Gaza Between Occupation Policy and Palestinian Responsibility: How Do We Prevent a Slide into Full Catastrophe?

What happened yesterday morning, Wednesday, east of Gaza City, remains shrouded in mystery, amidst the occupation state's claim of an Israeli officer being injured, and the subsequent violent military response according to the Israeli narrative, which resulted in the death of approximately 18 martyrs. This recurring scene, in its various forms, cannot be separated from the broader context of what is happening in the Gaza Strip, nor from the nature of Israeli policy followed since the beginning of the war until today. What the occupation state is doing cannot be summarized as individual violations or “field errors,” but rather it is an organized approach based on the use of excessive force, imposing security realities by force, and managing escalation as an internal political tool. The first phase of the war, which lasted for more than a hundred days, witnessed military operations that claimed the lives of more than 450 Palestinians, before the toll later escalated to hundreds of martyrs, in the absence of any real accountability or actual commitment to announced agreements. This policy is likely to continue, and even escalate, as the occupation state seeks to impose permanent security control over the Gaza Strip, and create a “new reality” based on daily intervention, and imposing renewed conditions under the pretext of completing what it calls “absolute victory.” This is consistent with the prevailing general mood within Israel, where the extremist popular and official environment towards Gaza provides a comfortable climate for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and serves his political goals, especially with the approaching election year of 2026, where Gaza's fate is likely to become a central card in his campaign, either through military escalation or through employing security rhetoric to rally public opinion, in the face of an equally extremist opposition that accuses him of failure and not achieving the war's objectives. One of the central complexities in the current scene lies in the wide gap between the demands of Israel and the United States in the second phase, and what Hamas is actually prepared to offer, a gap that seems unbridgeable. Netanyahu is not merely proposing the disarmament of Hamas, but rather seeks a comprehensive dismantling of its military, authoritative, and organizational capabilities, including its formal and informal structures and its municipal and social networks, making reconstruction a political and security condition, not a humanitarian path. In this context, the fundamental contradiction in his discourse is evident, as he speaks of the success of the second phase as a transition to governance arrangements, international guarantees, and perhaps a role for the Palestinian Authority, while his practical discourse is based on military decisiveness and the rejection of any path from which a political horizon for the Gaza Strip can be inferred, thus keeping the war open in various forms. However, the seriousness of the situation is not limited to Israeli policy alone, but extends to the direct repercussions on Palestinians, who today face an open humanitarian catastrophe, intertwined with famine, health collapse, and widespread destruction, along with threats of forced displacement and the forceful redrawing of the demographic map. The continued commission of crimes by the occupation, and the use of starvation and humanitarian pressure as a weapon, aims in essence to break Palestinian society, and push it towards coercive choices, foremost among them displacement or surrender to imposed realities. In this context, a Palestinian responsibility that cannot be ignored emerges. Dealing with Israeli policy based on escalation and crimes requires a high degree of political caution, and avoiding falling into the trap that the occupation seeks to set, which is to drag Gaza into calculated rounds of escalation that serve its security and electoral agenda. This imposes on Hamas, as an active party in the scene, to balance the requirements of steadfastness and protecting society, with thwarting the occupation's opportunity to use any pretext to accumulate blood and destruction. Moreover, the return of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza constitutes a real test of the Palestinian ability to seize the opportunity, and not to fail it, whether through internal conflicts or narrow factional calculations. The success of this committee is not only related to the administrative dimension, but also to its ability to contribute to alleviating the humanitarian catastrophe, organizing aid, restoring a minimum level of civilian life, and presenting a responsible Palestinian model that deprives the occupation of pretexts of “chaos” and “vacuum.” Palestinians saving themselves from the rolling catastrophe does not mean adapting to the occupation or accepting its dictates, but rather requires building a rational national stance, consciously managing the conflict, prioritizing the protection of human beings, and preventing Gaza from being turned into an open arena for Israeli power experiments. The battle today is no longer just on the ground, but on society, and on the ability to political and humanitarian steadfastness in the face of a project based on slow genocide and forced displacement. Gaza stands at a dangerous crossroads: either a slide into more blood and destruction according to the rhythm imposed by the occupation, or a difficult attempt to seize a margin of national salvation that protects what remains of Palestinian society, and prevents the humanitarian catastrophe from becoming a permanent fate.