A smaller cage: Israel’s ‘two-state solution’ on Gaza’s ruins

More than a month after the ceasefire went into effect, little has changed in Gaza. Promises of tents, caravans, and prefabricated homes have failed to materialise, while only limited food and aid are entering, with the Rafah crossing closed in both directions.

Over 360 Palestinians, including 136 children, have been killed by Israel since the ‘truce’ went into effect, leading Amnesty International to conclude that the genocide in Gaza “continues unabated”.

While the ceasefire plan promised reconstruction, humanitarian relief, and a political horizon, what has instead emerged is a new blueprint for perpetual subjugation, one in which Gaza’s territory is being architecturally redesigned to normalise fragmentation and indefinite occupation, foreclosing on any future for Palestinian self-determination.

Red zone/green zone: Keeping Gaza in ruins

Since the ceasefire was announced, Israel has bisected Gaza along what was meant to be the initial withdrawal line of the Israeli army.

The “green zone” of eastern Gaza is where reconstruction and aid would, in theory, flow more freely, and where international delegations would be allowed (but escorted by the army), whereas the “red zone” of western Gaza would remain beleaguered, devastated, and increasingly bombed.

This is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s close confidant and strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer called “the two-state solution… inside Gaza itself”.

The separation between those two halves is cemented through an entrenched barrier called the “Yellow Line” that has become deadlier than the Berlin Wall, where Israeli soldiers shoot to kill anyone who even comes close. The line is also elastic; the Israeli army has been incrementally moving it deeper and deeper into western Gaza to squeeze the population into less territory.

East Gaza (58% of the enclave), where “prosperity” is promised, is fully occupied by the Israeli military with no plans of withdrawal for the foreseeable future and has been thoroughly depopulated, with all inhabitants driven out by force.

Only five proxy gangs recruited and cultivated by Israel are allowed to exist there under army protection. Furthermore, Israeli troops and settler contracting companies are still systematically razing and demolishing any homes left in the very areas where supposed reconstruction is planned.

West Gaza, 42% of the enclave where two million people are caged and overcrowded, will be a “permanent refugee camp in ruins for the indefinite future,” a European diplomat stationed in Israel told The New Arab.

‘New Rafah’: Potemkin villages for propaganda

Reconstruction in East Gaza will be limited to confined areas under full Israeli control called “Alternative Safe Communities,” the first of which is “New Rafah” in the very south of Gaza on the Egyptian border.

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