Exterminating Gaza was always Israel’s plan

Aerial view of the destruction in Rafah on January 19, 2025, during the start of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. (Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

NOTE: The Gaza Health Ministry’s daily casualty figures are based on the number of dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals, and does not include victims that are under the rubble or elsewhere, where ambulance and civil defense crews can not reach them.

In Gaza, at least 27 people were killed in Israeli attacks over the last 24 hours, according to a ministry statement.

Israeli forces also killed two Palestinian men in the West Bank on Friday. Nour Abdel Karim Mohammed Al-Baytawi, 34, the commander of the Jenin Battalion, and, Hakmat Shawqi Muhammad Abd Al-Nabi, 42 were killed near Nablus.

US to use Gaza aid plan as ‘bait to force displacement’: UNICEF

The US is planning to establish a new non-governmental foundation to distribute aid in the Gaza Strip without the Israeli military’s involvement, US officials announced on 9 May, without giving additional details.

US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said an announcement from the foundation would be made “shortly.”

Israel will not be part of distributing aid in Gaza, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said on Friday morning.

“A 14-page document from the newly registered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) envisions four distribution centers in Gaza providing up to 1.2 million Palestinians with food, water, and hygiene kits,” Haaretz reported.

The foundation will establish additional distribution centers over time, and promises a “vital lifeline through an independent, rigorously audited model that gets assistance directly – and only – to those in need.”

However, a UN agency active in Gaza has criticized the plan, which will force Palestinians into small enclaves within Gaza under tight surveillance, surrounded by armed private contractors.

“It appears the design of a plan presented by Israel to the humanitarian community will increase ongoing suffering of children and families in the Gaza Strip,” said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder.

“The use of humanitarian aid as a bait to force displacement, especially from the north to the south will create this impossible choice: a choice between displacement and death,” Elder added.

Warnings Grow Over US and Israel-Backed Plan for Gaza Aid

Senior US official warns Israel of ‘heavy price’ unless ceasefire deal reached in Gaza: Report

Exterminating Gaza was always Israel’s plan, but now it’s official

It has been a year since Israel first invaded Rafah and crossed Biden’s illusory “red line.” The Israeli army destroyed the Rafah crossing, isolating Gaza from Egypt and completely cutting it off from the outside world. Israel was free to conduct the mass displacement of Palestinians away from the Egyptian border, but it never admitted to that goal.

But now, Rafah is no more, and Israel’s recently approved plan to reoccupy Gaza indefinitely has made explicit what many have already expected for months: that the ulterior motive of creating permanent military installations and buffer zones in Gaza is to facilitate the mass expulsion of Palestinians.

Israel is now openly announcing its intentions and publicly advertising ethnic cleansing as “voluntary migration.” This didn’t happen overnight, but has been the result of a slow, deliberate process of hemming Palestinians into concentrated sub-ghettoes under fire while creating vast military buffer zones on swathes of flattened Gazan territory. The plan has been implemented in piecemeal over the past 18 months, but now those pieces are falling clearly into place (continue reading here).

RELATED: Israeli soldiers are using slain Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh’s face for target practice

Trump cuts ties with Netanyahu over manipulation concerns: Report

US President Donald Trump has decided to cut off direct contact with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a report said Thursday.

Yanir Cozin, a correspondent for Israeli Army Radio, said in a post on his X account that Trump made the decision after close associates told Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer that the president believes that Netanyahu is manipulating him.

An Israeli official said that people around Trump told him that “Netanyahu was manipulating him.”

“There is nothing Trump hates more than being portrayed as a fool or someone being played. That’s why he decided to cut contact with Netanyahu,” the official added.

Cozin pointed to the Israeli government’s failure to present concrete plans regarding Iran, Yemen’s Houthis, and Gaza as a source of the worsening US-Israel relationship.

US doesn’t need Israeli approval for Houthi ceasefire deal: Ambassador

Trump doesn’t want Netanyahu to spoil his Gulf visit. And it’s causing tension

Israel launched a campaign against Kissinger after he blamed it for the breakdown of negotiations with Egypt in 1975, British documents reveal

Israel launched a campaign against former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger after he blamed the Israelis for the breakdown of his mission to achieve an interim agreement with Egypt following the 1973 war, according to declassified British documents

The documents, unearthed by MEMO in the British National Archives, showed that the Israeli government lobbied US Congressmen to turn American opinion against Kissinger, accusing him of “delivering” Israel to Egypt and “humiliating” Israeli ministers.

In late March 1975, Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy between Israel and Egypt collapsed. Although he initially avoided publicly assigning blame, he privately told his UK counterpart, James Callaghan, that Israeli leaders were primarily responsible (continue reading here).

Warning of Grave Threat to Free Speech, Judge Frees Rümeysa Öztürk

Rümeysa Öztürk, one of several pro-Palestine scholars kidnapped and imprisoned by the Trump administration under its dubious interpretation of an 18th-century law and a Cold War-era national security measure, was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody Friday following a federal judge’s order.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions III in Vermont ruled that Öztürk—a 30-year-old Turkish Ph.D. student at Tufts University in Massachusetts and Fulbright scholar—was illegally detained in March, when masked plainclothes federal agents snatched her off a suburban Boston street in broad daylight in what eyewitnesses and advocates likened to a kidnapping and flew her to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana.

“Thank you so much for all the support and love,” Öztürk told supporters outside the facility following her release.

The government admits that Öztürk committed no crime. She was targeted because of an opinion piece published in Tufts Daily advocating divestment from Israel amid the U.S.-backed nation’s genocidal assault on Gaza and its apartheid, occupation, ethnic cleansing, and colonization in the rest of Palestine. Öztürk was arrested despite a U.S. State Department determination that there were no grounds for revoking her visa.

“There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed,” said Sessions, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. “That literally is the case” (continue reading here).

NEWS ON PROTESTS, ARRESTS, DEPORTATIONS, CRACK-DOWNS:

Anadolu Agency: No one, including Rumeysa Ozturk, should be in jail for authoring op-ed critical of Israel: US senator’

Al Jazeera: Mohsen Mahdawi explains why he refuses to be afraid

The New Arab: University of Washington suspends 21 students for pro-Palestine protest

MORE NEWS:

Anadolu Agency: ‘Half of bombs falling on Gaza supplied by us’: Former EU foreign policy chief

Drop Site News: Senior Palestinian Resistance Leader: “There may come a day when Israel finds itself longing for Hamas”

IMEMC Daily Reports

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – MAY 9, 2025:

At least 53,754 Palestinians killed, 127,698 injured – including:
at least 52,810 killed in Gaza (~15,600 children)
at least 967 killed in the West Bank (~196 children)
at least 119,473 injured in Gaza
at least 8,393 injured in the West Bank

According to Palestinian authorities, during the ceasefire Jan. 19- March 18 2025, Israeli attacks killed at least 170 Gazans, and Israel committed at least 962 ceasefire violations.

Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 14,000 more are still buried under rubble.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – May 9, 2025: ~1,598 – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 414 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel.

By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 204 Palestinian journalists and media workers; Palestinians have killed 4 Israelis (other groups have tallied between 170 and 263 Palestinian journalists killed – depending on the criteria used).

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

“Exterminating Gaza was always Israel’s plan, but now it’s official” – War on Gaza Day 581