The new phase of genocide

US envoy Steve Witkoff has announced that the US and Israelis are going ahead with the second phase of their ‘ceasefire’ plan in Gaza. He said that the new phase would entail, “moving from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction.”

 

This means very little to the Palestinian people who are still being killed daily by Israeli forces and are enduring life-threatening hardship as a result of the ongoing aid blockade. 

 

The Israelis didn’t implement most of the provisions in the first round of the ceasefire agreement — aid has been throttled, the Rafah crossing has not reopened and bombing by the military is ongoing. 

 

The Israelis also continue to expand their area of control within the borders amounting to a takeover of more than 50 percent of the land. 

 

There is little expectation among Gazans that this will change with the new phase of the ceasefire agreement. 

 

As many human rights groups have stated, the genocide against the Palestinians never ended, it has simply been replaced by new methods and means. This isn’t surprising. The Israeli state has been explicit from the beginning — they intend to remove or kill every Palestinian in the strip. 

 

Israel's far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, for example, has stated publicly that Israel intends to take all the land in Gaza and has called the new land grab a”real estate bonanza”. 

 

As Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine stated, “The so-called peace plan is allowing Israel to ‘finish the job’.”

 

Since the first phase of the plan was implemented Israel has violated the agreement 1,200 times killing more than 450 Palestinians directly and destroying more than 2,500 buildings. 

 

The Israelis have also created the conditions that will result in even more death. According to Save the Children, at least 7 children and 24 adults have been killed by the cold and the lack of adequate shelter. 

 

The Israelis have continued their blockade on humanitarian aid meaning that proper shelter and heating fuel has been denied to the people as they face a brutal winter and continuous storms. 

 

Indeed, Israel has not only continued its blockade, they have now banned 37 aid agencies including groups like Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders from operating in Gaza.

 

This amounts to social murder — deliberately depriving people of the essentials to sustain life.

 

Doctors in Gaza have said that they are woefully undersupplied in key medications and equipment. 

 

The Gaza health ministry said “Around 54 percent of essential medicines are unavailable and 40 percent of the drugs for surgeries and emergency care are missing.” Specifically there has been no supply of crucial antibiotics, IV solutions or surgical material allowed in since the ceasefire.

 

The UN has reported that more than 9,000 children were hospitalized for acute malnutrition each month.

 

And medical evacuations have slowed to a trickle with hundreds dying before they can get to a proper medical facility. Hani Isleem from Doctors without borders authored a report looking at medical evacuations. He said, “Officially, around 900 patients registered for medical evacuation have died before they could be evacuated and the true number is likely much higher.”

 

The new propaganda war 

 

This ‘ceasefire’ plan was never anything more than a ruse to dampen opposition to the genocide and to buy time to Israel to reframe the narrative as support for the zionist state collapses. 

 

The Israeli Foreign Ministry recently conducted a study that found growing supermajorities in most European countries that oppose the genocide in Gaza. In an attempt to reframe the debate — they have completely lost the argument on the genocide itself — they are urging ‘influencers’ and supporters to pivot to spreading Islamophobia as a means of trying to win more people to their side. 

 

The link between the far-right in the west and the zionists is clearer by the day. 

 

Meanwhile the Canadian state continues to send weapons to Israel. Despite assurances from the Liberals that they halted shipments, Canadian weapons companies are using a loophole that allows them to send arms through the US to the Israelis. 

 

The Arms Embargo Now campaign continues to unearth the extent of the complicity by Canadian companies in arming the genocide. Corporations here are selling everything from bullets to explosives to aircraft parts that are destined to be used against the people of Gaza. 

 

The arms embargo campaign remains one of the key levers for people in Canada to concretely oppose the genocide. 

 

This ceasefire is doing the work that the Israelis and the US backers intended. It has pushed Gaza off the front page. But we need to keep up the fight. The genocide has radicalized millions around the world and become a central fault-line. Either you are with the Imperialists and their mass killing machine or you are for peace and solidarity. 

 

For more info and to sign onto the campaign for an arms embargo see: https://armsembargonow.ca/