Trump, the Architect of Gaza’s Genocide
The ceasefire in Gaza, brokered with much self adoration by Trump and presented as a historic breakthrough for peace, is revealing itself to be something altogether different: a carefully orchestrated pretext for the full reoccupation of the territory. Within days of the truce taking effect, the architecture of this deception became visible. Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinian civilians attempting to return to their homes, Trump has threatened to “disarm Hamas violently”, and armed militias supported by Israel have plunged Gaza into internal chaos. This is not the messy aftermath of war but a deliberate strategy, one in which both Washington and Tel Aviv have cynically weaponised instability to justify renewed military intervention whilst deflecting accountability for the genocide they have enabled and perpetrated.
The evidence for this calculated approach lies not in speculation but in documented actions. Israel’s support for armed clan-based militias in Gaza, publicly acknowledged by Netanyahu in June 2025, was never about security or counter-terrorism. These groups, including the so-called Popular Forces led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a man imprisoned for murder and drug smuggling before the war, collaborate with Israeli forces and loot humanitarian aid. Some possess documented ties to Islamic State. Their purpose was transparent from the outset: to create conditions of lawlessness that would make Hamas’s continued governance appear untenable and provide justification for external military control. This was not an accident of policy but its central design.
The timing of these revelations is crucial. Israel armed these militias knowing full well what would follow a ceasefire. When the Israeli military withdrew from certain areas under the truce agreement, it left behind a power vacuum it had deliberately engineered. Predictably, violent clashes erupted between Hamas forces attempting to restore order and the Israeli-backed clans. Hamas has executed collaborators in what it frames as necessary security operations; Israel and the United States have seized upon these incidents as evidence of Hamas’s brutality and unfitness to govern. Trump initially dismissed Hamas’s actions against “very bad gangs”, stating that it “didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you”. Within days, however, his rhetoric shifted dramatically. He now threatens that if Hamas continues to police Gaza, “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them”. This reversal is not inconsistent but strategic. By first appearing to tolerate Hamas’s consolidation of control, Trump created the conditions under which he could later portray the group as violent and uncompromising, thus justifying renewed intervention. As a side note, when was it acceptable for any world leader to threaten to kill citizens of a foreign state?
Israel’s violations of the ceasefire are systematic and lethal. On the very day Trump celebrated his ‘peace dea’l at a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Israeli forces killed at least seven Palestinians, many of whom were simply attempting to inspect their homes after months of displacement. Since the ceasefire began on 10 October, Israeli forces have killed at least 38 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s media office. The most horrific single incident occurred when Israeli tank fire killed 11 members of the Abu Shaaban family, including seven children and three women, as they travelled in a civilian vehicle. Israel has justified these killings by claiming Palestinians crossed so-called “yellow lines”, demarcation boundaries that remain deliberately unmarked and unknown to Gaza’s residents, who lack internet access and any means of knowing where Israeli forces are positioned. This is not an unfortunate consequence of confusion but a trap, one that allows Israel to kill with impunity whilst claiming defensive necessity.
The ceasefire agreement itself was designed to fail. Trump’s ‘peace plan’, negotiated with significant input from Netanyahu, ties Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza to the “progress of disarming Hamas” and gives Israel effective veto power over the entire process. Even if all conditions are met, Israeli forces will remain within Gaza in a security perimeter “until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat”. This language is deliberately elastic, creating a permanent loophole that allows indefinite occupation. Netanyahu has already indicated that meaningful withdrawal will not occur “anytime soon”. The plan also leaves approximately 53 to 58 per cent of Gaza under Israeli military control, with hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians unable to return to their homes in areas such as Shujayea, where Israeli forces remain entrenched. This is not a transitional security arrangement but the formalisation of occupation under the guise of peacekeeping.
Trump’s demand that Hamas disarm is equally revealing. He insists this will happen “quickly and perhaps violently”, yet Hamas has made clear it will not surrender its weapons until a Palestinian state is established, something Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed will never happen. This is an intentional impasse. Trump and Netanyahu both understand that Hamas cannot and will not disarm under these terms. The demand serves not as a genuine negotiating position but as a predetermined justification for military action. When Hamas inevitably refuses, Trump will claim the group has violated the agreement, giving Israel licence to resume its campaign. This cycle is predictable because it has been engineered.
The role of the United States in this deception cannot be understated. Trump was advised before announcing his peace plan that Israeli ceasefire violations would occur. Israel’s pattern of breaking previous truces is well documented; during the January to March 2025 ceasefire, UN officials recorded more than 1,000 Israeli violations before Israel abandoned the agreement entirely. Trump’s advisers know this history. They know that arming clan militias will provoke internal conflict. They know that Israel will continue killing Palestinians under the pretext of security. Yet Trump proceeded with his plan regardless, presenting it to the world as a genuine peace initiative whilst privately understanding it as a mechanism for prolonged occupation and potential annexation. This is not naïveté but complicity.
The consequences of this strategy are already unfolding. Israel has restricted humanitarian aid in retaliation for Hamas’s alleged delays in returning the bodies of deceased hostages, despite the fact that recovering remains from Gaza’s rubble requires excavation equipment that Israel refuses to allow into the territory. The World Food Programme reports that only 560 tonnes of food per day have entered Gaza since the ceasefire began, far below what is needed to address widespread malnutrition and prevent famine. Israel’s manipulation of aid access as a weapon of coercion continues unabated, with Trump’s tacit approval. Civilians in Gaza face a choice between starvation under Israeli siege or the violence of internal conflict deliberately stoked by Israeli intelligence operations. This is not collateral damage but policy. This policy is a war crime. The war crime has been committed by Donald Trump and his advisers. This is Trump’s version of the ‘Final Solution’.
Trump’s framework for Gaza’s future governance compounds the injustice. His so-called “Board of Peace”, chaired by himself and including figures such as Tony Blair, is designed to exclude meaningful Palestinian participation whilst maintaining Israeli security control. The plan envisions an international stabilisation force that would operate whilst Israeli forces remain in Gaza, effectively rendering any peacekeeping mission complicit in occupation. Palestinians would have no recourse if Israel refuses to withdraw, no guarantee of statehood and no control over their own territory. This is not a pathway to peace but the institutionalisation of subjugation.
The question of Trump’s criminal responsibility is not abstract. Under international law, the crime of genocide includes acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Trump has provided Israel with over $21 billion in military support since October 2023, fully aware of how those weapons would be used. He has endorsed a peace plan designed to perpetuate occupation and enable further atrocities including the deliberate murder of civilians through force and starvation. He has threatened violence against Hamas and, by extension, the civilian population of Gaza, if they do not submit to terms that no sovereign people could accept. His administration has blocked UN Security Council resolutions calling for accountability and has provided diplomatic cover for Israel’s actions at every turn. This is not passive complicity but active participation in crimes against humanity.
The cynicism of this approach is staggering. Trump and Netanyahu have constructed a scenario in which every possible outcome serves their interests. If Hamas disarms, Israel gains permanent control over a demilitarised Gaza. If Hamas refuses, Israel has justification to resume military operations with full American backing. If internal chaos spreads, both governments can blame Palestinian factionalism rather than their own deliberate destabilisation. If international pressure mounts, Trump can point to his peace plan as evidence of good faith whilst continuing to enable Israeli aggression. The plan is not designed to end the war but to manage its continuation in a manner that is politically sustainable for Washington and Tel Aviv.
The historical parallels are instructive. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 not as a gesture of peace but as a strategic redeployment, one that allowed continued control of Gaza’s borders, airspace and territorial waters whilst outsourcing the costs of occupation. Trump’s current plan follows the same logic: create the appearance of disengagement whilst maintaining the reality of domination. The difference is that this iteration includes the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, the killing of more than 67,000 Palestinians, the displacement of 90 per cent of the population and the establishment of American-backed mechanisms for permanent external control. This is not a ceasefire but the formal transition from active genocide to managed occupation.
The international community’s failure to recognise and resist this stratagem is damning. The summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, attended by representatives from more than 20 countries, produced a vague memorandum of understanding that commits to “peace, security and shared prosperity” whilst containing no specifics, no enforcement mechanisms and no accountability measures. European and Arab nations that publicly support Palestinian statehood have offered neither sanctions against Israel nor consequences for American complicity. This acquiescence enables the very atrocities these governments claim to oppose. Their signatures on Trump’s document provide legitimacy to a plan that formalises oppression.
For Trump to be viewed as anything other than a war criminal requires wilful blindness to the evidence. He has orchestrated a peace process designed to fail, armed the perpetrators of genocide, threatened violence against a besieged population and created diplomatic cover for ongoing crimes. His claim that he is bringing peace to Gaza is not merely false but obscene. He is, in fact, facilitating the permanent subjugation of two million people through a combination of military force, economic strangulation and political manipulation. This is not leadership but barbarity dressed in the language of diplomacy.
The tragedy of Gaza is that its people have no good options. If they accept Trump’s terms, they surrender their right to self-determination and live under indefinite occupation. If they resist, they face annihilation with the full backing of American military power. If they attempt to govern themselves, they are labelled terrorists and targeted for elimination. If they descend into internal chaos, they are blamed for their own suffering and used as justification for external control. Every path leads to the same destination: continued subjugation under Israeli and American domination. This is not a peace process but a closing trap.
The unmasking of Trump’s plan reveals a larger truth about American foreign policy in the region. The United States has never genuinely supported Palestinian statehood or self-determination. Every peace initiative, from Camp David to Oslo to Trump’s current scheme, has been designed to secure Israeli strategic interests whilst providing Palestinians with the appearance of progress without its substance. The consistent American position is that Palestinians may have limited autonomy within boundaries determined by Israel, subject to security arrangements that give Israel permanent veto power over Palestinian life. This is not a two-state solution but the formalisation of apartheid.
Trump must be viewed as a war criminal, not for his rhetoric alone but for his actions. He has enabled genocide through arms transfers, diplomatic protection and financial support. He has created a peace plan intended to perpetuate occupation rather than end it. He has threatened violence against a civilian population for refusing terms of surrender. He has manipulated international opinion through false promises whilst pursuing policies that ensure continued Palestinian suffering. These are not mistakes or misjudgements but deliberate choices made with full knowledge of their consequences. They constitute crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity under established international legal frameworks.
The support for armed militias in Gaza, the systematic ceasefire violations, the engineered chaos and the threatened violence are not separate incidents but components of a unified strategy. That strategy aims to make Palestinian self-governance appear impossible, to justify renewed Israeli military control and to deflect international criticism by blaming Hamas for the very instability that Israel and the United States have deliberately created. It is cynical, it is deadly and it is unfolding exactly as planned. The only uncertainty is whether the international community will continue to enable this crime or finally muster the courage to name it for what it is: not a peace process but an instrument of oppression, not diplomacy but warfare by other means, not leadership but complicity in genocide.
It is time for world leaders to lobby for a warrant of arrest for Trump. It is time for the ICC to issue the warrant. It is time to restrict the country that Trump can visit without the prospect of arrest. It is time for the world to say ‘no’.
References
Al Jazeera (2025) ‘Israel kills 11 Palestinian family members in Gaza’s deadliest truce breach’, Al Jazeera, 18 October. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/18/israel-kills-11-palestinian-family-members-in-gazas-deadliest-truce-breach
Al Jazeera (2025) ‘Netanyahu admits Israel backing “criminal” groups, rivals of Hamas, in Gaza’, Al Jazeera, 5 June. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/5/netanyahu-admits-israel-backed-armed-rivals-of-hamas-in-gaza
Al Jazeera (2025) ‘Trump threatens to “kill” Hamas over Gaza gang clashes, says it must disarm’, Al Jazeera, 16 October. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/16/trump-threatens-to-go-in-and-kill-hamas-in-gaza-over-internal-clashes
Axios (2025) ‘Trump’s Gaza peace plan included edits from Israel’s Netanyahu’, Axios, 30 September. https://www.axios.com/2025/09/30/trump-gaza-peace-plan-israel-changes-hamas-response
Common Dreams (2025) ‘”You Cease, I Fire”: Israel Kills at Least 9 in Gaza, Says It Will Break Truce Aid Terms’, Common Dreams, 15 October. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-violates-ceasefire
Hartung, W.D. (2025) ‘U.S. Military Aid and Arms Transfers to Israel, October 2023 – September 2025’, Costs of War, Watson School, Brown University. https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/paper/AidToIsrael
Middle East Eye (2025) ‘Netanyahu admits Israel armed Gaza gangs to drive lawlessness’, Middle East Eye, 6 June. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/netanyahu-israel-backing-gangs-gaza-counter-hamas
The Guardian(2025) “Israel-backed militia groups potentially threaten new peace plan for Gaza” The Guardian, 30 September. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/30/israel-backed-militia-groups-potentially-threaten-new-peace-plan-for-gaza
The Intercept (2025) ‘Israel’s Mounting Ceasefire Violations in Gaza’, The Intercept, 15 October. https://theintercept.com/2025/10/15/israel-ceasefire-violations-gaza-aid/
The Times of Israel (2025) ‘Trump: If Hamas doesn’t uphold vow to disarm, “we will disarm them, perhaps violently”’, The Times of Israel, 15 October. https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-if-hamas-doesnt-uphold-vow-to-disarm-we-will-disarm-them-perhaps-violently/
The Washington Post (2025) ‘Trump says U.S. will disarm Hamas if it does not do so itself’, The Washington Post, 14 October. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/10/14/trump-hamas-disarm-israel-ceasefire/
