A report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published on Wednesday detailed the situation in Beit Lahia, a city in northern Gaza near the Israeli border where Israeli forces are implementing an ethnic cleansing campaign.
At the beginning of October, Israel ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in northern Gaza to head south. Many ignored the order since there was nowhere safe to go, and the Israeli military focused its renewed assault on the north on Beith Lahia and neighboring Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, where it imposed a full siege to starve out civilians.
The Israeli military has said it forcibly expelled 55,000 Palestinians from the Jabalia refugee camp, and it has no intention of allowing them back. According to Haaretz, only a few thousand civilians remain in Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun.
“There is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes,” IDF spokesman Brig Gen Itzik Cohen told reporters on Tuesday.
The Haaretz reporters traveled to Beit Lahia and al-Atatra, a neighborhood northwest of the city, and described the destruction they saw. “In [al-Atatra] and Beit Lahia, there isn’t a single house that people can return to and live in. The area looks like it was hit by a natural disaster. There are no civilians to be seen among the ruins,” the report says.
As an attempt to remove any remaining civilians, the Israeli military fires artillery into Beit Lahia at night. “Those who want to return can’t do so, because the army prevents it. The bottom line is that it makes no difference what the IDF calls its actions. The army has begun the stage of cleansing the northern Strip while it prepares to hold onto the area for a long time to come,” the report reads.
Israeli media has reported that the Israeli military is carrying out a version of the “general’s plan,” an outline for ethnic cleansing drawn up by retired IDF generals. The plan calls for the complete evacuation of all Palestinian civilians from northern Gaza to below the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land controlled by the Israeli military. Under the plan, if civilians don’t leave, they are to be treated as combatants and killed either by military action or starvation.
While the Israeli military claims its cleansing campaign is about removing Hamas, the IDF commander in charge of Beit Lahia, Col. Yaniv Barot, acknowledged they found no significant militant infrastructure in the area. “Barot says his mission is to continue to locate and eliminate terror infrastructure and Hamas activists. But he says that in the course of the most recent operation, no underground infrastructure, heavy war materiel or weapons production sites were found,” the report says.
The Haaretz report said the activity on the ground proves that the Israeli military is bisecting northern Gaza, potentially to pave the way for the construction of Jewish settlements, an idea strongly supported by many Israeli ministers and members of the Knesset.
The Biden administration has claimed it opposes any implementation of the “general’s plan” and the advancement of settlements but has continued to provide military aid for the ethnic cleansing campaign.
As I am fond of saying: Children live what they learn!…
If they learn war, they do war!
If they learn peace, they share peace!
What did the children learn under Hamas?
I make reference to all children Bob, all children.
The article is concerned with Gaza, Donna.
And how can you exclude the evil Israelis bring to Gaza? Can't you deal with the real truth, the IDF thugs in Gaza are evil.
I am thankful people like the SADISTIC IDF THUGS ARE NOT MY NEIGHBORS.
Under Hamas, the children of Gaza learned that Israelis don't value their lives. They learned that Israelis would rather imprison Gazans in a giant concentration camp and periodically massacre them then have to live next to them. They learned that, to Israelis, just because they're children doesn't mean they are not fair targets in war. They also learned that sometimes violent resistance is the only option, as peaceful resistance, as in the Great March of Return, doesn't get you anywhere with Israel.
They learned to support each other, the older siblings take care of the little ones, that must be the strength that helps them to survive the ordeal as long as they have.
What do the Israeli children learn other than hate?
Look at the evil IDF psychopath thugs, where did they learn to be so evil if not at home?
They too were not born evil, they were made evil.
I'm thinking anyone associated with Haaretz should sleep with one eye open.
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck“, as the saying goes.
If a government kills tens of thousands of civilians, men, women and children, it is a genocide. Period
How is the US ever to speak on "human rights" and "the rule of law" again without being laughed at by the rest of the world?
The Jews know full well the meaning of the holocaust.
My own husband is Jewish.
Memories of such things are entirely unpleasant.
Observing that such things continue to spread should concern ALL of US!!!
“ Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people… Many of us like to ask ourselves,
‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”
–Aaron Bushnell, February 25 2024
Lucky for the oppressed South Africans, Nelson Mandela never thought about setting himself on fire because of apartheid in his country.
You pro-genocide ?
https://x.com/i/status/1854272281733959822 One gratifying aspect of atheism is a clear conscience. American Christians generally support Israel.
Don't confuse Protestant evangelicals with all Christians.
79% of US Jews voted for Harris, according to largest preliminary exit poll.
Survey says Trump received lowest proportion of Jewish vote for GOP candidate in 24 years; Democrats make up majority of voters who think US support for Israel too strong.