Israel announced on Monday a new military campaign on the Gaza Strip, which provides for the ‘conquest’ of the Palestinian territory and will require, according to the army, the internal displacement of most ‘of its inhabitants.
This extension of military operations, approved by the Israeli war cabinet after 19 months of war against Hamas, provides for the conquest of the Gaza Strip and control of the ‘seized territories, according to an official source.
Sunday evening, the army had confirmed the recall of ‘tens of thousands of reservists’.
‘The operation includes a large-scale attack’ and ‘the displacement of most of the population of the Gaza Strip’ outside the combat zones, said Brigadier General Effi Defrin, spokesperson for the Israeli army.
The Gaza Strip, almost all of which have already been moved several times since the start of the war, has been subject to an airtight blockade by Israel since March 2 and prey to a serious humanitarian crisis.
For Aouni Aouad, who lives in a tent in the south of the territory, the announcement of the Israeli plan should hardly change the daily life of hundreds of thousands of displaced people who fight to survive.
‘Israel has no longer stopped war, killings, bombing, destruction, siege or famine that continue every day,’ underlines this man in his forties. ‘So how can he speak of intensification of military operations?’
‘Danger of death’
The United Nations continues to alert on the humanitarian disaster and the risk of famine to which the 2.4 million inhabitants of Gaza are exposed.
On Monday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was ‘alarmed’ by the Israeli plan.
But the cabinet believes that there is currently enough food ‘in Gaza and has agreed to the’ possibility of a humanitarian distribution ‘if it was necessary’, said the official source.
The objective displayed by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most right in the history of Israel, is still to ‘defeat’ the Islamist movement Hamas, which sparked the war with its unprecedented attack of October 7, 2023, and to ‘bring the hostages’ removed that day.
According to a senior security official, the time for military preparations authorizes a window for the negotiation of a hostage liberation agreement, by the end of the visit of the American president ‘Donald Trump in the Middle East, scheduled for May 13 to 16.
‘Unlike the wishes of more than 70% of the population’, the government has decided to put ‘all the hostages in danger of death’, commented the Family Forum, the largest association of hostages in Iteages in Israel, denouncing a plan that also threatens the life of our soldiers’.
The fighting in Gaza resulted in more than 850 Israeli soldiers.
During the meeting of the cabinet, Netanyahu said he wanted to ‘promote the Trump plan aimed at the residents of Gaza’, according to the official source.
In early February, Mr. Trump launched the idea of taking control of the Gaza Strip by the United States to rebuild it and make it the Riviera du Middle East ‘, after having expelled the population.
This project had sparked an international outcry, but the Israeli authorities refer to it regularly and created a special agency to allow the Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip.
‘The only aid that must enter Gaza is that intended to promote voluntary emigration,’ said Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of Internal Security and the figure of the extreme right.
‘Blackmail’
Israel accuses Hamas of diverting humanitarian aid and justifying its blockade by the need to put pressure on the movement so that it releases hostages.
‘The plan presented to us means that vast areas of Gaza (…) will remain deprived of supply’, noted the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office (OCHA), rejecting a project that contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles’.
Hamas on Monday accused Israel of ‘blackmail with humanitarian aid.
The Israeli army resumed its offensive on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending two months of truce.
The attack on October 7, 2023 resulted in the death of 1218 people on the Israeli side, for most civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
Of the 251 people kidnapped, 58 are still retained in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the Israeli army. Hamas also retains the body of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.
The Israeli reprisal campaign left at least 52,567 dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Hamas, deemed reliable by the UN.
/ATS
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