Netanyahu chose war and rejected calls for a ceasefire, including from his defense minister

The Israeli Prime Minister, caught up in the Gaza massacre, the destruction of Lebanon and the cancellation of Iran as a rival in the Middle East, benjamin netanyahuIgnores international calls for a ceasefire, ignores its Defense Minister, Yoav Galant, who calls for a ceasefire to free Israeli hostages, and sees Israel as the only way to enforce Israeli hegemony in the region. I choose war, without taking into account their suffering. Palestinians and Lebanese.

“What’s happening in the Middle East shows that we have lost humanity,” the European Union’s high representative for foreign policy said Monday. josep borrellIn an interview on Spanish public radio he acknowledged that Gaza was experiencing “one of the most serious humanitarian crises” since World War II.

Borrell called on Israel to take “coercive measures” to stop the “alarming” situation in Gaza, but the United States and Tel Aviv’s European allies, with Germany at the forefront, continue to look aside in the face of a humanitarian disaster. And, double standards, they tear their clothes, but do not hold back when it comes to arming the Jewish army.

us President, Joe Bidenagain stressed the need to stop the race by casting his early vote in the US presidential election in Wilmington (Delaware) this Monday.

“We need a ceasefire. We need to stop this war. It has to stop, it has to stop, it has to stop,” insisted Biden, for whom Netanyahu has long been making the right case, of course. , despite Israeli genocide, will not stop providing arms to Tel Aviv.

Hunger as a weapon

Echoing Biden’s non-committal words, the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) reminded that hunger and food shortages of the population in Gaza are “being used as a weapon of war.” Is”.

And “nothing can justify starving an entire population,” although it would not “shock the conscience of the entire world.” UNRWA on social networks

Far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar ben Gvir He already defended the use of famine as a weapon of war. In August, Smotrich even said that it would be “ethical” to starve Gaza’s 2.3 million residents until Hamas freed Israeli hostages.

More than 43,000 Palestinians were killed and 101,000 were injured.

Although malnutrition and hunger, especially among children, are increasing day by day in Gaza, those who die from these causes or from infections are not included in the official statistics of war deaths. More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and 101,000 injured by Israeli bombs in Gaza since the war began on October 7 last year.

The number of dead officially recorded by the Gaza Health Ministry (according to the UN there are at least 10,000 under the rubble) and about half the number of injured tells everything about the brutality of the genocide carried out by Israel. This makes it even more clear that 69% of those who died were women and children. massacre character,

In the last 48 hours alone, Israeli bombs have killed hundreds of people in Gaza, especially in the north of the Strip, where Israel has been waging a new attack for twenty days, especially on shelters, schools where displaced people are overcrowded, and hospitals. .

Netanyahu ignores calls for ceasefire

Despite the humanitarian catastrophe, Netanyahu is insisting on ignoring international calls, even from his friend Biden, in favor of a ceasefire to rescue the few dozen Israeli hostages still alive in the Gaza tunnels.

The latest ceasefire proposal has come from Egypt, the mediator between Hamas and Israel. That request to the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-SisiDemands a 48-hour ceasefire so that Hamas can release four of the 60 Israeli hostages held by the Islamist group in exchange for releasing Palestinian prisoners.

Last week, the US Secretary of State, anthony blinkenVisited the Middle East to mitigate the Israeli armed response to the October 1 bombing of Iran, which ultimately took place this Saturday, but also to push the Israelis to negotiate the release of Hamas detainees.

Although Blinken was relatively successful in deterring Israel from pursuing disproportionate retaliation against Iran and limiting its attacks to war targets, his efforts to persuade Netanyahu’s envoys to renegotiate with him have not succeeded so far. Hamas,

These fighters made a large-scale incursion from Gaza into Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, where they killed 1,200 people and abducted 251 others. In retaliation, Israel attacked and bombed Gaza. A week-long ceasefire last November led to the release of a hundred of those hostages, but Netanyahu himself was in charge of blowing them up one by one.

Netanyahu does not consider the release of hostages and heroic protests

The Israeli Prime Minister has used the war in Gaza, the invasion of Lebanon and the hostage-taking flag in the hands of Hamas to try to tighten his grip on power and complete his Middle East road map, which includes the virtual destruction of Gaza – and its possible occupation of Israel – the destruction of Hezbollah in the Lebanese region and Iran was denounced as a regional rival.

To do this, Israel has eliminated the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah and their successors. Recently, the new leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, was assassinated, who succeeded Ismail HaniyaThe Israeli killings in Tehran had raised hopes that Netanyahu would end his bloody conflict and open up to ceasefire negotiations. Despite pressure from his American allies and growing skepticism in his government and military leadership, this has not happened, as was the case with Gallant.

The Defense Minister had differences with Netanyahu for months. In August, Gallant called the prime minister’s goal of achieving “complete victory” over Hamas as “nonsense”. Netanyahu accused them of following an “anti-Israel narrative”.

The bombing of Lebanon and its invasion on October 1 strengthened Netanyahu, but did not close the gap. Daring Once again there is doubt that all these war objectives can be achieved only through military pressure.

On Sunday, an Israeli military official warned that the war would not win everything and that “painful compromises” would be necessary if the hostages and about forty bodies, which would be in Hamas hands, were to be returned alive. In a letter to the government, Gallant said that the war was being conducted “without a compass”.

According to Gallant, the strikes by Israel on the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia lebanon And Hamas in Gaza has left Iran without two key allies in the region. In the case of the Palestinian formation, Gallant assured that Hamas no longer functions as a military network in Gaza and it is necessary to find a political alternative to this organization. In the case of Hezbollah, Israeli attacks have eroded its military leadership and its ability to carry out large-scale bombings of Israel.

“They are no longer an effective tool for Iran,” said Gallant, who called for new objectives in Israel’s strategy.

Iran on target

But Netanyahu does not shy away from his unbridled commitment to war to remake the security order in the Middle East, and he remembers that the open war front with Iran is not yet closed.

After stressing on Sunday that Saturday’s Israeli attack had damaged missile production and defense capabilities iranOn Monday, Netanyahu issued a veiled threat laced with mysticism. He paid tribute to those killed in the Israeli parliament, saying, “Our response to them, in this place, is clear and unambiguous: light will triumph over darkness, good will triumph over evil.”

Just a week before the US presidential elections, Netanyahu was signaling that Tel Aviv’s war objectives were not limited to the destruction of Hamas, weakening Hezbollah or the return of hostages. HoroscopeFor Netanyahu, Iran remains an enemy to defeat.

This intransigence with Iran and the danger that the Middle East could turn into an unlimited conflict if Tehran retaliates is of great concern to the White House and will mark the foreign policy of the new US President.

That’s why Netanyahu is now waiting for events in Washington to find out how much support he might get in a future confrontation with Tehran. And for this reason, he prefers to continue military pressure in Lebanon and Gaza, the last camps of confrontation with Iran.

In the realm of the unimaginable

Foreign Minister of Spain, manuel albarezcaptured the picture with precision this Monday: A potential open conflict between Israel and Iran would “take us into the realm of the unimaginable,” if things got out of hand.

Because according to Alberes, “there is nothing to indicate that Netanyahu is going to abandon his military efforts” or that the war will end soon, there is a need to effect a ceasefire.

Borrell expressed himself similarly, although international pressures have softened Israel’s response. iran And possibly limit a potential new Iranian retaliation, “the story is not over.”

“As long as the war continues in Gaza and Lebanon, we will be on the verge of a spark that could cause a major fire,” the head of European diplomacy said.