Israel-Hamas: Israel’s controversial plan to evacuate all of northern Gaza

Israel-Hamas: Israel’s controversial plan to evacuate all of northern Gaza
Israel-Hamas: Israel’s controversial plan to evacuate all of northern Gaza

Image source, Reuters

photo caption, Palestinians and aid groups suspect that Israel is gradually adopting a new tactic in northern Gaza.
Item information
  • Author, Jeremy Bowen
  • Author’s title, International Editor, BBC News
  • 1 hour

The Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) published a message on social media this Saturday morning in which he warned the inhabitants of the “D5” area in northern Gaza to move south. .

Zone “D5” corresponds to a square within the grid overlaid on IDF maps.

For them, it is a block that is divided into several dozen smaller areas.

This message, the last in a series, read: “The IDF is operating with great force against terrorist organizations and will continue to do so for a long time to come. The designated area, including shelters located there, is considered a dangerous combat zone. The area must be evacuated immediately along the Saladino highway towards the humanitarian zone”.

Attached to the message was a map with a large yellow arrow pointing from block D5 towards southern Gaza.

The Saladin Highway is the main north-south route.

The message does not promise a quick return to the places where people have been living, an area that has been pulverized during a year of repeated Israeli attacks.

The core of the message is that the IDF will use “great force (…) for a long time.”

In other words, don’t expect to return soon.

The humanitarian zone designated by Israel in the message is Al Mawasi, which was previously an agricultural area on the coast near Rafah (Gaza’s southern border with Egypt).

It is overcrowded and no safer than many other parts of Gaza.

BBC Verify has tracked at least 18 airstrikes in the area.

Hamas has sent its own messages to the 400,000 people remaining in northern Gaza, an area that was formerly the urban heart of the Strip with a population of 1.4 million.

Hamas tells them not to move. The south, they say, is just as dangerous.

On top of that, Hamas warns them that they will not be allowed to return.

Despite Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardments, many people do not seem to move from their places.

When I went down to an area overlooking northern Gaza, I could hear explosions and saw plumes of smoke rising.

The intensity reminded me of the first months of the war.

Smoke rises from the rubble.

Image source, Reuters

photo caption, Despite the bombings, there are people who stayed in northern Gaza to care for vulnerable family members.

Some of the people who have stayed in northern Gaza when so many others have already fled south do so to stay with vulnerable relatives.

Others belong to families linked to Hamas.

According to the laws of war, that does not automatically make them belligerent.

One tactic that has been used over the past year by civilians who want to avoid IDF operations without risking finding themselves in the overcrowded and dangerous south of Gaza is to move to other places in the north – for example from Beit Hanoun to the city of Gaza -, while the IDF operates near their homes or shelters.

When the army leaves, they return.

According to BBC colleagues who are in daily contact with Palestinians in Gaza, the IDF is trying to prevent that from happening.

They are channeling families that move in one direction, through Saladino.

“Where are we going?”

Israel does not allow journalists into Gaza to report on the war, except for short, infrequent and highly supervised trips with the military.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says that At least 128 Palestinian media workers died in Gaza since the war began.

Those Palestinian journalists who were already in the Strip on October 7 continue to do brave work.

In northern Gaza, since Israel returned to the offensive, panicked families are filmed as they flee, often with small children helping them by carrying oversized backpacks.

One of them sent a brief interview with a woman named Manar al Bayar who was running down the street with a child in her arms.

As she hurriedly walked, half running, leaving the Jabalia refugee camp, she recounted: “They told us we had five minutes to leave the school in Fallujah. Where are we going? In the south of Gaza there are murders. In the west of Gaza Gaza are bombing people. Where are we going, oh God? God is our only chance.”

The journey is hard. Sometimes, Gazans say, the IDF shoots those who move.

The IDF, for its part, insists that its soldiers comply with strict rules of combat that respect international humanitarian law.

A group of Palestinians moving through rubble.

Image source, Getty Images

photo caption, Some Palestinians began moving south after the IDF order to leave the area they call “D5” in Gaza.

But the head of protection at the British NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians, Liz Allcock, maintains that evidence presented by wounded civilians suggests they were attacked.

“When we receive patients in hospitals, we see a large number of women, children and people of, if you will say, non-combatant age, who have direct shots to the head, to the spine, to the extremities, which is very indicative of a direct targeted attack“he noted.

Once again, the UN and aid agencies working in Gaza say that Israeli military pressure is deepening what is already a humanitarian catastrophe.

Desperate messages are being transmitted from the remaining hospitals in northern Gaza claiming to be running out of fuel to power the generators that keep the hospitals running and seriously injured patients alive.

Some hospitals report that their buildings were attacked by Israel.

The “Plan of the Generals”

The suspicion among the Palestinians, the UN and aid agencies is that the IDF is gradually adopting a new tactic, or part of it, to clear northern Gaza.

It is what is known “Plan of the Generals”.

It was proposed by a group of retired high-ranking officers, led by Maj. Gen. (ret.) Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser.

Like most Israelis, these retired military personnel are frustrated and angry because a year has passed since the start of the war and their country has still not achieved its goals of destroying Hamas and freeing all the hostages.

The “Plan of the Generals” is a new idea that, according to its promoters, can, from Israel’s perspective, break the deadlock.

People around a semi-destroyed school due to bombings.

Image source, Getty Images

photo caption, Consequences of the Israeli attack on a school converted into a shelter in Jabalia last month. The UN and humanitarian aid agencies say that Israeli military pressure is worsening what is already a humanitarian catastrophe.

At its core is the idea that Israel can force Hamas and its leader, Yahya Sinwar, to surrender by increasing pressure on the entire population of the north.

The first step is to order civilians out through evacuation corridors that take them south of Wadi Gaza, an east-west stream that has become a dividing line in Gaza since the Israeli invasion last October. .

Eiland believes Israel should have reached an agreement immediately to recover the hostages, even if it meant withdrawing from Gaza completely.

A year later, other means are necessary, he alleges.

In his office in central Israel he laid out the core of the plan.

“Given that we have already surrounded the northern part of Gaza in the last nine or ten months, what we should do is this: tell the 300,000 residents [que la ONU estima en 400.000] who still live in the northern part of Gaza who have to leave this area and give them 10 days to leave through safe corridors that Israel will provide,” he said.

“And after that time, this entire area will become a military zone. And everyone Hamas members, whether combatants or civilians, will continue to have two options: surrender or starve“he continued saying.

Major General (retired) Giora Eiland.

Image source, Oren Rosenfeld/BBC

photo caption, Major General (ret.) Giora Eiland leads the group proposing a tactic for northern Gaza.

Eiland wants Israel to seal the areas once evacuation corridors are closed.

Anyone left behind will be treated as an enemy combatant.

The area would be under siege and the army would block the entry of all supplies of food, water and other elements necessary for life.

The retired major general believes the pressure would become unbearable and what remains of Hamas would quickly crumble, freeing the surviving hostages and giving Israel the victory it craves.

The United Nations Food Program states that The current offensive in Gaza is having a “disastrous impact on the food security of thousands of Palestinian families”.

The main crossings into northern Gaza, it says, were closed and no food aid has entered the Strip since October 1.

Mobile kitchens and bakeries were forced to suspend operations due to the airstrikes.

The only functioning bakery in the north, which receives support from this program, caught fire when it was hit by explosive ammunition.

The situation in the south is almost as serious.

It is unclear whether the IDF adopted the “Generals’ Plan” in part or in whole, but circumstantial evidence from what is being done in Gaza suggests that it is, at the very least, a strong influence on the tactics being used. against the population.

The BBC sent a list of questions to the IDF, but received no response.

The ultranationalists in Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet want to replace the Palestinians in northern Gaza with Jewish settlers.

“Our heroic fighters and soldiers are destroying the evil of Hamas and we will occupy the Gaza Strip (…) To tell the truth, where there are no settlements, there is no security,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, among his numerous statements on the issue.

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