Joshua Leifer
![]() |
Imagens Saeed Mohammed/Anadolu/Getty Palestinos deslocados na Al-Rashid Street, uma via que atravessa a costa de Gaza, 5 de abril de 2025 |
Nas primeiras horas da manhã de 18 de março, Israel quebrou unilateralmente o cessar-fogo com o qual havia concordado com o Hamas em Gaza dois meses antes, lançando uma campanha aérea esmagadora em todo o território. Em menos de vinte e quatro horas, os aviões de guerra israelenses mataram mais de quatrocentos pessoas e feriram centenas a mais.
O ataque continuou inabalável desde então. Em 31 de março, durante o feriado de Eid al-Fitr, Israel emitiu uma ordem de evacuação que cobria grande parte do sul de Gaza, deslocando mais de cem mil pessoas, a maioria das quais foi deslocada várias vezes antes; Quase meio milhão no total foram forçados a deixar suas casas desde o final do cessar-fogo. Em 3 de abril, os ataques aéreos israelenses mataram pelo menos uma centena de pessoas do outro lado da faixa, incluindo pelo menos vinte e sete que haviam se abrigo na Escola Dar al-Arqam em Gaza City. Apenas dias depois, eles mataram pelo menos trinta e dois. Desde a quebra do cessar-fogo, de acordo com autoridades de saúde em Gaza, as forças israelenses mataram mais de 1.500 palestinos.
Depois que Israel bloqueou a entrada de todos os bens e ajuda humanitária no início do mês passado, as condições no território se tornaram mais terríveis. Centenas de milhares de pessoas foram forçadas a viver em tendas em meio aos destroços de suas antigas casas. O Ministério da Energia de Israel interrompeu a eletricidade, desativando uma das principais usinas de dessalinização de água da Strip Southern. As vinte e cinco padarias do World Food Program, que fornecem pão subsidiado em Gaza, fecharam por falta de combustível e farinha. Bens básicos, como açúcar e ovos, tornaram -se exorbitantes caros.
Médecins Sans Frontières alertou que os hospitais superlotados de Gaza - quase todos os quais foram danificados por greves e bombardeios israelenses - estão ficando sem anestésicos, antibióticos e sangue para transfusões. "Tratamos pacientes no chão, sem eletricidade, sem anestesia. Usamos nossas mãos e lanternas", disse um médico de Gazan à revista +972. "À medida que a ajuda secou, as comportas do horror se reabriram", disse o secretário -geral da ONU, António Guterres, no início de abril. "Gaza é um campo de extermínio."
Ao longo da faixa, as tropas terrestres israelenses também começaram a manobrar, assumindo posições antigas e estabelecendo novas que podem muito bem manter indefinidamente. O “desengajamento” unilateral de 2005 de Gaza está sendo desfeito. A próxima etapa da destruição do território por Israel parece ser o que muitos na linha dura do país certamente exigem: uma reversão ao paradigma de pré-desgosto da ocupação direta e cerco.
Em inúmeros vídeos angustiantes publicados nas redes sociais, soldados se posicionam em meio aos escombros que causaram e clamam pelo "retorno a Gush Katif" (o principal bloco de assentamentos israelenses em Gaza, evacuado e demolido em 2005), fincam as bandeiras laranja do movimento anti-desengajamento ou pregam mezuzás nas portas enegrecidas de casas palestinas em ruínas. Autoridades israelenses do Likud, do primeiro-ministro Benjamin Netanyahu, e de outros partidos de direita da coalizão declararam categoricamente que Israel deve "governar" Gaza ao fim da guerra. Parece que essa visão está sendo implementada. O ministro da Defesa, Israel Katz, declarou na semana passada que a operação militar expandida teria como objetivo "capturar um extenso território que será adicionado às áreas de segurança do Estado de Israel".
Altas autoridades israelenses, entre elas Netanyahu, comprometeram-se simultaneamente com outro objetivo: a expulsão em massa dos habitantes de Gaza. No início de março, a CBS noticiou que autoridades americanas e israelenses haviam contatado os governos do Sudão, Somália e Síria para aceitar os palestinos expulsos da Faixa de Gaza. (Não receberam respostas positivas.) Netanyahu encarregou o Mossad de encontrar um país disposto a fazê-lo. No início de abril, um alto funcionário do governo informou aos jornalistas que viajavam com Netanyahu para a Hungria que Israel estava em negociações com várias nações para acolher os palestinos deslocados de Gaza. Vários, afirmou o funcionário, chegaram a expressar interesse em colaborar com Israel nesse esforço. "Eles querem algo em troca", disse o funcionário. "Não necessariamente dinheiro, mas também algo estratégico."
No início deste mês, conversei com Assaf David, cofundador do Fórum para o Pensamento Regional, um think tank israelense de postura pacifista. Sua conclusão foi sombria. "Acho que tudo o que o governo Trump permitir que Israel faça, Israel fará", disse ele. "Se permitirem que Israel leve centenas de milhares de palestinos em ônibus e os expulse de Gaza, Israel o fará. Israel não tem restrições morais no momento."
*
Os poucos obstáculos que haviam bloqueado a reocupação de Gaza por Israel desapareceram. A pressão mínima do governo Biden mal conseguiu conter Netanyahu; suas linhas vermelhas, descobriu-se, eram para ser cruzadas. Trump, no entanto, não tem linhas vermelhas. Enquanto Biden alertou Israel repetidamente contra a reocupação do território do qual se retirou unilateralmente em 2005, Trump sugeriu, de várias maneiras, que Israel deveria retomar a Faixa de Gaza e que os EUA deveriam "tomar posse" de Gaza e "possuí-la". Ele e Steve Witkoff, enviado do governo para o Oriente Médio, compartilham a posição de Israel de que a liderança do Hamas deve ser eliminada ou subornada para deixar Gaza e o grupo desmilitarizado ou então destruído. "Nossa política é que o Hamas não pode continuar existindo aqui", disse Witkoff recentemente ao ex-apresentador da Fox News, Tucker Carlson. Em fevereiro, Trump pareceu até mesmo superar Netanyahu pela direita ao anunciar sua ideia alucinatória de despovoar Gaza e transformá-la na "Riviera do Oriente Médio", ideia que Netanyahu então abraçou. Em reunião com Trump no Salão Oval no início deste mês, o primeiro-ministro israelense reiterou seu apoio ao que chamou de "visão ousada" do presidente.
Internamente, Netanyahu tem pressionado por uma orientação ainda mais beligerante nos mais altos escalões da burocracia militar israelense. No início de março, ele nomeou Eyal Zamir, ex-comandante de tanques, como o novo chefe do exército. "2025", declarou Zamir, "será um ano de guerra". Ele teria planejado uma extensa operação terrestre e aérea que mobilizaria até cinco divisões para estabelecer o controle militar israelense total sobre Gaza. Israel continua a bloquear a entrada de qualquer ajuda na Faixa de Gaza, e o novo plano do exército implicaria assumir a autoridade direta sobre a distribuição de ajuda humanitária em Gaza, caso seja permitida a entrada — uma concessão ao direito eliminacionista do qual depende a coalizão de Netanyahu e que, desde o início da guerra, exige que o exército tome o controle da ajuda e torne o acesso a ela ainda mais militar. Yoav Gallant, ex-ministro da Defesa demitido por Netanyahu em novembro passado, Herzi Halevi, chefe cessante das Forças de Defesa de Israel (IDF), e grande parte da liderança do exército recusaram tal plano, argumentando que custaria a vida de muitos soldados. Com a nomeação de Zamir, Netanyahu eliminou essa oposição.
Embora inicialmente repreendido pelo acordo de cessar-fogo em janeiro, a direita religiosa sionista dos colonos continuou a pressionar pela reconstrução dos assentamentos israelenses na Faixa de Gaza. Por quase um ano e meio, o Nachala, grupo de colonos de extrema direita, vem organizando famílias para morar em assentamentos em Gaza após sua reocupação. Em agosto passado, políticos do Likud e do partido Sionismo Religioso formaram um grupo de trabalho parlamentar para revogar a lei de "desengajamento", que formalmente removeu os assentamentos judaicos de Gaza e proibiu os israelenses de retornarem para se estabelecerem lá. Muitos membros da coalizão veem a construção de novos assentamentos judaicos em Gaza como o ápice de sua visão escatológica — a conquista da Grande Israel como o prelúdio para o alvorecer da era messiânica — da qual a reocupação e a expulsão em massa são etapas preliminares.
O reassentamento formal é, por enquanto, altamente improvável. Netanyahu tem repetidamente chamado os planos de reassentamento em Gaza de "irrealistas" e, segundo a maioria dos relatos, gostaria de impedi-los. O exército apreendeu vários grupos de colonos que cruzaram a barreira de separação para Gaza, mais recentemente na semana passada. Se os colonos radicais construírem um posto avançado — o germe de um assentamento — em Gaza, será porque conseguiram explorar a presença militar israelense para entrar na Faixa e se recusaram a sair, como fizeram nos topos das colinas da Cisjordânia.
O governo Netanyahu, no entanto, demonstrou consistência ao preparar o terreno — administrativo, militar e psicológico — para a expulsão em massa de palestinos de Gaza. Em 23 de março, o gabinete de segurança de Israel aprovou a criação de um "Escritório de Emigração Voluntária para residentes de Gaza interessados em se realocar para terceiros países", um eufemismo grotesco para a agência encarregada de preparar e executar a limpeza étnica na Faixa de Gaza. Um dos principais candidatos à chefia da agência é, segundo relatos, o general de brigada aposentado Ofer Winter, uma estrela em ascensão na direita nacionalista religiosa, que provocou protestos públicos em 2014 com uma carta oficial aos seus comandantes subordinados descrevendo a ofensiva israelense daquele verão em Gaza como uma "guerra santa" contra "o inimigo terrorista 'Gaza' que abusa, blasfema e amaldiçoa o Deus de Israel".
![]() |
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images Benjamin Netanyahu e Donald Trump se encontram na Casa Branca, Washington, D.C., 7 de abril de 2025 |
A concretização do compromisso verbal de Netanyahu de deslocar em massa os palestinos de Gaza pode depender, em grande parte, da capacidade de Israel de convencer qualquer outro país a participar da atrocidade. Também pode depender do tipo de apoio que ele receba da Casa Branca. Apesar do entusiasmo periódico de Trump pela ideia, parece haver pouco consenso dentro de seu governo. Às vezes, o próprio Trump voltou atrás. "Ninguém está expulsando nenhum palestino", disse ele durante seu encontro em meados de março com o primeiro-ministro irlandês, Micheál Martin. Em sua recente entrevista com Tucker Carlson, Witkoff pareceu minimizar a visão de Trump, considerando-a apenas um incentivo para que outros países da região elaborem propostas alternativas. "A abordagem de Trump em relação a Gaza gerou muita discussão acalorada", disse Witkoff. "Agora estamos vendo um plano egípcio, estamos vendo os sauditas elaborarem um documento oficial."
Por sua vez, os governos do Egito e da Arábia Saudita deixaram claro que o plano de Trump não apenas constituiria uma grave violação do direito internacional, mas também correria o risco de desencadear uma conflagração regional ainda maior. Witkoff, um investidor imobiliário que teve negócios no valor de centenas de milhões de dólares com os fundos soberanos dos Emirados e do Catar, certamente gostaria de evitar isso. O plano de Trump "não é sério", disse-me Michael Milstein, especialista em políticas que já chefiou o Departamento de Assuntos Palestinos na inteligência militar de Israel, no final de março. "Nenhum país no mundo", enfatizou, "manifestou-se pronto" para cooperar com ele.
Por enquanto, então, as repetidas invocações de Netanyahu de um plano iminente para a "migração voluntária" dos moradores de Gaza — a fraseologia israelense preferida — equivalem tanto a uma espécie de guerra psicológica quanto a um pronunciamento político concreto. Ele e seu governo parecem acreditar sinceramente que, após punições coletivas suficientes, os palestinos em Gaza se voltarão de alguma forma contra o Hamas e farão o trabalho de Israel, forçando a saída do grupo.
Enquanto isso, em Israel, as constantes referências ao plano de expulsão em massa tornaram-se uma espécie de cortina de fumaça política. A ideia de deslocar os moradores de Gaza em massa é amplamente popular entre o público israelense. Uma pesquisa realizada em fevereiro pelo Canal 12 News revelou que 69% dos israelenses apoiam "o plano Trump" para a "evacuação" dos moradores de Gaza. (Apenas um terço, no entanto, afirmou acreditar que isso realmente aconteceria.) Uma pesquisa separada, realizada no mesmo mês pelo Canal 13 News, revelou que 67% dos israelenses apoiavam a conclusão das próximas fases do acordo de cessar-fogo previamente acordado. Há menos contradição entre essas conclusões do que parece: muitos israelenses parecem genuinamente convencidos de que os dois milhões de moradores de Gaza podem simplesmente ser deslocados "voluntariamente" após o retorno de todos os reféns israelenses. "Há notícias distorcidas em Israel sobre a saída dos palestinos", disse-me Milstein. "É uma espécie de notícia falsa." Em contraste, as pesquisas mostram consistentemente que os israelenses preferem não retornar ao conflito ativo e, portanto, à contrainsurgência prolongada — que é, na prática, o que Israel tem feito.
*
Already the foundation is being laid for a new architecture of occupation. In tandem with the army’s wave of airstrikes in mid-March, its ground forces retook the Netzarim corridor, a four-mile-long road that cuts across Gaza. For much of the last year, Netzarim and its immediate surroundings functioned as a gruesome “exclusion zone” in which Israeli troops shot anyone who entered, as well as a barrier that prevented Palestinians from moving freely between the north and the rest of Gaza. Until its forces partially withdrew last winter and were replaced by private military contractors, Israel had constructed a series of outposts and bases—equipped with showers, electricity, and air-conditioning—along Netzarim and on land that had been cleared through the demolition of Palestinian homes and civilian infrastructure. Last November, before the cease-fire, an IDF officer told Haaretz that, given the scope of the construction, it seemed to him that “the IDF won’t leave Gaza before 2026.”
Other areas of the Strip have remained under occupation simply because the army never left. Almost since the war’s start, Israeli troops have been deployed in what they call “the perimeter”—a kilometer-wide buffer zone adjacent to the Gaza–Israel separation barrier that the Israeli army created by systematically detonating homes, agricultural fields, industrial areas, and entire neighborhoods. In recent testimony collected by Breaking the Silence, an Israeli veterans group, soldiers sent to fight in Gaza described the perimeter as “a kill zone”—with orders to kill any adult male who crossed into it and fire warning shots at women and children. According to Gisha, an Israeli NGO, the perimeter alone now constitutes 17 percent of the total area of the Gaza Strip. Since May 2024, Israeli forces have also occupied the “Philadelphi corridor,” an area along Gaza’s southern border. One of the conditions of the cease-fire’s first phase was that Israel would withdraw from Philadelphi; the army never did.
In addition to these existing positions, Israel has taken new ones. On April 2 Netanyahu announced that Israeli troops had established and occupied the “Morag corridor,” a new road designed to isolate the southern city of Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip. According to a recent Haaretz report, the Israeli army has begun turning the entire area between the Philadelphi and Morag corridors, roughly seventy-five square kilometers and a fifth of the Strip, into a buffer zone modeled on “the perimeter.” If completed, this would result in the permanent displacement of Rafah’s prewar population of more than 170,000 people and the likely demolition of the entire city. It would also mean the elimination of Gaza’s border with Egypt and its enclosure on all sides by Israel. Assaf David, of the Forum for Regional Thinking, has suggested that these moves could be a prelude to Gaza’s cantonization into isolated population hubs under renewed Israeli military administration. The “buffer zones” and “security corridors” that Israel has carved throughout Gaza have already divided the Strip into four separate areas. By most estimates, Israeli forces currently occupy roughly a third of the enclave’s territory.
Israeli officials have described the renewed landgrabs, bombings, and incursions as part of a larger strategy aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Hamas. A week into the current offensive, Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a warning to Gaza’s population: “Soon the IDF will operate with might in additional areas in Gaza and you will be forced to flee and will lose more and more territory.” He added that “removing Hamas and freeing the hostages” is “the only way to end the war.”
Yet for roughly the last year and a half, the Israeli government has demanded conditions for a cease-fire that made returning the hostages and ending the war impossible. Netanyahu has refused any long-term agreement that would leave Hamas in power in Gaza, which would amount to admitting that Israel had failed in achieving its stated goal of “total victory” over the group. He has also declared that Hamas’s central demand—a full Israeli withdrawal from the Strip—is a nonstarter. At the same time, he has rejected any plan that would bring the Palestinian Authority back into Gaza, whether as the sole governing power or as part of another arrangement for Palestinian self-government in the enclave.
With the signing of the cease-fire in January, Netanyahu vowed to his right-wing coalition partners that he would restart the war after the agreement’s first stage. Although not known to be a man of his word, he has done just that. “You reach a conclusion almost by process of elimination that this is about occupying Gaza for the foreseeable future,” said Alon Pinkas, an Israeli diplomat and former General Consul in New York. “The hostages have been sacrificed.”
To the extent that there is a limit to what Israel could do in Gaza, it will come, perhaps above all, from within the army’s rank and file. After more than a year and a half of intensive deployments, it is not clear that Israel could mobilize the number of reservists it would need for a large-scale occupation. “The army does not really have the force for a long-term war,” Milstein said. “There are more and more reserve soldiers who say they are not willing to join this war, who don’t understand the purpose of this war.” In a belated sign of mounting discontent, on April 10 roughly 970 active-duty reservists and retired personnel in the air force signed a letter calling for a cease-fire and denouncing the continuation of the war, which “will lead to the deaths of the hostages, soldiers, and innocent civilians.” Additional letters from reservists in military intelligence, medical corps, and the Mossad have since followed.
Many units have reported as much as a 30 percent decrease in volunteer rates; some have even resorted to posting recruitment notices on social media. More than at any time since October 7, there is increasing talk of sarvanut afora, or grey refusal—reservists ceasing to volunteer not only or mainly for political reasons but due to personal, financial, and psychological strain. More than two years of constant protest against the Netanyahu government’s attacks on the country’s judiciary and system of rule have also normalized calls for civil disobedience within the broader secular and liberal public, making “refusal” much less of a dirty word than it once was.
Other areas of the Strip have remained under occupation simply because the army never left. Almost since the war’s start, Israeli troops have been deployed in what they call “the perimeter”—a kilometer-wide buffer zone adjacent to the Gaza–Israel separation barrier that the Israeli army created by systematically detonating homes, agricultural fields, industrial areas, and entire neighborhoods. In recent testimony collected by Breaking the Silence, an Israeli veterans group, soldiers sent to fight in Gaza described the perimeter as “a kill zone”—with orders to kill any adult male who crossed into it and fire warning shots at women and children. According to Gisha, an Israeli NGO, the perimeter alone now constitutes 17 percent of the total area of the Gaza Strip. Since May 2024, Israeli forces have also occupied the “Philadelphi corridor,” an area along Gaza’s southern border. One of the conditions of the cease-fire’s first phase was that Israel would withdraw from Philadelphi; the army never did.
In addition to these existing positions, Israel has taken new ones. On April 2 Netanyahu announced that Israeli troops had established and occupied the “Morag corridor,” a new road designed to isolate the southern city of Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip. According to a recent Haaretz report, the Israeli army has begun turning the entire area between the Philadelphi and Morag corridors, roughly seventy-five square kilometers and a fifth of the Strip, into a buffer zone modeled on “the perimeter.” If completed, this would result in the permanent displacement of Rafah’s prewar population of more than 170,000 people and the likely demolition of the entire city. It would also mean the elimination of Gaza’s border with Egypt and its enclosure on all sides by Israel. Assaf David, of the Forum for Regional Thinking, has suggested that these moves could be a prelude to Gaza’s cantonization into isolated population hubs under renewed Israeli military administration. The “buffer zones” and “security corridors” that Israel has carved throughout Gaza have already divided the Strip into four separate areas. By most estimates, Israeli forces currently occupy roughly a third of the enclave’s territory.
Israeli officials have described the renewed landgrabs, bombings, and incursions as part of a larger strategy aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Hamas. A week into the current offensive, Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a warning to Gaza’s population: “Soon the IDF will operate with might in additional areas in Gaza and you will be forced to flee and will lose more and more territory.” He added that “removing Hamas and freeing the hostages” is “the only way to end the war.”
Yet for roughly the last year and a half, the Israeli government has demanded conditions for a cease-fire that made returning the hostages and ending the war impossible. Netanyahu has refused any long-term agreement that would leave Hamas in power in Gaza, which would amount to admitting that Israel had failed in achieving its stated goal of “total victory” over the group. He has also declared that Hamas’s central demand—a full Israeli withdrawal from the Strip—is a nonstarter. At the same time, he has rejected any plan that would bring the Palestinian Authority back into Gaza, whether as the sole governing power or as part of another arrangement for Palestinian self-government in the enclave.
With the signing of the cease-fire in January, Netanyahu vowed to his right-wing coalition partners that he would restart the war after the agreement’s first stage. Although not known to be a man of his word, he has done just that. “You reach a conclusion almost by process of elimination that this is about occupying Gaza for the foreseeable future,” said Alon Pinkas, an Israeli diplomat and former General Consul in New York. “The hostages have been sacrificed.”
To the extent that there is a limit to what Israel could do in Gaza, it will come, perhaps above all, from within the army’s rank and file. After more than a year and a half of intensive deployments, it is not clear that Israel could mobilize the number of reservists it would need for a large-scale occupation. “The army does not really have the force for a long-term war,” Milstein said. “There are more and more reserve soldiers who say they are not willing to join this war, who don’t understand the purpose of this war.” In a belated sign of mounting discontent, on April 10 roughly 970 active-duty reservists and retired personnel in the air force signed a letter calling for a cease-fire and denouncing the continuation of the war, which “will lead to the deaths of the hostages, soldiers, and innocent civilians.” Additional letters from reservists in military intelligence, medical corps, and the Mossad have since followed.
Many units have reported as much as a 30 percent decrease in volunteer rates; some have even resorted to posting recruitment notices on social media. More than at any time since October 7, there is increasing talk of sarvanut afora, or grey refusal—reservists ceasing to volunteer not only or mainly for political reasons but due to personal, financial, and psychological strain. More than two years of constant protest against the Netanyahu government’s attacks on the country’s judiciary and system of rule have also normalized calls for civil disobedience within the broader secular and liberal public, making “refusal” much less of a dirty word than it once was.
![]() |
Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea/Anadolu/Getty Images As consequências de um ataque aéreo israelense a uma escola onde palestinos deslocados estavam abrigados, Cidade de Gaza, 23 de abril de 2025 |
But Israel’s army likely does not need to issue a new sweeping draft order to sustain and even intensify the bloody, grinding counterinsurgency now underway. Twenty years ago Israel maintained brutal military rule over Gaza as it does today in the West Bank; the army’s top brass seems to think that it can restore a similar mode of control through a combination of aerial bombardment, ground incursions, and the merciless, repeated internal displacement of the Strip’s inhabitants, even with a certain measure of dissent within the reservists’ ranks. The techniques of high-tech occupation management, honed over the last two decades in the West Bank, will now be applied to a ravaged, starved, and devastated Gaza.
*
Whether or not Trump actually believes in his obscene neo-imperialist plan for mass population transfer in Gaza, it had the effect of throwing Netanyahu a political lifeline. The prime minister swiftly pivoted and endorsed a scheme that he had never advocated—but around which his fractious, right-wing-religious governing coalition could consolidate. Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the Kahanist Jewish Power faction, had pulled his party out of the coalition in protest of the January cease-fire deal, during which Israeli hostages were exchanged for Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli detention facilities, among them dozens of minors. (Rights groups estimate that there are currently more than 3,500 Palestinians imprisoned without charges or trial in Israel.) The renewed Israeli offensive gave Ben-Gvir a pretext to rejoin the government and return to his position as Minister of National Security, bolstering Netanyahu’s majority.
A few days later the Knesset approved a budget for the coming year, which all but guarantees the government’s survival through the end of its term in 2026. There are no real matters of division that threaten to bring the coalition down from within, and in Israel that is how most coalitions fall. Despite consistently low poll numbers and widespread public discontent over the government’s handling of the war, Netanyahu’s coalition has proved improbably durable throughout the last year and a half. It is perhaps stronger now than at any point since the last elections, in November 2022.
After his mid-February visit to Washington, Netanyahu returned to Israel inspired by Trump’s attempt to defenestrate much of the federal government and establish rule through executive decree. The next month he fired Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet, after the internal security agency opened an investigation into several Netanyahu aides who were allegedly doing PR work for Qatar. At the same time, his coalition initiated the process of deposing the Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, who has rubber-stamped a large portion of Israel’s destructive policies in Gaza and the West Bank but attempted to preserve some procedural norms, taking anti-corruption stands and objecting to parts of the Netanyahu government’s attacks on the judiciary. On the eve of purging Bar, Netanyahu posted in English on social media: “In America and Israel, when a strong right wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will.”
These recent moves have threatened a constitutional crisis. Some of Netanyahu’s ministers and coalition partners have suggested that they are prepared to defy a ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court if it blocks them from replacing the Shin Bet chief; during an April 8 Supreme Court hearing on the matter, Likud MKs and right-wing demonstrators repeatedly interrupted the deliberations. Forced by October 7 and its aftermath to shelve its plan to strip the judiciary of its independence and enable parliament to overrule the Court, the Netanyahu government is advancing its dreams of “judicial overhaul” by other means.
That Netanyahu restarted the assault on Gaza at the same time he renewed the attacks on the judiciary has led many opposition protesters, finally, to link the two. After demonstrations dwindled in the winter, tens of thousands have been returning to the streets weekly in central Tel Aviv. Still, despite the growing number of signs calling for the end of the war, many of the demonstrators are also there for something else: a return to normality. As in other countries in the throes of right-wing populist state vandalism, the liberal opposition wants to turn back the clock.
For Palestinians, however, normality has long meant military rule, brutal subjugation, siege in Gaza, and apartheid in the West Bank. After a year and a half of relentless collective punishment that has killed more than 50,000 people, most of them civilians, Gaza is in ruins. Its displaced, brutalized people now live a routine of bare survival, all but defenseless in the face of Israel’s overwhelming firepower. “The sound of bombing doesn’t stop for a moment,” a twenty-eight-year-old man named Ahmed Kassab told +972.
The last stockpiles of aid are running out, and Gaza is again on the brink of starvation. Aid workers have reported treating lactating mothers too hungry to be able to breastfeed. Against the backdrop of the last ferocious bombardment, Feroze Sidhwa, an American surgeon who has spent months volunteering in Gaza’s hospitals, related that he and his colleagues had been forced to set up “a designated area” for mortally wounded children to die “alongside other dying children, where their families can stay with them and pray.”
Meanwhile, as Israel’s new assault on Gaza intensifies and the apparatus of reoccupation begins to shift into gear, much of the country has returned to its old routine. During the two decades after the disengagement, Israeli officials used the macabre euphemism of “mowing the lawn” to describe their strategy of occupation-management: periodic bombardments from above, siege by air, land, and sea. Now it is as if the Israeli public has adjusted to Gaza’s transformation into a new front of indefinite military operation and perpetual violence, a regime of what the scholar Dirk Moses has called “permanent security.” The TV channels have long since ceased their extended news broadcasts and returned to airing reality shows. The start of spring has filled Tel Aviv’s café terraces and courtyards. Forty miles away in Gaza, air strikes are killing dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people every day. It is the same ground, but on one side it does not shake.
Joshua Leifer
Joshua Leifer é membro do Conselho Editorial de Dissidência. Seu primeiro livro, Tablets quebrou: o fim de um século judaico americano e o futuro da vida judaica, foi publicado no verão passado. (Abril de 2025)
A few days later the Knesset approved a budget for the coming year, which all but guarantees the government’s survival through the end of its term in 2026. There are no real matters of division that threaten to bring the coalition down from within, and in Israel that is how most coalitions fall. Despite consistently low poll numbers and widespread public discontent over the government’s handling of the war, Netanyahu’s coalition has proved improbably durable throughout the last year and a half. It is perhaps stronger now than at any point since the last elections, in November 2022.
After his mid-February visit to Washington, Netanyahu returned to Israel inspired by Trump’s attempt to defenestrate much of the federal government and establish rule through executive decree. The next month he fired Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet, after the internal security agency opened an investigation into several Netanyahu aides who were allegedly doing PR work for Qatar. At the same time, his coalition initiated the process of deposing the Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, who has rubber-stamped a large portion of Israel’s destructive policies in Gaza and the West Bank but attempted to preserve some procedural norms, taking anti-corruption stands and objecting to parts of the Netanyahu government’s attacks on the judiciary. On the eve of purging Bar, Netanyahu posted in English on social media: “In America and Israel, when a strong right wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will.”
These recent moves have threatened a constitutional crisis. Some of Netanyahu’s ministers and coalition partners have suggested that they are prepared to defy a ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court if it blocks them from replacing the Shin Bet chief; during an April 8 Supreme Court hearing on the matter, Likud MKs and right-wing demonstrators repeatedly interrupted the deliberations. Forced by October 7 and its aftermath to shelve its plan to strip the judiciary of its independence and enable parliament to overrule the Court, the Netanyahu government is advancing its dreams of “judicial overhaul” by other means.
That Netanyahu restarted the assault on Gaza at the same time he renewed the attacks on the judiciary has led many opposition protesters, finally, to link the two. After demonstrations dwindled in the winter, tens of thousands have been returning to the streets weekly in central Tel Aviv. Still, despite the growing number of signs calling for the end of the war, many of the demonstrators are also there for something else: a return to normality. As in other countries in the throes of right-wing populist state vandalism, the liberal opposition wants to turn back the clock.
For Palestinians, however, normality has long meant military rule, brutal subjugation, siege in Gaza, and apartheid in the West Bank. After a year and a half of relentless collective punishment that has killed more than 50,000 people, most of them civilians, Gaza is in ruins. Its displaced, brutalized people now live a routine of bare survival, all but defenseless in the face of Israel’s overwhelming firepower. “The sound of bombing doesn’t stop for a moment,” a twenty-eight-year-old man named Ahmed Kassab told +972.
The last stockpiles of aid are running out, and Gaza is again on the brink of starvation. Aid workers have reported treating lactating mothers too hungry to be able to breastfeed. Against the backdrop of the last ferocious bombardment, Feroze Sidhwa, an American surgeon who has spent months volunteering in Gaza’s hospitals, related that he and his colleagues had been forced to set up “a designated area” for mortally wounded children to die “alongside other dying children, where their families can stay with them and pray.”
Meanwhile, as Israel’s new assault on Gaza intensifies and the apparatus of reoccupation begins to shift into gear, much of the country has returned to its old routine. During the two decades after the disengagement, Israeli officials used the macabre euphemism of “mowing the lawn” to describe their strategy of occupation-management: periodic bombardments from above, siege by air, land, and sea. Now it is as if the Israeli public has adjusted to Gaza’s transformation into a new front of indefinite military operation and perpetual violence, a regime of what the scholar Dirk Moses has called “permanent security.” The TV channels have long since ceased their extended news broadcasts and returned to airing reality shows. The start of spring has filled Tel Aviv’s café terraces and courtyards. Forty miles away in Gaza, air strikes are killing dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people every day. It is the same ground, but on one side it does not shake.
Joshua Leifer
Joshua Leifer é membro do Conselho Editorial de Dissidência. Seu primeiro livro, Tablets quebrou: o fim de um século judaico americano e o futuro da vida judaica, foi publicado no verão passado. (Abril de 2025)
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário