Gaza aid must be delinked from politics

Gaza requires urgent international attention. What is happening in the besieged and devastated Strip far exceeds an unfolding humanitarian disaster; it is a calculated geopolitical reshaping. Israel is executing a plan to permanently occupy the vast majority of Gaza, with consequences that require little elaboration considering what we already know about the ongoing genocide.

Currently, much of the international debate centers on a single official: Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov. The former UN special envoy to the Middle East has been designated by the US as executive director of the Trump administration’s “Board of Peace” — an international council founded to oversee the implementation of Washington’s 20-point Gaza roadmap.

The issue, however, is much bigger than a single Washington-backed bureaucrat. A growing number of Palestinians and political analysts accuse Mladenov of manufacturing the conditions that continue to obstruct progress on the agreement’s transition to its second phase.

Under this framework, the official transition to the second phase — which Trump and the Board of Peace declared to have begun in January — demands sweeping, one-sided Palestinian concessions, most notably the total disarmament of armed factions.

This demand is a recipe for the failure of the entire project, especially given that Israel has not implemented the most basic requirements of the agreement’s first phase. It has refused to halt its routine military incursions, failed to withdraw its forces to the originally mandated “Yellow Line,” and it continues to deny entry permits to the technocratic committee slated to assume civil governance of the Strip.

The insistence on Palestinian disarmament before the agreement can advance conveniently flips the narrative

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

Mladenov’s insistence on Palestinian disarmament before the agreement can advance — without a single guarantee of Israeli compliance — conveniently flips the narrative. It cynically reframes systematic starvation and the denial of medical and construction supplies as being due to a Palestinian failure to honor commitments.

In reality, Mladenov holds no real cards; he is merely a cog in a larger machine controlled by Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister has made it clear that he has no intention of following any peace roadmap, planning instead for the permanent, incremental takeover of Gaza.

Speaking at a conference in a West Bank settlement on May 28, Netanyahu explained his strategy with total clarity, abandoning all diplomatic doublespeak: “We are currently squeezing Hamas; we now control 60 percent of the territory of the Strip — you know this. We were at 50, we moved to 60. My directive is to move to…” he said, pausing as an audience member shouted “100.” Netanyahu smiled and responded: “Let’s go step by step. First of all, 70. Let’s start with that. We are pressing them from all sides, we’ll deal with the remnants.”

This is the blueprint of the Israeli government, declared openly to domestic audiences. The admission was so brazen that even US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed frustration at Netanyahu’s candor. Testifying before Congress last week, Rubio remarked: “We have a plan — it doesn’t call for that,” referring to further Israeli territorial expansion.

But Rubio quickly reverted to Washington’s standard line: “And at the end of the day, we understand that what we want, and I think what the Israelis would ultimately want, is a Gaza that is governed by a non-Hamas entity.”

While the immediate priority for Palestinians is not governance but food, clean water, medicine and basic survival, Netanyahu and Rubio view the entire crisis through a political lens. The US-Israeli plan is predicated on achieving, through diplomatic strangulation and engineered famine, what they failed to fully achieve through military might.

A rare, decisive answer came from UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, who summed up the organization’s position plainly: “One hundred percent of Gaza should be for the Palestinian people.” The problem, however, is that the UN’s rhetoric does not have the backing of any genuine enforcement mechanisms.

The immediate priority for Palestinians is not governance but food, clean water, medicine and basic survival

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

The international community has walked into a trap, outsourcing the future of the Gaza Strip to the Trump administration and its Board of Peace. Even the designated technocratic committee has been rendered entirely irrelevant, excluded from a decision-making process left solely to diplomats beholden to the White House.

The situation on the ground remains catastrophic. Since the fragile, heavily compromised ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10 last year, regular Israeli violations and airstrikes have killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians and wounded thousands more — the vast majority women and children. When added to the horrific toll of the initial two years of war, the official number of Palestinians killed has surpassed 73,000, with more than 173,000 injured. Furthermore, credible epidemiological studies and medical journals have concluded that the true death toll is likely vastly higher.

With nearly the entire population of Gaza living in substandard tents and surviving on the meager rations permitted through Israeli checkpoints, it is the highest form of immorality to demand political concessions in exchange for basic sustenance.

Netanyahu’s “step-by-step” annexation does not hinge on what Palestinian factions decide to do — his expansionist timeline is shaped independently of Palestinian compliance.

Arab, Muslim and allied nations must fundamentally shift their diplomatic strategy. They must firmly insist that humanitarian aid is completely delinked from the future governance and demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.

Starvation cannot be tolerated as political leverage for war criminals. Netanyahu is emboldened by a history of international impunity, speaking openly of expanding Israel’s military footprint regardless of the consequences of such actions.

The international community must remind Israel’s government that the survival of millions of Palestinians cannot be held hostage to the political ambitions of an extremist coalition.

• Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. His latest book, “Before the Flood,” was published by Seven Stories Press. His website is ramzybaroud.net. X: @RamzyBaroud