The worst stage of 20 months of genocide

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2025/07/03/the-worst-stage-of-20-months-of-genocide/

As talk of a potential 60-day ceasefire deal continues, the Israeli military is intensifying its slaughter across Palestine.

In Gaza, nowhere is safe, as the Israeli government continues its relentless campaign of bombardment and starvation. And in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military has killed 1,000 Palestinians since the beginning of the genocide, and is escalating its violent raids and brutal destruction of Palestinian homes and villages.

The worst stage of 20 months of genocide.

The situation in Gaza is beyond dire. At least 84,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza between October 2023 and January 2025 — and we know the real toll is likely much higher. 

Since the Israeli military unilaterally broke the ceasefire agreement in March, it has taken control of more than 75% of Gaza, trapping more than 2 million people into a smaller and smaller part of the decimated territory. There, the Israeli government is enforcing a policy of total starvation, barring even baby formula from entering, leading doctors in Gaza to warn that thousands of babies could die. More than 70 children have already starved to death.

Under these conditions of manufactured famine, massacres of Palestinians waiting for food aid have become a daily occurrence. After months of the Israeli government blocking aid from entering Gaza, the Israeli military has now killed more than 600 people at U.S.-backed food distribution sites. 

In a new report, Israeli soldiers have been quoted describing the atrocities they’re carrying out against starving Palestinians: 

“It’s a killing field,” one soldier said. “We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces… I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons.” 

At the same time, the Israeli military is escalating its relentless bombardment, targeting already-destroyed neighborhoods again and again, killing Palestinians who have managed to survive 20 months of genocide. On Monday, Israeli forces killed more than 80 Palestinians, including the more than 30 people who were murdered when the Israeli military bombed a seaside cafe. Among them was photojournalist Ismail Abu Hatab, the 227th journalist killed by the Israeli military since the beginning of the genocide. Abu Ali al-Joujou, a witness to the attack, described the scene:

“I arrived and there was blood everywhere. I saw men martyred, I saw women and girls blown apart. This is a rest area, this is a cafe. People come here to have a cup of tea to get away from the troubles of the world, from all the pain we see in eastern Gaza; they come here to breathe. Look at the destruction here, it’s indescribable. The blood you see around you says everything.”

Escalating violence in the West Bank.

The Israeli government has also used the last 20 months of genocide as an opportunity to expand its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank at an unprecedented rate. Since October 2023, the Israeli military and settlers have killed 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank, by far the deadliest two years in recent history — but mainstream media has essentially ignored this extreme acceleration in Israeli settler and military violence.

Israeli settlers and soldiers have long worked hand-in-glove to terrorize and displace West Bank Palestinians from their homes, and their coordination has reached new heights in the last 20 months. Every week, settlers launch violent raids attacking Palestinians, often burning and destroying their homes and villages, all under the protection of the Israeli military.

Meanwhile, Israeli military and security forces launched multi-day assaults on Palestinian refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarem, Nur Shams, Far’a and Nablus, forcing thousands of Palestinians out of their homes, depopulating entire camps, and refusing to allow anyone to return. This coordinated campaign, led by far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich, uses settler violence as an extension of the Israeli state, united in their goal of ethnically cleansing Palestinians. 

As a result, the rate of settlement expansion and Palestinian displacement has skyrocketed. In 2024, Israeli settlers and the state stole more Palestinian land in the West Bank than over the entire last 20 years. Two months ago, Israeli bulldozers destroyed the majority of a village in Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian region in the West Bank and the subject of the Oscar-winning film No Other Land. An Israeli military decision last week “cleared the way for widespread demolitions” to continue. 

“People are afraid to leave their homes,” said Masafer Yatta Council head Nidal Yunis “The demolitions and attacks come almost daily — they simply oppose [any] Palestinian existence in this area.”

What would a ceasefire mean?

For the last 20 months, the Palestine solidarity movement has been fighting for a permanent ceasefire, grounded in justice, to end the genocide in Gaza. Now, in the aftermath of the Israeli government’s war of aggression on Iran, Trump is pushing for a temporary, 60-day ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Palestinian negotiators say that this deal, like past Israeli proposals, does not guarantee a permanent end to the genocide or the Israeli military’s withdrawal from Gaza.. 

We’ve been here before. In March, the Israeli government violated the last temporary ceasefire agreement and began the most recent — and worst — stage of its genocide, blocking all aid from entering Gaza and enforcing its policy of genocide by starvation. 

If a new ceasefire deal is reached, it will undoubtedly provide temporary relief to Palestinians in Gaza who are fighting to survive under constant bombardment. But one thing is clear: a temporary ceasefire deal alone will not end Israel’s genocide or its escalating campaign of ethnic cleansing across Palestine. Without significant pressure from the U.S. for Israeli forces to permanently withdraw from Gaza, allow in massive amounts of humanitarian aid, permanently end its war on Gaza, and lift its 17-year military blockade, Palestinians in Gaza may only be facing a new stage in genocide.

In this uncertain moment, our movement pressure remains critical to ending U.S. support for Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing, and ensuring any temporary deal turns into a permanent, just ceasefire.