On Tuesday, on the day a United Nations panel of experts said Israel was committing genocide, Israel began a wide-scale new ground offensive in Gaza City. That offensive is all but certain to cause yet another surge in civilian casualties in an enclave that has already been pummeled for nearly two years. President Donald Trump is effectively co-signing the operation with a shrug.
Israel’s initial bombardment of Gaza City, conducted after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in 2023, left large parts of the city in ruins. But in the nearly two years since, according to Reuters, about 1 million people have returned to Gaza City to find shelter. The Israel Defense Forces estimate that since Israel announced its plans to besiege the city in August, 40% of those residents have fled the city. That means, however, that several hundred thousand people remain in the city as Israel unleashes an aggressive new campaign.
In between efforts to secure a Nobel Peace Prize, Trump has floated the idea of turning Gaza into a U.S.-controlled tourist destination.
It might be surprising to hear that so many Gazans are remaining in an area that Israel promised to strike with “powerful” military force. But people can’t leave for many different reasons. Some can’t afford transportation or food. Others are too sick or elderly to manage the journey physically. Some think that the risk of staying in place is equal to or less than the risk of leaving, since the areas they’re being sent to farther south lack food, medicine and supplies — and aren’t safe from bombardment and gunfire, either. And there are also those who refuse to go because Israel’s finance minister and other politicians call for annexing Gaza and some Gazans would rather die on their land than die running away from it.
Israel’s latest offensive comes after hundreds of former Israeli military and security leaders published a letter urging Trump to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end his military operation. “Everything that can be accomplished by force has been accomplished,” one signatory told NPR. The operation comes after the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution stating that Israel’s conduct in Gaza meets the definition of genocide, which is also the conclusion of many human rights observers. And it comes after many of Israel’s allies in Europe have explicitly warned against the offensive. Britain’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, called the move “utterly reckless and appalling” and said, “It will only bring more bloodshed, kill more innocent civilians and endanger the remaining hostages.”
But the Trump administration has been silent, effectively giving Netanyahu a green light. The New York Times reports that when Trump was asked Tuesday whether he supported the offensive, “the president said, ‘Well, I have to see — I don’t know too much about it.’” However much he knows about the operation, the answer is appalling, given the amount of military aid the United States gives Israel and the exceptional strategic coordination between the two countries. While President Joe Biden rarely did anything to restrain Netanyahu’s barbarism in the Gaza Strip, his administration did at least try to influence the way Israel handled some of its ground operations. As the Times notes, “When Israel prepared in early 2024 to mount a military assault on the densely populated Gaza city of Rafah, Biden administration officials attempted to shape the operation, threatening to block the shipment of American weapons unless Israel developed a ‘credible and executable’ plan to protect civilian lives.” There is no evidence of any comparable effort by the Trump administration. That Trump is looking the other way as Netanyahu sheds more blood in Gaza City isn’t surprising. After all, in between efforts to secure a Nobel Peace Prize, Trump has floated the idea of turning Gaza into a U.S.-controlled tourist destination and declined to object to Israel’s potential annexation of the territory. But the lack of surprise doesn’t make his assent to more bloodshed any less morally abhorrent.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer for MS NOW. Sign up for his newsletter. 
