Israel has confiscated baby formula from foreign doctors at Gaza checkpoints. According to British surgeon Nick Maynard: ‘No formula is allowed in. Every carton is seized.”

The Gaza Catastrophe:
Mass Starvation and Death Loom
Bill Astore / Bracing Views

https://bracingviews.substack.com/p/the-gaza-catastrophe

(July 26, 2025) — It was obvious almost from the get-go what Israel was up to in Gaza. I wrote the article below in early December of 2023. Gaza was to be ethnically cleansed of Palestinians, full stop. Whether by bullets, bombs, disease, mass starvation, or expulsion, Palestinians were to be eliminated from the land, replaced by Jewish settlers. A beach blanket bingo fantasy scene would follow.

Chris Hedges writes about this today, honestly and powerfully. Caitlin Johnstone puts it bluntly in her latest, the title of which is “They’re Starving Civilians To Steal A Palestinian Territory, And They’re Lying About It.” It’s all so shameful and disgusting.

Anyway, here’s what I wrote in 2023, when Israel got a blank check from Biden and Blinken. Now that blank check has become a mandate from the Trump administration, complete with fantasies of a “new” Gaza, depopulated of Palestinians, featuring a fantasy Trump tower. Can the U.S. government sink any lower? I suppose it can.

“The army must find ways more painful than death for the civilians in Gaza. Killing them is not enough.” — Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu

Biden to Israel: Don’t Ethnically Cleanse
Too Fast, Don’t Bomb and Kill Too Much, Bibi
Bill Astore / Substack.com

(December 2, 2023) — Have you ever heard parents tell their unruly children: Don’t run in the store too fast. Don’t slug your friend too hard. Don’t eat all the candy. Instead of telling them to stop running in the store, to stop slugging their friend, to stop hogging all the candy.

I feel like that’s the Biden and Blinken approach to Israel: Don’t ethnically cleanse Gaza too fast. Just slow down a bit. Don’t make it too obvious. Don’t be too ruthless.

Biden and Blinken are those permissive parents who are dominated by an unruly child. Let’s call the child “Bibi.” They don’t dare tell Bibi to stop. They don’t dare punish him. They don’t dare make a scene, because Bibi will throw a tantrum and make their lives hell. So they allow Bibi to do whatever the hell he wants to do, except just a bit quieter, or slower, or less violent. They enable the child, in short, and indeed Biden and Blinken give Bibi more “clubs” (as in 2000-pound bombs and Hellfire missiles) so he can keep slugging other kids with even more relish.

Speaking of enabling, I got my daily report today from the New York Times on what’s happening in the “Israel-Hamas War.” Note the framing here: the idea this is a war between equals, when Israel is an overwhelmingly powerful nation-state and Hamas consists of maybe 20,000 lightly-armed fighters. Anyhow, here’s the summary:

Israel-Hamas War

• Israel said it had launched 200 strikes into Gaza since fighting resumed yesterday. Air-raid sirens in Israel warned of possible incoming rockets.
• Gazan officials accused Israel of striking southern Gaza, where many displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
• Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state,blamed Hamas for the cease-fire’s endand said he had seen signs that Israel had begun to take new steps to protect Palestinian civilians.
• The resumption of fightingleft dozens of hostages still in Gaza and reduced the amount of aid entering the enclave, which had increased during the truce.

Let’s take a look at those bulleted points.

1. The powerful Israeli military has launched 200 strikes against Gaza, killing hundreds of innocent Palestinians, which goes unmentioned, even as small rockets from Hamas may (or may not) have been launched against Israel.
2. Gazan officials “accused” Israel of striking southern Gaza: Is there any doubt here? Where “many” displaced Palestinians are sheltering: How many? What type of shelter is available to them? Hasn’t Israeli military action “displaced” more than a million Palestinians, most of whom have no real shelter to speak of?
3. Blinken blames Hamas: What a surprise! And how is Israel protecting civilians in Gaza when they’re launching 200 “strikes” against them?
4. Apparently, the only hostages that matter are the ones held in Gaza. Israel’s mass incarceration of Palestinians, including children, goes unmentioned.

Again, Israel is held blameless; Hamas is responsible for everything bad that has happened, is happening, and will happen in Gaza. Because our child Bibi can do no wrong.

Don’t bomb too much, Bibi. Don’t kill too many other children. Don’t ethnically cleanse too fast. There: that’s my good boy. That’s my little angel.