Ramzy Baroud

It is now official: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has flatly rejected the core conditions of the Board of Peace framework, explicitly stating that Israel will neither adhere to a ceasefire nor withdraw its forces from Gaza.

During a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu stated with unambiguous language: "Israel rejects the 15-point document published by the Board of Peace for Gaza".

In a previous conversation with lead envoy Nickolay Mladenov, Netanyahu set conditions, such as demanding unilateral operational freedom for the Israeli military to strike inside Gaza at will, that render a genuine peace agreement structurally impossible.

The Israeli army leadership, under Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, reinforced this posture by outlining three uncompromising "red lines" to the political establishment: complete operational freedom to eliminate perceived threats anywhere in the Strip, strict control over all weapons entering or exiting Gaza, and zero military withdrawal unless Hamas is completely disarmed.

One can fault Netanyahu for many things, including ongoing genocide. But in recent years, he has been remarkably straightforward about his intentions; therefore, no one can claim that Netanyahu has fooled anyone.

Earlier this year, while speaking at a conference in an occupied West Bank settlement, Netanyahu explicitly boasted that he had instructed the Israeli military to expand its physical footprint and permanently occupy at least 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, a massive expansion far beyond the temporary administrative demarcation lines established in previous truce outlines.

Meanwhile, his far-right ministers have pushed the government’s rejectionist stance even further. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Missions Minister Orit Strock issued a joint demand for an emergency cabinet meeting to roll back authorization for the deployment of the International Stabilization Force (ISF).

The ISF, designed under the Board of Peace framework as a transitional peacekeeping body, was meant to oversee humanitarian security, starting with pilot recovery zones in Rafah.

Yet Smotrich and Strock claimed the security cabinet was "misled" into approving the force, arguing that allowing international personnel into Gaza endangers Israeli operational freedom and directly contradicts their explicit war aims.

These latest moves, along with the military's strict "red lines," confirm what recent months of relentless bombardment have made clear: the Israeli government has no intention of ending its genocide in Gaza or relinquishing control over the besieged and devastated territory.

But highlighting such positions will make no difference, aside from once more accentuating Israel's total lack of desire for peace and its intention to perpetuate conflict.

While true, such realization on its own is worthless considering that what is taking place in Gaza and the West Bank is beyond horrific, and that the daily killing of Palestinians makes the term "ceasefire" a cruel joke.

While diplomats debate frameworks, Israeli strikes continue to claim civilian lives daily, bringing the post-truce death toll to over 1,250 and the total killed since October 2023 to more than 73,000.

Therefore, action is needed, and urgently so. Indeed, Israel’s official position leaves the international community with no choice but to take direct, coordinated action across five key fronts:

First, Arab, Muslim, and allied governments must leverage every available international platform, starting with the UN General Assembly and Security Council, to formally condemn Israel’s violation of the Gaza peace framework and expose its bad-faith negotiations.

States must move beyond symbolic statements and invoke mechanisms like the ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution to bypass Western vetoes, push for binding sanctions, and implement a universal arms embargo against Israel.

Second, a renewed global campaign must recenter Gaza and the West Bank, exposing Israel's broader territorial objectives, specifically the systematic ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the quiet, administrative annexation of the West Bank.

Civil society, trade unions, and grassroots organizations worldwide must pressure their respective national governments to sever diplomatic, economic, and military ties with Israel until it complies with international law.

Third, International legal bodies must accelerate their proceedings. Pressure must be renewed on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to execute arrest warrants for senior Israeli leadership, while the International Court of Justice (ICJ) must enforce provisional measures and issue definitive rulings regarding Israel’s violations of the Genocide Convention.

Legal compliance must be treated as a non-negotiable prerequisite for international relations.

Fourth, a unified international media push is necessary to counter state-sponsored propaganda, keeping public focus fixed on Israel's long-term strategic plans: the permanent displacement of Gaza's population and the formal takeover of Palestinian land.

Independent media outlets, journalists, and cultural institutions must challenge official narratives that frame Israeli aggression as self-defense, centering the lived realities and testimonies of Palestinians under siege instead.

Fifth, the international community must bypass Israeli obstruction to ensure massive quantities of food, medical supplies, and shelter materials enter Gaza immediately to prevent widespread starvation and winter exposure.

International aid agencies must establish protected humanitarian corridors by global mandate, refusing to allow Israel to use manufactured famine and humanitarian denial as weapons of war.

With Israel’s intentions fully unmasked, the global community must shift from passive mediation to active enforcement.

Israel wants to normalize genocide, just as it normalized the illegal siege on Gaza before that, the military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza before that, and the ongoing displacement of Palestinians since 1948.

We must resolutely reject the premise that the slaughter of the innocent can ever become an accepted routine.

Knowledge of the atrocity is not enough. Expressing solidarity in words alone is not enough. Concrete, decisive action is required today, and holding the perpetrators accountable remains entirely within our power if the world finds the political courage to act.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of eight books. His latest book, ‘Before the Flood,’ was published by Seven Stories Press. His other books include ‘Our Vision for Liberation’, ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA).