It’s hard to recall, given the unfathomable desperation now stalking Gaza, but for a fleeting moment earlier this year there was joy in the air among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returning to the rubble of their homes in north Gaza. ‘It is a festive day for us, as if we have been resurrected and now are entering paradise,” a young displaced man told Al-Jazeera in late January. ‘him. Most had been displaced repeatedly, pushed from one ‘safe zone’ to another, meagre belongings in tow; many separated from family and loved ones by the relentless bombing; the less fortunate had lost all or most of their families, or returned to the north orphaned, or having had limbs amputated. Hunger and malnutrition was rife.

The relief among Palestinians and the hope around the globe that the end of slaughter might be in sight detonated a crisis in the Israeli government. Ministers from the Zionist settler right resigned from Netanyahu’s cabinet, livid that their genocide was being cut short. Their outrage was intensified by clear indications—in the captive release ceremonies broadcast worldwide—that despite Israel’s relentless bombardment the armed Palestinian resistance remained unvanquished and unbowed.

Netanyahu had come around to ceasefire only reluctantly, and determined early on to sabotage any attempts to extend the pause. Despite Hamas’s offer to exceed what was required of them under terms of the initial exchange, the Israelis refused to engage in negotiations on phase two, which required them ‘to withdraw fully from Gaza and agree to permanently end the war’. It became increasingly clear that although they’d agreed a ceasefire deal under pressure, Netanyahu had never intended to comply.

There were ominous signs confirming this in Israeli provocations around fulfilling their obligations for releasing Palestinian detainees; more significantly, their pullback in Gaza coincided with dramatic intensification of IOF operations in the West Bank. As he has throughout negotiations, Netanyahu introduced new, humiliating conditions that he knew Hamas could not accept. The return to war was sealed when US mediator Steven Witkoff accepted Israel’s ultimatums as the basis for so-called ‘bridging proposals’—in effect, annulling the agreement that he himself had secured just weeks earlier.

The descent back into a war of extermination has been relentless ever since. Lavishly re-supplied by the Trump administration (on an expedited basis) two weeks earlier and supported by UK air power, Israel commenced an intensified bombing campaign in mid-March, killing more than 460 Gazans—overwhelmingly civilians—in the first 24 hours. The bombing—most of it carried out with 2000-pound US-supplied MK-84s—has been continuous, frequently targeting the tents of displaced civilians.

Everywhere the intensified bombing campaign is accompanied by mass starvation: since 2 March, ‘Israel has completely shut all crossings into the enclave, cutting off food, humanitarian aid, and commercial supplies’, in what the UN describes as a ‘deliberate decision to block all aid’ as a form of ‘collective punishment’ aimed at ‘pressuris[ing] Hamas.’ Al-Jazeera reports that at least 57 Palestinians have starved to death under the current blockade, and Euro-Med Monitor warns that ‘escalating famine in Gaza [has] reached catastrophic proportions’. The first two weeks of May saw a ‘sharp rise in adult death rates… alongside alarming levels of child mortality.’

Implementing ‘Trump’s Plan’?

It is in the context of this open withdrawal from any semblance of ceasefire negotiations that the ominous developments of the past week must be considered. The unanimous decision by Netanyahu’s cabinet to implement a new plan of ‘conquest’ to

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