The ceasefire in Gaza is over. Israeli warplanes launched their first strikes within hours of its collapse, targeting what the IDF described as Hamas positions, though the casualty reports tell a different story: over 400 dead in the first day alone. The official justification is that Hamas refused to release the remaining hostages, but ceasefires break in predictable ways, and this one was never likely to last. What is clear is that Israel consulted Washington before the operation. The Trump administration did not just permit the assault; it approved it.
The last time Gaza burned like this, Joe Biden was the one signing off on the weapons shipments. Protesters called him “Genocide Joe,” a label that stuck long after the bombs stopped falling. His administration worked behind the scenes to slow arms transfers and talk Netanyahu down, but it never stopped the flow entirely. The critics argued that this was complicity in the most direct sense: a president who condemned civilian deaths while replenishing the arsenals that made them inevitable.
Now the arms are flowing faster. Within weeks of returning to office, Trump restored the full pipeline of military aid, removing the modest restrictions Biden had imposed. His surrogates, back on Fox News and Telegram, do not even bother with the pretence of restraint. If Biden’s backing for Israel came with murmurs of concern, Trump’s comes with full-throated approval. The difference is not subtle.
What does that make Trump? If Biden was Genocide Joe, what name fits the man who restarted the killing with such enthusiasm? There is no shortage of options. But the name matters less than the fact: this is what American support for Israel looks like in 2025, stripped of its remaining illusions. The quiet, bureaucratic violence of the last presidency has given way to something rawer, more openly vicious. The outcome, for those in Gaza, is the same.
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