“For three and a half weeks, Israeli forces have been besieging the northern Gaza Strip. Israel has almost completely blocked the entry of humanitarian aid, thereby starving the hundreds of thousands of people who live there.” That’s how the lead editorial in the October 29, 2024, Israeli daily Haaretz begins.

“Given this, it’s no wonder that grave suspicions have arisen that Israel is effectively perpetrating ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza and that this operation is intended to permanently empty this area of Palestinians,” it continues, giving an accurate description of the latest stage in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

More than a year since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, the war Israel launched in response has claimed the lives of more than 43,000 Palestinians, injured over 100,000, and displaced more than 2 million people — virtually the entire prewar population of Gaza. It has turned most of the territory to rubble and destroyed or damaged 70% of its tree crops.

Now the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are trying to push Palestinians out of northern Gaza, perhaps with the goal of eventually re-establishing Jewish settlements there — an aim some ultrarightist Israeli officials have openly proclaimed.

More recent reports have amplified what’s outlined in the Haaretz editorial.

“UN humanitarian agency leaders described conditions in northern Gaza as ‘apocalyptic,’ stating that Palestinians in the area face ‘immediate risk of death from disease, starvation, or attacks,’” reported an article in the November 2 Haaretz.

“Haaretz reported this week that despite the IDF having achieved most of its objectives in the recent northern Gaza operation, its forces remain in the area under pressure from political leaders to prevent evacuated residents from returning to their homes,” the Israeli daily continued. “The IDF has acknowledged implementing parts of the so-called ‘Generals’ Plan,’^[1] which aims to push the population of northern Gaza southward beyond the Netzarim corridor.”^[2]

World-Outlook is publishing the editorial that follows for the information of our readers. We do not share many of the views aired in Haaretz, whether in articles or editorials. Its pages often express criticism (as well as support) of Israel’s policies, but not outright opposition to them. The editorial that follows refers to Israel now “sliding into ethnic cleansing.” But over a year ago, in No to Israel’s New Nakba in Gaza (I), World-Outlook reported the widespread evidence that Israel was already making Gaza “impossible to live in” for Palestinians.

However, it is of no small significance that an Israeli daily newspaper now openly acknowledges that Israel’s aggression in Gaza entails ethnic cleansing. That makes this editorial important, because it tells a necessary truth about the war, a truth that Israel’s government continues to deny.

The headline, text, and photo that follow are from the original. The endnotes are by World-Outlook.

— World-Outlook editors

*

Editorial | If It Looks Like Ethnic Cleansing, It Probably Is

Oct. 29, 2024

For three and a half weeks, Israeli forces have been besieging the northern Gaza Strip. Israel has almost completely blocked the entry of humanitarian aid, thereby starving the hundreds of thousands of people who live there. Information emerging from the besieged area is only partial, because ever since the war began, Israel has barred journalists from entering Gaza.

But even based on the little that has been revealed to the public, two things can be said about the siege. First, the scale of the civilian casualties from the army’s daily bombings of towns and refugee camps in northern Gaza – children, women, elderly people and men who are innocent of any crime – is enormous.

Moreover, medical and other aid facilities have largely collapsed, and other institutions are also collapsing. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of people are now at risk of starvation or are already suffering terrible hunger.

Israel says it told the residents that they needed to leave northern Gaza, and even now, they can still move southward on routes the army has designated for this purpose. Thus the residents, many of whom have already been uprooted two or three times or even more from the places to which they have fled the terrors of war, are now being asked to move again. Yet Israel has refrained from giving the displaced any guarantee that they will be able to return once the war ends.

Given this, it’s no wonder that grave suspicions have arisen that Israel is effectively perpetrating ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza and that this operation is intended to permanently empty this area of Palestinians.

This suspicion fits with both the principles of the “generals’ plan” being pushed by Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland – a plan Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has denied implementing – and the demands of the Jewish supremacist parties in the governing coalition that are openly pursuing a policy of mass expulsions and the renewal of Jewish settlement in northern Gaza.

Ethnic cleansing is both a moral crime and a legal one. Criminal law treats mass expulsions as both a war crime and a crime against humanity. Horrifyingly, some members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government want to commit these crimes.

As soon as the war began, they began calling for “erasing Gaza” and for perpetrating a “second Nakba.” But many Israelis made light of such statements, and the law enforcement system, headed by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, refrained from dealing with this incitement to commit crimes.

Now, we can see the results: Israel is sliding into ethnic cleansing; its soldiers are carrying out the criminal policies of the messianic, Kahanist right; and even the opposition on the center and center-left isn’t making a peep. This consensus behind ethnic cleansing is shameful, and every public leader who doesn’t demand an end to the de facto expulsion is supporting this crime and has become a party to it.

If this process doesn’t stop immediately, hundreds of thousands of people will become refugees, entire communities will be destroyed and the moral and legal stain of this crime will cling to and pursue every Israeli.

The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.

NOTES

[1] The “generals’ plan” refers to avoiding a longer war of attrition with Hamas by “giving Palestinians in northern Gaza an ultimatum to leave and then declaring the area a closed military zone,” as The Guardian, a British daily, reported in its October 26 article ‘Israel is trying to erase our presence’: Palestinians say ‘generals’ plan’ to clear north Gaza is under way. “Those who remain,” it continued, “would be considered combatants and therefore legitimate targets…. Water, food, fuel and medical supplies would be completely cut.”

[2] The Netzarim Corridor is a zone of occupation that Israel has set up in the Gaza Strip over the last year, since it launched its war in Gaza in response to the October 7, 2023, attacks led by Hamas. The corridor splits the strip into a northern and a southern zone. According to the Institute for the Study of War, in July 2024 Israel increased the width of the corridor from 2 to 4 km. The corridor is named for the site of the former Israeli settlement that it includes.

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