Having reduced the Gaza Strip to rubble and starved thousands of children to the point that they resemble old people and no longer have the strength to walk or cry, the army has entered a new phase of the war.

In recent days, intense bombing has resumed. Houses, schools, marketplaces and refugee camps have been indiscriminately targeted and shelled, resulting in more than 460 casualties. And this Sunday, the Israeli army launched its tanks and bulldozers to conquer the Palestinian territory by land.

War operations are intensifying. Blockades and famine are being used as instruments of war. And they dare to use this tragic moment to tell us that negotiations are under way!

So, alongside the massacre, talks for a truce and possibly for ending the war are reportedly underway. It’s obvious that the negotiators in Dubai and Qatar are in no hurry! They’re not being bombarded. The Gazans have no say in the matter and can’t negotiate either with bombs or with starvation.

Even if Netanyahu and Hamas eventually sign a truce and engage in a process to put an end to the war, it won't mean the end of the ordeal for Palestinians.

By launching his ground invasion, Netanyahu's goal is to reoccupy and regain full control of the Gaza Strip. And it's certainly not to allow Palestinians to live there peacefully!

The goal of Netanyahu and the far-right with which he governs is to oust the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. They may not yet know exactly how to achieve this goal, and especially how to get their allies to accept it – particularly the United States – but this is what they are aiming for.

From the very beginning, the construction of the State of Israel has been a question of colonization and brutal deportation of Palestinians, that excludes any possibility of fraternal and egalitarian coexistence. For 77 years, the oppression of Palestinians and the seizing of their lands have remained virtually unabated, provoking ever more deadly clashes.

This cycle has dug an abyss of horror, death and bloodshed between the two peoples, boosting extremism on both sides. Israel's current leaders have taken this logic to its most extreme and barbaric forms.

Since October 7, 2023, they have become more powerful than ever in Israel. In the aftermath of the massacre, Jewish supremacists have vied with one another to find ideas to exterminate the Palestinians in Gaza, some suggesting the A-bomb solution, others a deadly virus. And some of their friends are in power!

The current situation is fraught with uncertainty. But for years, Israeli governments have been doing their utmost to destroy any possibility of a Palestinian state, whether in Gaza or the West Bank. And what is certain is that they have never been closer to achieving it.

Imperialist leaders and the United States in particular, have always supported the Zionist leaders’ policies, because they allow them to dominate the Middle East by force. They are the worthy heirs of those who colonized and wiped out so many peoples in the past. Therefore, we can't expect them to be moved by the massacre of Palestinians. Trump is only interfering in this war today to force Netanyahu to act more subtly.

Israelis can play a decisive role in changing the situation. More and more of them are denouncing Netanyahu’s war as madness for both Palestinians and Israelis. It's madness because, while it weakens Hamas today, it also ensures its future by producing, with each passing day, new recruits whose only goal will be revenge.

You cannot build a paradise by plunging others into hell. Peace cannot be built on a mountain of dead bodies or on the deportation of millions of people. It can only be built on the end to oppression and apartheid. This can only be achieved with the end of annexations and colonies and the recognition of equal rights for all peoples.

Fraternal coexistence between the Israeli people and the neighboring Arab peoples can only be reached successfully through a federation of the peoples of the Middle East. It means overthrowing all the vile people who, today, speak in the name of the peoples, both here and over there.

Nathalie Arthaud