Since October 2023 when Israel unleashed unrestrained military attacks on Gaza, it has directly or indiscriminately targeted civilians and employed means and methods of warfare against Palestinian population which can have no justification but a genocidal intention ‘to destroy, in whole or in part,’ the Palestinians in Gaza as a nation, ethnicity or religious group.
Israel’s systematic campaign of killing civilians, engineered starvation, and mass deportation, mirror Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ for the question of Jews. At the same time its territorial destruction of Gaza, resort to ruthless means and methods of warfare against Palestinian population and pursuit of total defeat of Palestinians resonate with the U.S. war in Vietnam, during which over a million of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of American soldiers lost their lives, leading to a humiliating defeat of the United States.
This article argues that Israel’s ‘Final Solution’ for Palestinians has been culminating to genocide. Israel may have military upper hand on the ground, it, however has lost moral ground and will be accountable for its actions. On the other hand, its pursuit of total victory over Palestinians and Hamas guerrilla fighters is forging an unwinnable Vietnam-style conflict for Israel, finding itself in a never-ending war with a desperate but resolute nation. The more atrocities it commits against Palestinians, the more it generates resistance in them. In this regard, Part I documents Israel’s genocidal actions through the lens of the German Holocaust and Part II demonstrates how this "Solution" and the military strategy associated with it will trap Israel in a forever war of attrition, replicating America’s defeat in Vietnam, despite all its ostensible battle victories.
Part I: Israel’s "Final Solution" for Gaza – Methods of Annihilation
Israel has opportunistically used the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 as a pretext to justify its long-standing policy of seeking to eliminate Gaza as a Palestinian territory. What was once pursued through recurring military invasions and a decades-long land and naval blockade is now being openly carried out through bold military actions and tactics that echo the Nazi Die Endlösung (Final Solution) as well as the permanent occupation of Gaze and the deportation of its Palestinian population.
Similar to the German Final Solution, Israel’s plan for Palestinians follow an ideological framework in which Palestinians are dehumanized or posited racially inferior. Like the so-called Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany, Israel also devised laws by which it strips Palestinians of their civil and human rights. This racial ideology is rooted in the belief that their race and religion are superior to all others, a belief that fuels hatred and racism, leading to violence and brutality against anyone who challenges or questions this notion of superiority. This along with the arbitrary laws justify and rationalize the killing and the extreme measures taken against Palestinians.
In less than two years, Israel has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, mostly children, women, and the elderly, displaced more than 1.9 million people, confined them to the center of the Strip, and systematically destroyed almost all civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including hospitals, schools, and UN shelters, leaving the Strip barely livable. This not only has immediate effects on the lives of Palestinians but also impacts the health and well-being of their future generations.
Indiscriminate attacks on civilians and Israel’s frequent use of dumb bombs in densely populated civilian areas demonstrate that the Palestinian population is the main target of Israel, which has the malign intention of ensuring maximum casualties. In December 2024, only 14 months into Israel’s full-scale armed assault on Gaza, a group of independent human rights experts gathered in Geneva under the auspices of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and reaffirmed that Israel “openly defied international law time and again, inflicting maximum suffering on civilians in the occupied Palestinian territory and beyond.”
If the Germans confined their victims to ghettos, Israel has created the largest prison in the world by imposing a blockade on Gaza for over two decades, with some 2.3 million people trapped inside. Since October 2023, Israel has mage Gaza a site of immense tragedy for innocent Palestinian civilians. In their final report, the said group of experts, rightly warned, the worsening siege in northern Gaza, along with increasing evacuation demands, aims to forcibly remove the local residents permanently, paving the way for Gaza’s annexation to Israel and further violations of international law.
The experts after citing Israel’s most egregious violations, also highlighted crimes against humanity including murder, torture, sexual violence, and repeated forced displacement amounting to forcible transfer; war crimes such as indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects, including those indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, educational institutions, and cultural heritage, the use of starvation as a weapon of war; the targeting of healthcare workers and health facilities; attacks on humanitarian workers; arbitrary restrictions on access to humanitarian aid; attacks on journalists; collective punishment; and perfidy. By dropping over 100,000 tons of explosives, Israel transformed the entire Strip into a massive crematorium.
In May 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to immediately "halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." Also, in that same month, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) sought arrest warrants for alleged war crimes against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. The ICC’s arrest warrant of Israeli officials sparked criticism from the U.S. Administration and Israeli officials, culminating to the recent U.S. sanctions of two judges and two prosecutors of the ICC.
Israel has also used the siege of Gaza to impose engineered starvation as a method of war against Palestinian civilians, creating a man-made famine first by imposing a total siege from March 2nd to May 19th, during which no food was permitted to enter and then by severely restricting humanitarian aid which includes prolonged halts on supply deliveries and limiting distribution hubs to only four.
According to the UN World Food Program (WFP), Gazans need over 62,000 tons of food each month just to survive, covering staple foods but excluding meat, fruits, vegetables, and other perishables. What Israel has allowed so far is far below this amount. Recent pledges to increase humanitarian convoys have either not been fulfilled or have fallen short of actual needs.
Likewise, “Israel is using thirst as a weapon to kill Palestinians”. According to the UN experts, since October 2023 Israel has repeatedly targeted water facilities, wells, pipelines, desalination units, and sewage systems. Eighty-nine percent of Gaza's water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed by Israelis, leaving over 90 percent of households with insecure water access and Gaza’s Palestinian population without the minimum vital amount of drinking water. This was absolutely intentional and premediated. In an interview with Israel's Channel 7, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen highlighted the consensus within the cabinet regarding Gaza. He acknowledged that he had ordered the suspension of power and gas supplies to the Strip. Additionally, he noted that they were considering utilizing Gaza's sole desalination plant for operational purposes.
Israel has calculatingly made delivery and access to humanitarian aids including food a dangerously risky job. For Gazans, getting food or subsistence usually requires making dangerous trips to an aid center, where hundreds of Palestinian aid seekers have been killed by Israeli forces or American contractors. Similarly, as UN Secretariat reported, about 170 aid workers were killed in Gaza.
Israel plan to starve and dehydrate Palestinians is part of an overall genocidal. deliberate and coherent plan to destroy Palestinian population totally or, if not possible, partly and it closely resembles the Nazi Hunger Plan, which starved 4 million in Eastern Europe. It particularly targets future generations of Palestinians. In this context, UN experts have recently warned that “[c]utting off water and food is a silent but lethal bomb that kills mostly children and babies. The sight of infants dying in their mothers’ arms is unbearable.”
The exact number of people in Gaza who have died from starvation remains unknown. However, there are strong indications that the death toll will be significant. A panel of UN experts reported that by July 2024, Israel's "targeted starvation campaign" had expanded across the entire Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of children. During the same month, instances of child malnutrition in northern Gaza surged by 300% compared to May 2024. As of 1st August 2025, over 1500 Palestinian died of hunger or were killed when trying to get humanitarian aid.
In another move against international law, and just a day after Netanyahu stated that Israel intended to take military control of the entire Gaza Strip, Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan on August 8, 2025, to seize control of Gaza City. Later, Israel’s Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, pledged that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” following an Israeli military victory, and asserted that its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries.
Similarly, but in more sugarcoated language, Israel’s chief military spokesperson, Effie Defrin, said the planned offensive would include “moving most of the population of the Gaza Strip … to protect them”. The deportation and forcible transfer of civilians is a crime against humanity under the Rome statute, and its perpetrators incur international individual criminal responsibility.
The plan will certainly worsen the dire humanitarian devastation in the Strip, triggering a further wave of mass displacement of the population. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, urging “Israel to abide by its obligations under international law,” reiterated that the decision to take control of Gaza City marks “a dangerous escalation and risks deepening the already catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinians.” His office added that further escalation will lead to “additional forced displacement, killings, and massive destruction.”
These actions, although each violates established principles of international law, are in fact part of a larger plan which satisfy the definitional criteria of the "mother of crimes": genocide. According to Article 2 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide is defined as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions of life intended to bring about the group's physical destruction, in whole or in part…".
Legally speaking, genocide has two elements; intent and conduct. Admittedly, intent is an extremely difficult element to prove, and this makes genocide the hardest crime to ascertain. But this can also be established based on a “pattern of conduct.” In this line, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 by analyzing “the patterns of violence and Israeli policies in its onslaught on Gaza” concludes “that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating that Israel has committed genocide has been met.”
The ICJ also in the paragraph 74 of its interim ruling of January 2024 in the Genocide case, states that “there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice” will be caused to the rights of Palestinians in Gaza under the genocide convention.” Likewise, earlier this year, a US lawsuit that alleged the Biden administration's involvement in genocide was dismissed, but the presiding judge emphasized that the allegations of genocide were “plausible.”,
Many human rights organizations and internationally renowned scholars, however, strongly believe that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza. For example, Michael Dumper and Amneh Badran speak of “genocidal war that the state of Israel has carried out in the Gaza strip”. and Raz Segal calls Israel’s actions a “textbook case of genocide”. Omer Bartov of Brown University and an Israeli American professor of Holocaust and genocide studies argues that the threshold of genocide has been met in Gaza.
Part II: Gaza as Israel’s Vietnam
One can draw many parallels between Israel’s military strategy in Gaza and the U.S. strategy in Vietnam. Accordingly, it is not surprising to predict that Israel’s genocidal strategy will fail both militarily and politically, as it closely mirrors America’s self-destruction in Vietnam.
The involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War stemmed from a variety of complex reasons, including geopolitical strategy, ideology, and domestic politics. Spanning from the late 1950s to 1975, the war was initially presented as a mission to contain communism. U.S. leaders feared that if Vietnam fell to communists, it could trigger a domino effect in the region, encouraging other nations to adopt communism as well. While the U.S. supported French colonial efforts in Vietnam long before its direct involvement, the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 marked a pivotal moment, prompting the U.S. to justify direct military intervention and an increase in troop deployments. Consequently, Americans started the war for vengeance rather than victory.
The U.S. military strategy in Vietnam involved both ground troop engagement and aerial bombardment, with the goal of inflicting significant losses on the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army to weaken their ability to conduct sustained military operations. This approach resulted in large-scale operations intended to locate and eliminate enemy forces. Additionally, extensive bombing campaigns targeted not just military installations, but also infrastructure and civilian areas, aiming to erode support for communist forces. However, these strategies encountered resistance from the civilian population as s well as considerable challenges due to the guerrilla warfare tactics employed by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, who skillfully leveraged the dense jungles and rural terrains to their advantage. What began as a conflict showcasing U.S. military superiority ultimately devolved into a war of attrition that adversely affected U.S. forces.
Despite early successes by American forces, the course of the war began to shift due to the resilience, determination and capability of the Vietnamese troops, along with a disillusionment among the American public regarding the likelihood of a quick victory. Growing anti-war sentiment in the U.S. further complicated the situation, leading to widespread protests and a shift in political priorities. The media's portrayal of the war fueled public disillusionment, as graphic imagery of the conflict brought its brutal realities into American living rooms.
Israel occupied Gaza in 1967 and has since then invaded and bombarded the Strip on numerous occasions. However, since October 2023, it has launched an unprecedented wave of military attacks that have devastated the entire area. Like what happened in Vietnam, Israel unleashed its military campaign on Gaza out of vengeance and without any plausible military objective or exist plan/strategy. Netanyahu’s "total victory" vow ignores Hamas’ guerrilla regeneration and civilian resilience. He insists that he has to “finish” Hamas and secure the return of captives; something which is militarily unrealistic.
Numerous analysts in the U.S. and Israel have criticized Israel's approach to its war on Gaza, raising concerns about whether military actions will effectively further the Israeli government's stated objectives. Within Israel itself, discussions continue regarding the feasibility of these objectives.
Similar to the eventual defeat of the United States in Vietnam which can be attributed to a confluence of strategic miscalculations, changing public opinion, and the unwavering determination of North Vietnamese forces, Israel’s military and political strategies in Gaza are facing serious challenges.
As Vietnam war, like many other similar asymmetric wars, demonstrates it is almost impossible to reach a decisive military victory in a guerrilla war or over a paramilitary group. This fact is also emphasized in a letter written by more than 600 former Israeli officials including the former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon and former deputy Israeli army chief Matan Vilna, where they have stated that the Israeli military has achieved its goals, and that the release of Israeli captives can only be accomplished via an agreement. The letter appeals to President Trump to exert his influence over Israeli government to end the war.
Israel’s public opinion has already turned against the government and Netanyahu’s plans for Gaza. Many believe he continues the war to appease far-right extremists, maintain his grip on power, and avoid judicial investigations into his corruption charges. Critics argue that such a strategy compromises the nation's security and moral standing, as an increasing number of citizens express concern over the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza. As protests grow and voices calling for a ceasefire echo across the country, public sentiment reflects a desire for a path toward peace rather than prolonged conflict. This shift in opinion may pose significant challenges for Netanyahu's administration, as the pressures of both domestic and international opinion increase.
Almost two years into the war, Israel has yet to establish a clear exit strategy. Its recent decision to militarily occupy Gaza could transform the conflict into a protracted struggle, fostering a long-term direct confrontation with ordinary Palestinians and potentially leading to an escalation of resistance among the civilian population. No army can break the will of nation. Numerous reports indicate that Hamas has managed to replenish over 50% of its losses by successfully recruiting new forces and continues to possess the capability to conduct military operations.
Without a viable exit strategy or a geniune diplomatic engagement, Israel is destined to repeat the mistakes made by the United States during the Vietnam War by entrenching itself in a conflict that could stretch indefinitely, ultimately creating lasting ramifications for both warring societies.
During the Vietnam War, the U.S. found itself in a quagmire without a clear plan for withdrawal or an understanding of the underlying socio-political complexities. This lack of strategy not only prolonged the conflict but also nurtured increasing hostility and resistance among the Vietnamese people. Similarly, Israel's current approach to Gaza and the continuation of its acts of genocide in military would definitely lead to a cycle of violence, a deepening of enmity and an increase in resistance.
Israel must learn from the lessons that the U.S. learned the hard way that military might cannot secure victory. Vietnam and Gaza, along with many other examples, demonstrate that no nation will be subdued simply because the other side seeks victory through every criminal means and method. In fact, the more crimes they commit, the stronger that nation’s resolve to resist becomes. o nation will be subdued simply because the other side seeks victory through every criminal means and method. In fact, the more crimes they commit, the more they strengthen that nation’s resolve to resist. Failing to do so risks not only exacerbating tensions within the occupied territories but also drawing Israel into a broader regional conflict.
Conclusions
Israel's actions and strategy in Gaza represents not only a moral abyss but also a strategic suicide. By replicating Nazi methods such as starvation, dehumanization, and liquidation in Gaza, Israel has ignited its own version of the "Final Solution" and its genocidal history. However, the Nazi Final Solution and the inhumane means and methods to execute it could not guarantee its victory, but only made it one of the most monstrous regimes in the history of the mankind. The commission of genocide in Gaza will also haunt Israel for decades to come, leaving a stain on the annals of human history.
Likewise, Israel's military strategy, which includes the pursuit of total victory over Hamas, has resulted in a militarily unwinnable occupation that fosters endless public resistance, plunging Israel into a Vietnam-style political and military quagmire from which it will emerge only after being defeated and humiliated.
The U.S. experience in Vietnam demonstrates that military might is not enough to win a war, and the excessive use of force against a nation may only further hatred and resistance. Moreover, the legacy of the Vietnam War shows that such crimes often backfire at home. The gravity of the crimes committed by U.S. forces, along with their eventual defeat by the bare-handed Vietnamese, left deep scars on American society, shaping contradictory foreign policy debates and fostering negative public perceptions of military engagement for decades to come.
Unfortunately, Israel’s military and political strategy in Gaza since October 2023, suggests that it has yet to learn from history. It is repeating both the Nazi 'Final Solution' and the military mistakes made by the U.S. in Vietnam, combining elements of both. Gaza will be remembered not as Israel’s triumph, but as the conflict where a nuclear power, armed with genocidal logic, was broken by a ghettoized people. The only escape is ending the occupation, dismantling settlements, and halting apartheid. History warns: Final Solutions consume their architects and military force against nations ends up with humiliation of the aggressors.
Israel’s failure to recognize its commission of genocide in Gaza, as well as its inability to acknowledge that it has placed itself in the Gaza quagmire, does not absolve the international community of its responsibility to stop Israel's actions in Gaza, end its impunity, and ensure respect for international law, particularly the fundamental rules and principles of international humanitarian law.
There is no doubt that genocide has already occurred in Gaza, but the international community cannot allow this crime against humanity to continue unabated and unpunished. Gaza is not just a test of Israelis’ moral and human sensibility, or of Palestinians' resilience; it is also a historic test of international public consciousness regarding the extent to which they stand against inhumanity. As the UN experts rightly asked in their report of 29th July 2025, “How can world leaders sleep while this suffering continues?”
Alireza Kazami, Senior Expert at the Institue for Political and International Studies
(The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the IPIS)