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Israel’s war of annihilation against the Palestinian people grinds on. New revelations about operations in the south of war-torn Gaza and the West Bank, as well as hawkish plans for the post-Palestinian occupation of the territory, are prominent in the news. Despite condemnations from around the world, the Israeli war machine continues to blast its way through the rubble of Palestine. Here are some of the latest events in the ongoing conflict.

As January came to a close, Israeli operatives in disguise infiltrated a hospital in the West Bank and opened fire, killing at least three people. Some media outlets claim that the targets were militants, but this is still unknown. According to a mainstream news piece, Israeli soldiers posing as women and medics killed three Palestinian militants “in a dramatic raid that underscored how deadly violence has spilled into the territory from the war in Gaza.”

An article in the Wall Street Journal explores an interest group that has enthusiastic plans for Jewish settlement in Gaza once the ethnic cleansing operation is complete. What was once a more subdued movement is now out in the open and more vocal than ever as jubilant Jews rejoice at the prospect of annexing even more territory for the Zionist state. Eitan Cahn, a 49-year-old rabbi, envisions a newly-constituted, high-tech, green future for Gaza, one where Palestinians will not be welcome: “The only way to have peace is if the Arabs are not there . . . It will be an Israeli city.” At an event called “Settlements Bring Security,” enthusiastic participants and organizers unfurled maps featuring plans for future settlement in Gaza’s blasted ruins.

Meanwhile, after months of bombardments and intense fighting, a vast majority of the structures in Gaza have been damaged. A BBC report indicates that a study conducted by Corey Scher of the City University of New York and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University, based on satellite imagery, has determined that “between 144,000 and 175,000 buildings across the whole Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed. That’s between 50% and 61% of Gaza’s buildings.” When inquiries were made about the extent of the destruction, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials have continually used the presence — or possible presence of Hamas fighters — as justification for their disproportionate use of firepower.

The Israeli offensive is having a devastating effect on civilians. Syrian Girl Partisan has featured several videos on her Telegram channel that show civilians who have been caught up in the storm of steel or who were deliberately targeted by IDF snipers. In one horrific video, for instance, children’s body parts are being gathered up following an explosion.

A former Mossad official, Rami Igra, has been strident about his position regarding the culpability of all Palestinians for the attack on Israel: When it comes to Palestinians, there are no innocents. In an interview with Israeli television that aired on Tuesday, February 13, Igra made the argument that “[i]n Gaza, everyone is involved. Everyone voted Hamas. Anyone over the age of four is a Hamas supporter.” In other words, the indiscriminate killing of civilians is justified.

Even though Israel is technically the superior force, however, sources within the Israeli military indicate that the fight for the region will take some time. While Gaza now resembles the worst bombed-out cities of the Second World War, Palestinian fighters are dug in and continuing to fight desperately amongst the rubble, harassing Israeli forces in the region’s major cities. A report dated February 4 states that despite being overrun earlier in the conflict, Palestinian irregular troops continue to cause problems for the Israeli forces in Gaza City in the north and Khan Younis in the south.

During a speech at “a religious pre-military academy” in the occupied West Bank in late January, Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that the war against the Palestinians in Gaza would not end until Hamas is destroyed, nor will he consent to the release of Palestinian prisoners. I think most observers who are not partial to Israel know at this point that the operation is one of annihilation and cleansing. “We will not end this war without achieving all of our goals,” Netanyahu said. “We will not withdraw the Israeli military from the Gaza Strip and we will not release thousands of terrorists.”

Former war correspondent and writer Chris Hedges reported that even though many governments, officials, and commentators have acknowledged that the current conflict constitutes an ongoing genocide against the Palestinians, it will not be stopped. In another article, Hedges argued that Israel is using starvation as a weapon. The options for those who remain in Gaza are either to leave or die. In its genocidal war against those who remain in the Gaza Strip, Israel has deliberately targeted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Moreover, the IDF has damaged much of Gaza’s farmland in a calculated move to accelerate the process:

Although Gaza was heavily dependent on imports before the start of the war, a lot of its food came from farming and food production inside the strip. Aid agencies say half of Gaza’s population is now facing starvation.

Israel has made it clear that its operations in Gaza will continue regardless. After forcing the vast majority of Palestinians south, the IDF is now poised to strike the southern city of Rafah, which is on the border with Egypt. If that is indeed the objective, it would essentially mean the Israel will have annexed the entire territory. For those displaced, the situation has gone from bad to worse: Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants have been pushed into Rafah and have nowhere to go. The displaced are living in tents and lack food, water, electricity, and medical supplies. Egypt will not accept them, the Mediterranean Sea is to their west, and the closed border with Israel is to their east — all while Israeli forces drive relentlessly south. 28 people were killed in an airstrike in the area just on Saturday, February 10.

According to a February 10 article from Reuters, approximately 28,064 Palestinians have been killed and 67,611 wounded in Gaza since October 7, as per Gaza’s health ministry.

The prospect of an attack on the city of Rafah has exacerbated tensions in the region. Egypt stated that if Israel proceeds with a military operation in the city, the peace accords that have governed the relations between the two states will be suspended. Fighting in the area would also disrupt a key route that normally supplies aid to Gaza. Egypt warned Israel that they would suspend the Camp David Accords after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that an attack on Rafah was crucial in order to defeat Hamas. Aid organizations maintain “that an offensive in Rafah would worsen the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, where around 80% of residents have fled their homes and where the U.N. says a quarter of the population faces starvation.”

With the prospect of the conflict intensifying right on their doorstep, the Egyptians have reinforced their border security as “more than half of Gaza’s population is sheltering just steps away from the frontier.” It would be impossible for them to accommodate an influx of millions of refugees. Saudi Arabia has also voiced its concerns with the prospect of an attack on the southern city and warned Israel that an assault would result in “very serious repercussions.”

Rafah is already experiencing violence. After a dramatic hostage rescue of two Israelis who had been held captive by Hamas, the Israelis decided to celebrate by killing more than 67 people in an airstrike on Rafah. And an Israeli drone killed at least two people and wounded two others in a strike near the coastal town of Jadra just north of Sidon, a port city in southern Lebanon.

Officials attempted to negotiate another ceasefire on February 13, but the meeting in Cairo did not produce any meaningful results. According to Egypt’s state information service, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi held talks with CIA Director William Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani with the aim of facilitating a truce in Gaza, protecting civilians, and delivering more aid.

Incidentally, the walking corpse of an American President formally known as Joe Biden has reportedly been calling Benjamin Netanyahu an “asshole” in private. Biden has reportedly attempted to persuade his Israeli counterpart to halt its destruction of the Palestinian people to no avail. While this might be partially true, it is quite apparent that Israel is doing whatever it wants given that those who support them control the United States, and anyone who has the temerity to criticize the Jewish state will see his life destroyed.

If we take a moment to step back from the war raging in the Levant, though, it almost seems as if the West as a whole is being subjected the same type of forces that we are witnessing more visibly in Gaza. As Greg Johnson has argued, white people are being subjected to a slow, deliberate genocide wherever we happen to live.

Like the Palestinians, we too are being experimented on, surveilled, monitored, tracked, subjected to unrelenting propaganda, and replaced by hordes of foreigners. Furthermore, our food supply is also being threatened for nefarious reasons, hence the widespread protests by farmers in several countries. Parents and their families are being driven into bankruptcy as food prices the cost of essential products soar. Excess deaths have been alarmingly on the rise in almost every Western country since the COVID-19 pandemic began — not only from the virus itself, but from the experimental vaccines that were promised to be the cure.

Why is it important to pay attention to the ongoing war in Gaza and Israel’s extermination of the Palestinians? Because it is our future, too, if we do not resist metapolitically. I do not want Palestinians entering my country in vast numbers as a result of this war. They do not belong in Canada, the United States, Europe, or the wider West. But their plight should serve as a grim reminder of the Jewish proclivity for genocidal revenge.