Does this mean western politicians are finally prepared to act? Quite possibly. Will it have any discernible effect on Benjamin Netanyahu? Doubtful.<\/p>\n
Trump still appears to trust Netanyahu to feed the people of Gaza, or so he told reporters<\/a> as he flew back from his weekend of \u201cgolf buggy diplomacy\u201d<\/a> on July 29. And as long as the US president supports Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister can act with few restraints. <\/p>\n True, the vigorous international reaction<\/a> to the food crisis in Gaza has finally had some effect. But the Israeli response<\/a> so far has been largely symbolic.<\/p>\n It has comprised air drops of aid by Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and some \u201ctactical\u201d or \u201chumanitarian\u201d pauses in the assault in parts of the Gaza Strip to allow for the delivery of aid. Air drops are good for publicity, but the amount of aid they actually deliver is very small and hugely expensive<\/a>.<\/p>\n How did we get to this point? The current phase of the conflict started in mid-March, when the Israeli government began blocking all aid<\/a> to Gaza. <\/p>\n That lasted two months until some shipments were allowed. In recent weeks, an average of about 70 trucks a day<\/a> have crossed the border. But the reality is 500-600 trucks a day are required<\/a> to support and restore heath to 2 million people.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed<\/a> \u2013 mostly shot \u2013 since May while trying to get food at one of the four overcrowded distribution sites run by the private, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Before being replaced by the GHF system, UN agencies ran 400 distribution points<\/a> across the territory.<\/p>\n What the daily pauses in some areas<\/a>, which began on July 27, actually represent is far from clear, given that fighting continues in much of the Strip. There is little sign that Netanyahu\u2019s government wants an early end to the war. From its perspective, there can only be peace when all the hostages are returned and Hamas has been destroyed<\/a>. <\/p>\n But Hamas is proving far more resolute than expected. Its survival is little short of remarkable given the huge force the Israelis have used to try and destroy it. <\/p>\n The usual Israeli military priority in dealing with an insurgency is to follow what is known colloquially as the \u201cDahiya doctrine\u201d<\/a>. If an insurgency cannot be handled without serious casualties, then the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) directs its operations at civilian infrastructure and the general population to undermine support for the insurgents. <\/p>\n The tactic is so called because it was developed<\/a> as a way of dealing with a Hezbollah stronghold in the Dahiya suburb of west Beirut in 1982. The reduction of much of Gaza to ruins is taking the doctrine to extremes, yet it is failing \u2013 Hamas is still there.<\/p>\n This is reportedly common knowledge in IDF circles, but rarely admitted in public. A notable exception is the senior retired IDF officer, Major-General Itzhak Brik<\/a>. <\/p>\n Brik\u2019s publicised view is that Hamas has already replaced its thousands of casualties with new recruits. They may not be trained in the conventional sense, but they have learnt their craft while surviving in a war zone and seeing so many of their friends and family killed and wounded.<\/p>\n No end in sight<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s demands may be that it will end the war if Hamas surrenders and disarms, then goes into exile<\/a>. The problem with this is Hamas doesn\u2019t think Israel would end the war. <\/p>\n Instead, it believes Gaza would be forcibly cleared and resettled, and the occupied West Bank would see a huge increase in settlers. In this scenario, a two-state solution would be a pipe dream, and Israel would be the regional superpower able to rise to any future challenge.<\/p>\n Only Donald Trump appears to have the power to force Israel to agree a ceasefire. So, is there any prospect of Israel being forced to compromise, to accept a UN-monitored ceasefire and seek a negotiated settlement? External political pressure is certainly rising, especially the potential formal recognition of the state of Palestine by the UK and France<\/a>.<\/p>\n But in both cases, the conditions for the road to peace are such that they are effectively non-starters. Macron envisages a \u201cdemilitarised Palestine\u201d living alongside Israel. Starmer has called for Hamas to disarm and play no role in the future governance of Palestinians. Neither plan has the slightest chance of getting off the ground.<\/p>\n In any case, without Trump\u2019s full backing it would still mean little. Economic and social sanctions by a state or group will have little impact because there will always be states or organisations sufficiently supportive of Israel to bypass them.<\/p>\n We are left with two possible routes to a settlement. One is that Trump is sufficiently motivated to insist Netanyahu negotiates. <\/p>\n That is unlikely, unless the US president somehow gets the idea that his own reputation is being damaged. Even then, the influence of the Israel lobby<\/a> in the US, especially the support for Israel of tens of millions of Christian Zionists, is formidable.<\/p>\n![\"Benjamin](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/file-20250729-56-uj2z0j.jpg\")
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