Ploy to Erase Palestine
R Arun Kumar
IN a meeting with US President Donald Trump on July 7, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that “the US and Israel are working with other countries who would give Palestinians a better future”. He added, “We are working very closely with the United States to identify countries that are ready to realise what they’ve always said – that they want to offer the Palestinians a better future. I believe we are getting close to securing the involvement of several such countries”.
These words reveal the shameless mindset of an annexationist and occupier. Israel’s objective in this aggression is clear: to expel all Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank and establish a “Greater Israel”. This amounts to a complete erasure of Palestine from the map of the world. They want the global community to forget how Israel was carved out of Palestine through a UN Resolution after the Second World War in 1948 and how, ever since, it has steadily expanded its territory at the expense of the Palestinian people.
While people in many countries are protesting Israeli aggression, far-right forces around the world continue to encourage Israel to pursue its aggression. The BJP-led central government in India is tacitly aligned with Israel. These actors are united by the interests of multinational corporations that support Israel’s expansionist plans. The 2025 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, titled From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide, states: “Israel’s genocide continues because it is lucrative for many”. The Report details how profit motives drive the “joint criminal enterprise of displacement, replacement, and mass violence.”
Several corporations are named as complicit in this criminal project – Lockheed Martin; Elbit Systems (which operates a joint venture with the Adani Group and manufactures drones in Hyderabad); Google (Alphabet Inc.); Amazon; Microsoft; IBM; Hewlett Packard; Caterpillar Inc.; HD Hyundai; Volvo Group; Chevron; BP; Booking.com; Airbnb; and financial giants BlackRock and Vanguard.
Netanyahu’s statement, made in the presence of Donald Trump, reflects their shared disdain for the recognition of a Palestinian State and the commitment to a two-State solution. What they are advocating, in effect, is a one-State solution: a Greater Israel. In their vision, Palestine should cease to exist. If that means annihilating all the Palestinians, so be it.
Over the past 22 months, Israel has continued its relentless genocidal military aggression against Palestine. This campaign began following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. While the initial justification for the offensive was the elimination of Hamas, Israel's actions have since extended far beyond that stated objective. It is now moving towards the full occupation of Palestine, including both Gaza and the West Bank.
As of July 10, 2025, in Gaza, 57,680 people have been killed, 137,409 wounded, and 14,000 reported missing. A child in Gaza is killed every 20 minutes. According to field research conducted by a team of university professors, 56.2 per cent of those killed were women, children, or the elderly. Between October 2023 and mid-2025, the Israeli military dropped an estimated 85,000 tonnes of bombs on the Gaza Strip – amounting to nearly 233 tonnes per square kilometre. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with an average of 5,967 people per square kilometre. This means Israel dropped 39 tonnes of explosives for every person living in Gaza. Such devastation defies any other definition of cruelty.
In the West Bank, nearly 1,000 Palestinians, including 202 children, have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers, with 9,230 more injured. Between October 2023 and July 2025, nearly 1,800 documented attacks occurred in the West Bank. These assaults resulted in at least 6,574 people being forcibly displaced and 3,091 Palestinian-owned structures demolished.
Israeli aggression has also extended to several other regions in West Asia. It has launched targeted attacks in Iran and carried out indiscriminate bombings in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. The human toll from these bombings and killings continues to rise with each passing day. A 12-day Israeli offensive on Iran in June 2025 alone resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 people. When all casualties across the region are considered – even based on conservative estimates – more than 65,000 people have lost their lives across West Asia due to Israeli aggression.
WIDESPREAD DESTRUCTION
Beyond the staggering human loss, Israel’s assault has displaced approximately 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, many of whom have been displaced multiple times. According to the United Nations (UN), nine out of every ten homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. Over 92 per cent of the region’s main roads have been obliterated.
More than 84 per cent of Gaza’s healthcare facilities have been reduced to rubble due to targeted bombings. Between October 7, 2023, and September 19, 2024, every hospital in Gaza was affected by Israeli attacks, with none remaining fully operational. Emergency, surgical, and intensive care departments are functioning under extreme conditions, with dangerously low supplies amid rising numbers of critically injured patients.
Nearly 70 per cent of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure has also been destroyed or severely damaged. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 88.8 per cent of Gaza’s schools have been hit by munitions or damaged since the start of the conflict.
Another critical but often overlooked impact of these attacks is the widespread destruction of livelihoods in both Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) released a statement on International Workers’ Day (May 1, 2025), highlighting the alarming surge in unemployment rates. According to the report, unemployment in Gaza rose from 45 per cent in October 2023 to 68 per cent by the end of 2024. Among young people aged 15 to 29, approximately 74 per cent were out of education, employment, or training.
In the West Bank, Israeli occupation and military operations have similarly devastated the local economy. The number of unemployed people there rose from about 183,000 in 2023 to 313,000 in 2024. Unemployment among participants in the labour force climbed to around 31 per cent in 2024, compared to 18 per cent the previous year.
There has been a deliberate targeting of agricultural areas in northern Gaza, which make up about one-third of the land cultivated with field crops, vegetables, and fruit trees. The PCBS estimates that the agricultural sector in Gaza is incurring losses of approximately $2 million per day as a result of the ongoing aggression. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the availability of livestock used for food has declined drastically. Sheep numbers have dropped to 36 percent of pre-war levels, goats to 39 percent, cattle to just 3.8 percent, and poultry (layers and broilers) to a mere 1.4 percent.
Israeli attacks have also destroyed more than one-third of Gaza’s irrigation infrastructure. Fishing, a key activity for supplementing both income and nutrition, has been severely impacted as well, with 70 per cent of Gaza’s fishing fleet destroyed.
Israel has closed all entry points for food imports and is deliberately blocking access to humanitarian food aid, thereby severely restricting the food supply reaching the population. In May 2025, the United Nations reported that “100 per cent of the population (in Gaza) were at risk of famine.” For more than two months – from February to April 2025 – Israel completely cut off all aid deliveries to Gaza.
“WEAPONISATION OF FOOD”
On May 26, 2025, with support from the United States, a private NGO called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was established to oversee aid distribution in Gaza. However, the UN and most donor countries boycotted the GHF due to its overtly partisan alignment with Israel and refused to cooperate with its operations. The UN condemned this as a “weaponisation of food” and labelled it a “war crime”.
Rather than allowing the UN to lead the humanitarian response, Israel continued to back the GHF. Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that since GHF began operating, “the Israeli military has shelled and shot Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points, leading to many fatalities.” Citing various reports, he noted: “Over 410 Palestinians have been killed as a result, while at least 93 others have also reportedly been killed by the Israeli army while attempting to approach the very few aid convoys from the UN and other humanitarian organisations.” According to him, more than 3,000 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli gunfire while trying to access food aid.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), strongly criticised Israel’s handling of aid, calling the GHF-run distribution centres “death traps that cost more lives than they save”.
Unmoved by the genocidal catastrophe unfolding in Palestine, far-right leaders, backed by the corporations, have openly called for the war to continue until “Greater Israel” is fully realised. In his address to the UN General Assembly in September 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a map outlining the territorial components of “Greater Israel.” The map made no provision for an independent Palestine or Lebanon, and it included the Golan Heights (currently Syrian territory) as part of Israel. The United States has shown no opposition to these expansionist ambitions. On the contrary, despite rhetoric around ceasefires, it continues to supply Israel with weapons and ammunition, thereby enabling the ongoing aggression and worsening the crisis of mass starvation and hunger-related deaths among the Palestinian population.
Israel is now operating with a single-minded goal: to seize control of all Palestinian territories. According to a report published by The Wall Street Journal on May 25, 2025, Israeli military sources stated their intention to occupy over 75 per cent of Gaza within the following two months (i.e., by July 2025). As of May 2025, Israel officially claims to already control more than 40 per cent of the Gaza Strip.
These sinister designs must not be allowed to succeed under any circumstances. Unless Israel is held accountable and stopped, there can be no peace in West Asia, or in the world. Standing in solidarity with Palestine and joining the struggle to end the war is not only essential for the survival of the Palestinian people, it is vital for the future of humanity. Above all else, it is a testament to our humanity.
