TEHRAN- With the brutal war on Gaza entering its 65th day, we unfortunately see that the Zionist regime continues to massacre innocent civilians despite repeated calls various countries to limit civilian casualties.

The regime claims it has created “safe zones” to protect the Palestinian people, but in reality, no inch of the besieged Gaza Strip is secure against Israeli bombs. 

The million-dollar question is whether Israel, as its officials claim, really have no way of limiting civilian deaths and needs to target big crowds of people to kill Hamas fighters, or that it’s been targeting civilian sites like schools, hospitals, and homes deliberately and with the aim of killing ordinary citizens? Some European and American media outlets have been pointing to growing international pressure against Israel, arguing that the regime is carrying out its brutal attacks on civilians while being well-aware of the increasing animus against its tactics. With that, they argue, that the high number of civilian casualties during Israeli attacks is an unwitting result of the regime’s assaults.

But if we take a look at statements by Israeli spokespeople and officials, and asses the regime’s media coverage and ongoing propaganda campaign, it will become clear that though the regime began its onslaughts against Gaza after the October 7 Hamas operation, its main goal wasn’t to eliminate Hamas, but to eliminate the entire population of Gaza through forced displacement. 

Israel was eventually planning to announce an international zone in Gaza, and then proceed to bring an impotent Palestinian government, like the one in the West Bank, to power. But as the regime has not been able to reach any of its initial objectives, it is now trying to make a complete social collapse unfold in Gaza. That way, Hamas and the people of the territory would have to spend a significant time to recover and hence have less energy to fight occupation forces. It would take Palestinians several months or perhaps years to recover from such dire circumstances. A social, economic, and humanitarian collapse in Gaza would now be in Israel’s best interest, as the regime failed to make the scenario it envisaged during the 1990s come true.

The destruction of Gaza’s schools and universities where 45% of the population is under the age of 18, the destruction of mosques which act as a center of gathering, public bonding, and decision making, the destruction of Gaza’s coast which has served as an economic hub for the locals, and the destruction of all medical centers are all pieces of a vicious puzzle Israel is trying to put together. Once everything is destroyed and out of sight, Gaza will enter an era of unmanageable humanitarian crisis and social collapse.  

Tel Aviv is seeking to force the Palestinian people in Gaza, despite their resilience, attitude, and identity influenced by resistance and Islamic values, to abandon their path and choose a different path than they have pursued in the past five decades (after the 1967 Six-Day War). With an understanding of this scenario, a more serious and precise policy should be pursued to end the war, reconstruct the Rafah crossing, and ultimately pursue targeted reconstruction of Gaza. If this scenario is overlooked, the end of the war and Israel's withdrawal may be perceived as a great victory, but in the years to come, it may lead Gaza and the resistance to a difficult fate and a never-ending deadlock.