by Liam Noble
On 18 March, Israel broke the ceasefire, ended negotiations, and launched simultaneous bombings in the North, Central, and South of Gaza that killed more than 400 people, mostly women, children, and the elderly. The purpose was to avoid moving to the second phase of the ceasefire, which would end the war and repatriate all Israeli hostages. The Israeli government wants to avoid this, because peace means they cannot steal and resettle the Palestinian land. Only by war and genocide can they achieve this most terrible goal.
Why is Israel so bent on going back to war?
Resumption of the war is the demand of Netanyahu’s close allies. It also confers on the Prime Minister tremendous political advantages, as his base of support, the fanatical Zionist factions, are insistent on it. The ultra-right settler movement, led by Daniella Weiss of the organization Nachala, prayed for an end to the ceasefire, with Weiss saying in November 2024, “what is happening right now is a miracle; we are fighting a holy war.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party and de-facto boss of the West Bank, said on Israeli radio, “we must occupy Gaza, maintain a military presence there, and establish settlements.”
Meanwhile, liberal Zionists are sounding the alarm bells of “regime change in Israel.” Netanyahu is centralizing power around himself, and taking authoritarian control of the justice system. While those liberal Zionists are protesting for a return to security and status quo (which necessarily means deposing Netanyahu), the fanatical settler Zionists see any attempt to stop their historical mission as an unfathomable betrayal.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a Netanyahu critic, said “the foundations of the state are shaking. In Gaza, we have returned to fighting — and for what? Netanyahu is ready to sacrifice everything for his survival, and we are closer to a civil war than people realize.”
Netanyahu was compelled to respond, saying: “there will be no civil war!”
Failure to appease the radicalized fundamentalist settlers would turn them against the Israeli state, yet acceding to their demands means endless war, a war that has exposed the divergent and zero-sum interests between the socioeconomic classes of Israeli Zionists. The Israeli state, under pressure internationally and at home, has lost its tourist revenue, its educated industrial workforce, and numerous export markets. While the settlers on the frontier crave belligerent expansion, the citizens of Israeli cities grasp that continued war hurts their economic interests, their safety, and the survival potential of Israel itself. According to a February 2025 poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, 72% of Israelis believe that Netanyahu should resign (48% say immediately; 24.5% say at the end of the war).
War Plans
The beginning of March saw the resignation of the Chief of the General Staff of Israel, and the appointment of Eyal Zamir, a close ally of Netanyahu. Zamir was in command of the military formations that “confronted” the peaceful protesters in the 2018 Great March of Return, killing 150 outright and wounding over 10,000 others. Netanyahu said of Zamir that his “approach is geared towards offense,” and that “we expect that during his service … we will reach all these great achievements, which will change not only the situation of Israel but also the face of the entire Middle East.” Zamir himself said that 2025 “would continue to be a year of combat.”
It appears that contrary to negotiations over the phases of a ceasefire, the Israelis have their own phases planned— war phases. Phase One, starting March 2, was to block the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza. Malnutrition and starvation are spreading rapidly. Hunger and disease are as fatal as bombs, and serve the Israeli goal to make Gaza unlivable for Palestinians.
With the resumption of bombing on March 18, they began Phase Two, directly breaking the ceasefire themselves. Now the IDF has the initiative of escalation, as they attempt to kill or expel the population.
Arising now is the specter of Phase Three: the return of a total extermination effort, using IDF soldiers to “wipe out Hamas” in house-to-house urban warfare, leaving settlers in their wake. The details come courtesy of journalist Seymour Hersh, whose sources indicate Israel will attempt a broad ground offensive into Gaza from the north.
According to Hersh’s report, five divisions have been prepared to confront and do battle with the likely 20,000 Hamas fighters (an Israeli division is 10,000 soldiers including ‘tail’ personnel). The army will attempt to “occupy Gaza,” unleashing unprecedented cruelty against everyone in their path. A possible preview occurred in Rafah on March 23, when IDF soldiers “executed nine medics from the Red Crescent and Civil Defense, and destroyed their ambulances.” This will be a holocaust by bullets.
This action will kill the remaining hostages, but getting them back would lead to peace— and Netanyahu, his government, and supporting factions need war.
Futile Murder
More than 85,000 tons of bombs have been dropped on the Gaza Strip since 2023, with the Israelis ignoring the lesson that indeed all cruel and cowardly air-powers have ignored: you can’t actually bomb people back to the Stone Age. You can’t even bomb them into submission. Trump is rushing another $8.8 billion of US bombs to Israel, while Sen. Sanders is attempting to rally the Senate to prevent those shipments.
Frustrated, the genocidal Zionists are going back to the only tool in their rather meager toolkit: ground forces? Calling five divisions will draw heavily on reserves, meaning Israeli citizenry. Social resistance to mobilization after eighteen months of war will heighten the crisis of morale that is straining the exhausted IDF. All armies disintegrate in the face of prolonged, intensive conflict; being given impossible goals will exasperate the malignant symptoms of rampant PTSD and suicide, desertion, and organized refusal to fight.
The army of the IDF will again be thrown into Gaza to be mortally and psychologically destroyed by a people who have nothing to lose resisting invasion by soldiers who don’t want to be there.
This has all been tried, and now Israel will try it again. What’s that cliche on insanity? Expecting a different result? There is a key difference that defines the imminent 2025 phase of war against 2024: the Trump administration. The Biden administration burned the United States’ international reputation to cajole the world into keeping their toes in line. The United States is now seen internationally as a rogue state, and with Trump it lacks the polite liberal posturing, clever manipulation of sentiments, and eminent soft-power that it applied so lavishly last year. The world is looking for new leadership, a beacon of moral and intellectual guidance, as American decline accelerates into the grotesque.
The fanatical Zionist settlers are praying for war, begging for it, delirious by its glory and mindless at its imminent conception, war like the finger of God touching Earth. They are prostrated before the war, saying: Thou must kill, and Thou must steal, and Thou must covet thy neighbor’s land. But it is the soldiers, not the settlers, who will do the killing, and whether or not their orders are feasible, the result will be death, and only death.
For the sake of our world, for the sake of Palestine, we must demand peace.
Liam Noble is a student at the University of Massachusetts – Boston
