Ceasefire collapse expands Israel's endless and boundary-less war

The resumption of Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip and collapse of the ceasefire agreement reached in January were predictable and in fact predicted at that time by Responsible Statecraft. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, driven by personal and domestic political motives, never intended to continue implementation of the agreement through to the declared goal of a permanent ceasefire.

Hamas, the other principal party to the agreement, had abided by its terms and consistently favored full implementation, which would have seen the release of all remaining Israeli hostages in addition to a full cessation of hostilities. Israel, possibly in a failed attempt to goad Hamas into doing something that would be an excuse for abandoning the agreement, committed numerous violations even before this week’s renewed assault. These included armed attacks that killed 155 Palestinians, continued occupation of areas from which Israel had promised to withdraw, and a blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza that more than two weeks ago.

Maintaining Netanyahu’s alliance with extreme right-wingers and thus keeping his ruling coalition in power and himself in office have been a major part of the prime minister’s motivation for keeping Israel at war. One of those right-wingers, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, had been actively campaigning to resume the war ever since the January ceasefire agreement was announced. Another of the extremists, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, left the government in protest against the ceasefire but now, happy with the resumption of the assault, has rejoined it.

The initial wave of Israeli airstrikes this week killed an estimated 400 Palestinians within the first few hours. Netanyahu says the attacks so far are “just the beginning.”

There is no reason to believe that the resumed assault will have any more success in achieving the declared goal of “destroying Hamas” than the earlier 15 months of devastating attacks were. The assault will instead be another phase in Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs.

The Trump administration, despite being able to claim credit for helping to reach the January agreement, has actively encouraged Israel’s abandonment of it. The administration reportedly gave a green light to Netanyahu to resume the assault and has defended Israel’s actions before the United Nations Security Council. The same U.S. envoy who had played a role in the January accord has more recently been pushing an Israeli-favored alternative that would have Hamas surrender leverage in the form of hostages while getting nothing in return in the form of a permanent cease-fire or an Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza.

The United States is facilitating the renewed Israeli destruction of the Gaza Strip with nearly $12 billion worth of arms since the beginning of the Trump administration. The administration has executed its most recent transfer of arms to Israel on a supposedly “emergency” basis to circumvent Congress. Now more than ever, the United States shares with the Netanyahu government ownership of the ongoing human tragedy in the Gaza Strip, morally and in the eyes of the world.

While those eyes understandably are focused primarily on the Gaza disaster, one needs to consider how the disaster fits in with broader Israeli regional aggression and how this affects risks and costs for the United States.

Intensified Israeli assaults on Palestinian residents of the West Bank have made that territory subject to what some have termed “Gaza-fication.” The current intensified phase, which began about the time of the Gaza cease-fire agreement, continues with mass displacements and destruction of housing, especially around the city of Jenin. The operation reflects the influence of West Bank settlers who would prefer the complete removal of Palestinians.

Meanwhile, one of the world’s least noticed military campaigns has been a sustained Israeli offensive against Syria. What had been a years-long series of Israeli airstrikes on Syria — mostly against targets associated with Iran — has, since the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime, intensified into near-daily Israeli attacks against a broader range of targets. In addition to the aerial attacks, Israel has expanded its occupation of Syrian territory well beyond the previously occupied Golan Heights.

The attacks and occupation are unprovoked. No munitions were being fired from Syria toward Israel. Missing the comfort and predictability Israel came to enjoy with the Assads, Israel is endeavoring to cripple any new Syria regime — especially one that might be more responsive to popular opinion, which certainly would be highly critical of Israel.

Israel’s attacks and seizures of land reduce whatever chance there might be for at least a modicum of stability in Syria. They also raise the possibility of future clashes with Turkey, which is comparably interventionist regarding Syria.

Next door in Lebanon, a country Israel had invaded several times earlier, Israel invaded again in October 2024. This invasion was a direct outgrowth of Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. It was ostensibly aimed against Hezbollah, which was not seeking a new full-scale war with Israel but fired rockets at it out of solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza.

A cease-fire agreement was reached in November, but Israel has been violating it with almost daily attacks. As in Syria, Israel also continues to occupy territory from which it was obligated to withdraw.

And as in Gaza, although the Israeli attacks have been nominally aimed at a militant group such as Hamas or Hezbollah, much and perhaps most of the resulting suffering has been inflicted on Lebanese civilians, who already were enduring much hardship for reasons both related and unrelated to Israel.

There is an inherent contradiction in inflicting this kind of suffering on a population in the name of defeating or weakening Hezbollah. Hezbollah owed its creation and rapid growth in strength to popular resentment over earlier pain that Israel had inflicted on the Lebanese. There is no reason to expect that pattern to be different in the future, whether or not Hezbollah itself is the principal vehicle for mobilizing that resentment.

With its boundless military attacks, Israel is seeking absolute security for itself even at the price of absolute insecurity for everyone else it can reach. It rationalizes attacks with the mere possibility that someday someone might have the capability and the willingness to do something bad to Israel, while the attacks inflict immediate and certain suffering on someone else. In the case of the attacks on Syria, the Israeli objective is nothing less than the destruction of Syria’s means to defend itself and exercise full sovereignty over its internationally recognized territory.

Notwithstanding the immense human costs, none of this ever will buy absolute security for Israel, given the repeatedly demonstrated pattern of such suffering provoking violent reactions. Thus, one of the costs is that Israel itself will forever live by the sword.

The United States has tied itself closely to what is by far the most active aggressor — and biggest inflictor of suffering through military force — in the Middle East. One cost to the United States is to be a target of the inevitable anger and resentment and possible violent responses, as it has been in the past.

A further risk of the tie is for the United States to get dragged into Israel’s wars. The current U.S. campaign of airstrikes against the Houthi regime in Yemen illustrates the point. That combat is another direct outgrowth of the Israeli assault on Gaza. The Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping never would have occurred without that assault.

The Houthis, true to their word, stopped their attacks when the Gaza cease-fire began in January. They had not resumed attacks before the Trump administration began its air offensive. The Houthis had only threatened to do so if Israel did not soon reverse its blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The interference with shipping in the Red Sea is a legitimate concern, but, given the connection with the Gaza situation, the U.S. military involvement in Yemen is in effect supporting Israel’s project of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. And the United States has gotten involved in an armed conflict with a tribal movement whose rise is rooted in local issues in which the United States has no interest.

An even bigger danger is getting dragged into a war with Iran, which the Netanyahu government has striven to trigger with both overt and clandestine attacks on Iranian interests. There can be no doubt that Netanyahu would love to get the United States involved in a war with Iran, which would be the most dramatic and forceful way of advancing the Israeli strategy of defining Middle East security solely in anti-Iran terms.

With Iran’s nuclear program the ostensible focus, any armed attack by Israel and/or the United States would be another instance of inflicting a certain harm — an act of aggression in violation of the United Nations Charter and anything that could be called a rules-based international order — to try to eliminate a mere possibility. In this case, the possible acquisition by Iran of a weapon that both would-be attackers have had for years.