Israel–Gaza:
A Step Further into Horror

Aug 18, 2025

This article is translated and excerpted from the August 13, 2025, issue #2976 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.

On August 7, the head of the Israeli government announced, before a dumbfounded public, his plan for the military occupation of Gaza, or at least the small quarter of the territory that his army does not yet control. This would involve the forced displacement of the one million inhabitants surviving in the ruins to a hypothetical zone beyond the reach of bombing, drones and tank strafing.

The next day, the security cabinet approved the plan. This reportedly took several hours of discussion. Netanyahu’s entourage supports him in his enterprise of death, and far-right ministers demand he take it even further. But an increasingly large fraction of the population demands that he stop his war—a majority, according to the latest polls. Army chief Eyal Zamir even took an official position opposing Netanyahu’s plan. He did this in the name of the 49 hostages still held prisoner, the refusal of many soldiers and reservists to continue the war, and the futility, in his view, of such an intervention on the pretext of eradicating Hamas, which is already without forces. But, apart from a call to order from the Minister of Defense, Zamir’s warning had no effect on the governing band of criminals.

In Israel, demonstrations are multiplying. On August 9, the day after Netanyahu’s plan was approved, 60,000 people protested in Tel Aviv, according to the organizers. The families of hostages, both living and dead, denounced Netanyahu’s contempt for human life, not only of their loved ones, but also of the Palestinians in Gaza, condemned to death by starvation or machine-gun fire. According to the mother of one hostage, Einav Zangauker: “Most people want to end the war and repatriate everyone. The only thing Netanyahu has to do is propose a comprehensive agreement to end the war, one that is real and achievable. But Netanyahu has already decided to kill them and condemn us to eternal war."

Corrupted, pursued by the law, clinging to his post in a headlong rush to catastrophe, Prime Minister Netanyahu pretended to respond to the protests. Saying he had no "choice but to finish the job and definitively defeat Hamas," he denounced a “worldwide campaign of lies" which he had the cynicism to compare to those that preceded the massacre of the Jews in 1939–1945!

The government’s plan can only lead to a worsening of the disaster, for the Palestinians of Gaza, massacred or deported, and those of the West Bank, driven from their villages by ongoing colonization. Nor are the millions of Israelis immune, Jewish or not. They have been reduced to the status of jailers of a people that refuses to die.