The Israeli army will invade the entire Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed this Thursday afternoon, hours before the Security Cabinet meeting where the country's top authorities are expected to officially approve the full occupation of the enclave. Israel's military leadership, the families of the captives, and the humanitarian sector have rejected the troop expansion in the Strip for various reasons, but the veteran Israeli leader has asserted that it is necessary for Israel to"free itself and the people of Gaza from the horrific terror of Hamas."
In an interview with the American television network Fox News, Netanyahu indicated that Israel does not intend to perpetuate its occupation of the Palestinian enclave or annex it, but rather to control it temporarily until conditions allow for an Israeli withdrawal.
“Yes, we want to do it to ensure our security and remove Hamas from there,” he responded in that interview when asked if Israel would occupy the entire enclave. “We will allow the Gazan population to free itself from Hamas, and then we will hand [the Strip] over to a civilian administration that is not Hamas or anyone who advocates the destruction of Israel.” Netanyahu did not go into detail about who might be willing to take over the Israeli occupation in the future, but did mention the possibility of “Arab forces” governing the territory “appropriately.”
Approval of the Israeli expansion could now lead to the forced expulsion of one million Gazans living in Gaza City, representing half of the enclave's population. This is what Israeli media outlets, such as Channel 12, predict will happen during the first phase of the new Israeli military project. This phase would last several weeks and involve pushing the entire population to the south of the enclave.
In a second phase, Israel would launch an offensive against the areas where it believes Hamas is hiding hostages, after ordering their evacuation. At the same time, the US is expected to announce new efforts by the White House to increase the flow of humanitarian aid in coordination with Israel. These efforts will consist of expanding the self-proclaimed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), where Gazans are shot at daily, from four distribution areas to 16.
Army chief Eyal Zamir and the families of the captives have expressed their opposition to these plans, believing they jeopardize the survival of the 20 hostages believed to be still alive. The humanitarian sector, for its part, asserts that the expansion of the occupation will lead to an increase in civilian deaths and an impossible situation to manage. If implemented, the new Israeli offensive will involve the deployment of troops to the 12% of Gazan territory where the majority of the population is concentrated, and where troops will encounter crowds of people, frail and starving, exposed to the elements.
“Abandonment of the entire population”
“If the world allows it, it will mean abandoning the entire population,” laments Ahmed Bayram, communications officer for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). Israeli expansion, he says, “will mean death in every corner and the spread of disease.” Bayram projects the situation from the present, which he already considers catastrophic. Israel, he asserts, is concentrating people in territories where there are enormous shortages, forcing them to fight over water, food, and space. “You can't displace an entire population without guaranteeing their protection,” he objects.
The NRC, one of the groups dedicated to collecting data on the state of shelters in Gaza, reports that 288,000 families in the enclave are spending their days and nights under inadequate shelter. “That means they are on the streets, in damaged buildings, or sleeping in dilapidated tents,” Bayram explains. Again, most of these families are located in the 12% of the territory that Israel could invade. At the same time, Israel is preventing the entry of new tents or other types of shelters, according to Bayram via voice messages sent from Amman, the Jordanian capital.
Deaths from shrapnel are another likely consequence of the expansion of the Israeli occupation. This is the belief of José Mas, head of the Doctors Without Borders Emergency Unit in Barcelona, where he is in direct contact with the teams in Gaza. If the offensive moves into these overcrowded areas, he states via text messages,"the only possible outcome is greater suffering for a civilian population already experiencing a catastrophic humanitarian situation." He goes further: "A military operation in an environment like this poses enormous risks for the civilian population and has enormous potential to exponentially increase the number of direct victims of violence."
Mas sees this possible Israeli maneuver as a continuation of what came before. He points out that Gaza is suffering"a genocide that takes different forms" in which "everything necessary for life is being systematically destroyed." He gives as an example access to food, where more than 800 people have been shot dead in distribution areas of the GHF, the opaque entity that Israel launched at the end of May with US support while marginalizing the traditional UN-led humanitarian system.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) published a report this Thursday describing the organization's distribution areas as"death traps" and demanding that governments and donors withdraw all support for the project. The investigation compiles clinical data and testimonies collected at two MSF centers in the south of the enclave, located near GHF distribution centers. This proximity meant that some of those shot at these distribution points were transported to MSF teams.
Between June 7 and July 24, these two clinics recorded 28 deaths and a total of 1,380 injuries. The influx of victims, mostly gunshot wounds, when the GHF opened its facilities, guarded by Israeli troops and US contractors, became a pattern. According to the report, MSF teams are put on alert when the GHF announces activity.
This number of wounded includes 71 children who were hit by bullets. Among them, a 12-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl. But the majority of the wounded are men under 30, reflecting what MSF considers a"survival strategy" of the families. This strategy consists of sending to these centers men capable of walking long distances at night, of advancing among soldiers and hostilities, and of running and fighting with others to get a bag of food.
“I'm an ordinary citizen,” says Mahmoud, 39, a patient quoted in the report. “I'm a university graduate. I'm married. I have children I can't even feed.” He says walking to the GHF distribution points is humiliating. “As you walk, you automatically start crying. Not just for yourself. For the people. For all of us.” Suddenly, he was shot twice in the leg. But no one could help him, he explains, because everyone around him was “exhausted.” “It's like a zombie movie. No matter how hard I try, I can't explain it in words,” he concludes.
