The 400,000 people trapped in northern Gaza are facing unprecedented annihilation by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) for the second week in a row, in an operation interpreted by observers as a prelude to Israel’s plans to annex the zone illegally.
The new escalation began on 6 October with a violent ground invasion of Israeli troops which destroyed what remained of Jabalia city. It killed more than 150, according to Palestinian health officials. The area was pounded by Israeli war jets, wiping off the city’s only functioning bakery and water wells, and trapping residents in what remains of their homes and shelters.
Witnesses said Israel is also using advanced barrel bombs to specifically target areas where dozens of families have sheltered, while the bodies remain strewn on the streets unburied, since Israeli snipers shoot at any moving Palestinian. Palestinian photojournalist Hasan Hamad was killed in the Israeli strikes, days after he was warned by an Israeli officer to stop filming in Gaza. Hamad’s death marks the 175th journalist to be killed in Gaza by Israel in one year.
Israel also reinforced a complete siege of northern Gaza preventing fuel, basic food, and medical supplies from entering the area. Survivors from northern Gaza say they’ve been without water or food for more than two weeks now. Over 50,000 people have been displaced from Jabalia, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
According to Youssef Labd, a Palestinian photojournalist in Gaza, the IOF pounded hundreds of homes to pave the way for the construction of new roads encircling the northern district. The Israeli military operation is assisted by “massive electronic techniques for surveillance and killing Palestinians” including watchtowers, cameras, and an army of quadcopter drones, he posted on Facebook. “People are dying and being massacred in silence,” he said. “There is no media here.”
Earlier this week, the Israeli military renewed orders for the third time, instructing Palestinians still living there to head south to a packed area in southern Gaza designed by the military as “a humanitarian zone.” The IOF also ordered northern Gaza’s three main hospitals to evacuate both patients and medical staff.
Since the war started in October 2023, the IOF invaded Jabalia six times, most recently last week as the occupation forces ordered residents to leave for southern Gaza. Those who attempted to do so, however, were shot by the IOF, forcing residents to stay put, deprived of life essentials.
Rights groups and observers have warned that this latest ground invasion of northern Gaza and the forceful transfer of its population is the implementation of a publicly announced plan to starve Palestinians into leaving their homes and allow the IOF to annex new Palestinian territory.
A joint statement by four Israeli NGOs on 14 October called on the international community to take immediate action to prevent Israel from forcibly transferring hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have remained in northern Gaza.
The Israeli ceasefire coalition — Gisha, B’Tselem, PHR-I and Yesh Din — said that there are alarming signs that the Israeli military is beginning quietly to implement the Generals’ Plan, also referred to as the Eiland Plan, which calls for the complete forcible transfer of the civilians of the northern Gaza Strip through tightening the siege on the area and starving the population.
The NGOs warned the international community’s “continuation of the ‘wait and see’ approach will enable Israel to liquidate northern Gaza.”
The brainchild of retired Major-General Giora Eiland, the Eiland or General’s Plan — also known as “surrender or starve” — was launched in an Israeli campaign in November that explicitly called for the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza.
In February, Israel built a corridor from Israel to the Mediterranean Sea, cutting through the Gaza Strip, and separating its northern zone from the rest of the enclave. The seven km long Netzarim corridor allows full control of northern Gaza by Israel on all sides, according to the plan which envisions the forcible transfer of all Palestinians who live there and imposing a “complete siege”. After a week’s notice, the IOF will announce that the northern area of the Gaza Strip is a closed military area. The same plan also envisions the same implementation of the siege of other parts of Gaza such as Rafah and Central Gaza, coupled with the forcible transfer of their Palestinian population.
On Monday, Israeli troops targeted an aid distribution centre in Jabalia where dozens were standing in line for food. At least 10 were killed and more than 40 injured. On Tuesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said one doctor was killed when he tried to help the people wounded by Israeli strikes in Al-Falouja in Jabalia. It added that several medics were wounded when their ambulance came under Israeli fire in the northern and southern Gaza Strip.
Jabalia saw fierce fighting by the Palestinian resistance in the earlier months of the war, before the IOF announced dismantling Hamas’ military capabilities there in January this year. But as the resistance continued to retaliate in different areas throughout the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military announced its resumption of attacks in northern Gaza several times after claiming that Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, have successfully regrouped in the area once more.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said that no food aid had entered northern Gaza since 1 October. “The north is basically cut off and we’re not able to operate there,” said Antoine Renard, the WFP country director of Palestinian territories. Concerns over a hunger crisis have risen in Gaza roughly a month after a UN independent investigator on the right to food accused Israel of carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians.
Central Gaza was not spared. Last week, at least four Palestinians were killed and several were injured in an Israeli air attack on tents housing forcibly displaced people in the yard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah.
On Sunday, Hizbullah launched its most devastating attack on Israel in a year by targeting the elite Golani Brigade base south of Haifa, causing over 70 casualties including four confirmed deaths. Israel responded in the early hours of Monday night by bombing Al-Aqsa Hospital where dozens of makeshift tents housed patients, several of whom were burned to death.
Videos and photos showing the incineration of one patient who was visibly lying in bed with his arm attached to an IV drip have since circulated on social media platforms. The patient who was burned alive turned out to be 19-year-old Shaaban Al-Dalu, a software engineering student at Al-Azhar University of Gaza, which was detonated by the IOF in November 2023.
Al-Dalu’s brother said Shaaban was injured in an earlier Israeli strike which targeted Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Mosque where he had been sleeping last week on 6 October. Shaaban was receiving medical care in one of the tents set up by the hospital to treat patients when he was burned alive on Monday. “They bombed our tent at 1.30. My brother and mother died in the fire,” his surviving brother said.
Astatement by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) described Israel’s starvation of Palestinians and evacuation orders in northern Gaza as “devastating”. Adrian Zimmerman, an ICRC official, appealed for only one thing on Tuesday. “People must be able to flee safely, without facing further danger,” he said.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 17 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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