What is the ‘Generals’ Plan’? Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, explained
Displaced Palestinians in Gaza City struggle with power outages due to Israeli attacks that destroyed the infrastructure in the City, 13 October 2024
Qassam Muaddi writes in Mondoweiss on 14 October 2024:
It has been 11 days since Israel started its latest offensive against the northern part of the Gaza Strip, which includes a complete siege of the towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun just north of Gaza City. These were the first areas that the Israeli forces first entered at the beginning of the ground invasion almost a year ago, and they are also the first areas where the Israeli army declared “full operational control” after it had claimed to have destroyed all the fighting units of the Palestinian resistance factions.
The ongoing Israeli assault includes a ground invasion of the town of Jabalia and its refugee camp for the third time in a year. For 11 days, Israeli forces have imposed a siege on Jabalia and pounded it with intensive artillery shelling and airstrikes, destroying its remaining standing residential blocks and cutting the population off from Gaza City directly to the south. Israeli forces have also clashed with Palestinian fighters from different resistance factions. Last week, the armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, released video footage showing an ambush in which its fighters targeted a group of Israeli jeeps and armored vehicles with IEDs and anti-armor projectiles, showcasing their organization, planning, and fighting capacities a year after Israel declared that it has destroyed all resistance in the city.
According to the Palestinian Civil Defense, at least 350 Palestinians have been killed in northern Gaza since the beginning of the ongoing offensive. But beyond the direct victims of bombings and shelling, the Israeli offensive on the north is strangling an estimated 200,000 Palestinians who remain in their homes in the area. Testimonies from survivors in Jabalia told Mondoweiss that they are surviving on canned food and whatever remains of vegetables or meat that entered through humanitarian aid before the start of the siege. What little food remains, locals say, is now being sold for ten times its normal price.
Israel’s current offensive on northern Gaza is being reported in the media as the apparent implementation of what has come to be known as “the Generals’ Plan.” The plan is based on a vision laid out in two separate articles by retired Israeli general Giora Eiland in the early months of the war. Eiland’s vision is that Israel should impose unlivable conditions on the inhabitants of northern Gaza by starving them out and forcing them to leave the south. Whoever remains, Eiland said, would be considered a Hamas member or sympathizer, and thus a legitimate target. The idea is to drain northern Gaza of its population and thus isolate Hamas from its social base, forcing it to capitulate or die.