It is Israel, not Gaza, that needs stabilisation

For two years, the world watched Gaza’s destruction unfold in real time and chose not to stop it. More than seventy thousand Palestinians were killed, and most of the Strip was reduced to rubble, while the same governments that hurried to contain other regional wars produced nothing more than empty warnings, sham ceasefires and aid arrangements that delivered death instead of relief.

Only now, after championing yet another so-called “ceasefire” that brought barely any relief on the ground, do they claim to be stepping in to help shape long-term peace and stability. Their focus, however, is already misplaced. They act as if Gaza is the side in need of stabilising, not the state that destroyed every form of stability there – Israel.

Indeed, global powers led by the United States now claim they are working to deliver “stabilising security” to our small, battered territory through structures of surveillance and control being built in collaboration with the very entity that genocided it.

So in the aftermath of this new “ceasefire”, Gaza faces a new and insidious form of control. Around 30 kilometres (19 miles) northwest of the Strip, in the so-called “Kiryat Gat” settlement built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Iraq al-Mansheya, officials say dozens of countries and organisations are now present inside the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), a foreign-run command hub for Gaza operations, which has rapidly expanded in recent weeks. Presented as the first concrete step in the US effort to “stabilise” Gaza, it is a hub where foreign officials oversee the Strip from a distance and begin shaping the model that will govern its future.

But if these architects of stability are so devoted to Gaza’s future, why not step inside and walk among its people? Are they afraid of the devastated survivors they claim to help? Or do they know that once they enter Gaza, even their safety cannot be guaranteed from Israel’s bombs? What is clear is that, by positioning themselves alongside Israel’s military, they have chosen to work with the perpetrators, turning the promise of peace into yet another instrument of control.

I have seen these foreign “stability” missions before, long before Gaza became the centre of the world’s attention.

I still remember the first time I saw a picture of UNIFIL’s white armoured vehicle as a child. I was astonished to learn that the peaceful United Nations, whose concern-filled statements were meant to silence guns, actually endorsed holding guns in the name of peace. Their white colour seemed reassuring, as if behind these armoured beasts stood saviours who would finally bring safety. Back then, I truly believed that UN peacekeepers, or “peacemakers”, riding in those white vehicles could one day protect us whenever Israel tried to bomb us.

But growing up taught me otherwise. I realised that a force unable even to protect itself from Israel’s attacks could never protect anyone else. They weren’t saviours; they were observers, watching atrocities unfold, powerless or unwilling to intervene.

And as I grew up, I saw the supposed peacemakers not only fail to protect us, but begin enabling Israel’s killing in the most “humanely-creative” ways.

The US Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-run programme set up to control and distribute aid after Israel intensified its blockade, clearly showed how foreign involvement could directly feed Israel’s violence. It claimed a moral duty to “feed” us after Israel escalated its starvation by halting food deliveries under the pretext that aid “wasn’t reaching those who deserved it”. Then came the GHF killing traps, where more than 2,600 Palestinians were slaughtered under Israeli fire while American officers watched the hunger games they had helped create.

Now, Washington returns with more partners and promises of an “International Stabilisation Force” not only to “deliver aid”, but to secure Gaza’s entire future. Its new mission, dressed once again in the language of peace, looks even less like salvation and more like another experiment in the post-genocide laboratory, where Gaza is reshaped to fit outsider visions of “stability”. This force only required international legitimacy; a prerequisite it secured far more easily, with US backing, than any resolution aimed at halting Israel’s genocide at the UNSC.

Any remaining sense of security in Gaza has vanished, not only because of the constant roar of Israeli bombardment, but because those who tried to hold together what remained of our fragile local order were branded as “terrorists”. Israel bombed them and, in their place, empowered criminals to impose its own vision of what “security” should look like for us. The result was, and largely still is, a man-made, genocidal chaos where a bag of flour has become a coveted treasure.

Watching these imposed versions of “security” unfold while people suffer is horrifying. There can be no real security when even food is still weaponised as international “peace planners” debate how we should be fed rather than lifting the siege. Every basic necessity of life is still treated as a privilege we must prove ourselves worthy of, to convince the “peacekeepers” that we deserve them. Only then, perhaps, will they kindly petition our jailer to loosen the chains of the blockade.

Survival itself is not guaranteed. The future we were promised is already here in the so-called “post-ceasefire” era. Israel’s bombs never truly ceased; more than 340 Palestinians have been killed since the “ceasefire” began. It’s no surprise to us that Israel continues to bomb us even under a “ceasefire”, but what is truly dangerous now is that these massacres unfold under the eyes of the new self-styled “peacewatchers”, who neither dare to intervene nor even acknowledge fresh bloodshed by Israel. The level of dehumanisation we face is terrifying; we are reduced to creatures that may be killed, starved, and erased while being observed. We are trapped like beasts in a cage whose bars only tighten, punished for crimes we never committed by a jailer that doesn’t even try to hide its criminal essence.

Israel, internationally accused of genocide, has committed every imaginable crime, waged multiple unprovoked wars, and still holds an entire population hostage, even as Gaza is framed as the side in need of “stabilisation”. And yet it continues unrestrained, enjoying its role as a darling host of the very peace brokers appointed to “stabilise” Gaza. The world is prepared to deploy forces to monitor Gaza’s children struggling to fill their water buckets under siege, while an army whose soldiers proudly call themselves a “Vampire Empire” vacates freely, having already shed the blood of Gaza’s children.

For the past two years, Gaza’s people have endured the most extreme form of collective punishment. And now, these new “peace” efforts feel as if the world wants to punish Gaza even further for enduring and surviving Israel’s genocide.

The hands that vetoed ending this genocide repeatedly at the UN, while warmly embracing Israeli leaders and arming their warplanes with autographed bombs, will never bring peace to Gaza. The eyes of the world that watched Israel’s terror and chose to look away cannot absolve their complicity by suddenly pretending to monitor Gaza closely. Their focus must be on the true source of instability, on containing the state-driven, deranged violence that proudly assaults the essence of humanity on every screen. Instead of portraying Palestinians as the threatening force, the world must restrain and hold to account those who wield real power to destroy lives daily.

Our Gaza deserves the space to survive, not to be framed as an isolated enclave in a land that is being ethnically cleansed, or as the “unstable” side requiring foreign supervision. Gaza is Palestinian, inseparable from the land and its people; there is no Palestine without Gaza. The visible oppression our people have endured for over a century defies words, yet the world’s dehumanising lens treats our agony as spectacle.

We long for the moment justice is served, but how can that happen when every supposed consequence for our oppressor becomes another punishment placed on us?

As long as the rogue occupation is protected from accountability and allowed to act with impunity, there can be no stability for Gaza, wider Palestine, or the region. Stability will only be possible when the world confronts Israel’s violence, not the people who have survived it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.