Palestinians in northern Gaza fear ‘general’s plan’

Robert Novoski

Some 400,000 Palestinians still live in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Unrwa Chairman Philippe Lazzarini said this week. And they are trapped. Especially since the start of the Israeli army’s new offensive in the north, which focuses on Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia. “Hell has no end,” Lazzarini said.

Residents were told to leave. Hospitals in the area said they had received similar orders. But Palestinians who tried to flee last week said they came under attack from Israeli soldiers, including from ‘quadcopters’, a type of small drone.

There was fighting in the area

Many residents, especially in Jabalia, do not dare to go anywhere. “No one is allowed in or out, anyone who tries will be shot,” Sarah Vuylsteke, project coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, wrote in a message on X. According to her, the organization’s employees are also trapped in Jabalia.

Meanwhile, Israeli tanks and soldiers have entered the area. Israel said there was fighting in the area, something Hamas’ armed branch confirmed in a statement. Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 300 Palestinians have been killed since the offensive began. It is not known how many of them were civilians or militants.

Israel appeared to expand the offensive after Israeli military spokesman Avichai Adraee announced in X that residents of several northern Gaza City neighborhoods must now also leave. If civilians remained in the region, ‘even in the shelters located there’, he wrote, they would be in a ‘dangerous combat zone’, he believed.

Food aid never arrived

Aid organizations are concerned about the consequences. The UN World Food Program said food aid had not reached northern Gaza since the start of this month because the main land route was closed. The World Health Organization (WHO) is considering how the second round of polio vaccination, which will start this week, should be carried out.

Giora Eiland, former head of Israel’s National Security Council, is now appearing increasingly frequently in Israeli media, and now also in Western media. Eiland was one of the inventors of the generals’ plot, a plan to bring Hamas to its knees by starving northern Gaza, which was devised by a group of former Israeli generals and presented to Netanyahu. Palestinians suspect that Israel actually wants to carry out this plan.

This happened as follows, wrote the AP news agency, which has a copy of the plan. First, much of the north, including Gaza City, was under siege. Residents were ordered to leave the southern region. They get ten days for this. The area is then tightly closed, no one is allowed to enter or leave. There is no food, no medicine, no fuel and no other relief supplies.

Work for a longer period of time

“They have to surrender or they will starve,” Eiland explained to the AP. Hamas or civilians, it doesn’t matter to him. Anyone still in the area would be considered a ‘combatant’. “This doesn’t mean that we’re going to kill everyone,” Eiland said. “That’s not necessary. People can no longer live there. The water will dry up.”

He and other generals believe this could destroy Hamas and encourage the group to release Israeli hostages. Israel would then occupy the territory for a longer period in an attempt to establish a government there.

It is not known whether the plan was also adopted by the Israeli army. In a private meeting last month at the Knesset parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Netanyahu reportedly said he was considering the plan, Israeli media reported.

There have been many explanations of this from ‘concerned Israeli officials’, but nothing more clear. For example, one person told the AP that ‘parts’ of the plan had already been implemented, while another said that Netanyahu was still studying it, like many of his other plans.

But last week’s bloody attacks, and orders for residents in the north to evacuate, sparked concerns that the plan was seen as an option. Also in human rights organizations.

“I am very concerned about this plan which states that if the population was given the opportunity to evacuate, but didn’t, suddenly everyone becomes a legitimate military target,” said Tania Hary, director of the Israeli NGO Gisha. “Such a thing is absolutely impossible.”

Also read:

In pictures: Gaza devastated after a year of war

A year after the Hamas attack, the Gaza Strip was destroyed. Underneath are the remains of a year’s worth of war: toxic substances, corpses and unexploded explosives.

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