Gaza, in November

Philip Kraske • August 5, 2025

By November, most of the children have died off and are down to less than fifteen percent of the Gaza population. Their babbling fun amidst the tents has declined to an occasional squawk or a weak gasping for water. Babies have stopped crying — forever. The elderly too have perished of thirst and malnutrition. The teenagers and middle-aged persist, surviving on what they can steal from the rare aid truck. The Israeli government curses them as Commodus does to Maximus in the film “Gladiator”: “You simply won’t die.”

For like Commodus they know that this is the do-or-die moment. Most of the countries of Europe have now recognized the State of Palestine, and even in the American Congress, members are ever more nervous. President Trump mixes among his multitudinous statements that Israel “has to get closure on this thing,” as if it were a real estate deal. Even the most stubborn pro-Israel media has turned angry and uses the term “genocide” without hesitation. The “war against Hamas” has fallen from a justification to an explanation to a reason to a mumbled excuse.

Hamas has offered to lay down its arms if Israel and the United States first recognize the State of Palestine and well-armed UN peacekeepers by the thousand are allowed to enter Gaza and the West Bank, replacing the Israeli presence. Israel and the U.S., of course, refuse. They argue that this would “reward “ a terrorist organization.

But even without taking this step, the Israelis know that if they ease the pressure, allow a few hospitals to open, let in a few hundred trucks a day — if they allow even a semblance of normality — it’s all over for them. Because then Palestine is a permanent reality; it exists; it will not disappear; its people have fought the good fight of freedom and are now a country.

But the window of (last) opportunity is closing quickly.

So Israelis have become famously obliging on one point: they allow hundreds of ailing Palestinian children to travel with their families to European countries for treatment; then they allow teenagers and the old. But now these same European nations are carping: the child gets better, the family visa expires, but the Israelis claim that the family must “register” at their embassy to return to Gaza, and the registration involves paperwork, and delays are interminable. An American medical ship is also treating Palestinians, but the trouble returning them obligates them to discharge them to refugee camps in the Sinai. The Grayzone reveals that only two of these families has ever been allowed to return. “What problem?” cry lubricious Israeli ambassadors to CNN anchorpeople. “All the paperwork can be done online! We’ve made every facility possible!”

On purely humanitarian grounds, Egypt has finally allowed Palestinians to go to a camp they’ve set up near the border “on a purely temporary basis, until some agreement is reached between Israel and Hamas.” But they only allow them to enter the camp; NGOs must do the heavy lifting. And Egyptian guards make sure nobody leaves because the government fears Palestinians will migrate to the cities in search of work. Anyone who wants out of the camp will be escorted to an airplane out of Egypt — courtesy of the Israelis.

They also offer Palestinians plentiful food, water and medical supplies on good air-conditioned buses that will take Palestinians across northern Egypt to Libya, whose Tripoli government has agreed to take several thousand of them — another “humanitarian rescue operation” — in exchange for increased military aid for its fight against its eastern enemies. Many Palestinians accept the offer, nearly all of them families with children. But as so many children have died, Israelis don’t fill half as many buses as they had hoped.

The remaining Palestinians are labeled “Hamas sympathizers, the ones that don’t want to cooperate.” President Trump criticizes these “hard cases” because “they can’t see reality. They don’t see it. It’s all over. Their cities lie in ruins, can’t they see that? It’s time to move on. Just get going. What did Germans do after World War II? They migrated. They picked up their things and moved on. Our country received millions of them. Besides, these people should never have been in Gaza in the first place. Such a waste, such a waste.”

The flow of reporting from inside Gaza has ceased; all foreigners have seen their visas revoked, and reporters and camera people have been sent to Egypt and Jordan. Network news shows the world over are relieved not to have to show emaciated Palestinian children, and the outcry of genocide falls off the newcasts. Reporters turn their attention to the West Bank, which is turning into a replay of Gaza. Reporters soon find themselves banned there as well, and even a quick report turns into a manhunt for the reporter and camera operators, who are quickly expelled.

The justification for the onslaught on the Weat Bank is a second outrage that occurred there in early October to “celebrate” the original massacre two years earlier. A whole Jewish settlement in the West Bank was massacred by a 500-strong Palestinian mob that broke out of an encampment and rampaged through the settlement all night. Chaotic scenes that the IDF releases to the media are horrific: 142 murdered. Reporters, however, are hard put to identify either member of the mob or the settlement, the victims faces are always blurred out, and there are only two survivors: a woman and her two-year-old child. Fortunately, the woman speaks good English and can narrate the story articulately. Palestinians from the attacking mob conveniently makes up for the dearth of information and releases copious GoPro videos of the horror, including the beheading of settlers and children thrown around like rag dolls.

“It’s clear from these videos that Palestinians are a people full of rage and violence,” says Prime Minister Netanyahu. “Can anybody blame us for taking steps to defend our people?”

Now news media are obliged to give “equal time” to the new massacre in order to avoid charges of anti-semitism. The IDF ramps up its West Bank campaign, and panicked Palestinians push past Jordanian border guards into Jordan.

Media attention swings away from Gaza. The Israeli government quietly stops all aid to Gaza, though news of this is hotly contested in different media. The IDF makes a daring raid in the tunnels to rescue hostages, but only two are saved and the rest are declared dead, to the grief, anger and sheer disbelief or the families of hostages. The IDF begins to drill holes all over Gaza and flood them with water and chemicals. Real estate developers rub their hands in glee, but are told to keep their plans well out of the public eye. Nobody needs another “Trump Gaza” video. Next year, if all goes well, there will be plenty of time for plans and deals.

The international community, of course, is up in arms. The U.N. General Assembly is considering throwing Israel out, and the ICC is considering naming the United States an accomplice of Israel. The Israeli government shrugs all this off as anti-semitism.

It just barely maintains control of the situation, barreling ahead, as conditions for their Final Solution are optimal: it has the American government in its back pocket, the Arab countries are either cowed or complaisant, and Israel can control nearly all the information about events.

Yes, by November, Israel is in full chute en avance: forward retreat. For one reason, long experience has taught them how quickly conditions can change: the media and public opinion might finally force Trump to tell Israel to rachet it down, a radical regime could take power in any of the kingdoms, a recession could slow the flow of arms, a true non-quisling PLO leader might emerge and charm public opinion. Second and most crucially, Israelis cannot afford to lose momentum: no ceasefires, no distractions with Iran. Of course their public image is suffering terribly and will have to be repaired. But they cannot stop; they cannot. With Gaza in its death throes and the West Bank beginning to disintegrate, a lull of even a month would cheer Palestinians and make them look legitimate as a people and a country. The images of them as rootless, country-less refugees, mattresses stacked up on their car roofs, must continue.

By November, for Israel, it is now or never; even Netanyahu’s ghoulish coterie must see the corner they’ve painted themselves into. Either they now get their country from the river to the sea, or they must live with that hot tumor of Palestine incrusted in their gut forever.

https://www.unz.com/article/gaza-in-november/