The fate of Gaza will determine the future of the Middle East

Mohammed Amer, New Eastern Outlook, August 18, 2025 —

On August 7, Israeli Prime Minister B. Netanyahu announced that Israel was going to reoccupy the Gaza Strip. This decision was approved by the majority of the cabinet.

The Israelis would not have decided to take this step without the support and approval of the American administration. It is characteristic that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, M. Johnson, who visited Jerusalem the day before this event, publicly called the West Bank of the Jordan River Judea and Samaria, i.e. the biblical names of this territory, and promised to facilitate the introduction of these names into the official American language.

For almost half a century, all international documents implied that such a state would be created on the basis of the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip, and its capital would be East Jerusalem.

Palestinian State by UN Resolution

Gaza is a narrow strip of land on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the total area of which is estimated at 367 square kilometers. At the beginning of the 20th century, less than 80 thousand people lived in this territory, mostly local tribes.

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution No. 181, which ordered the termination of the British Mandate and the division of Palestine into two separate independent states, the city of Jerusalem was allocated a special international status. The Jewish minority was granted 56.47% of the territory of Palestine, and the Arabs 42.88%.

As a result of the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948-1949, the Israelis captured a significant part of the areas allocated for the Arab state, as well as most of Jerusalem, which was to be internationalized.

After another Arab-Israeli war in 1967, Israel significantly expanded its territory, capturing the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Gaza Strip and the entire Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.

On September 13, 1993, the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was signed, laying the foundations for temporary Palestinian self-government, the so-called Oslo Declaration.

In 2005, Israel announced the withdrawal of its troops from the Gaza Strip: 21 settlements were liquidated and 8,000 Israelis left Gaza. In 2006, Hamas came to power in this sector as a result of free elections.

Since October 2023 and to the present, Israel has been conducting ongoing military operations in Gaza, which the majority of the international community has called genocide. More than 200,000 Palestinians have been killed and wounded, the vast majority of homes in the strip have been destroyed, and several dozen people have died of hunger in the area in the past few days.

There is no consensus in Israel itself on what to do with this enclave – many citizens, including former heads of security agencies, advocate reaching an agreement with Hamas on the release of hostages, withdrawing Israeli troops, and beginning negotiations on the status of this territory. Nevertheless, the extremist wing of the government constantly talks about the need to finally defeat Hamas and expel the Palestinians from their land. These cannibalistic plans are causing serious rejection even among those circles in the West, including the United States, that previously supported Israel.

The New York Times wrote on August 5: “If Netanyahu makes a colossal mistake by trying to reoccupy Gaza for a long time, then no sane person can be a supporter of Israel.” In the United States itself, criticism of Israel’s actions is growing – even in the MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) movement, voices are increasingly being heard condemning Netanyahu’s policies. In the Democratic Party, the positions of those calling for a block on arms supplies to Israel are growing stronger, in particular, such a proposal was made by Amy Klobuchar, the senior senator from Minnesota, who ran for president from her party in 2020 but failed to be elected, now ranks third in her faction and is one of the main contenders to replace Chuck Schumer, the unpopular and aging leader of the Democratic senators. She is a prominent representative of the Democratic Party elite and may well run for US president again in 2028.