Gaza from Starvation

International Crisis Group, 12 May 2025

Israel’s plan to conquer Gaza and impose a new aid scheme threatens to prolong the war and weaponise the starving population’s most vital needs. Gulf Arab states have a chance to press the U.S. to put an end to the Israeli government’s endless escalations.

On 4 May, the Israeli cabinet endorsed new plans to ramp up the military’s offensive in Gaza, nineteen months into the war sparked by Hamas’s assault on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. Dubbed Operation Gideon’s Chariots, Israel’s incremental plan aims first and foremost to conquer Gaza and defeat Hamas, as well as to free the remaining Israeli hostages in the strip. It also involves taking control of the enclave’s internal aid distribution channels, expanding Israel’s longstanding restrictions on the entry of vital supplies.

Since 2 March, aid has been completely blocked by Israel, pushing 2.2 million Palestinians toward mass starvation; the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-coordinated body, warns that Gaza is now at “critical risk” of famine. Operation Gideon’s Chariots has not yet rumbled into motion; Israeli officials say it may start after U.S. President Donald Trump’s much-anticipated visit to the Middle East on 13-16 May and will likely take place in stages. Trump’s itinerary includes stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but not Israel.

As the presidential trip approached, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee held a press conference to rebrand the aid component of Israel’s plan as a U.S.-led initiative, carefully distinguishing it from Israel’s military campaign and promising its imminent rollout using private security contractors. It was an apparent attempt to assuage Gulf Arab concerns about how it would look for them to be striking investment deals with President Trump while Gaza is being starved. Yet whoever will run the new food distribution scheme, it is not merely insufficient, but misguided and dangerous. Tens of thousands of tonnes of desperately needed food, medicine and supplies are sitting waiting at Gaza’s borders.

The dozens of aid groups, including UN agencies, that have been keeping the population alive insist they only need Israel to open the crossings, so that they may recommence their work without fear; they do not need anyone to build an entirely new system. Meanwhile, if Israel’s military operation does move forward as proposed, it is almost certain to unleash even deeper catastrophe for Gaza’s population.

Trump’s forthcoming visit is an opportunity to alter this trajectory. On 11 May, following talks with the U.S. mediated by Arab states, Hamas announced that it would release hostage Edan Alexander (a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen), in effect bypassing the deadlock in its negotiations with Israel. What Hamas might receive in return – if anything – remains unclear. Gulf leaders, who enjoy some influence with the White House, reportedly hope that Trump will express support for the two-state solution while in the Middle East, which would be welcome. But the immediate priority must be pressing the U.S. president to definitively end the war in Gaza and allow humanitarian groups to do their jobs.

A Path to Protracted Reoccupation

The latest plan reportedly calls for beefed-up Israeli army units to capture and “clean” out more of Gaza’s 365 sq km, some 70 per cent of which Israel has already turned into “no-go zones” for Palestinians. Many – perhaps most of Gaza’s population – would be displaced to Rafah, the strip’s southernmost city, which Israel took in March and has all but razed since then. Palestinians are now mostly concentrated around Gaza City in the north, and between Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah in the south, with most having suffered repeated displacement and living in tents or damaged buildings.

According to the plan, they would be channelled through Israeli checkpoints designed to sift out those suspected of links to Hamas. They would then be herded into Israeli-controlled “humanitarian zones”, where pre-packaged rations amounting to 1,700 calories per person daily would be distributed to pre-approved family members by private security contractors or Israeli-vetted aid organisations. The first phase of the plan envisions serving only 60 per cent of Gaza’s population, with Ambassador Huckabee saying the proportion would gradually increase over time.

In effect, the plan puts Israel on a path to a protracted, direct reoccupation of Gaza, confining Palestinians to even tinier parts of the strip and enabling Israel to control access to necessities, without meaningful guarantees that these will indeed be provided. Of particular concern is how much of the population will be fed, as well as whether the scheme will afford the specialised treatment needed by acutely malnourished young children and people with chronic diseases or the broader range of basic services necessary to prevent or halt epidemics, which typically become the main killer among starving people.

Whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet has publicised the Gideon’s Chariots scheme as a bluff or truly plans to proceed with it is not fully clear. But the Israeli government appears to calculate that by heaping even greater pressure on Gaza’s already immiserated people, it can force Hamas to release some or all of the 58 hostages the group still holds (between 21 and 24 are believed to be alive, while the remainder are thought to be dead).

It also appears to believe that by stopping what it alleges is Hamas’s use of aid flows for financial gain and political leverage, the group can be stripped of its ability to keep fighting and to rule Gaza, with Israel making far fewer concessions than were stipulated in the January ceasefire deal, which it broke on 18 March. (That deal’s first phase saw Hamas release Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, Israeli troops leave parts of Gaza and humanitarian aid increase; rather than move to its second phase, which would have entailed more hostage-prisoner swaps, a full Israeli withdrawal and a negotiated end to war, Netanyahu chose to relaunch the fighting.)

Today, Israel proposes only a certain number of days’ truce in exchange for a certain number of hostages. Its government seems to hope that if the military campaign does not force Hamas to capitulate, an uproar from Gaza’s suffering population will. In the longer term, it expects thousands of the group’s Gaza-based leaders and fighters to go into exile, while the remainder would disarm and disband.

The prime minister heralds the operation as an “intense entry” into Gaza; his far-right coalition partners, including Finance Minister and Deputy Defence Minister Bezalel Smotrich, bluntly call it a “conquest”. At the very least, it would be a return to Israel’s direct occupation of Gaza, as existed in the strip from 1967 until 2005 and as still exists in much of the West Bank.

But it could also go further. An official bureau, approved by the Israeli government but still vague in its details, is encouraging “voluntary emigration” of Gaza’s residents to as-yet-undetermined third countries. The term is a crude euphemism, given that Israel itself has made the strip all but uninhabitable, thus rendering the Palestinians’ proposed departure anything but voluntary. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers are clamouring to be allowed to resettle a newly depopulated Gaza.

Mounting Risks and Opposition

The Gideon’s Chariots plan faces pushback, as does the U.S. aid delivery scheme. Notwithstanding Israeli determination to remove Hamas from power, the army’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, has made clear the risks and limitations of a new escalation: primarily, that it endangers the hostages, whose freedom the army sees as its most urgent goal.

Its concern stands in contrast to the statements of the Netanyahu government, whose more overt priority is defeating Hamas even at the hostages’ expense. Hamas’s surprise release of Alexander on 12 May, apparently as a good-will gesture to the Trump administration, exposed the costs of the Israeli government’s tactics, which have evinced a preference for force over negotiation.

Even as it prepares for Gideon’s Chariots, Israel’s military leadership remains wary of what an indefinite operation with no clear endpoint might entail and how high the cost might be. The army is already beginning to suffer higher casualty rates as it enters denser urban spaces; five soldiers were killed in the past week alone. Most of the Israeli public has been indifferent to Palestinian suffering, but the army fears that scenes of starvation could incriminate commanders and soldiers in future war crimes investigations conducted abroad. It is also cognisant of the declining rate of reservists showing up for duty due to war fatigue and public anger about the government’s relegation of the hostage question.

Aid providers so far view the proposed solution as harmful. Israel and the U.S. charge that Hamas is stealing and diverting aid, but UN agencies refute this claim, stressing that they already have “end-to-end” systems in place to avoid that happening. Crisis Group interviews indicate that criminal groups – suppressed by Hamas authorities during most of the war to date as well during as the January ceasefire – are the primary impediment to aid distribution within Gaza, opportunistically profiting from the disorder.

The IPC assesses that the aid scheme could avert what it identifies as a “critical risk” of famine in Gaza, yet it would still likely leave about a quarter of the population starving; an expansion of military operations or continuation of the blockade would lead to famine. With one in five Gazans estimated to be starving already, according to the IPC, and the entire strip facing acute food insecurity and malnutrition, drip-feeding aid will not reverse months of harm caused by food, water and medical deprivation.

Israel will also have to contend with mounting international opposition. UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned Israel’s new plan as “a dead end – totally intolerable in the eyes of international law and history”. Governments are growing more vocal, with several European capitals warning that the plan would “cross yet another line”.

The Netherlands has called on the European Union to review its Association Agreement with Israel, citing the latter’s total blockade as a violation of international humanitarian law; the EU Foreign Affairs Council is set to discuss the matter on 20 May. The Trump administration, which has hitherto shown little concern for Palestinian suffering in Gaza, now makes the case that “the most important danger is people starving to death” and has urged the UN and NGOs to get on board with its new aid plan. Even so, humanitarian agencies have roundly rejected the U.S. scheme, insisting that they will not participate.

Lastly, the plan would create new operational risks. Israel has been attacking Hamas’s governing apparatus, including police and civil servants, who had continued performing their functions in coordination with Gaza’s clans. Order among the hungry, displaced population has accordingly deteriorated. Israeli troops are not likely to be able to restore it.

Nor are private foreign contractors, who will be mistrusted by a society that will view them as an extension of Israel’s military occupation. Hamas fighters and other armed groups, which have largely gone underground amid Israel’s aerial bombardment, may escalate their guerrilla campaign in the vicinity of the “secure distribution sites”, which will be staffed by the contractors and ringed by Israeli soldiers. Weakened as Hamas is, it is unlikely that the new offensive will eradicate the group, which appears to be bracing for an asymmetric war of attrition and continues to insist on a permanent end to the war in ceasefire talks.

Past Time for the World to Act

Though the IPC has made no formal famine declaration as yet, Gaza is being starved. At least 57 people, most of them children, have reportedly died of starvation since the war’s resumption in March, with thousands more at imminent risk. Looting of surviving food stocks, along with theft and violence among residents, is rising sharply as hungry families grow ever more desperate. Mass starvation will almost certainly progress to famine under a continued, complete blockade, and significant risks remain even if the Israeli plan proceeds exactly as described.

The overt weaponisation of food and aid, with what has been at least until now a tacit green light from Washington, comes on top of a war that has left at least 52,000 Palestinians killed, perhaps many more, nearly 119,000 wounded and Gaza’s hospitals and health system wrecked, in addition to the massive destruction of property and the immeasurable psychological harm inflicted on an entire society.

The plan to corral as many as 2 million Palestinians into “sanitised” zones, and then to sustain them indefinitely on survival rations, promises only more privation, misery and death. Those excluded from the first phase of the inadequate aid distribution may not survive long enough to benefit from the promised expansion. In short, the stage is set either for forced displacement or for a prolonged period of mass internment, with a high risk of mass death from starvation and disease, barely avoiding famine in the best of cases.

It is long past time for the world’s governments, especially Israel’s friends, to not merely signal outrage or concern, but take active measures to restrain the Netanyahu government. The U.S. is the prime mover in this regard. President Trump is visiting Gulf monarchies in the coming days. While extracting a statement from Trump on the continued viability of the two-state solution, as Gulf Arab leaders reportedly intend to try doing, would be an important step, the priority has to be finding a quick end to the suffering in Gaza. Arab leaders should seek, even if behind closed doors, to persuade Israel’s superpower patron that improvised stopgap measures are not enough.

There are ways to end the war, to secure the release of Israel’s hostages – more than 150 of whom have already been freed via negotiations – and to guarantee Israelis’ and Palestinians’ safety that do not entail starving and holding hostage an entire population in Gaza. Indeed, just before returning to the White House in January, Trump helped push Netanyahu into a ceasefire that offered one such path. Now, Alexander’s release, loosening Netanyahu’s chokehold on negotiations, if only for the moment, reaffirms the utility of serious talks. If Israel’s plan is allowed to proceed, it will risk immensely more death and destruction in Gaza. It will chip away at Israel’s already precarious standing across the Middle East and further corrode Israeli society itself. Israel’s closest friends should be the most alarmed by that prospect.

Disclaimer

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of CEMAS Board.

Buffer zones and annexation: Israel's new military strategy in Gaza

Buffer zones and annexation: Israel's new military strategy in Gaza

The New Arab, London, 17 April 2025

In-depth: Israel has changed military tactics since reneging on the ceasefire deal, with a new focus on expanding buffer zones in Gaza and annexing land.

Since Israel resumed its war on the Gaza Strip on 18 March following a hiatus of nearly two months following the ceasefire deal agreed on 19 January, Israeli forces have adopted different operational methods and field tactics from those employed during the first stage of the war.

The second and third phases of the truce deal would have led to an end to the war, but Israel reneged on the agreement.

The current strategy of the Israeli military is predominantly centred on expanding what Israel calls the buffer zone in Gaza and annexing additional territory in the coastal enclave.

Early on in the war, which began in October 2023 following Hamas's attack, Israel relied on aerial and artillery bombardment, as well as extensive assassination operations targeting leading figures in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), as well as government staff and emergency committee workers.

With Israel's ground invasion in late October 2023, its forces were deployed in Gaza's eastern regions in order to enter the rest of the Strip from these areas. This, however, was largely avoided during the first phase of the war due to fears of the defensive capacity of Palestinian armed groups in those areas at that stage.

Now, Israel is following a different approach - penetrating into various areas in the east of the Gaza Strip along the border from north to south. These areas were originally part of the security buffer zone, with low population densities.

It appears that Israeli forces are seeking to squeeze Gaza's already limited territory to increase pressure on Palestinian fighters and the civilian population by encroaching on more land and annexing it to the buffer zone. At the same time, Israeli forces appear to be avoiding engaging directly with Palestinian armed groups.

Expanding the buffer zone

"Since the resumption of the aggression, ground military operations have focused on establishing and expanding buffer zones in the northern and southern Gaza Strip, exceeding a kilometre in depth along the eastern border, and from there, gradually encroaching into the landmass of the Strip," Ahmed Al-Tanani, director of the Arab Centre for Strategic Studies and Research, said.

Tanani says the Israeli army is referring to these operations as "deepening the buffer zones and expanding security control".

Speaking to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, The New Arab's Arabic-language sister edition, he said the Israeli army "isn't rushing to move into the urban areas deeper in the Gaza Strip, where clashes could be expected, but is moving very slowly. There appears to be a great deal of caution to avoid casualties in its ranks".

He points out that "the movement of Israeli vehicles around the Beit Hanoun and Shujaiya areas (north Gaza) is still taking place in exposed areas and within the bounds of areas the occupation [Israel] considers relatively safe and free from resistance forces".

Regarding the current mode of ground operations, Tanani says they "contrast with the prevailing pattern the occupation army's extensive ground manoeuvres took from the beginning of the war".

He says this change can be understood "in light of what Israeli Defence Minister Yisrael Katz and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said recently about controlling territory in Gaza as a means to pressure the resistance […] on the basis that the loss of land and the reduction of the area of the Gaza Strip will deal a huge moral and political blow to the resistance and society in the Strip".

Tanani believes that expanding Gaza's buffer zone is inseparable from Israel's intention to deepen the occupation. "The occupation's strategic operational behaviour intersects with the Israeli military's security strategy that crystallised after 7 October 2023, which is based on the idea of setting up multilayered border zones."

He says this idea "entails a physical presence in (enemy) territory, which includes establishing permanent bases and expanding field control operations in a way that will narrow the new security zone along the border. This is what has been done in Lebanon and Syria and is now being implemented in the Gaza Strip".

Writer and political researcher Mohammed al-Akhras believes Israel "has relaunched its war on the Gaza Strip with a different mentality and methodology than previously, as its mode of combat this time bears new characteristics in terms of the nature of the military pressure being applied and where [it's being applied]".

He explained that Israel is now focused on targeting government infrastructure and civilian and field workers in an attempt to shake the confidence of those who support Palestinian armed groups and exact a toll on their support base by cementing a reality of defeat and mental exhaustion.

"The current Israeli military effort isn't aimed solely at achieving concrete gains in the field, but is also being deployed to exert political pressure on the resistance's decision-makers, with the aim of extracting concessions related to the prisoners' file (Israeli hostages) - not for the purpose of ending the war - but rather to impose a new and permanent political reality on the Gaza Strip," Akhras added.

There are numerous political calculations tied to Israel's plans for expanding the buffer zone in Gaza and the annexation of additional territories, according to the analyst.

"The occupation views the hostage issue as an obstacle to the enactment of its political projects and a vision for the post-war phase. Therefore, it is currently adopting a policy of manifold pressure, characterised by extreme caution against direct engagement, and is striving to impose continuing war but with the lowest cost possible to itself."

He believes Israel "is attempting through this approach to wage a war […] with the entire cost being laid on the resistance and Palestinian society, which reflects a new war philosophy, based on attrition against one side only".

Hussam al-Dajani, a political science professor at the Ummah University in Gaza, says "the Israeli occupation is systematically implementing a plan aimed at destroying the basic foundations of life in the Gaza Strip, which will increase opportunities for it to carry out its plan of forced expulsion in all its forms. This is a continuation of its ethnical cleansing policy, in flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law".

He explained that Israeli forces are keen to reduce the chances of direct clashes with Palestinian fighters by relying heavily on air and naval forces and artillery bombardment from outside the zones of engagement, without penetrating deeply into densely populated areas.

According to Dajani, this strategy aims to "prevent the resistance from directly targeting the invading forces and avoiding human losses which could provoke an angry reaction within Israeli society, as has happened in previous rounds".

Israel, he added, is seeking to minimise its human losses while at the same time preventing Palestinian fighters from achieving any victories in the field that would boost the morale of the Palestinian people.

This comes as Israel works "to achieve its central goal of destroying all aspects of life, forcing Palestinians to leave, and emptying Gaza of its inhabitants".

Dajani says this will "enable the occupation to control the Strip's natural resources, most notably gas, in addition to further entrenching its geographic and political hegemony".

This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition. To read the original article.

Translated by Rose Chacko

This article is taken from our Arabic sister publication, Al-Araby Al Jadeed and mirrors the source's original editorial guidelines and reporting policies. Any requests for correction or comment will be forwarded to the original authors and editors.

Disclaimer

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of CEMAS Board.