Last week, Brig Gen Itzik Cohen, a senior IDF officer, quietly admitted what the international community has long been reluctant to acknowledge: that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, and deceiving the world about its true objectives in the besieged territory. He made the admission during a closed briefing to Israeli journalists last Tuesday regarding the army’s activities in the north of the strip. Israel’s forces, he boasted, were getting closer to the “complete evacuation” of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya – Gaza’s three northernmost cities, which have been under intense Israeli bombardment since early October. “There is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes,” Cohen continued, before adding that his “clear orders” were to “create a cleansed space”.
The army hastened to distance itself from Cohen’s comments after they garnered the attention of the international media: what may have sounded like war crimes, a spokesperson clarified, was merely a remark taken out of context. Yet what we see playing out on the ground in northern Gaza is exactly as Cohen described it: tens of thousands of civilians forced out of homes, shelters and hospitals, day after day, by airstrikes, artillery fire, quadcopter drones or armed battalions arriving at their door – who make sure to demolish or burn whatever is left behind.
Remaining residents are being starved; some are forced to survive on salt and water alone. With no food entering the besieged areas for more than a month, global food security experts have warned of a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent”.
Israel claims its current operation in northern Gaza – resembling an even more brutal version of the now infamous “generals’ plan” – was launched to quell Hamas’s attempts to re-establish a foothold in the area. The army is certainly encountering small pockets of Hamas fighters, and sustaining losses in the process. Yet senior defence officials told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper soon after the campaign began that the political echelon was pushing for a different goal altogether: annexation.
A second high-profile admission last week, by Israel’s outgoing defence minister, appeared to confirm this. Yoav Gallant, who had been unceremoniously fired two days earlier by Benjamin Netanyahu, made use of his final hours in office to have a frank discussion with some of the families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. In comments that received less international media attention than those of Cohen, Gallant reportedly stated that there was no military justification for continuing the war or keeping Israeli forces inside the strip. “There’s nothing left in Gaza to do,” he told the families. “The major [objectives] have been achieved. I fear we are staying there just because there is a desire to stay there.”
That desire, it seems, is getting stronger by the day among a growing segment of the Israeli right who see this as a moment of redemption. With northern Gaza cleansed of its Palestinian inhabitants, Israeli settlers – including the hidden architects of the generals’ plan – will be able to do what they have been dreaming about since Israel’s “disengagement” from the occupied territory in 2005, and baying for since the very first days of the current war: re-establish Jewish settlements in the territory. Indeed, they already have the plans drawn up.
This, of course, is not official Israeli policy – at least not yet. But last week’s statements by Cohen and Gallant certainly provide strong indications that it is where we’re heading. Another indication came in the form of the two additional far-right ministers invited to join Israel’s security cabinet at the start of this week: Orit Strook, the minister of settlements and national missions, and Yitzhak Wasserlauf, the minister for the development of the periphery, the Negev and the Galilee. If you were looking for the Knesset members best positioned to advise on the settlement of Gaza, these would be your go-to candidates.
And, as Israel continues its preparations to make this a reality, the final piece of the puzzle may have just fallen into place. The return to the White House of Donald Trump, whose previous tenure was marked by the renunciation of longstanding US and international consensus positions on Israel-Palestine, puts American support for Israeli annexation of northern Gaza firmly on the table. Whether it’s in the context of a revamped “deal of the century” or a less grandiose agreement whereby Netanyahu gets what he wants in exchange for “winding down” hostilities in the south of the strip, a permanent Israeli seizure of at least part of the territory appears dangerously imminent.
Meanwhile, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, announced that he has his sights set on an even bigger prize: sovereignty over the West Bank within the forthcoming year. Under the shadow of war, he has already made significant strides towards this goal, building on the settler movement’s successes of years gone by. Who’s to say Trump won’t oblige him?
For more than a year, international pressure has failed to put the brakes on Israel’s crazed onslaught on Gaza, which many experts have termed a genocide. International courts are unable to keep pace with the carnage on the ground, while a series of empty threats from Washington has further emboldened Israel’s far-right government and its base, who will be feeling invincible after Trump’s victory.
The president-elect, erratic as he is, may yet be swayed in a different direction by his Saudi confidants, or the outgoing Biden administration could take a decisive parting swing at Israel in its final weeks. But with the probability of both scenarios appearing remote, it is up to the rest of the international community to bring real pressure to bear against Israel in the form of arms embargos and comprehensive sanctions. For more than 43,000 Palestinians killed so far by Israel’s assault on Gaza, which may be a significant undercount, it’s already too late – but countless more lives depend on it.
Ben Reiff is a senior editor at +972 magazine
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