On 18 May 2025, Israel escalated its relentless genocidal violence, announcing the start of an extensive large-scale ground offensive, ‘Operation Gideon’s Chariots,’ across northern and southern Gaza. ‘Operation Gideon’s Chariots’ envisions Israel having full and permanent military control of Gaza following the systematic forcible displacement of Palestinians and the deliberate weaponisation of life-saving humanitarian aid. On 8 May, Prime Minister Netanyahu threatened an “intensive operation” on Gaza, and that “the rules are about to change very soon”. Israel’s Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich explained that Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) are acting “with unprecedented power . . . not with intermittent raids, but capturing, cleaning out and retaining [areas] . . . they are destroying what is left of the Strip”. Israel’s Minister for National Security, Ben Gvir, stated “We must now enter Gaza with all our might and finish the job - conquering, seizing the territory, crushing the enemy”.
“The goal is to hold 70% of the Gaza Strip's territory”, explained Member of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, Israeli MK Ohad Tal and that “Israel will hold the Gaza Strip for many, many years”. Israeli Brigadier General (res.) Amir Avivi opined “Nothing that is happening now is like the first year and a half . . . now we are occupying territory and we have American backing with different military leadership”. Minister of Science and Technology, Gila Gamliel, announcing, “we established the 'Immigration Directorate' and we are working to enable the construction of the infrastructure for the departure of Gazans from the Strip, with the aim of enabling the departure of one million seven hundred Palestinians in an orderly and thorough manner.”
In one of the most brutal days of Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign, the IOF killed at least 144 Palestinians in a series of relentless airstrikes from air, land, and sea. Among the targets were three major hospitals: the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, and Deir el-Balah’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, further highlighting the systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system in a continuing pattern of genocidal acts. Alongside these attacks, the IOF targeted schools, tents, and residential buildings sheltering Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced.
This follows more than 70 days of a total Israeli blockade on Gaza, denying the entry of humanitarian aid, effectively pushing three-quarters of Gaza’s population into catastrophic food insecurity, under which malnutrition and mortality exceeds IPC famine thresholds. Since the re-escalation of large scale aerial bombardments on 18 March and as of 13 May, over 436,000 Palestinians in Gaza are estimated to have been displaced once again –– continuously confined to ever-shrinking spaces, leaving nowhere safe in Gaza. 71 percent of the Gaza Strip is now inaccessible to Palestinians, along with 92 percent of housing units either damaged or destroyed, forcing Palestinians into ever-shrinking spaces unfit for human survival without basic infrastructure –– their homes and communities reduced to rubble.
On 19 May, the IOF issued a forced displacement order for Gaza’s second largest city, Khan Younis, placing families in a state of complete terror attempting to gather what is left of their belongings to flee to al-Mawasi. Palestinians continue to be indiscriminately targeted in unsafe “safe zones” with makeshift tents being struck in al-Mawasi, killing “36 [displaced] Palestinians, including 4 cases in which parents and their children were killed together”. The UN Secretary General, António Guterres warning that “[t]he situation for Palestinians in Gaza is beyond description, beyond atrocious [and] beyond inhumane.”
The constant threat of forcible displacement, heightened by the unceasing sounds of drones and relentless bombardment, compounded by hunger and the denial of essential necessities, traps Palestinians in a never-ending, inescapable cycle of death and terror. This vicious cycle is a part of the broader logic of elimination implemented by the Zionist settler-colonial apartheid regime in a continuous effort to create conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinian people. Israel’s strategy of territorial control and demographic manipulation to permanently seize Palestinian land in Gaza becomes clearer each day.
Palestinians have been dehumanized to mere numbers in a rising death toll –– killing 53,339 Palestinians and injuring 121,034 Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October –– as the international community continues to watch in silence, and third state criticisms of Israel’s international law violations fail to be made viable by way of enforcement action. We urge people of conscience across the world to continue to assert maximum pressure on their governments to take immediate and concrete actions to put an end to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people, including by imposing a full arms embargo on Israel, along with economic, diplomatic and individual sanctions. The international community must take clear and unyielding action to prevent the forcible transfer of Palestinians, and reject and prevent any resettlement of Gaza by Israel, or any attempts by Israel to alter Gaza’s demographic composition or territorial character –– including by unseating Israel from the UN General Assembly, prosecuting Israeli perpetrators of international crimes, and implementing UN General Assembly resolution A/ES-10/L.31/Rev.1 (13 September 2024). Palestinians in Gaza urgently need your support.