Are Netanyahu and Trump writing the final chapter?

This is the final chapter of genocide. It is the final, bloody push to expel Palestinians from Gaza. No food, no medicine, no shelter, no clean water, no electricity.

Israel is rapidly turning Gaza into a site of human misery, where Palestinians are being killed by the hundreds, and soon again by the thousands and tens of thousands, or forced to leave never to return.

This final chapter marks the end of the Israeli lies: the lie of the two-state solution. The lie that Israel respects the laws of war that protect civilians. The lie that Israel bombs hospitals and schools only because they are used by Hamas. The lie that Hamas uses civilians as human shields, while Israel forces Palestinian captives into tunnels and buildings that are likely to be booby-trapped ahead of its forces.

The lie that Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad are responsible—often allegedly due to errant Palestinian rockets—for the destruction of hospitals, UN buildings, or Palestinian casualties.

The lie that humanitarian aid to Gaza is being blocked because Hamas seizes trucks or smuggles weapons. The lie that Israeli children were beheaded, or that Palestinians committed gang rape against Israeli women.

The lie that 75% of the tens of thousands killed in Gaza were Hamas "terrorists." The lie that Hamas, because it was rearming and recruiting fighters, bears responsibility for the collapse of the ceasefire agreement.

The naked face of genocidal Israel is now exposed. It has ordered the evacuation of the residents of northern Gaza, where desperate Palestinians are camped out amid the rubble of their homes.

What is coming now is mass starvation—the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on March 21 that it had only six days of flour supplies—death from diseases caused by contaminated water and food, and dozens of people killed and wounded daily under a barrage of rockets, shells, and bullets.

Nothing will function: bakeries, water and sewage treatment plants, hospitals—Israel bombed the damaged Turkish Palestine Hospital on March 21—schools, aid distribution centers, or clinics. Fewer than half of the 53 ambulances operated by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society are operational due to fuel shortages. Soon, there will be nothing left.

Israel's message is clear: Gaza will not be livable. Leave or die.

Since Tuesday, when Israel violated the ceasefire with intense bombing, more than 700 Palestinians, including 200 children, have been killed. In just 24 hours, 400 Palestinians have been killed. And this is just the beginning. None of the Western powers, including the United States, which supplies Israel with weapons, intends to stop these massacres.

The images from Gaza during the nearly 16 months of devastating attacks were horrific. But what's to come will be even worse. It will rival the worst war crimes of the 20th century, including mass starvation, massacres, and the Nazis' razing of Warsaw Ghetto in 1943.

October 7 marked a dividing line between an Israeli policy aimed at subjugating and oppressing Palestinians, and a policy calling for their extermination and displacement from historic Palestine.

What we are witnessing now parallels a historical moment similar to what happened after the deaths of some 200 soldiers under George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. After that humiliating defeat, it was decided to exterminate the Native Americans or to herd the survivors into prison camps, later called "reservations," where thousands died of disease and lived in misery and despair under the watchful eyes of armed occupiers. Expect the same for the Palestinians in Gaza, where they will likely be buried in one of the hells on earth and then forgotten.

"Residents of Gaza, this is your final warning," threatened Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant. "The first Sinwar destroyed Gaza, and the second Sinwar will destroy it completely. The air force's strikes against Hamas terrorists were just the first step. Things will get more difficult, and you will pay the full price. The evacuation of residents from combat zones will soon begin again. Return the hostages and get rid of Hamas, and another path will open for you, including evacuation to other parts of the world for those who wish. The alternative is complete destruction."

The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was designed to be implemented in three phases. The first, a 42-day cessation of hostilities, stipulates that Hamas will release 33 Israeli hostages captured on October 7, 2023—including women, the elderly, and the sick—in exchange for approximately 21,000 Palestinian men, women, and children held by Israel (Israel had released approximately 1,900 Palestinians as of March 18).

Hamas has released 147 hostages so far, including eight who are deceased. Israel says 59 Israelis are still being held by Hamas, 35 of whom it believes are dead.

Under the agreement, Israeli forces will withdraw from populated areas in Gaza on the first day of the truce. On the seventh day, displaced Palestinians will be allowed to return to northern Gaza. Israel will allow the entry of 600 aid trucks daily carrying food and medicine.

The second phase, which was supposed to be negotiated on the sixteenth day of the ceasefire, included the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. Israel would complete its withdrawal from Gaza, while maintaining a presence in some areas of the Philadelphi Corridor, which runs along the Gaza-Egypt border. It would also hand over control of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt.

The third phase was devoted to negotiating a permanent end to the war and the reconstruction of Gaza.

But Israel has consistently signed agreements—such as the Camp David Accords and the Oslo Accords—that include phases and timetables, only to violate them after achieving what it wanted in the first phase. This pattern has never changed.

Israel refused to abide by the second phase. It blocked the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza two weeks ago, a violation of the agreement. It also killed 137 Palestinians during the first phase of the truce, including nine people—three of them journalists—when Israeli drones attacked a relief team on March 15 in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza.

Israel resumed its heavy bombardment of Gaza on March 18, while most Palestinians were asleep or preparing for the pre-dawn meal of Ramadan. Israel will not cease its attacks even if all hostages are released—the stated reason for resuming the bombing and blockade.

The Trump administration, along with Democratic Party leaders like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, is encouraging these massacres. They attack critics of the genocide as "anti-Semites" who must be silenced, criminalized, or deported, while they pour billions of dollars in arms into Israel.

Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza is the culmination of its colonial settlement project and its apartheid state. The seizure of all of historic Palestine—including the West Bank, which Israel is soon expected to annex—and the displacement of all Palestinians has always been the goal of the Zionist movement.

Israel's worst atrocities occurred during the 1948 and 1967 wars, when it seized vast swaths of historic Palestine, killed thousands of Palestinians, and forcibly displaced hundreds of thousands. Between these wars, the slow-motion theft of land, settlement expansion, bloody attacks, and ongoing ethnic cleansing continued in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

That calculated dance is over. This is the end. What we are witnessing now eclipses all historical attacks on Palestinians. Israel’s insane genocidal dream—the Palestinians’ nightmare—is about to come true. It will forever shatter the myth that we, or any Western country, respect the rule of law or defend human rights, democracy, and the “virtues” of Western civilization. Israel’s barbarism is a reflection of us. We may not realize it, but the rest of the world does.

About Al Jazeera

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The images from Gaza during the nearly 16 months of devastating attacks were horrific. But what's to come will be even worse. It will rival the worst war crimes of the 20th century, including mass starvation, massacres, and the Nazis' razing of Warsaw Ghetto in 1943.