The Israeli war on Gaza and its continuous violations of international law signals a grave failure of the international legal, political and diplomatic means to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and achieve justice and peace in the region.

Developments on the ground over the past days and weeks showed clearly that innocent civilians were paying the heaviest price, while the international community turned a blind eye to Palestinian death tolls and displacements.

Within hours of Hamas' Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 Israelis, the U.S. began moving a group of aircraft carriers and thousands of military personnel to the waters near Israel's coast.

"I have directed the movement of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean," said U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Oct. 8.

"Strengthening our joint force posture, in addition to the material support that we will rapidly provide to Israel, underscores the United States' ironclad support for the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli people," he continued.

On Oct. 18, U.S. President Joe Biden traveled to Israel to show support for its massive war on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In their statements to the press afterward, the narrative of both U.S. and Israeli leaders adopted reflected an attempt to dehumanize the Palestinians and justify the ongoing genocidal violence against them.

"Just as the civilized world united to defeat the Nazis and united to defeat Daesh, the civilized world must unite to defeat Hamas," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Biden remarked in response that Hamas has committed "evils" and atrocities that make Daesh look somewhat more rational. He also said that, "Israel has a value set like the U.S. does and other democracies, and – and they’re looking to see what we’re going to do."

Israel is already the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since World War II, receiving $3.3 billion in foreign assistance in 2022 alone, with the majority going to Israel's military.

On the other side, the Palestinian death toll from Israel’s ongoing genocidal invasion in Gaza rose to 13,300, including 5,600 children and 3,550 women, while the raids in the occupied West Bank resulted in the killings of more than 200 Palestinians to date. Besides, the number of wounded Palestinians has crossed 27,000, and 3,200 people, including 1,700 children, are still reported missing.

Furthermore, the United Nations has said that the total number of Palestinians being displaced since Oct. 7 rose to 1.6 million, out of a total population of 2.2 million in Gaza.

The Israeli military has also continued to target the hospitals in Gaza, intensifying its bombings and ground assaults around several hospitals, including the Al-Shifa Hospital. Hospitals in Gaza are quickly running out of fuel, water, food, medicines and electricity, with reports noting that 25 of the 35 hospitals in Gaza are not functioning anymore.

Biden’s staunch support for Israel’s war on Gaza has landed him in a region where grief and fury are mounting, not only toward Israel but also toward the U.S., which has declared unyielding support for its chief Middle East ally. Thousands of protesters around the world took to the streets to condemn Israel and the U.S.

Genocide in the making

Although it claims to be acting in self-defense, in its war against Hamas, Israel has been using its force to an unprecedented level against unarmed civilians, violating international humanitarian law with complete impunity.

The indiscriminate killing, injuring, consistent attacks on residential areas, wiping entire families off the face of the earth and displacement of large segments of the population cannot be justified.

Israel’s intense airstrikes on the Gaza Strip extend beyond the declared war rationale to eliminate Hamas, and to advance a wider far-right political agenda that may include mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by removing them from Gaza.

Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel all live under various regimes of organized discrimination and oppression, much of which makes life nearly unlivable.

While Biden recently said that the "two-state solution" to the Israel-Palestinian conflict should be a priority, the push for a two-state solution – one in which Israel would coexist with an independent Palestinian state – has eluded U.S. presidents and Middle East diplomats for decades.

It's been put on the back burner since the last American-led effort at peace talks collapsed in 2014 amid disagreements on Israeli settlements, the release of Palestinian prisoners and other issues.

Palestinian statehood is something that Biden rarely addressed early in his administration and now, at a moment of heightened concern that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could spiral into a broader regional conflict, Biden has begun to emphasize that once the bombing and shooting stop, working toward a Palestinian state should no longer be ignored.

In the meantime, a looming U.S. presidential election could make Biden a less-than-ideal mediator in 2024.

Aaron David Miller, who served as an adviser on Middle East issues to Democratic and Republican administrations, said Biden’s recent emphasis on a two-state solution was an "aspirational talking point."

"The odds are very, very low," he said. "It’s essentially mission impossible."

It was already clear to many that this unclear "two-state solution" had long ago become a necessary illusion maintained by the powerful.

No peace on horizon

Today, a negotiated peace seems farther away than ever.

Palestinians are very likely entering another long and painful era where armed struggle and violent domination become increasingly and mutually dependent on each other for survival – yet neither can win. This latest conflict marks the start of a chapter that is likely to affect millions of lives, both in the Middle East and further afield, for years to come. Moreover, it will not solve the Israel-Palestine conflict and the situation will be no closer to a resolution than it was before Oct. 7. Even before, the standard-bearers of the two-state solution had become marginal political actors.

The destruction that has played out in Israel and Gaza over the past month reflects the fact that the underlying conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is not yet ripe for resolution and there is little reason to believe that when the current round of fighting is over, the situation will be any more propitious for diplomacy.

Taken together, all of this suggests that after all the death, destruction and all of Antony Blinken’s biased position toward Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will end up no closer – or, more likely, even farther away – from a settlement than before Oct. 7.