Our Wednesday News Analysis | Gaza and the unravelling of a world order built on power

Internally displaced Palestinians walk among the ruins of destroyed buildings in the Al Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 08 December 2025 [Mohammed Saber/.EPA]

The catastrophic violence in Gaza has unfolded within an international system that was never designed to restrain the geopolitical ambitions of powerful states. Understanding why the United Nations has proved so limited in responding to what many regard as a genocidal assault requires returning to the foundations of the post–World War II order and examining how its structure has long enabled impunity rather than accountability.

After World War II, the architecture for a new international order based on respect for the UN Charter and international law was agreed upon as the normative foundation of a peaceful future. Above all, it was intended to prevent a third world war. These commitments emerged from the carnage of global conflict, the debasement of human dignity through the Nazi Holocaust, and public anxieties about nuclear weaponry.

Yet, the political imperative to accommodate the victorious states compromised these arrangements from the outset. Tensions over priorities for world order were papered over by granting the Security Council exclusive decisional authority and further limiting UN autonomy. Five states were made permanent members, each with veto power: the United States, the Soviet Union, France, the United Kingdom, and China.

In practice, this left global security largely in the hands of these states, preserving their dominance. It meant removing the strategic interests of geopolitical actors from any obligatory respect for legal constraints, with a corresponding weakening of UN capability. The Soviet Union had some justification for defending itself against a West-dominated voting majority, yet it too used the veto pragmatically and displayed a dismissive approach to international law and human rights, as did the three liberal democracies.

In 1945, these governments were understood as simply retaining the traditional freedoms of manoeuvre exercised by the so-called Great Powers. The UK and France, leading NATO members in a Euro-American alliance, interpreted the future through the lens of an emerging rivalry with the Soviet Union. China, meanwhile, was preoccupied with a civil war that continued until 1949.

Three aspects of this post-war arrangement shape our present understanding...

Read more: Gaza and the unravelling of a world order built on power

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US PLAN IN GAZA: FORCED GHETTOISATION, ANNEXATION, MASS DETENTION, RESOURCE PLUNDER

Source: Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6937/US-plan-in-Gaza:-forced-ghettoisation,-annexation,-mass-detention,-resource-plunder

Published December 3, 2025

A general view of a concrete block marking the "Yellow Line" drawn by the Israeli military in Bureij, central Gaza Strip, on November 4, 2025. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)

Palestinian Territory – The consequences of the US plan to support dividing the Gaza Strip into green and red zones separated by a yellow military line carry grave risks, including the effective displacement of Palestinians from their homes and the transformation of large parts of Gaza into closed military zones under the direct control of the Israeli army.

This plan entrenches long-term illegal control and the forcible de facto annexation of territory. It imposes unlawful collective imprisonment on the civilian population, in clear violation of international law and the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.

Preliminary information indicates that the US plan for the Gaza Strip, being developed through the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), is based on imposing a rigid geographical separation system that divides Gaza into population blocks and closed military zones.

Accordingly, more than half of the Gaza Strip is effectively designated as a closed military zone under the direct control of the Israeli army. Within this area, strict control and management systems are imposed through severe restrictions on movement, the regulation of aid and basic services, and the deprivation of fundamental rights. These measures are used as tools of coercion to force the population to leave their homes and relocate to designated “safe” areas within the same closed zone, without any genuine option to remain or return.

The first phase of the plan divides the Gaza Strip into a red zone covering 47 per cent, which contains most of the civilian population, and a green zone covering 53 per cent, which is under full Israeli military control and where armed groups established and armed by Israel are deployed. The two zones will be separated by a yellow line designated as a military buffer area, in which Israeli forces will apply a shoot-to-kill policy against anyone who approaches or attempts to cross it.

The yellow line, marked by concrete blocks, has not remained fixed but has been pushed beyond the published maps, advancing in some areas by more than one kilometre inside the Gaza Strip. It is used to unilaterally redraw lines of military control, gradually expanding areas under direct Israeli authority, placing additional territory under closed military rule, and severely restricting freedom of movement. This practice entrenches de facto annexation and fragments Gaza’s territorial unity in clear violation of international law.

The plan intersects with Israeli efforts to impose full control over the Gaza Strip’s coastline, designated on the plan’s map as a “red zone,” and to transform it into a closed area under direct Israeli security and economic domination. This would effectively place Gaza’s maritime resources, including fishing waters, gas fields, and existing and potential coastal infrastructure, under Israeli control.

This approach constitutes an illegal seizure and systematic plundering of the resources of an occupied territory. It contradicts the established principle in international law regarding the permanent sovereignty of peoples over their natural resources, and the obligations of the occupying power not to seize public or private property and not to exploit the natural resources of the occupied territory for its exclusive benefit, especially when this is done within the framework of long-term arrangements that undermine the Palestinian people's right to manage their own resources and maritime domain.

According to information obtained by Euro Med Monitor, the plan is based on transferring the Palestinian population from the red zone to the green zone through various pressure tactics. This is done by creating a coercive environment in the red zone and making access to relative protection and basic services conditional on relocating to designated areas within the green zone, following extensive security screening and vetting. This removes any genuine element of consent and places the process squarely within the scope of forced displacement prohibited under international humanitarian law...

Read more: US plan in Gaza: forced ghettoisation, annexation, mass detention, resource plunder

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VON DER LEYEN AND BLAIR STILL WANT TO BOSS PALESTINIANS AROUND

Source: Electronic Intifada
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/von-der-leyen-and-blair-still-want-boss-palestinians-around

By David Cronin
Published December 11, 2025

Tony Blair visited Ursula von der Leyen in October 2023. (Dati Bendo / European Union)

Four words are all that are needed to prove that the West’s supposed leaders are on the wrong side.

Those four words are “Europe stands with Israel.”

Those four words should forever be synonymous with Ursula von der Leyen. The European Commission’s president delivered that message while paying a visit to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, in October 2023.

Von der Leyen’s declaration of support for the genocidal war against Gaza received considerable attention. Yet the full extent of her efforts to back Israel are not widely known.

The mainstream media overlooked how Tony Blair, formerly Britain’s prime minister, had a discussion with von der Leyen in Brussels on 24 October 2023. That was less than two weeks after von der Leyen had made her “Europe stands with Israel” pledge.

The day before Blair met von der Leyen had been an especially bloody one in Gaza. More than 300 children were killed over a 24-hour period.

The total number of children Israel killed between 7 and 24 October 2023 was 2,360, according to official data.

That figure only includes deaths confirmed by hospitals. About 870 other children were estimated to have been buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings by that point.

The figure of 2,360 child deaths should be placed in perspective, while acknowledging that no child should be reduced to a number.

In Ukraine, about 560 children were killed between February 2022 – when the Russian invasion began – and October 2023...

Read more: Von der Leyen and Blair still want to boss Palestinians around