Israeli moves spark growing concerns

Israel has intensified its destruction of Gaza City and is mulling extending Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank, with the assault on the largest city in the Gaza Strip raising the specter of the forcible displacement of about 1 million Palestinians already trapped in famine in the besieged area.

Tel Aviv's moves come even as efforts continue within the global community for a major push for a two-state solution at the United Nations this month, except for the latest US visa restrictions for Palestinian leaders.

In a post on social media platform X on Monday, Palestine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said the continuation of "genocide and annexation crimes necessitates practical solutions to address the ongoing international failure to stop them".

It said the continued perpetration of massacres by the occupation forces — a reference to Israel — the use of starvation as a weapon in the aggression against the Palestinian people, and Israeli officials' "boasting" of plans for displacement and annexation of the occupied West Bank must compel states, the UN, and the Security Council to evaluate decisions, efforts, working methods and declared positions regarding "halting the crimes of genocide, displacement and annexation".

On Sunday, the Ministerial Committee assigned by the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit on Gaza urged the United States to "reconsider and reverse" its decision not to grant visas to the Palestinian delegation for the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly. The call came after the US State Department said the previous day that it was "denying and revoking visas" from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority ahead of the UNGA.

Early on Monday, Israeli forces tightened their military measures at the Ein Siniya and Atara checkpoints, north of Ramallah, obstructing the movement of citizens at the checkpoints and randomly stopping and searching vehicles, causing severe traffic congestion, Wafa news agency reported.

On Sunday, at least 78 people across the besieged enclave were killed since dawn, including 32 desperately seeking food.

At the start of a government meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the Israel Defense Forces had killed Abu Obeida, the spokesman of Hamas.

Despite vowing to continue carrying out attacks that threaten Israel's existence, including against the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and expanding ongoing military operations in Palestinian territories, the Israeli prime minister's office denied it was trying to occupy its neighboring territories.

"Contrary to the false accusation, Israel has no territorial claims against any neighboring countries. Our goal is peace and security," the office said, quoting Netanyahu.

The fighting continues even as the Times of Israel reported that a leaked classified Israel Defense Forces finding has concluded that "Gideon's Chariots" operation failed to meet its core objective of destroying Hamas and returning all hostages, which augurs badly for the IDF's planned push into Gaza City in October, casting doubts whether the army had drawn the necessary lessons ahead of the offensive being planned.

"The most obvious indication that Israel's brutal tactic of overwhelming force is failing to produce tangible results is the continued demolition of Gaza City," Gokhan Ereli, Gulf studies coordinator at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Turkiye, told China Daily.

"Instead of improving its relative position in the area, Israel is …more and more seen by its neighbors as the primary threat to the Middle Eastern order and a force whose activities cause more instability than they prevent," said Ereli.

"The repercussions of war. …threaten the stability of Arab states. Even friends are starting to wonder if Israel's claimed political goals can ever be achieved through ceaseless bombardment and widespread suffering of civilians," he added.

"Israel is currently facing the risk of being more than just a party in one conflict; its actions are set to severely damage both Netanyahu's government and Israel itself, while also turning it into the regional threat that everyone else is exhausted by and increasingly seeks to isolate," said Ereli.