Six months ago, Benjamin Netanyahu said the war in Gaza was on the verge of ending. Yet one year after the Hamas attacks of October 7, Israel’s bombardment continues. Among the latest atrocities was the mid-September airstrike on a school in central Gaza that was being used as a shelter. Given the reported carnage at the scene, it’s likely that a two-thousand-pound bomb provided by the United States was used—hardly the precision weapon Israel claims to deploy so as to avoid civilian casualties. Eighteen people were killed, including women, children, and six aid workers. According to the Aid Worker Security Database, of the nearly four hundred humanitarian workers killed worldwide since last fall, more than three hundred have died in Gaza and the West Bank. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft says that since November 2023, there have been fourteen lethal attacks against humanitarian groups that had provided location coordinates to Israeli defense forces in order to avoid being struck, suggesting that Israel is actually targeting them purposely.
Netanyahu is clearly bent on prolonging the war, on his terms. Perhaps, as the former head of Israel’s Gaza Division has contended, it’s to strengthen his political position and delay a corruption trial that could land him in prison. Perhaps Netanyahu hopes to keep the war going with Donald Trump back in the White House. He knows Trump couldn’t care less about the suffering of Gazans and will let him do whatever he wants without the pesky “conditions” on aid that the Biden administration threatens. Or perhaps Netanyahu is still resisting a ceasefire because his “day after” plan for Gaza—and, indeed, for the West Bank—is the permanent displacement of the Palestinian population and the annexation of their land.
At the end of August, Israel launched its largest assault on the occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada. Over nine days, according to Jewish Currents, hundreds of troops, accompanied by tanks and bulldozers and supported by air strikes, killed thirty-six Palestinians in several towns and at a refugee camp. Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz called the assault “a war in all relevant senses.” He says Israel must use its approach in Gaza as a model for action in the West Bank. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised more: “We are mowing the lawn but the moment will come when we pull out the roots.” Since the war in Gaza started, nearly seven hundred Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers. Together with forced displacements, restrictions on movement, and suspension of work permits, the new military assaults point to the “risk of the genocide leaking into the West Bank,” in the words of Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories.
Kamala Harris continues to stress her support for Israel while expressing greater sympathy for the Palestinian people than Joe Biden has. She has called for a ceasefire and acknowledged the suffering in Gaza and the West Bank; she says she backs efforts to help Palestinians “realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.” But her remarks on the campaign trail haven’t ventured far beyond these generalities—and her rhetoric is increasingly inadequate to reality. Netanyahu first became prime minister in 1996 and has held the position for sixteen years. He and his allies on the Far Right have long been committed to expanding Israeli settlements and depriving Palestinians of basic rights. If anything, those efforts seem to be intensifying, prompting legitimate charges of ethnic cleansing and other war crimes. Netanyahu isn’t ending the war, and he isn’t letting go of power. Being Israel’s trusted ally does not require the United States to be Netanyahu’s protector, much less his enabler.
