Israel says it will soon occupy 75% of Gaza, and it’s using control over aid to do it
Israel plans on concentrating Palestinians into isolated camps within Gaza after it takes over 75% of the territory, luring Palestinians into those zones by using aid as bait.
Hamas and the U.S. reportedly reached an “understanding” for a comprehensive ceasefire agreement in Gaza, but the Israeli government publicly rejected it and declared it unacceptable, according to Drop Site News on Monday. While the state of the latest round of ceasefire negotiations remains uncertain, the Israeli army announced on Sunday that it is planning on taking over 75% of Gaza and corralling its population into three concentrated zones across the Strip.
Israeli military sources told Haaretz that the Israeli army would take over this territory within two months and move Gaza’s population to three locations: Gaza City, the refugee camps of the central Gaza Strip in Deir al-Balah, and the coastal Mawasi area in Khan Younis.
The news comes amid worsening famine conditionsin Gaza following a months-long Israeli blockade preventing the entry of food to the Strip. Israel had announced a week ago that the distribution of aid through international organizations would be halted, to be replaced by a new aid delivery mechanism implemented by Israel under the auspices of a U.S.-backed private contractor, forcing Palestinians to move to designated distribution centers to receive limited rations, where they will be subject to security checks and biometric scanning.
On Tuesday, the first distribution point belonging to the U.S. contractor was overrun by starving Gazans, as the armed American mercenaries guarding the distribution point reportedly withdrew. An eyewitness at the scene told Mondoweiss on Tuesday that the site “looked like a large prison.”
The Gaza Government Media Office stated that the storming of the U.S.-backed aid distribution site represented “a miserable failure in its aid distribution project,” which it said was set up in “apartheid zones.”
Also read: ‘It looked like a large prison’: Chaos ensues at U.S.-Israeli-backed aid distribution site in Gaza.
These “zones” correspond to the three areas where the Israeli military intends to concentrate Gaza’s population. The Gaza government media office said that these “separation ghettos” for the distribution of limited amounts of aid are a form of “systematic political engineering designed to prolong starvation and dismantle Palestinian society.”
This is how Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza is connected to its new aid distribution plan.
Aid as bait to lure Gazans into concentration camps
The recently established American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is the contractor whose newly opened distribution facility was overrun on Tuesday. On Monday, the organization’s executive director, Jake Wood, unexpectedly resigned, citing the impossibility of implementing the new aid plan without abandoning “humanitarian principles.”
Wood’s statement following his resignation was the most recent in a line of condemnations by international humanitarian organizations of the GHF due to fears that it would be used by Israel to politicize and weaponize food distribution.
The GHF’s aid plan was called a “blueprint for ethnic cleansing” by a group of leading aid groups that lambasted the initiative.
“The GHF plan outlines the delivery of limited supplies to only 1.2 million people in Gaza,” even though there are over 2.2 million people in the Strip, the open letter stated.
“Israeli officials have acknowledged they hope to see some countries ‘begin to take in Palestinians’, thereby reducing the ‘gap’ between the aid capacity and the population size,” the statement added. “It is an admission that the plan includes the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, or worse, the abandonment of more than 1 million people to famine.”
The GHF plan has also been criticized for appearing to “reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic as part of a military strategy,” according to a joint statement of international aid groups on May 5, who said that “driving civilians into militarized zones to collect rations” would further entrench forced displacement. Another statement from UN aid teams on May 6 says the plan “appears to be a deliberate attempt to weaponize the aid.”
A month earlier, on April 8, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres rejected Israeli control over aid distribution in Gaza, stating that it risks “further controlling and callously limiting aid down to the last calorie and grain of flour.” Guterres added that the UN “will not participate in any arrangement that does not fully respect the humanitarian principles: humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality.”
What ‘Gideon’s Chariots’ and the GHF plan have in common
Israel’s intensifying military strikes on Gaza, parallel to the ongoing blockade, have exposed the strategy it has pursued since breaking the ceasefire in March — concentrating the people of Gaza into smaller and smaller zones ahead of facilitating their ethnic cleansing and permanent displacement. Israel’s announcement that it would occupy 75% of Gaza and confine people into ghettos is part of its expanded ground invasion to “conquer” all of Gaza, dubbed “Operation Gideon’s Chariots.”
The intention of continuing the war at all costs until achieving the ultimate objective of facilitating the so-called “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza is made all the easier once Palestinians are concentrated into these ghettoes to receive aid rations. This commitment to continuing the war no matter what has been further illuminated by recent statements from Israeli officials, who have become increasingly candid about their broader objectives for the Gaza Strip.
Shortly after initiating talks with Hamas in Doha and following the release of Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander, Netanyahu stated that Israel was open to reaching a “temporary” ceasefire, explicitly declaring that “if Hamas releases ten hostages, then we will receive them,” but insisting that Israel will later resume military operations.
Netanyahu’s previous statements align with the positions of his new appointee to the head of the Israeli internal intelligence service, David Zini, who was appointed last week to replace the previous intelligence chief, Ronen Bar. Zini has been quoted as telling military colleagues that he opposes prisoner exchange deals and that the war in Gaza is “eternal.”
Even the chief of staff of the Israeli army, Eyal Zamir, whom Netanyahu appointed last February, felt compelled to counter Zini’s position by saying last Friday that the war on Gaza was “not endless.” Israeli media interpreted Zamir’s statement as a rebuke of Zini’s position, which came at the height of ceasefire talks.
As international pressure increases on Israel, especially with the slight change of tone of European governments in criticizing Israeli conduct, Netanyahu’s government continues to refuse to commit to ending the war in Gaza.
As the Israeli military continues to expand “Gideon’s Chariots,” accompanied by efforts to concentrate the population into designated zones, it is facilitated, in part, by tight control over the distribution of humanitarian aid. Simultaneously, far-right settler groups who are key supporters of Netanyahu’s government march through the streets of Jerusalem in the thousands, chanting “Death to Arabs” and openly calling for the destruction of Gaza and the extermination of Palestinians.
The picture is unambiguous; any misunderstanding of it is a matter of choice, not confusion.
No comments:
Post a Comment