I can predict exactly how the world will respond to Israel’s Gaza takeover

‘What does it even mean for Israel to say it now wants full control of Gaza?’

My sister’s words still echo in my mind, her voice trembling. And rightfully so. She lives in Gaza with the rest of my family and I’m terrified for them all.

She added: ‘Gaza City is already occupied. Wherever we go, there are Israeli tanks. To the sea? Not safe. Their drones are everywhere. They can even get inside your house. So what is left to control?’

That is the most searing question of our time. And the answer is so much more than politicians expressing meaningless platitudes of ‘deep concern’.

This conversation with my sister came after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan on Friday to take full control of Gaza City.

The thing is, Israel already controls most of Gaza — not just militarily, but through every artery of life: the borders, the seas, the sky, electricity, food, water, telecommunications, and humanitarian access. What’s being declared now as full control is not a new strategy — it’s genocide in escalation.

Take Rafah. Since early May 2024, Israel began a sweeping offensive, seizing the Rafah border crossing and moving into the city’s outskirts. The operation intensified evacuation orders, commanding tens of thousands to flee to so-called ‘safe zones’ like Al‑Mawasi.

Yet those zones quickly became death traps — overcrowded and lacking water, food, or medical aid. Under siege, hospitals ran out of fuel; medics were threatened; aid convoys were intercepted or simply blocked.

A UN court — the International Court of Justice — ordered Israel to halt its operations in Rafah on May 24, 2024. Israel defied the order. Demolition rolled on, turning entire neighborhoods into rubble.

By mid-2025, satellite imagery confirmed most of Rafah had been deliberately razed, erased entirely from the map.

So what red lines are we still talking about? When Israel invaded Rafah — after Biden himself said it was a red line — nothing happened. When Israel blocked humanitarian aid, starving children to death — nothing happened. When Israel killed aid workers, doctors, journalists, entire families — again, nothing.

And now, as they raze what’s left of Gaza City — as people die, not just from bombs, but from hunger — the world offers the same recycled statement: ‘deep concern’.

What does ‘deep concern’ mean when babies are dying of starvation and dehydration in hospitals with no fuel? When people are grinding animal feed to make bread? When children dig through rubble for a handful of food? It means nothing.

The international community is offering lip service while a nation is being starved, suffocated, and bombed out of existence.

In my view, Israel’s campaign has never truly been about ‘defeating Hamas’. It’s about permanently breaking Gaza. It’s about making the land unlivable so that Palestinians either die or never return. And the idea of taking full control is just another way of saying they intend to finish the job.

We are watching what many experts – like B’Tselem, Amnesty International, The Lemkin Institute – and UN officials are calling a genocide unfold in real time, with full surveillance, full knowledge, and full complicity. And those in power — in London, Washington, Brussels, and around the world — are not just failing to stop it. They are enabling it.

They are the ones supplying the weapons, the diplomatic cover, the financial aid, the vetoes at the UN. They are the ones pressuring journalists, silencing dissent, and criminalising protest.

They are not bystanders. They are partners in the crime.

I speak to my family in Gaza and sometimes I don’t even know what to say anymore. My sister tells me how they hear tanks in the streets, drones overhead, how even the air feels weaponised.

‘You can’t sleep. You can’t eat. You can’t even scream anymore,’ she said. And yet, somehow, Israel claims it needs more control.

Do you think the world is doing enough to address the situation in Gaza?Comment Now

What does that mean — to control people who have no homes, no food, no water, no safety? What does it mean — to occupy a people who have nowhere left to flee?

This is not about control. This is about annihilation. And the world knows it.

More than one million people once took shelter in Rafah. Today, the city lies in ruins. The IDF destroyed entire neighborhoods. Safe zones like Tel al-Sultan and Al-Mawasi were shelled.

Hospitals were attacked. Fuel was cut off. Food was turned into a weapon. Even as satellite images showed total destruction, aid trucks waited at closed crossings. Children starved. Medics broke down from exhaustion and grief.

The international community — governments that chant ‘never again’ and claim moral responsibility — offer statements. Condemnations. But they do nothing: no sanctions, no halts on arms supply, no enforcement of red lines.

My sister’s words pierce through the delegitimising rhetoric: ‘We live under tanks, drones, in terror. They can enter your house. What’s left for them to control?’ There is nothing left. But they march on — not to control, but to crush what remains. And the world stands by, offering only lip service.

This moment demands more than words. It demands immediate action to stop what I can only describe as a catastrophic genocide through actual enforcement — not just speeches and statements.

It demands humanitarian corridors that function without interference, under neutral oversight, with fuel, food, medicine, and water allowed in unimpeded. It demands legal accountability — for those who weaponise aid, obliterate medical facilities, and destroy civilian infrastructure.

It demands a halt on military support from states that continue to supply weapons and diplomatic cover. And it demands real international pressure — on all levels: diplomatic, civil society, legal — to stop this atrocity.

Because if this is genocide, ‘deep concern’ is a lie. If tanks have flattened homes, if aid is blocked, if Rafah lies in ruins, then silence is concealment — and inaction is guilt.

My sister cannot speak freely. She cannot sleep. But I speak for her. I speak for all the mothers, the children, the civilians whose homes and lives are being erased.

And I demand: do not let them erase this moment, too — from history, from conscience.

If there is moral clarity left in the world, it must rise now. Not in words, but in action.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

Do you think the world is doing enough to address the situation in Gaza?