For many months Netanyahu and his government have also accused Mr Lazzarini of lying. One official report posted online in January of this year was headed "Dismantling Unrwa Chief Lazzarini's Falsehoods". It claimed that he had "consistently made false statements which have profoundly misinformed the public debate on this issue." Unrwa, Israel says, has been infiltrated and exploited by Hamas to an unprecedented degree. It says some Unrwa employees took part in the attacks of 7 October. Mr Lazzarini denies the personal accusations directed at him by Israel and the broader ones aimed at Unrwa. He says Unrwa investigated 19 staff named by Israel and concluded nine of them may have a case to answer. All 19 were suspended. Mr Lazzarini said that since then Unrwa had received "hundreds of allegations from the State of Israel. Each time, as a rule-based organisation, we keep asking for substantiated information." He said they had never received it. All wars are political, and none more than the ones between Israel and the Palestinians. The war engages and enrages the outside world as well the belligerents. Israel argues that self-defence justifies its actions since 7 October 2023 when Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others attacked Israel, killed around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Any other government, it says, would have done the same. Palestinians and an increasingly concerned and outraged chorus of states, including some of Israel's key European allies, say that does not justify the continuation of the most devastating assault on Palestinians since the war of 1948, when Israel gained its independence, which Palestinians call "the catastrophe". Even President Trump shows signs of distancing himself from Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that the people of Gaza must be fed. The allegation that the total denial of food to Gazan civilians is more evidence of an Israeli genocide against Palestinians has outraged Benjamin Netanyahu, his government and many Israeli citizens. It produced rare political unity in Israel. The leader of the opposition Yair Lapid, normally a stern critic of Netanyahu, condemned "a moral collapse and a moral disaster" at the ICJ. Genocide is defined as the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The International Criminal Court, a separate body, has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister on war crimes charges, which they reject. The three Hamas leaders who were also the subject of ICC warrants have all been killed by Israel. It is not too soon to think about the longer-term impact of this devastating war, even though its end is not in sight. Mr Lazzarini told me that "in the coming years we will realise how wrong we have been… on the wrong side of the history. We have under our watch let a massive atrocity unfold." It started, he said, with the Hamas attacks on Israel on the 7 October: "The largest killing of Israeli and Jewish in the region since World War II" had been followed by a "massive" military response by Israel. It was, he said, "disproportionate, basically almost leading to the annihilation of an entire population in their homeland... I think there is a collective responsibility from the international community, the level, the passivity, the indifference being shown until now, the lack of political, diplomatic, economic action. I mean, it's absolutely monstrous, especially in our countries where we have said 'never again'." Ahead may be an attempt to realise Donald Trump's dangerous fantasy of Gaza as the Dubai of the Mediterranean, rebuilt and owned by America and without Palestinians. It has given shape to cherished dreams of Israeli extremists who threaten of the removal of Palestinians from the land between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean. Whatever lies ahead, it will not be peace.