While America was voting, Israel was preparing to annex the northern Gaza Strip

A day before Before the U.S. election, Israel told the United Nations that it would cut ties with UNRWA, its aid agency for Palestinian refugees. On election day itself, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who had challenged him over his approach to a ceasefire and the return of hostages. Later that night, at Tel Aviv time, as Americans went to the polls, the Israeli military told national media that it was moving closer to a “complete evacuation” of the northern Gaza Strip and residents would not be allowed to return.

Donald Trump's victory in Israel would not become apparent until the next morning, but Netanyahu acted as if his preferred candidate was already in the White House. The US government's green light to carry out its war appears to be even brighter. That same night the Israeli brigade came. General Itzik Cohen said that humanitarian aid would no longer arrive in northern Gaza because “there are no civilians left.”

“This is really a frightening statement because the intention is to leave nothing and no one behind,” said Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute think tank. The United Nations warned last week that “the entire Palestinian population in northern Gaza, especially children, is in imminent danger of dying from disease, starvation and the ongoing bombardment.”

According to Yousef Munayyer, director of the Palestine/Israel program at the Arab Center Washington DC, the Harris campaign and the Biden administration did not want to be perceived as critical of Israel before the election. As a result, the Israeli government “understood that they would proceed with complete freedom to do whatever they wanted,” Munayyer said. “Netanyahu understands that in the last three months he has had the opportunity to do things that would probably have met with even greater opposition if there had been no elections in sight.” These include the pager attacks on Beirut and the assassination of Hezbollah leaders, he said.

Now some Israeli officials want to gain control of the northern Gaza Strip by starving or killing Palestinians remaining in the area, following a proposal known as the “general's plan.” In late October, The Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had asked Netanyahu about the plan, according to a senior State Department official who requested anonymity. The State Department told Netanyahu that it was under the impression that Israel was denying food to those who refused to leave the north – to which Netanyahu responded that this was “not our policy” and that this perception was “deeply damaging.” said the official. The Israeli prime minister also rejected a request from U.S. officials to publicly distance himself from the allegations, the Post reported.

Israeli attacks on Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon continued last week, killing dozens of civilians. The UN reported on X that Israeli security forces killed at least eight people in the West Bank on Tuesday and fatally shot an unarmed 14-year-old Palestinian boy two days earlier. On Wednesday, officials in Lebanon's eastern city of Baalbek said at least 30 people were killed and 35 injured in Israeli strikes. An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza on Monday killed 20 people – most of them women and children, according to Palestinian officials. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, wrote in a statement to The Intercept that the hospital, including the children's ward, was directly attacked. The hospital in Beit Lahiya was only functioning to a limited extent after a raid by the Israeli military.

Gallant's dismissal on Tuesday was also controversial and led to widespread protests across Israel. While Gallant previously described Israel's fight as a fight against “human animals,” he pushed harder than Netanyahu for a ceasefire with Hamas – believing it could be more effective than sustained military pressure in releasing Israeli hostages. Gallant also came into conflict with Netanyahu because he wanted to abolish an exemption from military service for ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Elgindy points out that Netanyahu may have taken advantage of the timing of the American election to get rid of a popular critic within the government. “That would have caused resentment in Washington, particularly in the Pentagon, where they have a very close relationship with (Gallant),” he said. Munayyer emphasizes that it probably had little to do with the American election – and more to do with domestic politics. “It's something that's been brewing for some time. … Netanyahu needed a certain level of cohesion and the defense minister wasn’t ready to go all in.”

As Trump will do How he will deal with Israel and Gaza during his second term remains unclear. Trump has repeatedly said he wants peace in the Middle East and called on Israel to “finish the job.” He has also told Netanyahu that he wants Israel's war on Gaza to end by the time he takes office, which could lead to an intensification of Israeli military attacks in the coming months.

The rhetoric is so vague that he has managed to win over some anti-war voters. (Trump won 42 percent of the vote in the majority Arab-American city of Dearborn, Michigan, with Jill Stein winning 18 percent and Kamala Harris 36 percent, according to unofficial city results.) During the campaign, he specifically called for an end to the suffering and destruction in Lebanon. “This is a smart talking point. He chose the right words,” Elgindy said. “It was a free opportunity for him to exploit that anger and resentment against Biden and Harris, and it largely worked.”

But Trump's gestures toward antiwar rhetoric must be balanced with the pro-Israel orientation of his base, his close advisers and his policy decisions during his term, Munayyer said. “We cannot rely too much on what Trump says and does on the campaign trail to understand what he might do once he is in office,” Munayyer said.

During Trump's first term, he recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He made the US the first country to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights – even though international law considers it occupied territory. The Trump administration also cut off US funding to UNRWA in 2018. “We know the staff that (Trump) had around him and who he is likely to bring back or bring into his administration in some way,” Munayyer said. “None of this bodes well for peacemaking.”

Last month, the US warned Israel that it would consider stopping the flow of weapons if Israel did not take action to allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The US State Department gave Netanyahu a 30-day deadline; it expires November 12th. But by then it may be too late to have any real impact, given Trump's inauguration in January. “Even if they take a tougher line toward the Israeli government, it won’t last long,” Munayyer said. “Netanyahu has a kind of stay of execution and now has more time to do what he wants.”