Palestinians ordered to flee northern Gaza as Israel moves towards ‘general’s plan’
A woman carries an infant child in Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in northern Gaza Strip on 9 October 2024
Katherine Hearst reports in Middle East Eye on 9 October 2024:
The Israeli military launched a major new offensive on the Jabalia refugee camp on Wednesday, suggesting it was implementing a controversial “general’s plan” that would see the forcible expulsion of the entire population of northern parts of Gaza.
The army, which dropped leaflets over the camp and other areas of northern Gaza on Monday, ordered all Palestinians to flee south to the already overcrowded Mawasi “humanitarian zone”, an area which has repeatedly been targeted by Israeli forces in the year-long war.
“We reiterate our call that you in the Jabalia camp evacuate your homes and shelters immediately,” Avichay Adraee, the army’s Arabic-language spokesperson said in a video posted on X on Wednesday. This is your chance. Move now without delay from your shelters and homes to the southern Gaza Strip.”
The spokesperson’s comments came as Israeli tanks pushed deeper into Jabalia as fighter jets pounded the area after the Israeli military issued fresh expulsion orders for almost all of northern Gaza, particularly Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, where at least 400,000 remain.
The Palestinian civil defence said the strikes had targeted civilians and their homes, “causing significant fear and terror” among residents.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that its teams were receiving urgent pleas to remove casualties but were unable to respond due to the intensity of the bombardment. “Soldiers are firing at anyone who moves in the Be’e al-Na’ja area, west of Jabalia in northern Gaza,” they reported. Meanwhile, residents took to social media with frantic posts warning that “Jabalia is being wiped out.”
The renewed assault, which began on Sunday when Israeli tanks encircled the camp, has killed at least 19 people so far, according to the Palestinian civil defence, and trapped most of Jabalia’s residents inside.
“Once again, we see mounting catastrophic evidence that Israel looks like it may be committing the war crime of forced displacement,” Nadia Hardman, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told MEE. “We’ve seen repeatedly that evacuation orders have put people in harm’s way, and that evacuation areas are in fact not safe and people don’t know where to go,” she added.
Drones firing at everyone
Palestinians attempting to flee the camp have also been shot at, according to residents and footage shared with CNN.
“Drones were firing at everyone passing by on the road,” 28-year-old Mohammed Sultan told CNN.”Three people were shot right in front of me. My brother and I tried to help the injured get to the hospitals, but a little girl was shot in the neck, and her father was also injured.”
Hassan Hamad, a 19-year-old journalist and Jabalia resident, was killed in an Israeli missile attack on his home on Sunday following threats from Israeli officials instructing him to stop filming Israeli attacks in Gaza.
Phillipe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said that many people are refusing to leave their homes, knowing there is no safe place in Gaza to flee to.
He reported in a post on X that at least 400,000 people were “trapped” in northern Gaza, where there is “no end to hell”, warning that with no basic supplies available, “hunger is spreading and deepening again”.
He added that the incursion has forced UN shelters and services to shut, some for the first time since the war started over a year ago.
Doctors Without Borders said that the assault was turning the area into an “unliveable wasteland”.
This is the third incursion launched by Israeli forces on Jabalia since October 2023. In May, a 20-day assault from land and air laid the camp to waste.
The ‘general’s plan’
The renewed assault comes amid fears that the military is implementing a plan conceived by retired Major-General Giora Eiland to empty northern Gaza of its 400,000 residents to make way for a “closed military zone”.
“The general’s plan,” which was launched in an Israeli TV campaign, calls for the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, warning that those that remain will face starvation. “The right thing to do is to inform the approximately 300,000 residents who remained in the northern Gaza Strip… we are ordering you to leave,” Eiland said last month.