Palestine Will Not Be Erased

Photo Credit: Jaber Jehad Badwan

On October 8, 2025, it was announced that a deal had been reached between Israel and Hamas on the exchange of hostages and prisoners in return for an eventual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. The deal is set to be a multi-part one, with a full ceasefire, partial pullback of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, a hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas, and increased aid to the strip being part of it. In the days since the deal was announced, Israeli forces have repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreement, with tanks having fired at civilians returning to the northern part of the Gaza Strip earlier this month. After that stopped, Israel again violated the ceasefire agreement by sending drone strikes into Gaza, killing 44.

For some background, prior to the return of Benjamin Netanyahu to the position of Prime Minister following the 2022 legislative elections, the most nationalist faction of the Israeli far-right, the Kahanists, had a somewhat small influence on policies coming out of the Israeli government. Even in a country with an electorate as typically conservative as Israel, the movement’s original leader, Meir Kahane, was regarded as being too extreme for the Israeli political scene. Throughout his tenure, Kahane repeatedly advocated for the expulsion of all Palestinians from their lands, something that drew widespread condemnation from Israeli society at the time. Kahane was later elected to the Knesset in the 1984 elections, before his party was subsequently banned by the very legislature he was elected to.

In spite of everything, this small faction of Israeli politics did not go away. 2022 came with the arrival of Itamar Ben-Gvir into the Israeli Knesset leading Otzma Yehudit, a far-right and anti-Arab party led by Ben-Gvir that failed to enter the Knesset until the 2021 snap elections under the Religious Zionism list. Ben-Gvir himself is highly reminiscent of Kahane, having gotten his start in Kach and the Kahanist movement, and been convicted of inciting racism by Israeli courts for repeating statements such as “Expel the Arab Enemy”, and “Death to the Arabs”, with prosecuting lawyers asking for a prison sentence for Ben-Gvir, which under Israeli law could land Ben-Gvir with an 8-year prison sentence. Likud could historically count on parties of a similar caliber of conservatism. But with the arrival of Otzma Yehudit, Netanyahu had to face the prospect of relying on some of the most extreme collectives in the Israeli political scene, or face a repeat election in which Netanyahu could possibly lose, and face the prospect of being held accountable over corruption allegations. As a result, Netanyahu and Likud chose to ally with Otzma Yehudit. 

The policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, already extremely reactionary, have drifted into borderline autocratic territory, with reforms that effectively de-clawed the Israeli judiciary, the remaining branch of the Israeli government attempting to hold Netanyahu and his associates accountable for their corruption. On top of this, Netanyahu has been further pushed into an uncompromising stance on the question of Gaza by Ben-Gvir and his allies who threaten to pull their support for Netanyahu if he did not escalate his actions even further, which Netanyahu having to comply with every request because of a corruption investigation which he could be sent to jail over, if he is stripped of his premiership. 

Now that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal that “ends” the war in Gaza, we will likely see an arduously slow return to normal for Gazans, if it can even be called that. Tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands have been killed by Israeli troops in the two years since Israel’s October 7th attacks on Gaza began. A famine has been declared in Gaza, with tens of thousands of children being severely malnourished. Over one thousand children in Gaza have had to receive amputations. There are going to be health consequenses–both physical and mental for generations to come. The vast majority of developments in Gaza from hospitals, to homes, schools, businesses, and more have been destroyed. The long-term effects of the genocide in Gaza will be devastating for generations to come. It’s been found in academic research, more recently in studies from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the Social Science Research Institute at Pennsylvania State University that the long-term impacts of famine, include but are not limited to: increased transmission of tuberculosis, Type 2 diabetes, schizophrenia, cardiovascular disease, as has been seen in the succeeding decades after the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944-1945, and the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961. Rest assured, given the intensity of food blockades and starvation on the people of Gaza, these perils will visit themselves upon the Strip. 

Plans to turn the Gaza Strip into a riviera-like destination akin to the Riviera Maya or the Riviera Nayarit have been openly discussed. These plans, if carried out, would economically devastate Gazans even further, all but ensuring that the people of Gaza are forever left in a state of mass homelessness and displacement.  All of this is to say, Israel has gotten, or nearly gotten, exactly what it has been wanting for decades. 

The decimation of the Palestinian people is so great that they are either too weak to fight back against the oppression and segregation of the Israeli state, or the elimination of Gaza and Palestinians as a people in their entirety. But not all hope is lost. Millions across the world have stood up in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for freedom. A plethora of countries, many of whom have been historical allies of the United States and Israel, have made the move to recognize the Palestinian state. Organizations from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, to the Norwegian Pension Fund, the United Methodist Church, Brooklinen, the Majid Al Futtaim group (which managed Carrefour stores in Jordan), Ben & Jerry’s, and many, many more have made efforts to divest from Israel. 

Palestinians and Gazans are a resilient people, the world stands with them, they will not be erased.