Press Release: Veritas Press C.I.C.
Author: Kamran Faqir
Article Date Published: 18 Aug 2025 at 12:11 GMT
Category: Middle East | Palestine-Gaza | US-Israel At War
Source(s): Veritas Press C.I.C. | Multi News Agencies
Gaza City – Israel has launched what residents describe as the “heaviest and most relentless” bombardment of Gaza City since the war began, intensifying strikes on the Zeitoun neighbourhood and other districts ahead of a planned ground seizure and forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
At least 11 Palestinians were killed across Gaza since dawn on Monday, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, though aid agencies warn the real toll is higher due to the absence of rescue teams and medical access.
“The number of Israeli air raids on Zeitoun is massive,” one resident told Al Jazeera, describing artillery fire, quadcopters firing live rounds, and explosive-laden robots demolishing entire residential blocks. “We have no paramedics, no rescue workers, just neighbours digging their loved ones from rubble with their bare hands.”
Families with small children have begun fleeing westward, though movement is perilous. Civilians report being targeted by drone fire while attempting to evacuate. One father, carrying his two-year-old daughter, told The Guardian:
“They bomb us when we stay, they bomb us when we move. But we cannot keep the children here; they are already starving.”
The Machinery Of Displacement:
The Israeli army chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, confirmed on Sunday that the army had approved the “next phase” of the war, which includes the forced evacuation of Gaza City’s residents within two months. He said Israel was preparing “a set of tools” to “encourage” Palestinians to leave for designated “humanitarian areas.”
According to Channel 12, once the evacuation is complete, Israeli forces will enter and occupy Gaza City. The channel also reported that Israel is in talks with multiple countries, including Uganda, South Sudan, Somaliland, Indonesia and Libya, to absorb some of Gaza’s displaced population potentially.
Hamas condemned the plans as a “new wave of genocide and displacement.” In a statement Sunday, the group said:
“The Israeli promise of safe shelter and humanitarian aid is nothing but blatant deception. What is happening is ethnic cleansing under the cover of war.”
Amnesty International warned that Israel’s campaign amounts to “a deliberate policy of starvation and forcible transfer,” grave breaches of international humanitarian law that could constitute war crimes.
Starvation As A Weapon:
The humanitarian crisis is deepening at an alarming rate. Gaza’s Health Ministry reported five new deaths from starvation and malnutrition in the past 24 hours, including two children. That brings the official hunger death toll to 263 since October 2023, 112 of them children.
“Starvation is being used as a weapon of war,” said Lynn Maalouf of Amnesty International. “The blockade and deliberate destruction of food systems mean that children are dying slow, preventable deaths.”
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said the situation has deteriorated further since the opening of aid distribution centres backed by Israel and the United States. Rather than relief, these sites have become what MSF calls “killing zones.”
“The number of wounded has tripled since these food points opened,” said Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Gaza. “We see amputated limbs, shattered bones, torn arteries. Many die before they reach a hospital.”
The collapse of Gaza’s health system compounds the disaster. “What remains is a skeleton of care,” Abu Mughaisib explained. “We cannot cope with this level of bloodshed and starvation simultaneously.”
Protests, Pressure And Division Inside Israel:
Even inside Israel, anger is growing. Tens of thousands of Israelis, including families of hostages, flooded Tel Aviv and Jerusalem over the weekend, demanding an end to the war.
“The government is sacrificing the hostages to continue a war it cannot win,” said Yael Cohen, sister of a hostage still in Gaza, speaking at a rally. “Every day they bomb Gaza City, they also endanger our loved ones.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert criticised the military’s seizure plan, warning it would “deepen the catastrophe for Palestinians and Israelis alike” while failing to secure the return of captives.
The International Alarm:
The international community is voicing mounting alarm. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Israel’s seizure plan “risks escalating an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis” and demanded an immediate ceasefire and unfettered aid access.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk stressed the forced displacement of Gaza City residents would be “a violation of international law and of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”
Western governments, however, remain split. The UK ambassador to Israel warned occupation “would only prolong the conflict and worsen civilian deaths.” Yet the U.S. position has shifted sharply under President Trump, with Ambassador Mike Huckabee telling Israeli Army Radio that Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank is “not a violation of international law.”
Analysts say the statements provide Israel with a green light to press forward. “What we are seeing is the entrenchment of a one-state apartheid reality,” said Noura Erakat, a Palestinian-American legal scholar, in an interview with Democracy Now. “The destruction of Gaza City and expansion in the West Bank are part of the same project: erasure of Palestinian presence.”
Settlements: The Other Frontline.
While Gaza burns, Israel’s far-right government is moving swiftly in the West Bank. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced approval of more than 3,000 housing units in the controversial E1 zone, a project that would link Ma’ale Adumim with occupied East Jerusalem, effectively bisecting the West Bank.
Smotrich called the project “the death blow to the two-state illusion.” The Wall Street Journal described the move as one of the most consequential settlement expansions in decades.
Arab states condemned the plan, warning it “will scuttle any possibility of Palestinian sovereignty.” Yet Huckabee, echoing the Trump administration’s policy reversal, declared:
“This is a decision for the government of Israel to make… as a general rule, it is not a violation of international law.”
“Genocide By Attrition”
For many in Gaza, the dual policies of siege and bombardment leave no doubt about Israel’s intent. “This is genocide by attrition,” said Issam Younis, director of Gaza’s Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights. “You starve people, bomb them, force them from their homes, then erase their cities. The international community watches in silence.”
Palestinian survivors, meanwhile, describe a world closing in. In western Gaza City, where many displaced have fled, Umm Rami, a mother of four, clutched her malnourished baby and told a journalist:
“They want us to disappear. If the bombs don’t kill us, hunger will. But this is our home, we have nowhere else to go.”
Conclusion: The Architecture Of Erasure And The Greater Israel Doctrine.
The devastation of Gaza City is not an isolated military campaign. It is the laboratory of a larger project: the long-envisioned “Greater Israel” doctrine that aims to transform the map of the Middle East through annexation, forced displacement, war, resource annexation and permanent domination.
In Gaza, Israel is conducting the most visible and brutal experiment. The bombardment of Zeitoun, the starvation of civilians, the systematic destruction of health infrastructure, and the creation of “humanitarian zones” function as both a blueprint and a warning: those who resist Israeli dominance will face war, siege, and eventual land grab.
In the West Bank, the E1 settlement project represents another step in the slow-motion annexation of territory, fracturing Palestinian contiguity and cementing Israeli control from Jerusalem outward. U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s assertion that such expansion “is not a violation of international law” signals an unprecedented diplomatic cover for what amounts to the erasure of Palestinian statehood.
But the doctrine extends beyond Palestine. Analysts and historians of Zionist expansionism point to the “Greater Israel” concept, a territorial ambition stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. Within this framework:
- Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon are vulnerable first targets of “territorial engineering,” with Israel already exerting military pressure along their borders.
- Syria has long faced incursions, with the Golan Heights annexed de facto and Israel striking Syrian territory with impunity.
- Saudi Arabia’s northwestern regions, adjacent to the Red Sea and the Neom mega-project zone, are eyed as leverage points in reshaping regional energy corridors under Israeli influence.
- Iraq, fractured by decades of war and foreign occupation, fits the doctrine as a buffer zone and resource base.
- Iran, consistently portrayed as the existential enemy, represents the ultimate frontier: not merely to neutralise Tehran’s resistance, but to incorporate its western territories into a hegemonic order under Israeli and allied dominance.
Palestinian analysts warn that the incremental destruction of Gaza is a “test case”: if the world accepts forced displacement, starvation, and annexation there, the precedent will embolden Israel to extend these methods elsewhere in the region.
“This is not only about Gaza,” said Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative. “What we see is the piecemeal implementation of the Greater Israel map, through war, settlements, and expulsion. If unchecked, the project will engulf not just Palestine, but neighbouring states.”
Even within Israel, some recognise the danger. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that the Gaza City operation will “deepen catastrophe for Palestinians and Israelis alike,” noting that it fuels an ideology of endless war.
International bodies have sounded alarms but stopped short of decisive action. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the plan a “dangerous escalation,” and UN rights chief Volker Türk warned of violations of international law. Yet without sanctions, arms embargoes, or legal accountability, these warnings are unlikely to deter Israel’s trajectory.
The reality is that the “Greater Israel” doctrine is being advanced in slow motion: city by city, settlement by settlement, war by war. Gaza today is the epicentre of this strategy, but the horizon is broader, stretching from Palestine to Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and ultimately Iran.
The logic is stark: accept submission to Israeli regional supremacy or face destruction, displacement, and annexation.
As Issam Younis of Al Mezan Centre put it: “This is genocide by attrition, you starve people, bomb them, force them to flee, then erase their cities.” The same method, exported beyond Gaza, could redraw the Middle East in Israel’s favour if the world remains passive.
Unless global powers move from rhetoric to enforcement, cutting arms sales, imposing sanctions, and pursuing international prosecutions, Gaza will not be the last front. It will be remembered as the moment the “Greater Israel” project moved from ideology into full implementation.
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