The escalation of genocide – by killings and starvation – in Gaza last week has coincided with continuous Israeli statements claiming significant breakthroughs in negotiations for ceasefire. This was preceded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that he had instructed his negotiating team in Doha not to return until an agreement was finalised.
What happened next was surprising – even to the Israelis themselves. The disruption of the negotiations and the escalation of threats did not, as usual, come from their side, but rather from the US envoy, Steve Wietkoff. On Thursday, he announced the withdrawal of the American delegation from the Gaza negotiations after receiving a response from Hamas, which, according to him, “showed no flexibility and that it did not act in good faith.” He added that Washington would now consider “other options for retrieving the hostages” and “trying to create a more stable environment for the residents of Gaza”!
As usual, Donald Trump echoed his envoy’s remarks, saying that “Hamas does not want an agreement” and that it “will be overthrown.” Netanyahu repeated the same line, talking about “examining alternatives for retrieving the hostages,” as if what is happening in Gaza is unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is as if the horrific atrocities taking place in Gaza have no connection to the negotiations – and as if Israel and the US haven’t already tried every possible method to overthrow Hamas or “retrieve the hostages.”
Netanyahu’s and his partners’ response to Wietkoff’s new statements reminds us of how the Israeli government previously received the outlandish ideas floated by President Donald Trump in February – like “owning Gaza and turning it into a Riviera.” Netanyahu used those ideas to escalate the mass killings of Palestinians. Once the Israeli army had exhausted its targets – homes, hospitals, mosques, and schools – the airstrikes began targeting displaced people’s tents. Then came the effort to subjugate the entire population of Gaza through a brutal famine, with starving civilians being picked off in aid distribution centres – killed not only by snipers and automatic weapons, but also with artillery!
This is happening against a backdrop of a shifting Western stance. France has announced a date for recognising the State of Palestine. Some European governments are also feeling pressure from their own populations and are attempting to play both sides. Take Britain, for example: while it led a statement signed by 28 countries to pressure Israel, its government also banned the organisation “Palestine Action,” drawing widespread criticism and ridicule. Germany has taken a similar approach, trying to distance itself from any positions that might seem hostile to Israel or exert pressure on it.
But if we connect the latest American stance with developments since May – particularly the US-Israeli cooperation to “privatise” the genocide via the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” – we can see the absence of Palestinians in Wietkoff’s statements not just as a way to frame them as a disposable “mass” to be relocated to Libya, Syria, or African nations (as some leaks suggest), but as a clear indication that starvation and mass extermination (what Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu described as “a race against time to erase and Judaize Gaza”) have become one of the key tools of negotiation with Hamas.
[Editorial Al-Quds Al-Araby]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque
