More from Roth, the former executive director at Human Rights Watch.
He said the Israeli military’s return to areas in the Gaza Strip that it previously had claimed were cleared of Hamas fighters demonstrates both the difficulty of eliminating the movement and Netanyahu’s desire to keep the war going.
“Hamas is first of all a political movement, it has many adherents,” said Roth. “But even if you look at Hamas just as a fighting force, the idea that bombardment and missile attacks can destroy Hamas – as we’ve seen now – is just not true. So, they will clear an area and say, ‘we got rid of Hamas there’, and two to three weeks later, Hamas is back. So they have to re-invade.
“Then they have to tell all the people who were forcibly displaced from one place and then thought they could go home – ‘no, you got to leave home and go back someplace else’. These people are being treated like ping pong, just batted around as if they are not human beings, not people who are entitled to live ordinary lives.”
Roth added that this was all part of Netanyahu’s desire for a “forever war”.
“He needs a ‘forever war’, because if the war ends, if there is a ceasefire that the Biden administration is pushing for, then it’s very likely that Netanyahu’s political coalition collapses, and he’s no longer prime minister and he then has to face the pending corruption charges from before,” said Roth.
“So his personal ambitions, his personal goals are taking precedence over obviously many Palestinian civilian lives but arguably, what’s even good for Israel – the release of the hostages alive, the likelihood of avoiding another war with Hezbollah – all of this depends on a ceasefire but Netanyahu is putting his personal needs above everything else.”