India, Sept. 18 -- Israel has launched a ground assault on Gaza City, calling the operation "Gaza is burning". The irony is not lost on the world, including Israel's western allies, and may influence the deliberations when the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meets in New York early next week: The UK, France, Australia, Canada and others are expected to recognise the sovereignty of an independent Palestinian State, an entity most other world nations, including India, already recognise. Tel Aviv can smugly dismiss these moves as inconsequential even as the toll mounts in Gaza. Close to 65,000 people have died since Israel Defence Forces launched a war following a terror strike by Hamas (IDF) in October 2023, and famine stalks the Palestinian homeland. Tel Aviv has also dismissed a report by the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory that called out Israel's actions in Gaza as "genocide". Genocide is defined in the 1948 convention as the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Last week, the UNGA overwhelmingly backed a resolution (142 countries against 10) for a two-State solution in West Asia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that there will never be a Palestinian State. As of now, Netanyahu's confidence is well-founded. The UNGA resolution, the UN commission's description of IDF's Gaza operations as genocide, or the adverse rulings of the International Court of Justice will remain ineffectual unless the UN Security Council endorses them and calls for action. That is unlikely because of the US veto: US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who visited Tel Aviv immediately after Israel's strikes within Qatar, a US ally, said that Washington backed Netanyahu's Gaza City offensive, indicating a congruence of positions. However, Washington should be advising Tel Aviv against furthering the catastrophe in Gaza if it cares for Israel. The implications of the current war are likely to extend beyond this phase and roil the region for decades, and turn Israel's own security precarious....