With Trump distracted by Iran, Netanyahu is squeezing Gaza
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The U.S. war with Iran continues to be a major distraction, diverting attention from other problems even within the Middle East.
The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not want it any other way.
An image of Iran as a regional bête noire has long served Israel’s objective of drawing international attention away from Israeli conduct.
This is a major reason Israel has promoted unending confrontation with Iran, including the https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/us/politics/iran-israel-trump-netanyahu-mossad.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">starting and https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4gnqw8j52o" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">continuation of the current war.
This also helps explain why Israel https://mei.edu/publication/source-netanyahus-opposition-jcpoa/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">opposes and often seeks to https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/06/19/us-intelligence-warns-israel-is-likely-undermine-iran-peace-deal-officials-say/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sabotage diplomacy with Tehran.
Netanyahu’s government is using the current preoccupation with a rekindled U.S.-Iranian war to intensify its violent subjugation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
While President Donald Trump has said little about Gaza in recent weeks, Israel’s actions there are undermining the president’s https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-trumps-20-point-proposal-to-end-the-war-in-gaza" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">20-point peace plan for Gaza, which he proposed last October.
To the extent the president is thinking about peace agreements in the Middle East, he is unsurprisingly focused on the conflict with Iran.
If he tries to influence Netanyahu, it probably will be to avoid any Israeli sabotage of a new ceasefire with Iran, rather than to make progress on Palestinian matters.
Israel has treated the Gaza https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-oct-9-israel-hamas-deal-on-trumps-plan-for-comprehensive-end-to-gaza-war/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ceasefire, to which Hamas https://www.npr.org/2025/10/08/g-s1-92558/gaza-ceasefire-israel-hamas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">agreed and which supposedly went into effect last October, the way it has treated other ceasefires; it has not ended offensive military operations but merely reduced their tempo somewhat.
Israel has https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/17/death-toll-in-gaza-since-ceasefire-with-israel-goes-past-1000" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and injured more than 3,000 since the start of this “ceasefire.”
The tempo of Israeli operations has not lessened since the start of the current war with Iran.
In fact, it may have increased.
Within the past week, Israel https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/14/israeli-attack-on-north-gaza-police-station-kills-eight" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">attacked a police station in the Jabalia displacement camp, killing at least eight people, including the station’s chief and several other police officers, whose job was to maintain order in a marketplace at the camp.
The attack continued an Israeli https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/15/cycle-of-chaos-israel-killing-gaza-civil-officials-to-derail-its-future" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">campaign of destroying the human and physical infrastructure needed for some semblance of normal civilian life in Gaza.
The targets have included hospitals and medical personnel, schools and teachers, and other police officers.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has https://liberties.aljazeera.com/en/gazas-police-are-being-killed-that-is-not-an-accident/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">recorded at least twelve Israeli attacks on police in Gaza since the start of this year, killing at least 53 people.
The killed officers were conducting such mundane but necessary tasks as directing traffic or, like the officers at Jabalia, ensuring order in a crowded marketplace.
The Israeli military customarily https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israels-latest-strikes-kill-at-least-a-dozen-people-in-gaza-including-police-officers" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">claims, without offering evidence, that at least some of the police officers it has killed were Hamas militants.
It is not only the ceasefire that remains largely unimplemented.
Most of Trump’s 20-point plan is https://jstreet.org/six-months-in-assessing-the-status-of-the-gaza-ceasefire/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stalled, and Israeli resistance is the chief reason.
No progress is being made toward Israeli withdrawal from the territory.
Israeli forces have https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/7026/Establishing-Israeli-military-sites-near-Yellow-Line-entrenches-de-facto-annexation,-threatens-civilians-in-Gaza" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">erected fortifications along the “yellow line,” literally cementing indefinite Israeli occupation of more than half the Gaza Strip.
In recent months, Israeli forces have only https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-06/idf-controls-more-gaza-territory-as-israel-yellow-line-moves/106836640" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">expanded the area they control, from 53% to 60% of the Gaza Strip.
The Trump plan states that aid to residents of the Gaza Strip “will proceed without interference from the two parties.” But the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/07/1167880" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">dire, chiefly because of extensive Israeli interference.
Israel has https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/01/israel-ban-37-aid-groups-makes-life-unbearable-genocide-survivors-palestine" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">barred numerous international aid organizations from operating in Gaza.
It also has https://gisha.org/en/dual-use-items/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">restricted entry of an extremely long list of items, from sleeping bags to portable toilets, that it has labeled “dual-use” on grounds that they conceivably could serve a military purpose.
The Trump plan calls for temporary administration of the Gaza Strip by a body of apolitical Palestinian technocrats, which in fact has been formed with the name https://www.ncag.ps/en/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG).
Hamas has made official its acceptance of this part of the plan with its recent https://www.nbcnews.com/world/gaza/hamas-dissolves-gaza-governing-body-ahead-power-transfer-rcna353116" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">announcement of the dissolution of its own “Emergency Committee” for administering Gaza and its “full readiness” to transfer authority to NCAG. But Israel has been https://www.haaretz.com/gaza/2026-02-08/ty-article/.premium/palestinian-officials-israel-pa-blocking-start-of-gaza-administrative-committee/0000019c-3d0f-dd94-a39d-3f0f50170000" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">barring NCAG from entering Gaza, and the committee remains stuck in a hotel in Cairo.
Reconstruction of the devastated Gaza Strip is https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/20/donald-trump-gaza-reconstruction-promises-stall" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stalled as well, in part because Israel applies the “dual-use” label to things like construction equipment.
Even clearance of the rubble has https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/02/1166983" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">barely begun.
Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which was supposed to supervise the peace process but has https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5962968-trump-grandiose-plans-unfulfilled/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">accomplished little, has https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/16/trumps-board-of-peace-drops-full-gaza-recovery-plan-for-tiny-pilot-scheme" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">abandoned a vision of reconstructing the entire Gaza Strip in favor of a pilot program that would affect only a tiny fraction of the Strip’s population, and even that is unlikely to materialize before the end of the year.
Israel and the Board of Peace habitually blame all lack of progress on Hamas for not disarming.
Hamas has expressed its willingness to https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/06/07/hamas-sets-conditions-for-disarmament-talks-under-trumps-gaza-plan/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">give up weapons under the terms of the Trump plan, but only if Israel stops trying to assassinate the group’s leaders and complies with other terms in the plan, including letting NCAG and unrestricted humanitarian aid into Gaza and not extending its occupation beyond the yellow line.
Unless such Israeli compliance is forthcoming, it is https://responsiblestatecraft.org/hamas-disarmament-gaza/" target="_self">unrealistic to expect Hamas to unilaterally give up its means of resistance.
Israel’s objective in the Gaza Strip is to make life there so miserable that those who survive the https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">killings will, out of desperation, be willing to go anywhere else.
Israeli ministers make no secret of their goal of https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/28/israels-defence-minister-says-large-scale-palestinian-migration-from-gaza-will-go-ahead" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ethnic cleansing.
Israel applied the term “voluntary migration” to this process.
After commentators pointed out that it is hardly voluntary when one’s homeland has been made unlivable, Israel now uses the still-euphemistic term “https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-rebrands-gaza-displacement-plan-amid-backlash-over-forced-transfer-concerns-report/3980749" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Free Movement Plan.” Whatever it’s called, it directly violates point 12 of the 20-point plan, which states that “no one will be forced to leave Gaza,” and that “we will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.”
Trump’s plan is far from perfect and in many ways is slanted toward Israel; among other issues, it includes a clause about what to do if Hamas delays or rejects the proposal but says nothing about the possibility of Israel sabotaging it.
For now, however, it may be the most plausible vehicle for digging Gaza out of its current horrible condition.
The last two points in the plan at least aim in the right direction by speaking of creating “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” and positing the goal of “peaceful and prosperous co-existence” between Israel and the Palestinians.
Netanyahu https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forces-advance-ahead-trump-netanyahu-gaza-war-talks-2025-09-29/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said he accepted the plan when Trump proposed it.
The U.S. administration needs to use its leverage to get him to act accordingly — regarding the entire plan, including those last clauses.