Background evolutions

As of July 2025, the war from Gaza Strip is ongoing and acute, amid violence and Israeli territorial claims in the West Bank. Israel continues to be an outpost in a still Muslim and Arab region, well supplied and supported by its Western partners, including with coverups that are often associated with complicity. On July 27^th, 2025, reports began to hint at a potential Israeli distribution of aid delivery in the Gaza Strip, which besides being too little too late for tens of thousands of Palestinians killed after October 7^th, 2023, is difficult to connect with any other development in the Gaza Strip war.

The Gaza Strip war appears to increase polarization within Israel, and among countries around the world. Except unwavering US support for Israel, reflected among others by the sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) or support in questionable initiatives like the so-called aid distribution through Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), many voices appear to begin questioning Israel’s conduct vis-à-vis Palestinians. However, despite apparent criticism and so-called recognitions of a Palestinian state, no Western power appears to take action proportional to its capacity or influence level, to reinforce human rights or Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

The already two-times announced French recognition of a Palestinian state can be sold as a significant step towards a two-state solution, but it is neither consequential at European level, at United Nations Security Council level, nor does it impact the daily developments on the ground.

Netherlands listing Israel among countries posing a threat[1] represents a relatively mild reaction to Israeli pressure, which might have included Gidi Markuszower’s rejected candidacy[2] for a ministerial seat. There is no potentially consequential British hint at a potential resolution to this conflict, and considering Brexit and US bid to maintain its global influence at any cost, Israel’s role in any world order that continues or is related to the existing one may remain well connected to Anglo-American interests, in Asia, Europe and in the relations between the two continents.

Israeli aid drops: potential aims and limits

News claiming that Israel was airdropping aid to the Gaza Strip[3], were reportedly assessed as “propaganda to mask ongoing siege, starvation in Gaza”[4] by Hamas, and one day earlier, Philippe Lazzarini was mentioning that airdrops represent a “grotesque distraction”[5].

Israel and American attempts to mimic a humanitarian attitude towards Palestinians are not new, with the American-built peer in first part of 2024 being generously assessed as a fiasco[6].

The so-called mounting pressure on Israel is both nuanced and relative: international reaction has mounted due to increasing killing and destruction pace, rather than the advancement of a long-term of pushing Palestinians out of their homeland.

As of July 27, 2025, there is no systematic hint that Israel would change its long-time policy towards Occupied Palestinian Territories which entails at least two components: territorial grab under various schemes, backed by the US and other allies, and displacing, removing, killing, or subjecting Palestinians to pressure to give up the so-called confrontation.

As the US told the world that they and their allies were the non-UN assigned but legitimate candidates to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, and rebuild their societies by force in the name of an ever-thinner justice concept, Israel told the world that GHF replacing UNRWA and other multilateral frameworks active in Gaza represents a legitimate bid. While the replacement of an accountable, transparent and responsible task force, that was assisting the Palestinians on a path difficult to characterize as a two-state solution or potential extinction, with an illegitimate “aid” organization that was equated to “death traps” and “alibi for the starvation of Gaza”[7] has been perceived as one of the many “unilateral” Israeli actions, it must be emphasized that none of Israeli initiatives hinted at a genuine interest to serve Palestinian basic rights or needs: the so-called Israeli-American aid was crippled by accusations like the addition of narcotics/opioid pills (oxycodone) in distributed flour[8], and there are no credible attempts to at least justify why dozens  of Palestinians are shot by contractors on a daily basis while trying to get very basic food supplies.

While these developments appear to contribute to a narrative that distinguishes between Israeli aims and obligations, it also risks to educate international audiences towards impunity, violence, and indifference towards other societies.

The aid distribution rhetoric that emerged among Arab countries and is supported at least at declarative level by Israel and other Western countries, is very different from Palestinian needs and what is generally considered a reasonable approach. While it may buy time for Israel on this very front, the regional peace landscape is crippled by violence perpetuation in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and potentially beyond. If dropping a couple of packs with aid in the Gaza Strip, even when assuming that the deliveries were nutritious and not dangerous, have the potential to reinforce a Hasbara that loses gradually its relevance across the world, among others due to overuse, is difficult to estimate. While some governments are openly or covertly supporting Israeli war on Palestinians, the level of polarization in their societies is rising, risking conflicts and overall weakening positions on the global stage.

De facto effects and implications of Israel’s humanitarian twist

There is no indication that Israel seeks to carry out a lawful occupation of the Palestinian (Occupied) Territories, or that a humanitarian approach to the war is upheld. While the explanatory framework contains legitimate interests like Israel’s security, or trivial explanations like the “barren land” narrative, Israel has not relied on good relations with its neighbors or non-regional countries, like the ones from Europe.

American posture around the world is changing at a relatively rapid pace, amid the war from Ukraine, an envisioned confrontation with China and a desperate attempt to concentrate even more the financial and economic control on allies around Washington. At the same time, the domination patterns, and instruments, like the dollar and control over energy flows at global level, are gradually eroded by the lack of meaningful innovation, and challenges by faster-growing economies and infrastructures. After 2001, the US has lost the backing of UNSC and other institutions that ensured a global order, like World Trade Organization, while its costs in war efforts like the ones from Gaza Strip are increasing. Overlooking the fact that the Roman Empire might have fallen due to military overspending and invasions, as well as internal conflicts among other causes, the Israeli attempt to display a humanitarian stance (if these airdrops occurred at all, at own initiative or on US behalf) even for a couple of days, may have aimed to maintain a fragile legitimacy of a warrying party that factually includes the US, in the wider landscape of American-led or American-backed wars that gradually replace the post-World War II United Nations consensus. As this face-saving non-significant attempt to claim legitimacy may be equated to a public relations success, based on the imprecise assessment of certain Western societies’ lack of response as support, the well-established global order is sinking either in a next global war, or a new global order anchored in modern and more sustainable paradigms.

With or without the aid airdrops, and with or without the Gaza Strip and West Bank annexed, Israel may not be able to rely on eternal American and British support, and facing the geopolitics of its region may become an imperative and a mounting challenge, unless it is integrated in wider (Western) cooperation frameworks that survive the test of time. Israel is striving to convince at the level of skill associated to its historic experience, as it struggles with the illusions of a relatively young state in potentially the most dangerous neighborhood in the world.

[1] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/netherlands-lists-israel-among-countries-posing-threat-to-it-for-1st-me/3640341# accessed 27.07.2025.

[2] https://www.jewishexponent.com/israeli-born-far-right-dutch-politician-rejected-from-ministerial-role-after-security-check/ accessed 27.07.2025.

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/07/26/gaza-airdrops-resume-starvation-israel/ 27.07.2025

[4] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/hamas-slams-israeli-aid-airdrops-as-propaganda-to-mask-ongoing-siege-starvation-in-gaza-/3643303 27.07.2025.

[5] https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-announces-humanitarian-pauses-to-alleviate-global-outrage-over-gaza-famine 27.07.2025.

[6] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/06/16/us-built-jetty-for-gaza-aid-has-been-nothing-but-a-fiasco_6674920_4.html 27.07.2025.

[7] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/26/israel-food-starvation-gaza-famine-aid 27.07.2025

[8] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/opioid-pills-discovered-us-backed-food-aid-gaza-authorities-say 27.07.2025

About the author

Prof. Ecaterina MAȚOI

Prof. Ecaterina MAȚOI is a Program Director at MEPEI.