A day earlier After the US elections, Israel told the United Nations it would cut ties with UNRWA, its aid agency for Palestinian refugees. On election day itself, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – who had challenged him over his approach to a ceasefire and the return of hostages. Later that evening, Tel Aviv time, as Americans headed to the polls, the Israeli military told national media that it was getting closer to a “complete evacuation” of northern Gaza, and that residents would not be allowed to return.

Donald Trump’s victory would not become clear until the next morning in Israel, but Netanyahu acted as if his favorite candidate was already in the White House. The US government’s green light to carry out its war shines even brighter. That same evening, Israeli Brig. General Itzik Cohen said humanitarian aid would no longer arrive in northern Gaza because there are “no more civilians.”

“That’s a really frightening statement, because the idea is to leave nothing and no one alive,” said Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute think tank. The UN warned last week that “the entire Palestinian population in northern Gaza, especially children, is at immediate risk of death from disease, famine and the continued bombing.”

The Harris campaign and the Biden administration did not want to be seen as critical of Israel in the run-up to the election, said Yousef Munayyer, head of the Arab Center Washington DC’s Palestine/Israel program. to have complete freedom to do whatever they wanted,” Munayyer said. “Netanyahu understood that in the last three months he had the opportunity to do things that he would probably have faced much more resistance to if there were no elections looming.” This includes the pager attacks on Beirut and the killing of Hezbollah leaders, he said.

Now some Israeli officials want to gain control of northern Gaza by starving or killing the remaining Palestinians living in the area, following a proposal known as the ‘General Plan’. In late October, the Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken questioned Netanyahu about this plan, according to a senior State Department official who requested anonymity. The Foreign Ministry told Netanyahu that there was a perception that Israel was denying food to those who refused to leave the north – to which Netanyahu responded that this was “not our policy” and that this perception is “very damaging,” the official said. . The Israeli prime minister also rejected a request from US officials to publicly distance himself from these allegations, the Post reported.

Israeli attacks on Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon have continued over the past week, killing dozens of civilians. The UN reported on X that Israeli security forces killed at least eight people in the West Bank on Tuesday and fatally shot an unarmed 14-year-old Palestinian boy two days earlier. On Wednesday, officials in Lebanon’s eastern city of Baalbek said at least 30 people had been killed and 35 injured in Israeli attacks. An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza on Monday killed 20 people, most of whom were women and children, according to Palestinian officials. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, wrote in a statement to The Intercept that the hospital, including its pediatric ward, was directly targeted. The hospital in Beit Lahiya functioned to a limited extent after a raid by the Israeli army.

Gallant’s dismissal on Tuesday was also a controversial move and sparked widespread protests across Israel. Although Gallant previously described Israel’s fight as a battle against “human animals,” he has pushed harder than Netanyahu for a ceasefire with Hamas – believing this could be more effective than continued military pressure in liberating Israel. Israeli hostages. Gallant also clashed with Netanyahu over his desire to eliminate an exemption from military service for ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Elgindy notes that Netanyahu may have taken advantage of the timing of the US elections to get rid of a popular critic within the government. “That would have ruffled feathers in Washington, especially in the Pentagon, where they have a very close relationship with (Gallant),” he said. Munayyer insists it probably had little to do with the US election – and more to do with domestic politics. “It’s something that’s been brewing for a while. … Netanyahu needed a certain degree of cohesion and the defense minister was not willing to play along with everything.”

How Trump will do that how he will treat Israel and Gaza during his second term remains unclear. Trump has repeatedly said he wants peace in the Middle East and has called on Israel to “finish the job.” He has also told Netanyahu that he wants Israel’s war on Gaza to end by the time he comes to power, which could lead to an intensification of Israeli military attacks in the coming months.

The rhetoric is so vague that he has managed to win over some anti-war voters. (Trump won 42 percent of the vote in the Arab-American city of Dearborn, Michigan, with Jill Stein winning 18 percent and Kamala Harris 36 percent, according to unofficial city results.) During his campaign, he specifically called for an end to the election. to the suffering and destruction in Lebanon. “It’s a smart topic of conversation. He chose the right words,” Elgindy said. “It was a cost-free way for him to tap into that anger and resentment against Biden and Harris, and it worked to a large extent.”

But Trump’s gestures toward anti-war rhetoric must be balanced with the pro-Israel slant of his base, his closest advisers and his policy decisions while in power, Munayyer said. “We cannot place too much faith in what Trump says and does during his campaign to understand what he might do once he is in power,” Munayyer said.

During Trump’s first term, he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He made the US the first country to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights – even though international law considers the area occupied territory. The Trump administration also cut U.S. funding for UNRWA in 2018. “We know the personnel that (Trump) had around him and who he is likely to bring back or incorporate into his administration in some way,” Munayyer said. “None of this bodes well for the peace process.”

Last month, the US warned Israel that it would consider halting the flow of weapons if Israel does not take action to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The US State Department gave Netanyahu a 30-day deadline; it expires on November 12. But by then it may be too late to have any real impact, given Trump’s inauguration in January. “Even if they take a tougher stance against the Israeli government, it won’t last long,” Munayyer said. “Netanyahu has a kind of stay of execution and now has more time to do what he wants.”