Palestinian broadcaster Sami Mushtaha from Gaza reflects on the devastating loss he endured during the recent Israeli genocide in the war-damaged region.
Sheep in a Wolf Clothing
CrossFireArabia- April 22, 2025
When Donald Trump become US president and just before, many in the world and the Middle East thought he would have the imagination to end the Israeli war on Gaza.
But everyone, including this writer, were sadly mistaken. He appears to be fueling the conflict on the little enclave and satisfying the inclination of Israeli Prime’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s appetite for repeated genocide on the territory.
It has become quickly, and blatantly obvious that Trump was not in interested in wrapping up this catastrophic war and ending it but to follow the machinations of the previous Joe Biden administration of adding fuel to the fire, giving Israel more open-cheque, deadly arms under the pretext of finishing the presence of Hamas in Gaza.
The fact that the Israelis with the help of the Americans were only killing more helpless civilians most of whom are babies, toddlers, children and women was neither here nor there. Their bombs fall on what used to be residential areas and certainly not on Hamas fighters and other operatives.
While Trump must be credited for achieving a ceasefire on Gaza in 19 January, 2025, just days before he officially entered the White House, he did nothing to stop Netanyahu when he re-started the war on the strip exactly two months later on 19 March and continues to do so today with no end in sight.
Despite the diplomatic trips of his personal envoy in the name of Steve Witkoff, Netanyahu is thought to be telling Trump that the war on Gaza will continue till Israel roots out Hamas from the enclave regardless of the mostly-Israeli hostages, now standing at 59 and half of whom are in body bags, thanks to the constant Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian enclave.
Despite his “peace” boasts, Trump has long appeared to be giving Netanyahu the green light to continue the war on the strip as he already stated he wants to displace the Gaza Palestinians to safer places such as Jordan and Egypt while the United States goes into the Strip and clns up the Israeli-purpetrated ruins and develops into a so-called Middle East Riviera under the pretext that Gaza has become an unlivable area.
It would have been nice of the new peace-tainted US president to say that Gaza was unlivable because of the mass Israeli bombing but Trump is well-aware of that since America has been the superpower behind this genocide since 7 October, 2023.
While he may have since backtracked on the transfer issue because of the mass opposition to it not least of all from Arab countries and the Palestinians themselves Trump’s displacement idea has since become a catchphrase for Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians in his extremist government as a feasible idea to be carried out on a “voluntary” basis and which they are now preparing the ground framework for.
Today Gaza is in a ruinous state. After the 19 January ceasefire, UN food and aid trucks started to enter the beseiged enclave, however all that has stopped when Israel re-started its war on the lone-standing territory. Israel has reinstated the sieged, sealing the Strip with no aid lorries being allowed with the trucks once again standing on the dfifferent entry points of Gaza including Rafah.
For Gaza it is back to the bad old days of starvation, Israeli bombardment, targetting at civilian tents in places like Mawasi and bombing hospitals, a bloody status quo that continued from just after 7 October, 2023 till 19 January 2025 and is resumed today.
Only Trump can stop the present carnage. Only he can put an end to the bloody actions that are being dictated by Natanyahu who is hell-bent on continuing to destroy and kill the people of Gaza who presently stand at 2.1 million.
It is ‘sealed’ starvation for Gaza. It has been now over 50 days when nothing has been allowed to enter the strip but the road is long and the people are bracing themselves for more deaths, not to mention the deadly strikes carried by Israeli planes and drones carried out on a daily basis.
Dr Khairi Janbek
