The international community has truly illustrated its fragmented approach to both international law, order and human rights. Not only did the UN Security Council members vote the international community out of its usual process in favour of the US 20-point plan which places Gaza in the hands of President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The international community is now on a parallel wavelength that serves Israeli colonial interests. For while the attention is focused on the ceasefire, humanitarian aid and rebuilding Gaza (the latter merely a rhetorical clause), Netanyahu is adamant that the genocide will continue, on the same premises of eliminating and disarming Hamas.

Two years of genocide did not eliminate and disarm Hamas. Israeli Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs said that the Israeli government asked Trump for a 60-day period in which Hamas will be given the chance to disarm. Without disarming Hamas and demilitarising Gaza – the tunnels once again forming part of Israel’s security narrative – there would be no rebuilding in Gaza. “I’m hearing even now claims that Gaza’s reconstruction will be allowed before demilitarisation – this will not happen,” Netanyahu had stated during a televised press conference towards the end of January. Since then, Israel’s stance has not shifted. But the international community has not argued against, due to having incorporated the resistance movement into a security narrative that has nothing to do with the West, technically, since Hamas only focuses its resistance within colonised Palestine. 

Having the Qualitative Military Edge, the support of major Western governments in terms of weapons supply and surveillance, and yet needing another 60 days to demilitarise Gaza, is clearly contradictory if Netanyahu’s narrative is taken at face value. 

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Gaza’s destruction, as well as Israel’s military occupation over more than half of the territory, are Israel’s phase one, even though the international community has skipped ahead in its diplomatic phases. Phase two for Israel will claim more Palestinian lives and territory, stall for rebuilding Gaza until another ceasefire is reached which will be violated multiple times, and then, maybe, initiate phase three in which demilitarising Gaza and eliminating Hamas will still serve as reasons for colonial genocide. 

Palestinians in Gaza are still deprived of humanitarian aid, and several humanitarian aid organisations cannot function anymore in Gaza due to Israeli surveillance restrictions that jeopardise humanitarian aid workers.

Palestinians in Gaza are still deprived of humanitarian aid, and several humanitarian aid organisations cannot function anymore in Gaza due to Israeli surveillance restrictions that jeopardise humanitarian aid workers.

Beneath all the different facades juggled by the US, the EU and the UN, the bottom line is that Israel will continue acting with impunity; the parameters of which keep extending. Will the international community argue against Israel’s security narrative? Not because suddenly the international community supports Hamas or the Palestinian people who Israel is murdering for territorial gain, but because Israel’s narrative is both incoherent and illogical. 

However, the European Commission for example, did not only agree with implementing the US plan for Gaza. It also said it expected the disarming of Hamas, but did not say through which means. The unsaid  – the tacit agreement with Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza – carries far more weight than the feigned preoccupation with disarming Hamas. 

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