Israel's Gaza decision inside

Official reports of the Israeli authorities say that in the hunt for hostilities in the eastern part of the city, several dozen terrorists were eliminated, infrastructure facilities are being destroyed. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is also suffering losses. The number of Israeli soldiers who have died since the aggravation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has exceeded 630 people. The IDF reported the deaths of two soldiers during the fighting in Rafah. Details in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post.

Rafah is the last major settlement in the Gaza Strip in which Israel has not previously conducted major operations. As a result, refugees from other areas of the Gaza Strip have accumulated in Rafah. During the first week of hostilities, 360 thousand people left Rafah. In two weeks, the city's population has almost halved, the UN Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) said.

No more safe zones

In particular, the Israeli military themselves allegedly asked the residents of Rafah to move to the Al-Mawasi area, as well as to the city of Khan Younis. UNRWA said it would not participate in forced evacuations from Rafah or elsewhere in the Gaza Strip. The Al Mawasi area is already overcrowded. UNRWA recalled that thousands of its employees remain in Rafah. UNICEF also opposed forced displacement from Rafah.

Gaza "no longer has safe zones," said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA.

In just a day, by May 18, according to estimates by the Gaza Ministry of Health, 83 residents were killed there. An Israeli airstrike in central Gaza killed 27 people, according to AR.

According to the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian enclave, since the beginning of the conflict in October 2023, the number of victims has exceeded 35.2 thousand, more than 79.1 thousand people have been injured. "15,103 children were killed by the Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip," the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported on social network X.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres believes that only the creation of a Palestinian state can stop the war between Israel and the Palestinian movement, of which Hamas is a part. Otherwise, the UN Secretary General warns, the conflict could spread to other countries in the Middle East. Signs of this are already emerging. "The war in Gaza threatens to infect the entire region," Guterres said.

In the West, in the Arab world and in Israel itself, there are big doubts about how real this is. But the essence is the same - the creation of a Palestinian state is necessary in accordance with the decision of the UN Security Council. It should be a single, independent state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side with Israel in peace, security and good neighbourliness.

But the diplomats "dream of living" side by side in peace and security "increasingly seems impossible. As well as plans to turn Jerusalem into the capital of two states at once. In particular, because more than 75 years have passed since this conflict began to flare up, and terror and violence are flaring up with renewed vigor.

Lavrov warns

"This is still far away," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov back in December last year. "Some reports are slipping that the Americans are concerned about this. Again they want to "themselves" with someone "slowly," secretly, non-transparently come up with some kind of scheme. There are leaks, which options "roam" in their minds: the creation of a certain protectorate either under the leadership of Arab states (which do not need it), or under the leadership of the UN mission with international peacekeepers, "the Russian diplomat said then, speaking in the Federation Council.

It is noteworthy that Lavrov, speaking at a meeting of the XXXII Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy on May 18, 2024, practically did not touch on the topic of settlement in the Middle East. Except for the fact that "after the adoption of the UN Security Council resolution on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip at least for the holy month of Ramadan, the US Permanent Representative to the UN L. Thomas-Greenfield said that this resolution is not binding."

As Lavrov warned, Washington continues to look for a way out of the crisis, again "itself and with someone slowly." US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Netanyahu and other leaders to discuss how Saudi recognition of Israel could be achieved. In exchange, the Saudis are invited to take part in the management of the Gaza Strip with the prospect of resolving the issue of statehood for all of Palestine.

Solution, if any, inside Israel

A split is brewing in Israel's leadership. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing criticism that his main political rival Benny Gantz is threatening to leave the government if an urgent plan is not developed to create an international administration to govern Gaza after the war.

Much to understand how Israel is building a policy towards the occupied territories is given by the authors of the article "Unpunished: How Extremists Captured Israel" in The New York Times.

The facts cited by the authors, as well as the conclusions that suggest themselves, raise great doubts that the crisis can be overcome without a radical restructuring of the entire system of power in Israel itself.

"Extremism has ceased to be a fringe ideology in Israel," writes the NYT. Illegal Jewish settlements in Gaza turned out to be above the law and were able to crush the whole state. The authors of the special report revealed the shocking details of the conspiracy. In the half-century that the Israeli state has failed to curb Jewish ultranationalist violence and terrorism against Palestinians, lawlessness has become the new law. "

This article consists of three parts. In the first part of an extensive journalistic investigation, the authors talk about how Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were above the law.

In the second part, it is revealed that extremists persecuted not only Palestinians, but also those Israeli officials who tried to make peace.

The third part examines the question of how this movement was able to crush the whole state. Together, there is a picture of how radical ideology has ceased to be marginal and moved from the periphery to the very heart of Israeli politics.

"Interviews as well as classified documents,... showed that the Israeli government is at war with itself, "the authors of the investigation conclude. And they say: "We are talking about a criminal nationalist movement that has not met with proper resistance and has gradually moved from the periphery of Israeli society to its core. This is a report on how voices within the government, unwilling to condone Israeli settler violence, were discredited and forced into silence. And this is a frank account, first heard from the mouth of Israeli officials themselves, of how the occupation has become a threat to the integrity of its democracy itself. "