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Introduction

For two years, Israel has inflicted mass starvation, staggering death tolls, and relentless destruction on Gaza and its inhabitants. International efforts to recognize Israeli war crimes and halt the eradication of the Palestinian people continue to lag and fall short. On September 16, 2025, the UN Commission of Inquiry confirmed what Palestinians have identified since the outset: Israel is committing genocide. On September 29, US President Donald Trump unveiled a proposal that promises a ceasefire but subordinates Palestinians in Gaza to external governance, denies them self-determination, and entrenches Israeli control over the land. Framed as a peace initiative, the plan is in fact an attempt by the US to shield the Israeli regime from accountability, exemplifying Western complicity in the colonization of Palestine and the extermination of its people. In this context, Hamas’s agreement to release all Israeli captives signals its commitment to ending the ongoing violence, while simultaneously shifting the onus onto the Israeli regime and the Trump administration to clarify and operationalize their commitments to the ceasefire process.

This Focus On gathers Al-Shabaka’s analyses from the past year, offering urgent context to understand the genocide and its regional impact. It traces the Israeli regime’s expansionist campaign across Gaza, the West Bank, and the wider region, exposing Western complicity not only in enabling its crimes but also in protecting it from justice. At the same time, it highlights initiatives that resist Israeli impunity while advancing accountability and genuine liberation.

Gaza Under Genocide

Our publications provide evidence of the genocidal character of Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 7, 2023, exposing the devastation and war crimes inflicted on Palestinians. They show that the destruction of infrastructure, the dismantling of Palestinian social and cultural life, and mass displacement are not incidental byproducts of war but central features of a settler-colonial project that has unfolded over decades. They underscore the futility of short-lived ceasefires that entrench occupation, and reveal how the Israeli regime has weaponized humanitarian aid by turning it into an instrument of death rather than relief. At the same time, our analysts emphasize the urgent need to dismantle narratives that normalize forced displacement and ethnic cleansing.

Erasure Across and Beyond Palestine

The Israeli regime’s genocidal policies against Palestinians extend beyond Gaza, encompassing all of Palestine and extending across its borders. The following analyses expose how the settler-colonial project rests on a logic of erasure, operating through the replacement of the Palestinian workforce and the dismantling of Indigenous social, economic, and political structures. They also demonstrate how the colonial regime targets Palestinian refugee camps as enduring sites of resistance, seeking to suppress organizing and undermine the right of return across all geographies.

Israeli Impunity and Regional Expansion

Our analysts show how Israeli impunity—upheld by the West and normalized by Arab regimes—fuels its project of Palestinian annihilation and regional aggression. In the following contributions, they demonstrate how, under the guise of regional security, the Israeli regime launched assaults in Syria and Iran to deflect attention from its genocidal campaign in Gaza while consolidating dominance across the Middle East. They show how Western powers shield Israel from accountability, fail to take real action to stop its war crimes, and provide media cover that recasts Israeli aggression as self-defense, enabling it to carry out genocide with impunity.

Fighting Back and Global Realignments

The following analyses situate Israel’s genocidal campaign within a shifting global order. They highlight how resistance to Israeli crimes has unfolded on multiple fronts, from grassroots mobilization to the pursuit of international legal action by the Hague Group. 

Article - Introducing Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network

Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network

Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network is an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit organization whose mission is to convene a multidisciplinary, global network of Palestinian analysts to...
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(2025, October 7)
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China and the Gaza Genocide: A Strategic Distance

This policy memo shows how China’s “biased impartiality,” which privileges the Israeli regime, drives its strategic distancing from the genocide in Gaza. This position is not simply the result of US dominance over Israel-related affairs but a calculated decision to protect China’s long-term interests. By calling for Palestinian unity without exerting pressure on the Israeli government, Beijing shields its ties with the Zionist state under the guise of restraint. In addition, it deflects responsibility for stopping the genocide onto the UN Security Council, casting ceasefire, humanitarian access, and prisoner release as obligations for others in order to absolve itself of direct accountability.
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Gaza Uninhabitable: Challenging Colonial Frames of Erasure

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Statehood Without Liberation: Europe’s Response to Genocide

Since October 2023, Israel’s assault on Gaza has produced one of the most catastrophic humanitarian crises in recent history—an unfolding genocide enabled by world powers and continuing unabated despite the sweeping global solidarity it has sparked. Alongside relentless bombardment and mass displacement, the Israeli regime is waging a deliberate campaign of starvation. In response to this Israeli-manufactured catastrophe, several European states have begun recognizing or signaling their intent to recognize the State of Palestine. Most recently, France announced its intention to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September. The UK has stated it will follow suit unless Israel abides by a ceasefire and recommits to a two-state solution. The recent wave of symbolic recognitions that began in 2024 now appears to be the only step many European powers are willing to take in the face of genocide, following nearly two years of moral, material, and diplomatic support for the Israeli regime as well as near-total impunity. This roundtable conversation with Al Shabaka policy analysts Diana Buttu, Inès Abdel Razek, and Al Shabaka’s co-director, Yara Hawari, asks: Why now? What political or strategic interests are driving this wave of recognition? And what does it mean to recognize a Palestinian state, on paper, while leaving intact the structures of occupation, apartheid, and the genocidal regime that sustains them?
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