Meanwhile, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 56,000 Palestinians, with daily violence only increasing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting the United States next week to meet with President Donald Trump and other top officials in the U.S. administration, supposedly to “capitalize on the success” of the 12-day war against Iran. This comes after nearly 21 months of Israel’s war on Gaza that has killed at least 56,000 Palestinians, with daily violence only increasing. “There’s basically an airstrike every other minute,” says Palestinian writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada. “There’s nonstop artillery fire, gunfire, machine gunfire, as well as Israeli quadcopter drones that are swarming Gaza and shooting people at random.” While there have been news reports of a possible ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, Shehada says “there are no negotiations,” and therefore no end in sight to the daily bloodshed.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced he’ll be coming to the U.S. next week to meet with President Trump and other officials in the administration. He says the meetings will discuss how to, quote, “capitalize on the success” of the attack on Iran by Israel and the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Will Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, be talking also about Gaza?
We’re joined now by Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Thanks so much for being with us, Muhammad. Many have said that Israel’s attack on Iran, that part of it was to distract from what’s happening in Gaza, the intensification of the violence. Can you talk about what’s happening there on the West Bank?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Thanks so much, Amy, for having me.
Yes, precisely, I was in Brussels right before the Israeli attack on Iran, and Gaza became a very prominent headline there. There was so much momentum that European leaders couldn’t escape away from it. They had to save face. And as soon as the attack on Iran happened, you can see them immediately having a giant moment of relief. They were delighted that Gaza would disappear from headlines, and they’re very keen to keep it this way.
Right now the situation there, you basically have Israel having lined up the entire population like ducks in less than a fifth of Gaza’s area. They issued over 50 evacuation orders since March 18th. The latest evacuation orders were issued to the most populated areas in Gaza City itself, the areas where there was some ability to maintain organized human life. And basically, Israel is asking them to evacuate to the very areas that have been evacuated already, to an area that is already under an evacuation order, Deir al-Balah and Zawayda.
And basically, recently an Israeli officer called an elderly Gazan, and he said, “You have to evacuate now.
