Israel’s return to war is a prelude to mass expulsion
Palestinians at the scene of an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, 18 March 2025
Ben Rieff writes in +972 on 19 March 2025:
Two months after agreeing to a ceasefire deal that should have ended the war, Israel has resumed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip with an intensity that recalls the earliest days of the onslaught. Israeli airstrikes have killed over 400 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more since the early hours of this morning, and the army has ordered thousands of residents of the towns and neighborhoods spanning the perimeter of the Strip to flee their homes.
Israel has again fully sealed off Rafah Crossing to medical evacuees, while Egyptian and American forces that had replaced Israeli troops in the Netzarim Corridor as part of the ceasefire are withdrawing from their posts. Dismembered bodies are piling up in hospitals once more, with medical staff across the Strip warning that their facilities are at full capacity.
We know what comes next: more airstrikes and evacuation orders and likely another ground invasion which, if we are to take Israeli ministers at their word, promises to be more extensive and lethal than the last. “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement earlier today. “With God’s help,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich echoed, “[the renewed assault] will look completely different from what has been done so far.” Former National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who quit the government over the ceasefire deal, appears set to triumphantly return to office.