Israel’s genocide was only on pause: for Palestinians woken on Monday night by a vicious wave of airstrikes, the resumption was no less shocking. More than 400 people – many of them children – were slaughtered in a matter of hours, in an assault that reportedly received the “green light” from Donald Trump. This mayhem was swiftly followed by evacuation orders – that is, forced displacement – raising the possibility of renewed ground operations. Israel’s excuse? A confected claim that Hamas hasn’t observed the terms of January’s so-called ceasefire agreement – the terms of which Israel itself has broken over and over again.
In the wake of the attacks, CNN reported that Israel’s onslaught threw “doubt on the fragile ceasefire”. Orwellian doesn’t even begin to describe such framing. As it is, there was no “ceasefire”: not if your definition is firing ceasing. A single Israeli has been reported to have died in Gaza during the “ceasefire”: a contractor killed by the Israeli army, who mistook him for a Palestinian. A reported 150 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during this “ceasefire”, and dozens others butchered in the West Bank.
