‘THE smell of death is everywhere as bodies are left lying on the roads or under the rubble. Missions to clear the bodies or provide humanitarian assistance are denied.”

Those were the words of Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UN aid agency UNRWA, last week, describing what is happening in northern Gaza.

The siege of the Jabalia refugee camp is now in its fourth week.

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The Israeli army is allowing no food, water or medicine through to tens of thousands of starving civilians. Meanwhile, bombs drop daily on what shelter remains as drone footage shows desperate people scurrying like insects to avoid the blasts.

On the ground, Israeli soldiers empty people out of school buildings which they then set on fire. Testimonies of those leaving the camp tell of families separated by the army, women and children sent south and the men beaten and detained.

Everyone, including elderly and wounded people, tells of abuse and beatings by the soldiers, including children shot in the legs for trying to pick up food.

With Israel’s latest war on Gaza having entered its second year, it has taken a distinct turn. Although not officially admitted, strategy and war aims have changed. This is now about much more than defeating Hamas.

The Israeli right, personified by security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, have long advocated the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, demanding a new Nakba to displace Palestinians to the deserts of Sinai. Now, this approach commands broad political and military support.

The strategy is spelled out in a document called the Generals Plan, which was spearheaded by veteran army commander Giora Eiland. He has been critical of current Israeli Defence Forces command, saying: “The fact that we are breaking down in the face of humanitarian aid to Gaza is a serious mistake ... Gaza must be completely destroyed: terrible chaos, severe humanitarian crisis, cries to heaven.”

He is now getting his way. Under this plan, Gaza will initially be split in two with the Netzarim corridor – recently fortified by IDF engineers – splitting the strip to the south of Gaza City. Civilians will then be displaced from northern Gaza through an armed perimeter and those remaining will be eliminated.

A massacre is being planned before our eyes which will make even the horrors of the last 13 months seem tame in comparison.

As those in charge of Israel are planning a future of occupation, settlements, and strong fortifications with no room for Palestinians.

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And it depends upon the genocide currently under way in Gaza being successful.

Last week, a conference was organised just three miles from the Gaza border to plan this for real. Under the sound of shelling, settler leader Daniella Weiss said Palestinians have “lost the right” to live there, and that thousands of Israelis stand ready to move there “from north to south”. She claimed there were six settler groups and more than 700 families looking to settle in Gaza.

This is happening before our eyes in real time. Yet it is all but ignored by our politicians and media.

The BBC reports Gaza from Jerusalem through an Israeli prism and with an absence of Palestinian voice. When deaths are announced the information is qualified as coming from the “Hamas-controlled health ministry” as if to suggest this might be terrorist propaganda rather than material fact.

Every time a Gazan school, hospital or apartment block is bombed by missiles, the BBC report offers the Israeli explanation that it was targeting Hamas fighters. Even as they show the corpses of infants shrouded in linen.

For more than a year, Israel’s global guarantor, the United States, has supplied the weaponry of genocide on the one hand while bemoaning the scale civilian casualties on the other. With a week to go until the US election, Benjamin Netanyahu is taking advantage, calculating he can get away with pretty much anything. And he is.

But why is the UK still in the grip of this hypocritical paralysis when it comes to Israel’s genocide? We’ve had our election. What domestic political advantage is served by the UK’s continued complicity in continuing illegal military occupations and the war of Palestinians? Last Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner called for more humanitarian aid and a ceasefire but saw fit to add: “That does not change our position of steadfast support for Israel’s security.”

She perpetuates the myth that what is going on is just a few adverse consequences of Israel exercising its right to self-defence. We are way beyond that. And anyone who still justifies what is happening now in northern Gaza by reference to a right to self-defence is actively trying to deflect and distract attention from genocide.

Rayner was once the champion of the left. She is kept in Cabinet by the new, new Labour hierarchy as a cover to appease the trade unions. That she is engaged in minimising this humanitarian outrage and justifying British inaction against it shows just how pitiful Labour’s foreign policy is.

The truth is Netanyahu and the dominant Israeli establishment will not stop until they see the total destruction of Palestinian capacity to create their own state in the place they once lived in peace. Not unless they are stopped.

That is now clear to most countries, including Spain, Norway and Ireland. In the months ahead we shall need to redouble our efforts to make it clear to Keir Starmer’s Government too.