Israel Mulls Plan To Indefinitely Expel 300,000 Palestinians From North Gaza
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers that he is considering the so-called "generals’ plan" to lay total siege to northern Gaza and expel all its Palestinian residents, the Times of Israel reported Monday.
When retired major general Giora Eiland presented the plan last week, he claimed it would "change the reality" on the ground in Gaza. "We have to tell the residents of north Gaza that they have one week to evacuate the territory, which then becomes a military zone, [a zone] in which every figure is a target and, most importantly, no supplies enter this territory." The remaining Hamas fighters would then be forced to surrender or starve, according to the plan.
Eiland was the former director of the National Security Council and former head of the Planning Department of the Israel Defense Forces.
Israeli national broadcaster Kan reported on Sunday that Netanyahu, in a closed-door meeting with the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that the plan "makes a lot of sense."
Eiland claimed that the ethnic cleansing and siege of the north of the strip, where some 300,000 Palestinians still live, is not only an effective military tactic but is also compliant with international law.
"What matters to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is land and dignity, and with this maneuver, you take away both land and dignity," he said.
Eiland has been critical of Israel’s current strategy in the war against Hamas’s military wing and Palestinian civilians in Gaza, saying it has not been harsh enough against the Palestinian population.
"You can’t win a war while this is the situation in Gaza," he said. "The slogan that ‘only military pressure will bring victory’ has no basis whatsoever. The wars of the 21st century are based on something else. The most important parameter is the population, and those who can control the population win the war."
In November, Eiland said that the spread of disease in Gaza is good for Israel. "After all, severe epidemics in the southern strip will bring victory closer and reduce fatalities among IDF soldiers," he wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth.
Likud MK Amit Halevi, a member of the committee, said the Eiland plan marked "the right direction" for Israeli policy in Gaza. "In order to defeat Hamas, we must control the land and the population. There is no other way to victory," he told the Times of Israel.
The plan does not reveal whether Palestinians could ever return to northern Gaza, one of its backers told CNN.
In October, a leaked document issued by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence recommended the total transfer of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, ensuring they would not be able to return.
The document recommends that Israel evacuate the Gazan population to Sinai during the war, establish tent cities and new cities in northern Sinai to accommodate the deported population, and then create a closed security zone stretching several kilometers inside Egypt. The deported Palestinians would not be allowed to return to any areas near the Israeli border.
In November, Israeli minister Ron Dermer proposed a plan to "thin out" the Gaza population by forcing civilians to flee to Egypt by land or to other parts of Africa and Europe by boat because the "sea is open to them." Many Israelis wish to conquer and destroy Gaza, ethnically cleanse it of Palestinians, and build settlements for Jews in their place.