Gaza Between the Illusion of Calm and the Reality of Ongoing Genocide

The return of intense Israeli shelling on the Gaza Strip on Saturday morning was not a surprising or sudden event that could be isolated from its political and military context. Rather, it came as a new episode in a continuous path of organized aggression that has not truly stopped since the announcement of the ceasefire. The massacres that resulted in dozens of martyrs and wounded, and the targeting of displaced persons' tents and refugee areas, confirm that the occupation has never viewed the truce as a political or moral commitment, but rather as a tool to manage the conflict and control the pace of killing according to its own calculations.
The Israeli narrative that accompanied this escalation, which claimed that the raids were in response to Palestinian violations, is nothing more than a repeated version of a justificatory discourse that Tel Aviv has accustomed itself to using to cover up its crimes. The claim of targeting leaders and military structures does not explain the shelling of residential neighborhoods, the burning of displaced persons' tents, or the deaths of children and women. Nor does it justify expanding the scope of targeting to include areas that are supposed to be safe according to any humanitarian or legal logic.
At the heart of this escalation lies an internal Israeli crisis related to the failure to achieve war objectives. The ceasefire was imposed on Benjamin Netanyahu's government under international pressure before it succeeded in eliminating resistance leaders, disarming them, or imposing a political surrender equation. With the truce entering a stalemate phase between its first and second stages, fears escalated within the Israeli security establishment that the resistance might have used this time to reorganize its ranks and strengthen its presence, which made the option of escalation seem to Tel Aviv as a means to regain the initiative and break what it considers a comfortable situation for the resistance.
More dangerously, the shelling focused on areas outside direct Israeli military control, which now contain the largest population density after waves of forced evacuation. This reflects a clear policy aimed at transforming these areas into uninhabitable zones, pushing residents towards further displacement and forced migration, in full harmony with the vision of the Netanyahu government, which has never abandoned the idea of emptying Gaza of its inhabitants or dividing it geographically and demographically.
This escalation coincides with a sensitive international political moment, as it comes at a time when US President Donald Trump is seeking to market his plan for Gaza by talking about a peace council or an international stabilization force, amidst his administration's focus on rallying against Iran. At this specific time, Israel appears to be trying to impose new facts on the ground before any political arrangements are crystallized, so that any future path is entered from a position of strength, not from the position of failure that the war produced.
As for the talk of mutual violations, it falls before the fact that the occupation has committed more than fourteen hundred violations since the announcement of the truce, which confirms that the ceasefire was nothing but an empty title, used by the occupation to alleviate international pressure, without any real intention to stop the aggression. The shelling never stopped, but its intensity and tools changed, while the goal remained constant: to exhaust Palestinian society and break its will.
In contrast, the role of regional and international mediators is limited to statements of condemnation and calls for restraint, positions that have become familiar and do not constitute a real deterrent to the occupation. The absence of pressure tools, and leaving Israel without political or legal cost, gives it a green light to continue the escalation, and transforms mediation from an effective role to a formal function of managing the crisis, not solving it.
In conclusion, what is happening in Gaza today is not a fleeting violation of the ceasefire, but rather a confirmation that the occupation is using the truce as an additional weapon in its war, and that talk of peace or stability amidst shelling, displacement, and siege is nothing but a political illusion. Gaza is not being shelled because it violated the agreement, but because it stood firm and was not defeated, and because Israel has not yet learned that force alone does not create security or eliminate a people who refuse to surrender.