Israel’s open secret behind Saturday’s massive attack – the start of a long, large-scale ground invasion of Gaza to topple the country’s ruling Hamas – appears to be just hours away. “Are you ready for the next phase?” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the troops stationed on the outskirts of Gaza on Saturday afternoon. Then army spokesman Daniel Hagari solemnly declared the goal of the operation: “To completely destroy the government and military capabilities of Hamas and terrorist organizations.” That is, to overthrow the Islamist movement, whose political wing has ruled there since 2007 and whose armed wing is the deadliest day on Israeli territory, with 1,400 deaths (mainly civilians) and 126 kidnappings.
The army’s “offensive plans” include a “coordinated and integrated attack on land, sea and air” that would reach “the heart of Gaza.” This heart is the one that tens of thousands of Palestinians have left since Friday in the wake of the Israeli ultimatum. The army ordered 1.1 million people, almost half of its residents (including those in Gaza City, the capital), to move south. “Leave Gaza City. See you. For your own safety and that of your families. “We attacked Gaza City because it is the center of Hamas’s government and military capabilities,” Hagari told those who remained that Saturday.
Meanwhile, Israel continues its heaviest bombardment in the Gaza Strip. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, they caused 2,215 deaths in a week, including 734 minors. According to the United Nations, there are almost half a million displaced people and about 1,300 buildings destroyed. The United Nations warns that even their shelters are “no longer safe.”
Some 35,000 people are seeking shelter and crowded into facilities at Al Shifa, Gaza’s main hospital. Israel ordered the evacuation of civilians from this area. Its director, Mohamed Abu Selim, has assured that a crowd of refugees is filling the building and its outdoor terrace. “People believe this is the only safe place after their homes were destroyed and they were forced to flee,” a Gaza health ministry official said.
With all border crossings closed, the Gaza Strip is holding its breath. The Israeli ultimatum, thanks to the efforts of the foreign ministries, also affects foreigners living in the Gaza Strip who are trying to leave for Egypt through the Rafah border crossing. Cairo has made it clear that it will not allow the mass entry of refugees.
Hamas has tried to prevent the exodus, which has left behind scenes of chaos and despair, with messages from mosques. He considers it an “extraordinarily courageous and brutal mission to forcibly expel Palestinians from their land.” But tens of thousands of people (hundreds of thousands according to the Israeli army) have left their homes heading south, on two parallel roads along the 42 kilometer long Route that separates the southern and northern tips. Israel allowed them to function as safe crossings for hours, despite the Hamas government’s assurances that Israeli bombings during these movements killed 70 people. UN Secretary-General António Guterres described such a massive population movement as “extremely dangerous and in some cases simply impossible”.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
A “new phase”
Israel did not want to announce a deadline for the evacuation of civilians. But he has made clear his intention to move on to a “new phase” soon. “We realize it will take time, but they need to move south […] “We are doing everything possible to achieve this, we understand the complexity, but we are determined to act against Hamas,” said the Israeli army spokesman for international media, Richard Hecht, in a video conference this Saturday.
Even before the ultimatum, many Gazans had been displaced, either because their homes had been destroyed or because they were seeking refuge. Two-thirds of the displaced belong to the 92 schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The exodus to the south links the collective memory of Gaza with the Nakba, the flight or expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians – two-thirds of those who lived in what is now Israel – and the destruction of more than 400 cities between 1947 and The End of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1949 is still very present as an element of identity in Gaza, even among young people who only know it from stories. 80% of Gaza’s population has refugee status as it is passed on to their descendants.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, heavily criticized by Israel, alluded to the Nakba this Saturday when she assured that the Palestinians “are in serious danger of massive ethnic cleansing.” Albanese called on the international community to “urgently negotiate a ceasefire between Hamas and Israeli occupying forces.”
UNRWA has also warned that the lives of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are at risk due to water shortages. Israel has maintained a “complete blockade” since Monday, with no supplies of food, fuel and electricity. And two human rights NGOs – Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – have denounced Israel’s use of white phosphorus, which causes lifelong burns, in its bombings. Israel denies it. Its use is not banned, but it is prohibited in densely populated areas like the Strip, a hive of people and buildings close together and crowded, except for some larger neighborhoods and agricultural or abandoned land.
The Israeli army assures that it is “intensifying preparations for the next phases of the war throughout the area, with a focus on a major ground operation.” And that it has set up “advanced logistics centers” with the aim of enabling soldiers to “equip quickly and as needed.”
Gideon Saar, minister without portfolio in the newly formed emergency government, told national television channel 12 that Gaza “must be smaller at the end of the war” and part of it must be classified as a security zone. “We need to make the goal of our campaign clear to the people around us,” he continued. “Whoever starts a war with Israel must lose territory.”
Hamas leader Ismail Haniye addressed the population in a televised message in which he accused Israel of committing “genocide” with its bombings in Gaza. “We are facing the consequences of Israel’s strategic defeat on October 7,” he said, referring to Saturday’s attack that surprised Israel in a way comparable only to the lightning offensive by Syria and Egypt early in the war. Yom Kippur War (1973). “Israel has failed to defeat our troops, so it has decided to commit crimes against them [nuestros] Citizens with the support of the government of the United States and several European countries,” he added.
The invasion opens the door to a regional war. The Lebanese militia Hezbollah, more powerful than Hamas and which has claimed responsibility for several attacks against Israel in recent days, assured that it was monitoring the situation and threatened to act “when the time comes.” Israeli National Security Adviser Tzaji Hanegbi responded with a warning: “We hope that Hezbollah does not cause the virtual destruction of Lebanon.”
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits