Israel continues to force Palestinians to leave northern Gaza. Mondoweiss reports:
“Israel’s siege and offensive on northern Gaza have been ongoing for 20 days, as part of what has been described as the implementation of Israel’s ‘Generals’ Plan,’ which aims to forcibly depopulate northern Gaza through deliberate starvation and extermination. Although the Generals’ Plan doesn’t include plans for settler colonization of the area after its ethnic cleansing, far-right Israeli politicians and settler groups have been advocating for settling Gaza since December of last year.
“On Monday, Israelis rallied at Kibbutz Be’eri 3 kilometers away from Gaza’s fence demanding to be allowed to settle in the Strip. The rally was attended by several Israeli ministers, according to Israeli media. Reports indicated that some 700 Israeli families at the event had signed up to move to the prospective Israeli settlements in Gaza.
“Northern Gaza was home to some 700,000 Palestinians before October 7, 2023. According to estimates, some 200,000 Palestinians continue to live in the area, which includes Jabalia, Beit Lahia, Twam, Sheikh Zayed, and Beit Hanoun.”
The “Generals’ Plan refers to a plan devised by Israeli Major General Giora Eiland, although parts of the plan have always been part of Netanyahu’s overall strategy in the Gaza. The plan, however, is most explicit on the forced relocation of Palestinians to southern Gaza. Middle East Eye reports:
“Once Palestinians have been removed from northern Gaza, which the plan anticipates will take a week, the second phase can proceed: the transformation of northern Gaza into a closed military zone.
“The area will, says the plan, be subject to a ‘full and tight blockade, which includes preventing movement to and from it, and preventing the entry of supplies, including food, fuel and water’.
“Anyone remaining will be treated as a combatant. The plan’s YouTube video states that the Hamas operatives who remain can choose to ‘surrender or die of starvation’. After that, ‘it will be possible to enter and cleanse the area of Gaza City with almost no enemy’.”
Middle East Eye interviewed Abdullah al-Muqayid, a resident of Northern Gaza, who eventually left for the south. The report is chilling:
“After an interrogation that lasted until sunset, the Israeli army ordered the residents to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip. However, reluctant to leave northern Gaza entirely, they moved to the adjacent Gaza City instead.
“‘One of the phrases the soldiers told us was, ‘Go south; you will never return to the north. The north will be ours, and we will build settlements there,'” he said.
‘There were martyrs and wounded people whom no one could help along the way’
“But we came to Gaza City. Along the way, there was a massive number of soldiers and tanks as far as the eye could see, as if they were invading a country, not merely civilians and unarmed individuals. We saw the bodies of martyrs on the ground, with dogs mauling them.”
“Muqayid managed to leave Gaza City, but he had to leave his elderly mother behind.
“She remained in Jabalia; she cannot leave, she cannot walk such a long distance and face the humiliation and insults we faced.”
The “Generals’ Plan” is not official policy of the Israeli government at this point, but The Times of Israel reports that in a recent meeting between US Secretary of State Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Prime Minister refused to rule it out publicly:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top aides sidestepped US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s request during a meeting Tuesday to publicly clarify that Israel is not seeking to lay siege to northern Gaza, a US official tells The Times of Israel.
Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer insisted during the meeting that Israel is not implementing the so-called General’s Plan aimed at isolating northern Gaza and argued that claims to the contrary have been detrimental to Israel’s public image, the US official says.
Blinken urged Netanyahu to clarify this publicly, but he and his aides demurred, the official adds.”
The Generals’ Plan is a clear violation of the Geneva Accords which forbids the forcible displacement of civilians in any occupied area. It is also completely inconsistent with US foreign policy which still calls for a “two-state” solution to the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. But Netanyahu likely sees the coming months as a window of opportunity: Americans are transfixed by the upcoming presidential election and the period between election day and the inauguration is a very difficult time to make significant foreign policy changes. Further, Netanyahu probably thinks that, if Israel quickly makes the annexation of northern Gaza a fait accompli, a President Trump would approve and a President Harris would be powerless to dislodge Israel until after inauguration, at which point US opposition would be moot.
The Generals’ Plan is not possible without US continued support. That support has two components: massive military and financial assistance; and the US missile interceptor systems which prevents Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran from inflicting heavy civilian casualties in Israel. Both are indispensable to the Generals’ Plan, but the US protective shield gives Netanyahu the freedom to do whatever he, or his right- wing cabinet members, Ben-Givr and Smotrich, want.
The US is a clear accomplice in this crime. If Netanyahu had to worry about significant civilian casualties (on the scale of the near 43,000 identified Palestinians bodies, not to mention the bodies buried under the rubble in Gaza), I doubt that he would currently be bombing the Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran with such abandon.
This circumstance places the US in a very delicate moral dilemma. In order to restrain Netanyahu, the US should lift its protective missile shield and allow civilian casualties at a scale necessary to change Netanyahu’s calculations. But that tactic is morally indefensible: innocent civilians cannot be used as a diplomatic tool. The US needs to continue to shield Israeli civilians.
The alternative is to use the military and financial support as a bludgeon. Netanyahu would then have to calculate how long he could continue the military operations without the infusion of weapons and wealth. That course of action lacks the immediacy of the costs of civilian casualties, but Netanyahu has got to start worrying about the long-term capabilities of Israel without US support.
In order to implement this tactic, US President Biden should immediately announce the suspension of US support unless Netanyahu publicly commits to no annexations of land in the Gaza and in the West Bank and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. It is long past time for the US to indulge Netanyahu’s political survival which is dependent on Ben-Givr and Smotrich. And the US needs to more vigorously pursue its own foreign policy interest which is a peace based on the two-state solution.
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