Netanyahu Mulls Plan to Starve Out Gazans

Date: 14 October 2024 - 22:12

News ID: ۱۳۲۴۴۲

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS (Dispatches) — Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Palestinians, a plan that, if implemented, could trap without food or water hundreds of thousands unwilling or unable to leave their homes.
The Zionist regime has issued many evacuation orders for the north throughout the yearlong war, the most recent of which was Sunday. The plan proposed to Netanyahu and the Israeli parliament by a group of retired generals would escalate the pressure, giving Palestinians a week to leave the northern third of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, before declaring it a closed military zone.
Those who remain would be considered combatants — meaning military regulations would allow troops to kill them — and denied food, water, medicine and fuel, according to a copy of the plan given to The Associated Press by its chief architect.
The plan calls for Israel to maintain control over the north for an indefinite period to attempt to create a new administration without Hamas, splitting the Gaza Strip in two.
One official with knowledge of the matter said parts of the plan are already being implemented, without specifying which parts. A second official, who is Israeli, said Netanyahu “had read and studied” the plan, “like many plans that have reached him throughout the war,” but didn’t say whether any of it had been adopted.
On Sunday, the occupying regime launched an invasion of the Jabaliya refugee camp north of the city. The amount of aid reaching the north has declined significantly since Oct. 1, according to the UN.
Human rights groups say the plan would likely starve civilians and that it flies in the face of international law, which prohibits using food as a weapon and forcible transfers. Accusations that Israel is intentionally limiting food to Gaza are central to the genocide case brought against it at the International Court of Justice, charges Israel denies.
A coalition of Israeli NGOs on Monday urged the international community to act, noting that “there are alarming signs that the Israeli military is beginning to quietly implement” the plan.
“States have an obligation to prevent the crimes of starvation and forcible transfer,” they wrote, warning that continuing a “‘wait and see’ approach will enable Israel to liquidate northern Gaza.”
So far, very few Palestinians have heeded the latest evacuation order. Some are older, sick or afraid to leave their homes, but many fear there’s nowhere safe to go and that they will never be allowed back. Israel has prevented those who fled earlier in the war from returning.
The plan has emerged as Hamas has shown enduring strength, firing rockets into Tel Aviv and regrouping in areas after Israeli troops withdraw, bringing repeated offensives.
After a year of devastating war, Israel has far fewer ground troops in Gaza than it did a few months ago and in recent weeks has turned its attention to Hezbollah, launching an invasion of southern Lebanon. There is no sign of progress on a ceasefire in either front.
Israel’s invasion the strip has martyred more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, with more than half of the them women and children.
The Zionist military attacked tents housing displaced people at Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, creating a fire which martyred four people and wounded scores of others.
Medical sources cited by Wafa news agency said that the blaze, which broke out following Israeli bombardment early on Monday morning, also wounded around 70 others in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
Footage on social media showed tents ablaze and people desperately attempting to douse the fires and rescue people caught in it.
Mahmoud Wahi, who was also seeking refuge at the hospital, said the attack had given him “chills”.
“I saw people burning alive and couldn’t do anything to help,” he said.
The images emerging from Gaza showing burned children and civilians after Israeli airstrikes are “horrendous”, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer said.
“Unfortunately, this conflict forces

us to see the most horrendous images. And whenever civilians and children die, it is nothing but horrendous,” Fischer said.
The Generals’ Plan was presented to the parliament last month by a group of retired generals and high-ranking officers, according to publicly available minutes. Since then, officials from the prime minister’s office called seeking more details, according to its chief architect, Giora Eiland, a former head of the security council.
Israeli media reported that Netanyahu told a closed parliamentary military committee session that he was considering the plan.
“They will either have to surrender or to starve,” Eiland said.
Human rights groups are appalled.
“I’m most concerned by how the plan seems to say that if the population is given a chance to evacuate and they don’t, then somehow they all turn into legitimate military targets, which is absolutely not the case,” said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli organization dedicated to protecting Palestinians’ right to move freely within Gaza.
The copy of the plan shared with the AP says that if the strategy is successful in northern Gaza, it could then be replicated in other areas, including tent camps further to the south sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.