The World's Shame in Gaza

Israel’s Gaza campaign has entered an even more nightmarish phase. The world must press Israel harder to stop the war regardless of “day after” questions – lest its offensive destroy Palestinian life in the strip beyond hope of recovery.

It is hard to imagine the plight of Palestinians in Gaza getting worse, but that is happening. The UN’s mass hunger watchdog has declared famine in parts of the strip. Israel has launched a new offensive in Gaza City, the enclave’s largest conurbation, and perhaps the only one left where many buildings are still standing. On 18 August, Hamas accepted a proposal for a 60-day ceasefire that largely replicates Israel’s own formula of some months ago, entailing a hostage-prisoner exchange, a surge of humanitarian aid and a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops. The plan reportedly stipulates the start of talks about a permanent ceasefire, but without the firm U.S. guarantees of an end to the war that Hamas had previously demanded. Israel’s leaders have declined to give an official response so far, and prospects look bleak. Facing little external pressure, Israel has opted for a renewed assault. Its army has begun calling up thousands of reservists and commenced razing remaining parts of Gaza City, block by block. Unless world powers, including the United States, make Israel stop, this next phase of fighting could usher in the end of collective Palestinian life in the strip.

The downward spiral to this point has followed a familiar pattern: Israel and Hamas go back and forth accepting and rejecting iterations of a ceasefire agreement; Arab mediators vent frustration with their intransigence; a disengaged White House flip-flops between demanding an end to the war and egging on Israel’s military advances. Gaza’s Palestinians – those remaining of the 2.3 million at the war’s outset – are paying the heaviest price for this merry-go-round. The strip’s population, serially uprooted, starved and bombed, is reeling from a war whose cruelty has few parallels in modern history. Since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, Israel’s campaign has killed at least 63,000 Palestinians, injured 160,000 and likely buried many more under rubble. Whether the International Court of Justice rules that it violates the Genocide Convention, as an increasing number of human rights groups and experts believe, may not be known for years. But whatever the ruling, many states concur that the Gaza operation has entailed grave, repeated violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity (for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant face charges before the International Criminal Court). The last surviving Israeli hostages in Gaza, and the families of those living and dead, are enduring their own torment. Too many lives have been shattered in the absence of a deal that should have been sealed long ago. 

Israel and Hamas share responsibility for the disaster, but the world is letting it happen, with Arab states, European capitals and the U.S. failing to bring it to an end. The U.S., which wields enormous influence over Israel, was barely willing to use it under the Biden administration and now, under President Donald Trump, appears to have dropped any thought of urging restraint or even airing its own views on the war. Ideally, Washington would change course and press Israel to stop. But even if it does not, the European Union and individual European governments have tools at their disposal, including suspending or revoking arms export licences and preferential trade benefits for Israel; sanctioning Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Netanyahu himself; curbing visa-free travel for mid-level decision-makers; putting collaborative research and development programs on hold; and prosecuting citizens who may have committed war crimes while in the Israeli army. Arab leaders, too, can go beyond rhetorical condemnation, with Israel’s aspiration to integrate into the Middle East giving them greater leverage than they have been prepared to use thus far. Absent much stronger and immediate action by the outside world, Gaza could soon be physically erased, its surviving people herded into camps or expelled entirely – excluded from determining their own future in their homeland. Such an outcome would stain not only Netanyahu and his cabinet but also a generation of world leaders. 

Famine and Carnage

Since breaking a ceasefire deal with Hamas on 18 March, Israel’s assault by air, land and sea has added more than 10,000 Palestinians to the death toll as well as nearly 50 Israeli soldiers – all, supposedly, in the interest of freeing the remaining twenty hostages believed still alive. Aside from the numbers – the cull via Israeli bullets and bombs has averaged close to 75 people per day – what shocks is the nature of the killings: children sniped by drones, hungry people gunned down jostling for food, journalists blasted in their tents, rescue workers blown to pieces in “double-tap” strikes. 

With the death have come further displacement and destruction. Over 2 million Palestinians are now corralled into less than a fifth of the territory along Gaza’s coast, most living either in tents or in damaged buildings. Aerial bombardment, bulldozers and explosives have demolished entire localities across the northern and eastern parts of the strip. They have also levelled the southernmost city of Rafah to the ground, defying what the Biden administration and other governments in 2024 identified as a “red line” limiting Israeli incursions. Gaza City now appears to be suffering the same fate, even as Israeli forces push deeper into Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah to the south. Whether the wholesale razing of Gaza’s high-rises, hospitals, schools and other buildings is a war aim in and of itself or merely a by-product of Israeli tactics, the result is the same: Gaza’s systematic ruin. 

Famine is almost certainly occuring north of Gaza City

Meanwhile, Israel has followed the near-total blockade of the enclave that it imposed between early March and late May with an attempt to replace the longstanding UN-led humanitarian system with the private Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). As foreseen, this step proved calamitous, turning mercenary and army-guarded distribution hubs into killing fields while failing to deliver food to Gaza’s neediest – and none at all to the enclave’s north. This throttling of supply and crippling of distribution has turned mass starvation into outright famine. On 22 August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – the UN-coordinated monitoring system for hunger and famine – concluded for the first time that famine is under way in and around Gaza City, affecting nearly 1 million people. Famine is almost certainly occurring north of Gaza City, but data was insufficient for the IPC to confirm it.

Israel rejects the famine declaration, arguing that massive quantities of aid have entered Gaza, especially during the 60-day ceasefire earlier in the year, and that the problem lies with the realities of war, UN distribution failures and Hamas interference. These objections, however, conflate food availability with food access. While Israel provides data on the entry of food into the strip, it says little about what happens to that food after it transits the crossing. The months-long blockades of northern Gaza and the systematic destruction of distribution channels have created insurmountable barriers to delivering and collecting food. The physical evidence of thousands of acutely malnourished children – measured through standardised health screenings and documented by the UN and other organisations – as well as testimonies from Palestinians in Gaza proves that food is not reaching nearly enough of the enclave’s people.

The breakdown in food distribution reflects a broader collapse of Gaza’s basic systems. The collapse has been accelerated by Israel’s Operation Gideon’s Chariots, an offensive launched in May that targeted Hamas’s governing apparatus, including the police and civil service. Israel’s claims that Hamas had systematically stolen aid have never been substantiated; indeed, they have been roundly refuted by the UN and others, including USAID and U.S. diplomats. As the strongest Palestinian power on the ground, Hamas is likely able, at least in certain areas, to exert some influence over distribution and commercial sales and to derive some financial benefit. But it is the power vacuum caused by smashing systems of law and order that has enabled crowds, criminal groups and Israeli-armed militias to loot supplies, and it is the soaring prices created by manmade scarcity that has created the incentive. If, five months ago, a lengthy, gruelling recovery was hard but not impossible to envisage for Gaza, today the strip’s viability as a place to live is in question.

Switching Positions?

Despite Israel’s torpedoing of the January ceasefire agreement, worked out under the Biden administration and pushed over the line by Trump’s transition team, Israel and Hamas continued to talk with Egyptian, Qatari and U.S. mediators. According to reports, the truce proposal Hamas accepted in mid-August, aside from a few small modifications, mirrors one put forward by Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s top negotiator, in March, when Israel attempted to impose new conditions to extending the ceasefire. Back then, Hamas rejected the proposal, insisting that the parties stick to the previous terms and that the U.S. provide guarantees that talks about a permanent cessation of hostilities would follow. Washington never made those guarantees, and Hamas dug in. Practicing “negotiation under fire”, Israel has since repeatedly demanded iterations of the Witkoff deal, with the aim of extracting most of the hostages while retaining the right to intervene militarily at will.

Hamas’s apparent reversal in mid-August, by accepting a partial deal that leans closer to Israel’s terms, is the outcome of both duress and shifted calculations. After placing some hope in Trump’s willingness to break from U.S. foreign policy orthodoxy and press Israel into a ceasefire, Hamas officials now see U.S. mediation as providing cover for Israel to break its own commitments. The group’s leaders do not trust the Trump administration either to keep its word or to restrain Israel, rendering guarantees of an end to the war obsolete. 

The deteriorating situation on the ground has also led to a shift. The group may have replenished its fighters and may yet prove resilient in urban combat, but its leadership is decapitated, its previous capacities and arsenal have been decimated, and its popular support in Gaza has plummeted. Egypt and Qatar, the Arab mediators, have grown impatient as the war drags on and less wary of applying pressure to Hamas. Months of starvation have made a reprieve essential. The coming large-scale invasion of Gaza City, possibly leading to its total destruction, has raised the stakes further. 

Hamas may also have switched its position in part as a tactical move, believing that the political winds could be shifting in its favour. As conditions in Gaza deteriorate, Israel is now seen by many, including in allied countries, as the primary obstacle to reaching a truce. Rightly or wrongly, Hamas still holds out hope that global public opinion may sway Netanyahu against charging on with his war and buoy the Palestinian cause. No one has exerted meaningful pressure on Israel as yet, but its friends are increasingly vocal in their alarm at the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as well as at the Netanyahu government’s moves toward annexing the West Bank. On 8 August, Germany – a traditionally stalwart backer and Israel’s second largest arms provider – announced that it would suspend export licences to Israel for weapons that could be used in the strip “until further notice”. On 16 August, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, which currently holds the EU presidency, said Netanyahu “is now a problem in himself”, adding that Copenhagen would support sanctions “whether against settlers, ministers or even Israel as a whole”. On 26 August, 209 former European ambassadors and senior officials signed an open letter demanding a range of sanctions against Israel.

Pressure inside Israel is also growing. On 17 and 26 August, hundreds of thousands of Israelis joined nationwide strikes demanding a hostage deal, though admittedly most are primarily motivated by getting the hostages out and alleviating the war’s burdens on Israeli society, not by saving Palestinians. Israeli defence officials are reportedly apprehensive about the Gaza City offensive, even as they begin to execute it, fearing that it may be too costly for the army and will endanger the remaining hostages. Israeli commentators and even the hawkish foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, warn of long-term erosion of Israel’s international standing. 

Hamas’s ceasefire offer has put the ball back in Netanyahu’s court.

Whatever the motives, Hamas’s ceasefire offer has put the ball back in Netanyahu’s court. In theory, the Israeli premier could profit from taking the deal. Away from Gaza and the West Bank, Israeli operations against Iran and its allies have dramatically shifted the balance of force in the Middle East in Israel’s favour. Netanyahu has credited Hamas’s belated concessions to the “atomic pressure” brought about by Israel’s latest military threats, possibly creating a face-saving sop he could use with his hardline voters. A ceasefire could buy him two months’ respite from the swelling opposition on Israel’s streets and in foreign capitals. He could turn his attention to reorganising his coalition, which now runs a minority government after two parties left over the question of conscription of ultra-Orthodox men into the army. More cynically, he could even decide to uphold the truce until the hostages are set free and then break it just in time for the Knesset’s return from recess in late October. That might also convince his far-right partners Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who have threatened to quit if even a partial Gaza truce is reached, to stay on board.

So far, however, none of these factors has coaxed the Israeli premier to accept what seems like a similar deal to the one he endorsed five months ago. Netanyahu now says Israel will consider only a comprehensive agreement that frees all the hostages (alive and dead) and disarms Hamas. In effect, he is telling the group to surrender. Netanyahu is also doubling down on his military plans, arguing that Israel is on the verge of completing the war and achieving total victory. Asked by Sky News Australia if he would still want to take over Gaza and eliminate Hamas even if a deal was reached, Netanyahu replied, “We’re going to do that anyway. … There was never a question that we’re not going to leave Hamas there”. In other words, if during earlier rounds of talks Netanyahu’s government refused to commit to a permanent cessation so as to keep open the option of finishing the job militarily, this time around, it appears to be calling on Hamas to give in to Israeli demands up front in exchange for the war’s end. 

Warring Instincts

The apparent switch in the positions of Israel and Hamas over a temporary versus permanent ceasefire says much about the calculations and disputes that have foiled the mediators’ efforts and prolonged the war.

First, Israel and Hamas hold contradictory assumptions about time and leverage. Hamas had calculated that international outrage at Israel’s destructive methods and extremist rhetoric would force concessions, particularly as the war sharpens Israel’s internal fissures and drains its resources. The lengthy conflict has imposed real costs on what just two years ago seemed a stable military occupation – costs that may yet increase should militants in Gaza’s remaining urban centres prove able to resist Israel’s intensified operations. But the price of Hamas’s strategy has been catastrophic. Beyond the death toll, many tens of thousands are wounded, families have been ripped apart and generations traumatised. Even in the event that international pressure vindicates Hamas’s strategy for halting the war, it would represent a pyrrhic victory if public opinion succeeds only after the practical destruction of the Palestinian national movement – and much of Palestine itself. 

Israel’s calculations are equally contradictory. The Netanyahu government opted for a slow, grinding strategy, making this war by far the longest in Israel’s history. That pace has allowed the Israeli military, at relatively low cost in its own casualties, to expand its fight to other regional fronts, from Lebanon to Iran to Syria and Yemen. Drawn-out negotiations have given it time to raze much of Gaza, which, beyond neutralising the various tunnels and explosives and other traps Hamas left behind, has provided a means – in Israeli eyes, at least – of restoring the psychological deterrence that was so badly dented by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack. It has also laid the groundwork for an effort to displace Palestinians from Gaza, an agenda that, according to polls, the majority of Israelis would endorse or condone.

This time, Israel has gone too far in the eyes of too many people, including a growing proportion of diaspora Jews and of its traditional supporters in the U.S. and Europe.

But this slow erasure of Palestinian life has not only extended the trauma of Israeli hostages, torn at the Israeli social fabric and cost Israeli taxpayers at least $90 billion so far. It has also wrecked Israel’s global reputation, perhaps irreparably. Locked in an information bubble that all but blots out Palestinian suffering, many Israelis may imagine that the opprobrium may dissipate, as it has after past conflicts. But that is a delusion. This time, Israel has gone too far in the eyes of too many people, including a growing proportion of diaspora Jews and of its traditional supporters in the U.S. and Europe. Some of the damage is already felt in Israel itself, as army reservists, a crucial component of the force’s fighting strength, are increasingly failing to show up for duty in large numbers, exhausted and disillusioned by months of combat with little respite. Analysts warn of long-term socio-economic burdens that will weigh heavily once the war ends. 

A second obstacle has been the substance of the negotiations themselves, what purpose they serve and what they say about the parties’ real goals. Notwithstanding the switch in stances over a temporary versus permanent ceasefire, the core issues hindering a more durable deal remain unchanged. In large part these relate to what seems will inevitably be the next phase of Israel’s occupation of Gaza. Will Israeli troops and checkpoints return to Gaza indefinitely? Will Israel in effect annex swathes of the strip, such as an expanded buffer zone, military corridors and northern towns? Will Palestinians be allowed to move freely inside Gaza, return to depopulated localities and come back to the strip should they exit? What reconstruction will happen, given that any such work will require materials that Israel may deem usable for both civilian and military purposes? How vigorously will Israel pursue its stated agenda of “voluntary migration” of Palestinians? 

The core questions concern the future of Hamas itself and of Gaza’s governance and security. Israel – not just Netanyahu but Israeli society more broadly – cannot tolerate Hamas as a military force, let alone the dominant one, in the enclave. Hamas, while long prepared to hand over governance of the strip to some sort of Palestinian technocratic committee, has given little sign it would demobilise or give up whatever rockets or heavy weaponry it has left without far-reaching political concessions that no Israeli leader would consider, at least not at present. 

The path forward is obscured by uncertainties that have grown steadily more consequential.

The path forward is obscured by uncertainties that have grown steadily more consequential. Netanyahu’s chest thumping ahead of the Gaza City offensive, dubbed Operation Gideon’s Chariots II, was interpreted by some officials and analysts as a ploy to extract concessions in negotiations. But it has rapidly hardened into an inflexible program of action, with military attacks intensifying and the planned mobilisation of up to 130,000 reservists. Netanyahu almost certainly sees perpetual war as a means of ensuring his political survival, satisfying far-right coalition partners while avoiding corruption trials. But he may also be driven by genuine strategic conviction. The latest campaign, which envisions the depopulation and possible erasure of Gaza’s de facto capital, appears part of a larger bid, endorsed by the prime minister himself and encompassing the West Bank as well as Gaza, to squash Palestinian national aspirations for good. Meanwhile, Hamas’s residual strength is also unknown, defying easy assessment. For all that the group’s leadership and arsenal have been depleted, it continues to recruit fighters and kill Israeli soldiers.

Notwithstanding the uncertainty, what is clear is that Israel has reached the point where additional military force cannot achieve its goals against Hamas, no matter how much more suffering it is willing to inflict. The scale of planned operations – mass reservist mobilisation for urban warfare in famine conditions – itself demonstrates diminishing returns. If the objective is Hamas’s elimination, Israel has already discovered the group’s capacity to regenerate despite severe degradation. Further operations might reduce Hamas’s capabilities marginally, but absent wholesale Palestinian expulsion, it cannot achieve the group’s eradication. Even permanent, direct reoccupation would contain rather than eliminate the threat, particularly given Netanyahu’s refusal to countenance any credible Palestinian alternative that might imply a peace process. Paradoxically, if Hamas proves tougher than assessments suggest, the case for negotiating now would be stronger rather than weaker; the destruction required to defeat a rejuvenated organisation would only multiply.

Despite positions that appear irreconcilable – Israel demanding Hamas’s elimination, Hamas insisting on survival – compromise might be possible were it seriously pursued and included provisions protecting both Israelis and Palestinians. Previous rounds of talks demonstrated flexibility on seemingly non-negotiable issues like troop deployments along the Netzarim corridor, which bisects Gaza, and even the Philadelphi corridor along the border with Egypt. On Hamas’s military capacity, options exist between complete capitulation and endless war, though they require diplomatic imagination that tempers zero-sum postures: commitments not to rebuild long-range arsenals; cessation of armed displays that trigger Israeli responses; vetted integration of remaining civil police forces into reconstituted units; international supervision of removal of unexploded ordnance, now one of Hamas’s primary weapons sources; and inspection regimes at crossings that prevent remilitarisation while permitting humanitarian access. Even further steps toward demobilisation might be plausible, were Israel ready to ease Gaza’s blockade and embark upon a serious peace process. But what is feasible cannot be determined while Netanyahu treats negotiations as performance rather than diplomacy.

From Censure to Concrete Measures

Little seems likely to change without the U.S. taking a definitive stance against the war’s continuation. Alas, the Trump administration, like its predecessor, has pursued several policies at once while ceding final decisions to Netanyahu and his strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer. Trump himself has oscillated between recognising Gaza’s suffering and promoting its depopulation, touting himself as a peacemaker while cheering on Israel’s assaults. Witkoff, who won the respect of interlocutors in the Middle East back in January, has lost credibility; after one round of talks in July, Hamas and Arab mediators were baffled when the envoy seemingly walked away with an unfavourable view of what had transpired in the negotiating room, which counterparts insisted had been positive. The result of what increasingly appears to be both inept and bad-faith mediation by Washington has been to provide cover for Netanyahu to prolong the war against the wishes of many Israelis, including the families of the forsaken hostages, to sanction continued mass death and destruction, and oversee accelerating starvation and famine.

Worse still, the Trump administration gives increasing signs of not only abetting Israel’s destruction of Gaza but also buying into its military logic. A 27 August meeting at the White House to discuss the future of Gaza included Israeli officials, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, but no Palestinian or Arab. A day later, the State Department announced it would deny visas to Palestinian Authority (PA) officials, even to attend the UN General Assembly in September. How seriously the White House “day after” planning should be taken is unclear, given the seemingly farfetched nature of proposals. A presentation circulated after the meeting envisages Gaza under U.S.-led trusteeship, with temporary housing for Palestinians provided by the same GHF whose aid delivery has proven so calamitous; the strip’s reconstruction is depicted as a business opportunity for real estate development, electric vehicles manufacturing and data centres, underpinned by a program whereby an estimated quarter of the Palestinian inhabitants would be paid to depart the strip. All of these notions echo the “Riviera plan” Trump floated in February. 

If Washington were serious about stopping the war, it could do so.

If Washington were serious about stopping the war, it could do so. Israel’s campaign relies on U.S. weapons, funds and diplomatic cover. The U.S. is mostly now alone among Israel’s allies in not condemning what it is doing in Gaza. If Trump were to push Netanyahu into a deal that gets hostages out, he would find significant backing among Israelis themselves. According to polls, a majority of Israelis want an immediate deal that frees the hostages, with many hoping that the U.S. president will act to serve their interests when their own prime minister will not. Meanwhile, 59 per cent of U.S. respondents now see Israel’s Gaza campaign as excessive, and at least one poll suggests that half of them view it as genocidal. Trump’s calculations likely centre more on his base, where support for Israel remains stronger, though even there, “America first” advocates increasingly question the costs of unlimited support for a belligerent Israel. A committed stance from Trump would further give Arab and European states the courage to take stronger action against the Netanyahu government without fearing U.S. reprisal or jeopardising their own relations with Washington. 

Even absent leadership from Washington, other governments should do more. Several Western governments – notably Australia, Belgium, Canada, France and the UK – have announced their intention to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly’s opening session in September, joining the 145 states that already recognise Palestinian statehood. Under the rubric of the Global Alliance for the Two-State Solution, France and Saudi Arabia highlighted Gaza’s plight at a UN conference they co-sponsored in July to reimagine a political horizon for the conflict. This diplomatic mass, however, has offered no means of halting the carnage in Gaza or the expanding Israeli settlement of the West Bank – the first steps needed to give a Palestinian state a chance to survive.

The decision by powerful European countries to recognise a Palestinian state represents a symbolic expression of popular frustration in Western countries, but it is far from the full force that European capitals could bring to bear. Any other leader or government perpetrating what Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza would be ostracised by Europe. Indeed, it is not uncommon to hear senior European officials privately express their belief that the aim of the Israeli campaign is to rid Gaza of Palestinians. Options for the EU include, for example, suspending Israel’s preferential trade terms and halting visa-free travel to the continent for Israeli officials responsible for human rights violations. The EU and individual European governments like the UK could broaden targeted sanctions to include not just far-right figures but also Netanyahu himself, other top politicians, and the military officers directing Israeli operations and the siege on Gaza. As Canada has done, European countries could threaten to prosecute citizens who may have committed war crimes while serving in the Israeli army. They could make clear they will arrest those for whom the International Criminal Court has issued warrants.

Instead, Europe’s efforts so far reveal the limits of half-measures, calling into question Europeans’ own compliance with the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion of 19 July 2024. When the EU in May announced a review of Israel’s compliance with its human rights obligations under the Association Agreement governing EU-Israeli relations, Israel promised Brussels it would improve aid access to Gaza. But the bloc has not held Israel accountable since then. Though the EU’s internal review found “indications” that Israel has violated the human rights clauses of the Association Agreement, its members remain divided over how to respond. Despite repeated calls for action, including by individual European foreign ministers, EU member states have still not managed to build the necessary qualified majority to suspend parts of the Association Agreement and revoke Israel’s trade benefits. Member state vetoes have blocked decisions to impose EU sanctions on more Israeli officials. Similarly, though suggestions that the EU might cut Israel out of its Horizon scientific research program have spooked Israel’s academics and start-up scene (the beneficiaries of over $500 million in such aid since October 2023), no actual step has been taken in this direction. 

While even strong European sanctions, economic pressure or academic boycotts are unlikely to sway Netanyahu himself or override what an Israeli consensus views as existential security concerns, sustained European action could affect Israel’s longer-term calculations about the costs of international isolation. For many Israelis outside Netanyahu’s coalition, watching European governments move from censure to concrete penalties would signal a dangerous erosion of relationships that matter. Pressure behind closed doors from Europe has had limited, if any, impact on Netanyahu throughout the Gaza war. What is needed now is the loudest, clearest possible condemnation and tough action that makes clear to Israelis that what is being done in Gaza is unacceptable.

Arab states ... have been firm in their rhetoric toward both Israel and Hamas, but have largely shied from tangible measures.

Arab states, meanwhile, have been firm in their rhetoric toward both Israel and Hamas, but have largely shied from tangible measures. Among Arab countries that have normalised relations with Israel, only Jordan has recalled its ambassador. (Egypt, which does not currently have an ambassador in Israel, has decided to postpone nominating a new one.) None has downgraded economic ties (in August, Egypt signed a $35 billion long-term deal to buy Israeli natural gas) or even joined the Hague Group of countries, led by South Africa and Colombia, that have imposed limited sanctions on Israel. Air links between Israel and the United Arab Emirates have stayed open, even when U.S. and European airlines have suspended flights due to security concerns. 

Several factors explain Arab restraint. Israel’s neighbours highly value their bilateral relations with the U.S., and fear the response from Washington, and especially Congress, to any rupture with Israel. Arab capitals have also been loath to take stronger measures without others, notably in Europe, doing the same. Many regional leaders put more stock in strategic ties with a powerful Israeli state than in political commitment to the Palestinian cause. The UAE and others argue that maintaining ties preserves channels for aid delivery and behind-the-scenes influence over Israeli behaviour. Yet while the UAE has secured some humanitarian access, there is little indication that such quiet diplomacy has moderated Israeli military operations in Gaza.

Yet Arab capitals may undervalue the weight their relationships carry for Israel. Over the past decade, Israel has experienced what it sees as a transformation from regional pariah to accepted neighbour, with the Abraham Accords cementing a narrative that the arc of history bends toward Israel’s integration, not isolation. Even during the Gaza war, notwithstanding the outcry at Israel’s devastating tactics and threats of expelling Palestinians to nearby Arab countries, this trajectory has stalled rather than reversed. For Israel, normalised Arab ties represent both practical benefits – trade corridors, overflight rights, security cooperation, arms supplies – and psychological validation. Should Arab states downgrade or withdraw these relationships, Israel would lose not just strategic depth but also the sense that it has finally won its decades-long struggle for acceptance in the Middle East. Moreover, Arab capitals have sway in both the U.S. and Europe that they could use to agitate for more concerted action. As the war continues to rage and the threat of Palestinian expulsion grows, Arab capitals’ failure to use their leverage may come back to haunt them.

Arab states have to some extent succeeded in exerting pressure on the Palestinians, but with mixed results. Egypt and Qatar may be credited for pushing Hamas to accede to the Witkoff plan, in part by bringing other Palestinian factions into the room to plead for an end to the war. Arab states also underlined Hamas’s isolation at the UN’s two-state solution conference in July, by signing onto the declaration that calls upon the group to lay down its arms. But Arab divisions remain a handicap. Some governments – such as Egypt’s – continue to support the PA as the logical and legitimate successor to Hamas governance in Gaza and the best means of sustaining the Palestinian claim to statehood. Others, such as the UAE, appear to back Palestinian rivals to the PA. Until they get their agendas in order, the Arab states will continue to struggle in their diplomacy. They will have difficulty persuading Israel and the U.S. that they can guarantee a Palestinian “day after” in Gaza that will be stable and in the interest of Israel’s security.

Stopping the War

The question facing the outside world today is whether governments, particularly the U.S., European and Arab leaders who have the greatest clout with the parties, will move beyond aggrieved statements to action that can force necessary if unsatisfying compromises and stop the humanitarian catastrophe before Gaza is completely destroyed. If Israel’s assault on Gaza’s biggest city, in the midst of a famine, continues, the results look set to be still more horrifying than what the world has witnessed to date. Even were Netanyahu to send Israeli officials to negotiate in good faith, “day after” details cannot be hammered out as Palestinians in Gaza continue to die daily by the scores and Israel’s hostages rot. 

While Israel has severely depleted its enemy and a continued campaign might stop Hamas from regrouping, more aggressive operations cannot eliminate the movement or even do it much more damage without destroying Gaza itself – a price that should be intolerable for world capitals. As for Hamas, it may claim success merely by surviving and pointing to international outrage, but it has come at incalculable cost to Palestinians in Gaza. Neither side will get everything it wants through talks, but nor can either achieve more militarily. Either the outside world forces the parties to agree now to end the war, preserve Palestinians’ right to live in Gaza and negotiate reconstruction, governance and security incrementally. Or Gaza’s future offers at best protracted Israeli rule with continued violence or the end of Palestinian collective life in the strip, a monstrous culmination of a military campaign that has already entailed some of the worst atrocities of recent decades.

Shame in Gaza.pdf

Download PDF • 2.95MB

© 2025 International Crisis Group