April 28, 2025, will be remembered as a day when the Israeli colonial regime made two stark and devastating choices. In the morning, it boycotted hearings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where judges began evaluating allegations that Israel is weaponizing starvation as a means of collective punishment against Palestinians in Gaza. By evening, Israel had rejected a ceasefire proposal accepted by Hamas, a deal that would have secured the phased release of Israeli hostages while bringing a temporary halt to its brutal military campaign.

For months, Israeli officials paraded hostage families before the media, insisting that rescuing captives was the nation’s highest calling. Yet when faced with a tangible, brokered agreement, one that Hamas accepted, the Israeli government cast the hostages aside. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet dismissed the deal as “far from meeting Israel’s essential requirements” and instead authorized the expansion of the bloodshed into Rafah, where over a million displaced Palestinians are trapped.

The rejected ceasefire plan offered a 5-year truce, the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, and humanitarian relief for a population teetering on the edge of annihilation. Instead, the settler state chose continued devastation. Gaza, already reduced to rubble, faces imminent famine and total societal collapse.

Meanwhile, at The Hague, the ICJ began hearing 40 countries give testimony on Israel’s obligations for aid into Gaza. True to its colonial arrogance, Israel refused to participate, declaring the court “illegitimate” and the proceedings “politically motivated.” As evidence was presented, neighborhoods razed, medical supplies cut off, water deliberately withheld, Israel’s absence spoke louder than any defense it could muster.

The twin rejections, of international law and of its own people’s lives, expose the moral rot at the heart of the Israeli project. No longer even pretending to uphold human rights, the regime showed the world that it will sacrifice not only Palestinian civilians but even its own citizens to sustain its settler colonial domination.

Families of hostages, who had once clung to hope, now face the horrifying realization that their loved ones were mere pawns. In the eyes of their government, they were expendable, collateral damage in the endless pursuit of land, control, and domination.

April 28 made it undeniable: Israel is not seeking peace, rescue, or justice. It is seeking the permanent subjugation of a people. In walking away from international law and rejecting the chance to bring its hostages home, the colonial regime has chosen the path of infamy. History will remember who turned away from life, and who paid the price.