Israeli violations are not limited to the relentless slaughter that has not stopped for a day since October 7, 2023.
CONTINUING their nonstop violations of the “ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, the Israelis bombed a community kitchen in Deir al-Balah on Sunday, killing three Palestinians, all of whom worked at the kitchen. The Israelis killed two more Palestinians across the besieged enclave, taking the death toll to at least 871 since the start of the supposed ceasefire in October last year. On average, the Israelis have been killing more than 120 Palestinians every month since the resistance started abiding by the “ceasefire” terms, which the Israelis have shown no inclination to honour.
Israeli violations are not limited to the relentless slaughter that has not stopped for a day since October 7, 2023. The genocidal occupation army has occupied nearly 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, as the so-called “yellow line” — from which the Israelis were supposed to withdraw — continues to snake westward, penning genocide survivors into an ever-shrinking territory.
In a report on Israeli violations, Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq recounted how Israeli leadership has openly boasted about their treacherous moves inside the Gaza Strip:
Israel’s Prime Minister, Netanyahu announced in a speech on 14 May, to rapturous applause, “Today we control 60% of Gaza — and tomorrow… well, we will see”. Last December, Israel’s military Chief of General Staff, Eyal Zamir explained to soldiers in Gaza, “[t]he ‘yellow line’ is a new border line”.
Furthermore, Israelis have continued to keep a tight leash on the amount of aid and humanitarian assistance entering Gaza. Besieged Palestinians have received a mere fraction of the 600 aid trucks — including 100 fuel trucks — promised to them in the ceasefire. The severe fuel shortage has crippled life in the enclave, starving hospitals of the fuel needed to keep machines running while new victims of Israel’s genocidal assault continue to pour in every day.
Trump’s “Board of Peace” was meant to oversee the “ceasefire.” However, Nickolay Mladenov, the Bulgarian diplomat serving as the Director-General of the so-called Gaza Board of Peace, has only ever made inflammatory or deceitful remarks vis-à-vis the fulfilment of the board’s mandate, as Palestinians continue to suffer.
What is worse, members of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) — which is supervised by the “Board of Peace” — have not even been allowed to enter Gaza by the Israelis, laying bare the futility of the peace exercise.
Al-Haq placed the blame for the ongoing Israeli crimes in the Gaza Strip on the Board of Peace’s incompetence and impotence:
If the ‘Peace Board’ was sincere in its endeavors, it would take action to force Israel, the Occupying Power, to stop its crimes, allow for the free flow of foods and medical supplies, pressure Israel to leave areas it exercises its direct control over within the so-called Yellow and Orange Lines and move to next phases to enable the reconstruction and return of people to their homes, and end Israel’s unlawful presence and apartheid.
Despite the Israeli violations, the Palestinian resistance has continued to abide by the terms of the agreement. It has not carried out any operations against the occupiers despite losing several key personnel to Israeli assassinations. This week, the Israelis killed Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the senior-most Hamas official in the Gaza Strip and the head of its military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades.
Al-Haddad had been a key figure in Hamas for several decades and had survived numerous assassination attempts, earning him the nickname “the Ghost”. The Israelis killed al-Haddad along with his wife and daughter in their attack on May 15. He had previously lost two of his sons, Suhaib and Momen, during the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Commemorating al-Haddad’s martyrdom, Al-Qassam posted a quote from a speech delivered on October 7, 2024, by its martyred spokesman, Abu Obeida:
We work by the will of Allah and under His protection: for every leader who falls, ten leaders are born; and for every martyr, a thousand resistance fighters follow. This land grows fighters just as it grows olives, and bequeaths defiance to the generations just as it inherited it from thousands of prophets and righteous companions.
Al-Haddad’s assassination is yet another reminder that, for the Israelis, the so-called ceasefire has never been anything more than a continuation of the genocide by other means. While Palestinians are being starved, bombed, displaced, and penned into shrinking pockets of devastation, the international mechanisms supposedly tasked with enforcing peace have remained either paralysed or complicit. The “Board of Peace” has overseen neither peace nor accountability. It has merely provided diplomatic cover for Israel’s uninterrupted campaign of annihilation.
Yet, despite the assassinations, the starvation siege, and the daily massacres, the Palestinian resistance has not collapsed. On the contrary, Israel’s barbarism has only deepened the conviction that resistance is inseparable from Palestinian survival itself. The killing of leaders like Izz al-Din al-Haddad may deliver symbolic victories to the occupation, but it has not broken the political or military will of a people resisting extermination.
As Gaza’s ruins continue to fill with martyrs, Israel may boast of territorial gains and shifting borderlines, but history has repeatedly shown that brute force cannot extinguish a people rooted in their land. Every demolished home, every funeral procession, and every orphaned child becomes another indictment of a world order unwilling to stop the slaughter. Every fallen commander, as Abu Obeida declared, leaves behind countless others prepared to carry the struggle forward. — Palestine Wil Be Free
