[News] Solidarity is not enough: Why the world must force accountability on Gaza now

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Comments <https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/>
Solidarity is not enough: Why the world must force accountability on Gaza
now
Ramzy Baroud <https://english.palinfo.com/authors/ramzy-baroud>

Thursday 13-August-2026

It is now official: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has flatly
rejected the core conditions of the Board of Peace framework, explicitly
stating that Israel will neither adhere to a ceasefire nor withdraw its
forces from Gaza.

During a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu stated with unambiguous
language: “Israel rejects the 15-point document published by the Board of
Peace for Gaza”.

In a previous conversation with lead envoy Nickolay Mladenov, Netanyahu set
conditions—such as demanding unilateral operational freedom for the Israeli
military to strike inside Gaza at will—that render a genuine peace
agreement structurally impossible.

The Israeli army leadership, under Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, reinforced
this posture by outlining three uncompromising “red lines” to the political
establishment: complete operational freedom to eliminate perceived threats
anywhere in the Strip, strict control over all weapons entering or exiting
Gaza, and zero military withdrawal unless Hamas is completely disarmed.

One can fault Netanyahu for many things, including ongoing genocide. But in
recent years, he has been remarkably straightforward about his intentions;
therefore, no one can claim that Netanyahu has fooled anyone.

Earlier this year, while speaking at a conference in an occupied West Bank
settlement, Netanyahu explicitly boasted that he had instructed the Israeli
military to expand its physical footprint and permanently occupy at least
70 percent of the Gaza Strip—a massive expansion far beyond the temporary
administrative demarcation lines established in previous truce outlines.

Meanwhile, his far-right ministers have pushed the government’s
rejectionist stance even further. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and
National Missions Minister Orit Strock issued a joint demand for an
emergency cabinet meeting to roll back authorization for the deployment of
the International Stabilization Force (ISF).

The ISF, designed under the Board of Peace framework as a transitional
peacekeeping body, was meant to oversee humanitarian security, starting
with pilot recovery zones in Rafah.

Yet Smotrich and Strock claimed the security cabinet was “misled” into
approving the force, arguing that allowing international personnel into
Gaza endangers Israeli operational freedom and directly contradicts their
explicit war aims.

These latest moves, along with the military’s strict “red lines,” confirm
what recent months of relentless bombardment have made clear: the Israeli
government has no intention of ending its genocide in Gaza or relinquishing
control over the besieged and devastated territory.

But highlighting such positions will make no difference, aside from once
more accentuating Israel’s total lack of desire for peace and its intention
to perpetuate conflict.

While true, such realization on its own is worthless considering that what
is taking place in Gaza and the West Bank is beyond horrific, and that the
daily killing of Palestinians makes the term “ceasefire” a cruel joke.

While diplomats debate frameworks, Israeli strikes continue to claim
civilian lives daily—bringing the post-truce death toll to over 1,250 and
the total killed since October 2023 to more than 73,000.

Therefore, action is needed, and urgently so. Indeed, Israel’s official
position leaves the international community with no choice but to take
direct, coordinated action across five key fronts:

First, Arab, Muslim, and allied governments must leverage every available
international platform, starting with the UN General Assembly and Security
Council, to formally condemn Israel’s violation of the Gaza peace framework
and expose its bad-faith negotiations.

States must move beyond symbolic statements and invoke mechanisms like the
‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution to bypass Western vetoes, push for binding
sanctions, and implement a universal arms embargo against Israel.

Second, a renewed global campaign must recenter Gaza and the West Bank,
exposing Israel’s broader territorial objectives—specifically the
systematic ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the quiet, administrative
annexation of the West Bank.

Civil society, trade unions, and grassroots organizations worldwide must
pressure their respective national governments to sever diplomatic,
economic, and military ties with Israel until it complies with
international law.

Third, International legal bodies must accelerate their proceedings.
Pressure must be renewed on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to
execute arrest warrants for senior Israeli leadership, while the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) must enforce provisional measures and
issue definitive rulings regarding Israel’s violations of the Genocide
Convention.

Legal compliance must be treated as a non-negotiable prerequisite for
international relations.

Fourth, a unified international media push is necessary to counter
state-sponsored propaganda, keeping public focus fixed on Israel’s
long-term strategic plans: the permanent displacement of Gaza’s population
and the formal takeover of Palestinian land.

Independent media outlets, journalists, and cultural institutions must
challenge official narratives that frame Israeli aggression as
self-defense, centering the lived realities and testimonies of Palestinians
under siege instead.

Fifth, the international community must bypass Israeli obstruction to
ensure massive quantities of food, medical supplies, and shelter materials
enter Gaza immediately to prevent widespread starvation and winter exposure.

International aid agencies must establish protected humanitarian corridors
by global mandate, refusing to allow Israel to use manufactured famine and
humanitarian denial as weapons of war.

With Israel’s intentions fully unmasked, the global community must shift
from passive mediation to active enforcement.

Israel wants to normalize genocide, just as it normalized the illegal siege
on Gaza before that, the military occupation of the West Bank, East
Jerusalem, and Gaza before that, and the ongoing displacement of
Palestinians since 1948.

We must resolutely reject the premise that the slaughter of the innocent
can ever become an accepted routine.

Knowledge of the atrocity is not enough. Expressing solidarity in words
alone is not enough. Concrete, decisive action is required today—and
holding the perpetrators accountable remains entirely within our power if
the world finds the political courage to act.

*-Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’. Baroud is
a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC).*
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