The images coming out of Gaza are horrifying. They are a color version of those we saw from Auschwitz. It is no exaggeration to say that what is unfolding there is the greatest act of barbarism committed in the 21st century. In this article, we will offer a brief mapping of the reconfiguration of the Zionist colonial project, as well as an account of the horrific situation affecting the people of Gaza. Finally, we will outline some strategic axes to (re)think about the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.

By Victor Artavia
Originally published on https://izquierdaweb.com/anatomia-de-un-genocidio/
Translated by Tomás A.

In October 2023, Israel launched its invasion of the Gaza Strip. Initially, it was presented as a response to the incursion carried out by Hamas on October 7 of that same year. Netanyahu’s government invoked the “right to legitimate self-defense,” a technicality of bourgeois international law used to disguise its true intention: the colonization of that territory—an objective long desired by the Zionist far right that makes up the current Israeli cabinet.

Twenty-one months have passed since then, during which the violence of the occupying forces has only intensified. The images coming out of Gaza are horrifying. They are a color version of those we saw from Auschwitz. It is no exaggeration to say that what is unfolding in Gaza is the greatest act of barbarism committed in the 21st century: a campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide against a population of just over two million people.

In this article, we will offer a brief mapping of the reconfiguration of the Zionist colonial project, as well as an account of the horrific situation affecting the people of Gaza. Finally, we will outline some strategic axes to (re)think about the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.

Liberal Zionism vs. Theocratic Zionism

To better understand what is happening in Gaza, it is necessary to identify the division running through the Israeli political spectrum. According to Ilan Pappé, an Israeli historian and well-known anti-Zionist, Israeli society is currently split into two rival camps, whose main point of divergence lies in the type of colonial state they envision (read The Collapse of Zionism).

On one side, there is what Ilan Pappé calls the “State of Israel” camp. It is characterized as more secular, liberal, and primarily composed of middle-class European Jews and their descendants. This sector was the hegemonic force within the Israeli establishment from 1948 until the late 20th century, whose “basic wish is for Jewish citizens to live in a democratic and pluralist society from which Arabs are excluded.”

For this reason, Pappé argues, their so-called “liberal democratic values” coexist seamlessly with the apartheid imposed on the Palestinians.

On the other side, there is the “State of Judea” camp, which emerged among the settlers in the West Bank. Over the past few decades, it has gained widespread support within the country, particularly among the upper ranks of the Israeli army and security services.

As a result, settler parties increased their parliamentary representation and became a key force in securing Netanyahu’s electoral victory in 2022. They advocate for transforming Israel into a theocratic state that colonizes the entirety of historic Palestine, even if that means exterminating as many Palestinians as possible. Furthermore, they believe that “secular Jews are as heretical as Palestinians if they refuse to join this endeavor.”

From this perspective, it is clear that these are two branches of Zionism which, as such, share a colonialist foundation. In other words, this is a dispute between a liberal-bourgeois colonial Zionism and an extreme-right theocratic colonial Zionism.

Pappé’s classification is complemented by that of Gilbert Achcar, a Lebanese researcher and expert on the Middle East associated with Mandelism. According to him, the Israeli ruling elite is divided between the project of a Greater Israel and those who support the two-state agreements established in Oslo (read Deux scénarios pour Gaza: Grand Israël contre Oslo).

Achcar identifies Netanyahu as part of “Zionist revisionism,” representing the Zionist far right, much of which is concentrated in the Likud party. Many of its members were directly involved in the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948 and never forgave “the mainstream Zionist current, then led by David Ben-Gurion, for agreeing to stop the war before conquering 100% of the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.”

In fact, Netanyahu fiercely opposed the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, which was ordered by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Following that event, he broke with Likud and founded a new party, though he later returned to Likud and took its leadership, thanks to which he became Prime Minister in 2009, a position he held uninterrupted until June 2021.

After a brief period out of office, in 2022 he sealed an alliance with the far-right settler parties, once again becoming Prime Minister. This agreement resulted in the formation of the most right-wing cabinet in Israeli history, which Achcar describes as the culmination of an “endless drift to the right” since Likud’s first electoral victory in 1977.

As we can see, there is a convergence of interests between the “State of Judea” camp and the proponents of “Greater Israel.” Both are driven by colonial ambitions, though the former frames them within a messianic narrative, while the latter advances a secular expansionist vision (that does not reject religion, but is less overtly framed in religious terms).

Regardless of which typology one prefers (in our view, they are complementary), it is an objective fact that Israeli society is fractured. This was clearly demonstrated throughout 2022 during the massive protests against Netanyahu’s attempts to curtail the powers of the judiciary.

The Grammar of Genocide

The brutality of words precedes the brutality of deeds. For this reason, violence on the battlefield is fueled and mirrored by violence in words.

According to researcher Laura González Pérez, this means that war generates its own grammar and, to understand it, one must identify the “ways of naming” and how these shape the representations in our collective imagination by constructing criteria of “validation, exclusion, polarization, and minimization” of the Other (read Gramática de la Guerra. Una aproximación al lenguaje que genera y valida las violencias).

In the case of Gaza, this is not a war; it is a massacre carried out by a state with one of the most powerful armies in the world, against a colonized people whose resistance faces overwhelming military disadvantage. For this reason, it is more accurate to speak of a “grammar of genocide”.

“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly”. These were the words of Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former Defense Minister (2022–2024), on October 9, 2023.

His statement leaves no doubt about the brutal objectives with which Netanyahu’s government approached the invasion from the outset. Palestinians were portrayed as wild beasts that, within the colonial and racist logic of Zionism, may rightfully be exterminated by any means necessary.

This genocidal grammar gained power following the convergence of the “State of Judea” camp with that of “Greater Israel.” According to Achcar, Netanyahu’s government longed to reoccupy Gaza, but lacked the political conditions to launch such a massive campaign. That changed after Hamas’s operation on October 7, which initially generated a favorable climate for such an occupation among the Israeli public opinion. As a result, Netanyahu’s cabinet radicalized its discourse and expanded its military objectives, declaring the eradication of Hamas as its goal.

This marks a clear departure from Israel’s previous military operations against Gaza in 2006, 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021. In those instances, Israel’s modus operandi consisted of aerial bombings and, in 2009 and 2014, limited ground incursions. At no point was there an intention to reoccupy territory, the objective was merely to degrade the military capabilities of the Palestinian resistance.

Today’s situation is markedly different. The military aggression now operates under a genocidal and fascist logic, aimed at annihilating the so-called “human animals”. For this reason, Israel employs “rational” methods in Gaza (such as blockading food and fuel, systematically destroying hospitals and vital infrastructure, etc.) to achieve irrational goals: (ethnic cleansing and genocide).

This irrational dynamic was sharply observed by The Economist, which pointed out that Netanyahu’s government found it easier to end wars against stronger adversaries like Iran or Hezbollah than to bring its assault on the Palestinians to a close. The latter, a stateless people with no formal army, represents a paradoxical challenge: “Israel’s decision to keep pounding Gaza goes beyond military tactics and political calculation (…) Israel’s wars with Iran and Hezbollah were «classic counter-proliferation campaigns (…) in which your goal is to degrade the enemy’s capabilities and force them to agree to arms-control terms via diplomacy». In Gaza, the prime minister and his ultra-religious allies «have been waging a messianic war that defies any pragmatic strategy»” (read Israel’s weird war clock: 12 days for Iran, 21 months in Gaza).

The Fascist Radicalization of Netanyahu’s Government

Ian Kershaw is one of the most important historians of Nazism, and his work is highly useful for understanding the evolution of Nazi barbarism.

In several of his books, he explains that the Nazis’ initial plan was to geographically relocate European Jews to other countries, but over time they realized that this idea was virtually impossible. He also argues that the regime underwent a gradual “radicalization” during the 1930s and throughout World War II, culminating in the “Final Solution” (The Nazi Dictatorship, 2013; Hitler, 2019).

For this reason, the British historian concludes that any plan involving the displacement of a native population contains within it the seed of genocide, even if this is not consciously acknowledged or made explicit at first. In other words, the only way to forcibly displace an entire native population is through the unrestrained use of force (that is, through the unleashing of barbarism).

These two concepts, the radicalization of the regime and the inherent link between displacement and genocide, are crucial for understanding the actions of Netanyahu’s government since the beginning of the Gaza massacre.

Over the past twenty-one months (October 2023 – July 2025), the Israeli cabinet has moved from far-right extremism to full-blown fascism. Or, more clearly put, from the brutality of words to the brutality of actions.

From the very start of the invasion of Gaza, Netanyahu repeatedly crossed red lines, justifying each step by invoking the “right to self-defense.” This was the official discourse for several months, but it became increasingly radicalized over time and, today, no one in the Zionist government speaks in defensive terms.

On the contrary, Zionists now openly declare that their objective is to achieve full military control over the Gaza Strip and to oppose the two-state “solution.” Since the mid-1990s, the Oslo Accords represented the “consensus” among the imperialist establishment for resolving the so-called “Arab-Israeli conflict” (a euphemism that conceals the core issue: colonization). But today Oslo is seen for what it always was: an unviable “roadmap” that served only to divide the Palestinian resistance and strengthen Zionist occupation.

A key turning point in this process was the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, especially after he suggested that the United States could take control of Gaza and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” He also argued that this would be feasible if the population of Gaza were resettled in other countries.

Whether or not Trump’s project ever materializes, it is undeniable that his words emboldened the “Hawks” within Netanyahu’s cabinet, who felt legitimized to publicly say what they actually intended to do with the Palestinians. After all, if the leader of the world’s foremost imperialist power speaks openly about a plan of ethnic cleansing, why wouldn’t the Zionists on the ground do the same?

This is precisely what happened with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who seized on the U.S. president’s remarks to issue a public statement declaring: “Whoever committed the most terrible massacre on our land will find that they have lost theirs forever. Finally, with God’s help, we will now act to bury the dangerous idea of a Palestinian state.”

The most disturbing part is that this statement has translated into concrete actions. As we reported in another article (read Gaza: Israel intensifica la masacre y avanza en sus planes de limpieza étnica), Israel launched “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” in May, part of the larger “Phase 3: Full Seizure of Gaza” plan. This offensive aims to secure the colonial occupation and control of large swaths of the Strip.

To that end, Zionist military authorities have ordered the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians toward the south of the territory. Since then, they have begun speaking more openly about facilitating the “voluntary emigration” of those who wish to leave Gaza.

In the mouth of a fascist Zionist, these words can mean only one thing: they intend to make daily life a hell for Palestinians that they will be “freely choosing” to flee what are, in effect, concentration camps.

Gaza: From Ghetto to Concentration Camp

Twenty-two months ago, just before Israel launched its military invasion, the Gaza Strip was widely described as a ghetto of the 21st century. Rightly so, it was known as the largest open-air prison in the world, and the extreme overcrowding in which more than two million Gazans were forced to live was already being condemned.

Compared to today, however, the situation is far much dire. The enclave has been turned into a living hell since then.

At the time of writing this article, the number of Gazans killed by the occupying forces is estimated at around 56,000. But many analysts believe these official figures fall short. In January, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics released a report estimating that Gaza’s population had dropped by 6% during the first fifteen months of Israel’s assault.

This implies that around 200,000 Palestinians either died or fled the territory, and that the population has been declining at a rate of 1% every ten weeks, an astonishing figure that reflects the sheer brutality of the Zionist occupation forces (read La población de Gaza ha descendido al menos un 6% en 15 meses de genocidio).

It is also estimated that 60% of buildings have been destroyed—70% in the northern part of the Strip, and up to 74% in Gaza City. Much of this infrastructure was leveled during the early months of the invasion, largely due to Israel’s “doctrine of victory,” which relies on overwhelming airpower to annihilate a vast number of targets in a short time in order to preempt international backlash.

In recent months, the ethnic cleansing and genocide campaign has become more “sophisticated”. For example, on May 27, the occupying forces began implementing a new system for delivering the extremely limited humanitarian aid allowed into the Strip. They established four “food distribution centers,” now operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

It takes no great logistical expertise to see that distributing aid to two million people through just four centers is unworkable. Predictably, these sites have turned into deadly traps, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are forced to queue for hours in desperate search of food, food that is not always guaranteed.

Even GHF officials have expressed frustration over the restrictions imposed by Israel. Initially, they planned to set up 20 distribution points, but the Israeli military has prohibited any expansion. The organization also faces severe shortages, and according to The Economist, the GHF has distributed 42 million meals since its inception, which is less than one meal per person per day (read As all eyes are on Iran, the horror in Gaza persists).

Every day, dozens of deaths are reported among those waiting in line for aid. The UN has confirmed that over 600 Gazans have been killed and another 4,000 have been wounded since this so-called “humanitarian aid” model was put in place.

All of this confirms that Zionism is using hunger as a war weapon. Food has become the “bait” used to lure Palestinians into these lines, where they can be shot at any moment by Israeli soldiers or American mercenaries hired to manage the centers. “You have to choose between dying while looking for food or dying of hunger”, said Ahmed Masri, whose son was shot in the leg while trying to feed his family.

But Zionist barbarism knows no bounds. A recent example is Netanyahu’s plan to create a so-called “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, in the south of Gaza Strip. The announcement was made by Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday, July 7.

Actually, this “city” would be an improvised camp where occupying forces plan to imprison 600,000 Palestinians, but with the stated goal of eventually accommodating the entire population of Gaza (estimated at 2.1 million).

Before entering, Palestinians would have to pass a security screening to prove they are not affiliated with Hamas. Once inside, they would face two options: (a) remain confined in the camp, or (b) “voluntarily emigrate” to another country.

In other words: a concentration camp! Of course, Netanyahu’s fascist government attempts to mask this reality with the euphemistic name “humanitarian city,” but the similarities to Nazi concentration camps are impossible to ignore.

On the same day this plan was announced, Netanyahu met with Trump at the White House, where he reaffirmed their joint efforts to find third countries willing to resettle the Gazan population. “I believe President Trump has a brilliant vision. It’s called free choice. If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be allowed to leave (…) We’re working closely with the United States to find countries that want to realize what they always say: that they want to give Palestinians a better future”, the genocidal declared.

The Zionists intend to begin construction during the proposed 60-day ceasefire, leaving no doubt that they have no intention of leaving Gaza and, on the contrary, they are now speaking more openly than ever about their colonial ambitions, which clearly involve ethnic cleansing and genocide.

This reminds us of The Divine Comedy. At the gates of Hell a sign with the inscription “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’intrate”, which translates to “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” in English. We do not know if Netanyahu has ever read Dante’s classic, but there can be no doubt that his so-called “humanitarian city” closely resembles the hell described by the precursor to the Renaissance.

The Strategic Limits of Zionist Colonialism and the Renewal of the Palestinian Liberation Struggle

At this point, it is worth revisiting the analysis of Ilan Pappé. This historian argues that the Zionist project is undergoing a profound crisis. In fact, he contends that it is heading toward collapse in the medium or long term.

Beyond the internal fracture of Israeli society, which we explored in the first part of this article, Pappé asserts that Israel has become an international pariah state, which growing isolation reminiscent of the final years of apartheid South Africa.

Moreover, the brutality of the genocide in Gaza has triggered a rupture between the Zionist project and segments of Jewish youth abroad. This was clearly visible during the university protests in the United States, where it was common to see Jewish student organisations joining the movement against the genocide.

Pappé also highlights that Israel is facing a deepening economic crisis, worsened by ongoing military conflicts. In the last quarter of 2023, for instance, the Israeli economy contracted by 20%. Adding to this is the exodus of over half a million people who have left the country since the beginning of the assault on Gaza, mainly liberal Zionists disillusioned by the far-right drift of the current government.

In other words, Israel possesses significant “hard power”, but lacks “soft power”. Under such conditions, it is nearly impossible to build lasting hegemony that legitimates a nation-state project. No matter how many weapons Israel possesses, it remains surrounded by millions of native Arabs who refuse to submit to its domination. After nearly 80 years of colonial occupation, Israel has utterly failed to break Palestinian resistance!

Furthermore, Zionism’s expansionist logic—embodied in concepts like “Greater Israel” or the “State of Judea”—undermines its ability to normalize diplomatic relations. Nearly all of its neighboring territories are seen as future colonial conquests. One often overlooked fact is that Israel has no constitution, due to its refusal to define borders that would restrict its colonial ambitions, as currently seen in Gaza and the West Bank (read ¿Por qué Israel no tiene constitución?).

In contrast to the decay of Zionism, Pappé identifies new strategic strengths for the Palestinian cause. For example, he observes a renewed energy among the younger generations in Gaza and the West Bank, who increasingly understand that the so-called two-state “solution” is a dead end. As a result, they are more inclined to support the struggle for a single, unified Palestine.

None of this implies that the road ahead is easy. In fact, Zionism’s strategic crisis makes it more aggressive and desperate in order to avoid its own decay. The fascist turn of the current Israeli government and the genocidal assault on Gaza are stark evidence of that.

Any renewed struggle against Zionist occupation must also reckon with internal betrayers, starting with the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, which played key roles in the Oslo Accords and helped drag the resistance into a strategic deadlock.

Additionally, the Palestinian liberation movement must overcome the influence of bourgeois fundamentalist leaderships. While movements like Hamas have gained mass support in Gaza due to their role in resisting occupation, their program does not prioritize the emancipation of the exploited and oppressed. Their strategy cannot offer a real path to liberation.

We share Pappé’s view on the urgent need to abandon the language of “peace processes.” Such terminology has long served as a smokescreen for U.S. and Israeli-led initiatives since 1948, masking the reality of a colonial oppressor facing off against a subjugated people fighting for self-determination, such as the Palestinians case.

Instead, the resistance must be reframed as a process of decolonization, rooted in the recognition that Zionism represents a colonial occupation of historic Palestine. This means legitimizing the use of civil war strategies. No decolonization struggle has ever been “peaceful.” The independence of Haiti in the early 19th century, and of Algeria in the mid-20th, stand as powerful reminders.

Also, the Palestinian liberation struggle is anti-imperialist and internationalist. Israel would not exist without the backing of traditional imperial powers (as well as the Stalinist USSR, whose support for the state’s founding was one of its most shameful betrayals).

But anti-colonialism alone is not enough. The fight against Zionism must also be armed with anti-capitalist and socialist content. The goal must be to refound Palestine on new social foundations, ones that guarantee national self-determination and social emancipation.

Israel is a colonial, supremacist, and genocidal state. It cannot be reformed; it must -and deserves to be!- dismantled. The so-called “two-state solution” is a reactionary fantasy. The liberation of the Palestinian people is one of the great tasks of humanity’s emancipation in the 21st century. But this task will not be fulfilled by any Islamic or bourgeois faction. Palestine will be united, secular, democratic, and socialist, or it will not be at all.