It has now been close to 10 months that Israel has been waging a genocidal war in Gaza. Its army has violated nearly every facet of international humanitarian law in its relentless assault on an unimaginably vulnerable population.

Israel has denied the Gaza concentration camp the bare necessities of life — food, water, medicine, sanitation, electricity and fuel. And its targeting of civilian infrastructure has made the majority of Gaza residents homeless.

No Israeli military goal requires the total destruction of Gaza. Killing 40,000 Palestinians – a death toll that could reach 186,000 per some estimates – and injuring many more serves no clear strategic purpose. Nor does the systematic and wholesale destruction of Gazan universities, schools, hospitals and neighbourhoods. If Israel wants to occupy and annex Gaza, presumably it would want to inherit something more than a blast zone.

And while Israel’s conduct appears irrational, so does the unconditional support its closest ally – the United States – has extended. Washington’s “ironclad” backing of the genocide Israel is conducting has eroded its international authority and claim to uphold the international rules-based system.

Many ascribe Israel’s gross irrationality to the feeling of humiliation stirred by Hamas’s October 7 attack. That hyperemotionality accelerated the rightwards shift of Israeli politics, which now openly celebrates genocidal exploits. Gone is the rhetoric of “peaceful coexistence” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises instead “total victory”.

History can give a clue as to what he might mean by that phrase. It is eerily similar to the German word Endsieg, which literally translates to “final victory” and described the full realisation of the Nazi regime’s genocidal........

© Al Jazeera