One of the first declarations of intent was reported from an unnamed official.
The unnamed defense official told Israel’s Channel 13 that the Palestinian territory, home to more than 2 million residents, would be reduced to rubble. “Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents. There will be no buildings.”
There have been plenty of others. In November the Agriculture Minister and Security Cabinet member Avi Dichter announced that, “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” That is, the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
The Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, lays out the rationale to LBC interviewer Iain Dale.
But the clearest call for ethnic cleansing of Gaza came from Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. On the 31st of December, he told Army Radio,
If in Gaza there will be 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs and not 2 million the entire conversation on ‘the day after’ will look different.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-780229
It’s an ambitious policy, but it would forestall any accusations of Israel’s being an apartheid state, because there could be no majority of Palestinians in areas under effective control by the Israelis.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made similar calls for “voluntary emigration,” which brought a rare rebuke from the US State Department. But Netanyahu has not offered such a direct rebuke.
For months, Netanyahu has bucked US requests to begin planning for who will govern the Gaza Strip after the war, ostensibly recognizing that his far-right coalition partners would reject proposals that do not include Israel’s reoccupation and resettlement of Gaza — which the security establishment and Washington oppose.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/likud-minister-slams-smotrich-ben-gvirs-unrealistic-call-for-gazan-emigration/
In a video posted on the 8th of January, Shlomo Karhi, the Israeli Minister of Communications, restated the aim of “voluntary emigration” of the population of Gaza. On the 1st of January, Netanyahu told an internal Likud meeting that, “Our problem is [finding] countries that are willing to absorb Gazans, and we are working on it.” These reports were subsequently denied.
It’s not all doom and gloom when discussing these issues, though, as this comic turn by a Channel 14 news anchor shows.
Mass population expulsion is enabled by ensuring that the current population has nowhere to live, and no infrastructure to depend on. For this part of the policy, so often discussed by representatives of the Israeli government, including many Ministers, Israel needs only its own resources, and the steady supply of munitions from the United States. It has been, and continues to be, put into effect, as can be seen in the following videos.
From 20th December, land clearing in Northern Gaza.
And from the 22nd, some tunnels are destroyed (Requires Telegram Tg). Any buildings above them are collateral damage. And on the 30th (Tg).
Israeli slapstick from 3rd of January.
From the 6th of January, having a casual smoke.
It was getting dark on the 8th of January, so the scene was lit up with flares so that every moment could be caught on video.
Going for a record in Khan Yunis; 18th January.
This one from 21st of January generates a lot of excitement in the English speaker recording the event.
The following is a relatively subdued effort of the IDF. A couple of adjacent buildings, the surroundings of which have been bulldozed, are demolished in a single explosion. The buildings are those of the University of Palestine, a private university, and the last higher education institute left in Gaza, until now. The demolition can be seen embedded within this video from a press conference.
Lee’s questions about the context in which this demolition takes place can be asked equally pertinently about every such demolition shown above. There is no threat, and, if we are to believe the Israeli insistence that they will retain security control of Gaza, there is not even any remote future military justification.
Attention is now turning to the Philadelphi Corridor; that is, the buffer zone along the Egypt-Gaza border. The Gaza Strip is not part of Israel. The Corridor is the border between Egypt and Palestinian Gaza.
The IDF had controlled that zone under terms set out by its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt until it withdrew from Gaza in 2005…
The Egyptian army in agreement with Israel increased its forces at the border both in 2005 and in 2021 to prevent weapons smuggling, [head of the State Information Services (SIS) Diaa Rashwan] explained.
“Egypt has full sovereignty over its land, and has complete control over its entire northeastern borders,” he added. “Israel’s continued marketing of these lies [that Egypt has not controlled smuggling] is an attempt to create legitimacy for its attempt to occupy the “Philadelphi Corridor” or “Salah al-Din Corridor”, in Gaza along the border with Egypt, in violation of the security agreements and protocols signed between it and Egypt,” Rashwan stressed.
He also reminded Israel that Cairo also considers any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza to Sinai as a “red line” that should not be crossed.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-783285
The last point is the most relevant. If Israel is to “encourage emigration,” the only avenue open to it is the Philadelphi Corridor. Egypt has made plain that it will not let the Gaza Strip empty into Sinai. As of mid-December, “hundreds of thousands” of refugees had crowded into Rafah and adjacent areas of the Corridor. If Israel takes control of the border, it has the option to punch holes in the wall, and encourage refugees to flow into Sinai. Hamas did it in 2008, so that Gazans could stock up with difficult-to-obtain supplies in Egyptian Rafah. Since then, Egypt has done its own land clearing.
Between 2013 and 2015, Egypt also evicted thousands of people from their homes and destroyed more than 3,000 structures along its side of the border to create a buffer zone, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2023/12/14/world/middleeast/gaza-border-rafah-egypt.html
Passage through the wall, should it eventuate, would be a one-way ticket. It would also end the Peace Treaty, which has held between Egypt and Israel since 1979. The speculation comes in the wake of the withdrawal of one of four divisions of IDF troops from Gaza for R&R and training. The IDF estimate that fighting will continue through all of 2024, despite claims that “the [Hamas] battalion frameworks have been dismantled” in Northern Gaza, and that “the Khan Younis Brigade is gradually disintegrating as a fighting force.” Rifts are opening in the war cabinet. The particular issues are not as important as the facts that the rifts are public. Cracks come through pressure. If the war is conforming to the press releases there is a strong incentive to maintain cohesion. Talk about a regionally destabilising takeover of the Egypt-Gaza border is a way to “explain” why Hamas has not yet been broken despite all of its dismantling and disintegration.
Since this post was first drafted, more details have come to light. The split in the war cabinet, alluded to above, was made public by Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF Chief of Staff, and a member of the Benny Gantz led National Unity alliance. Gantz and Eisenkot are both members of the war cabinet, which Netanyahu pulled together to pursue a unified approach to the war. Eisenkot’s son was killed in fighting in December.
Eisenkot revealed the he had argued himself hoarse (literally) in an October 11 cabinet meeting to forestall a preemptive strike against Hezbollah. About the course of the war, he had this to say.
“Those who say that there was a major blow and demolition of the capabilities in the north of the strip are telling the truth,” Eisenkot told told Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 News on Thursday evening. “Those who talk about an absolute defeat and lack of will and ability do not tell the truth. This is why there is no need to tell tall tales.”
Even this may have been optimistic. The CNN report is from 20th January. On the 16th, the Institute for the Study of War, a pro-Israel and pro-Ukraine military think tank, published its update on the situation in Gaza.
Palestinian militias are likely re-infiltrating into areas of the northern Gaza Strip where Israeli forces previously conducted clearing operations. CTP-ISW has observed renewed militant activity in several neighborhoods across the northern part of the strip in recent weeks, as Israeli forces have transitioned to less intense fighting there. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed on December 31, 2023, that it withdrew five brigades from the northern Gaza Strip and said that it would transition to targeted raids with its remaining forces. CTP-ISW assessed on January 2 that the IDF transitioning to this new phase of operations will very likely enable Hamas to reconstitute itself militarily.
In this environment, Israel’s demolition activities carry some risks. On the 22nd of January, Israeli soldiers who were rigging buildings for demolition were attacked with RPGs or other anti-tank weapons. The attack triggered the demolition charges, killing most of the IDF soldiers in the vicinity. Reports vary from 21 dead to 24, the number Netanyahu announced.
On the 28th of January, the Wall Street Journal headlined “Israel Struggles to Destroy Hamas’ Tunnel Network.
As much as 80% of Hamas’s vast warren of tunnels under Gaza remains intact after weeks of Israeli efforts to destroy them, U.S. and Israeli officials said, hampering Israel’s central war aims.
The bottom line is that Hamas still has significant operational capability. It seems that Israel is incapable of destroying Hamas.
Crikey. Where does one start with this?
Posting footage of infrastructure destruction or damage without any context does not contribute anything to the debate.
From Clash Report on X:
From the Clash Report (allegedly based in Turkey) Telegram:
A brief, surface search does not reveal who or what is behind Clash Report, but they are Turkish-based and very anti-U.S.
I have no evidence to support this, but one wonders if they (Clash Report) are funded or supported by the Turkish Government?
(Though seemingly a digression, this attempted look at Clash Report has the aim of providing context that is missing from the main post).
Thanks for including the footage of demolition of tunnels. It’s great to see it being done so thoroughly. It’s a pity Hamas chose those locations to construct them.
If a few outbursts by Israelis matter, then how much more does it matter than Iranian diplomats are welcomed and applauded to address the UN General Assembly about the aim to wipe out Israel. Apparently in some cases more convenient to ignore, it’s just idle rhetoric.
Actually, Palestinians who have remained in their Palestine would be better off in one contiguous territory, and as they insist most are refugees they wouldn’t have strong associations with Gaza. Why is there need to retrict them to one high density small territory of refuge rather than allow them to rejoin their fellow Palestinians in the larger and less dense region of Judea and Samaria.
It seems that Israel is incapable of destroying Hamas.
Is that what you hope/want?
Katzenjammer. There’re 2 million in gaza because the breed like rodents. The population has doubled in the last 40 years. In 1960 there were 600k. There is no immigration just a lot of cots.
Why would you want this feral bunch joining with the relatively benign Arabs who inhabit Judea and Samaria?
Millions of people are not readily moved but some outflow from what was Gaza could make a difference to future peace prospects. There are lots of hopes on all sides for resettlements in this lucky dip. This situation took a long time to brew and it won’t be solved in a few penstrokes. Solved though it must be Human rights handwringing alone won’t do it. Israelis have put up with years of threat and bombardment. They won’t endure it again. That is a call for human rights too.
I had been hearing about all the concrete reaching Gaza being used to build tunnels.
Awful big lot of multi-story buildings being demolished which presumably, if that were true, were made out of mud.
It’s an argument “in principle” against the idea that that they must return to rebuilt homes. I really don’t care much what their fate is as long as they’re not able to bother Israelis.
IIRC it was King Balaam who looked over the Jordan some 3,000+ years ago and saw the meandering Israelis and said “how beautiful are your tents oh Israel.”
So the Pallis are a few thousand years behind.
Great!
The Nazis created the ‘Final Solution’ to the Jewish problem. And the Anglosphere implemented a final solution to the Nazi problem. We wiped them out.
Hamas is trying to emulate the Nazis. Israel should emulate the anglosphere. If it requires turning Gaza into a skating rink, so be it.
The utter evil of October 7 makes it a moral imperative.
If your neighbour, and his children, and his relatives, and his friends, hate you, there are two solutions. You move, or you get rid of them. There is nothing in Gaza worth preserving, so get rid of it.
Mass population expulsion is enabled by ensuring that the current population has nowhere to live, and no infrastructure to depend on.
So be it.
I will say this again & again –
The attack on Israeli territory of over a thousand combatants organised by Hamas – the elected governing body in Gaza – was a preplanned invasion designed to kill and maim. It was an act of war.
Israel has responded legitimately to this by systematically bombing the city of Gaza. Since Hamas has constructed an alternate city underground it is impossible not to decimate much of the above ground constructions of the city. Hamas always knew this would be the result, and that thousands of Gazans would lose their lives. It was a calculated and savage sacrifice off their own people.
How dare the fellow travellers of Hamas blame Israel for this bloodbath.
I suggest the take out learning here for everyone is don’t f*** with the Jews.
These stateless clowns cause problems everywhere they go … ask the Lebanese who ended up in a civil war because of their shenanigans
Speaking of failings …
the Palestinians are militant clowns perpetually incapable of rational and reasonable behavior whose idiotic Hamas Charter says it all
if they’d ever had a clue about achieving their own state they’d have probably screwed that up too by now
what did these morons reckon would happen when they jumped the fence and went on a killing spree last October?
I’ll say it again, and again, until I am heard.
Israelis have human rights too. They have endured the unendurable for so long, and the final straw was with October 7th.
At least some depopulation of Gaza will be necessary. Solutions entail necessities.
I hope I am at least understood on this thread.
So killing or forcibly moving people to provide a ‘solution’. Are you’re sure that this comment should stand as it is?
Some German guy back in the day.
Israel is quite clear that it is hamas infrastructure that is being destroyed, it was the choice of hamas to build its infrastructure in mosques schools hospitals universities and residential buildings with the complaisance of the civilian population.
Leaving just one tunnel intact is a danger to the IDF has they have found out to their cost, more than once.
Hamas are still firing rockets at civilian targets in Israel but you don’t complain about their very clear genocidal intentions.
Israel is a democracy, people can express their views.
This is what happens when you fall into the trap of viewing the world through the lenses of oppressed and oppressor having cast Israel in the role of oppressor and given honorary white people status and Gazans the role of oppressed and honorary brown people status.
Don’t ever pause to wonder why Israeli Jews are able to pass themselves off Arabs though, that might hurt your head.
Alamak, Baba and Mr West should team up
could make a killing selling those t-shirts in Gaza
no-more-murder
yay
idiots
Please leave Avi Yemeni out of this.
He wasn’t in it until your mention of him. That’s as sensible as a sign saying “Don’t read this sign”.
Et tu Catallaxy?
Lots of moral relativism here.
In 1939 Hitler announced the extermination of the Jews.
Since 1949 the Palestinians have advocated the same solution. In 2023 they butchered 1290 Jews. If they could they and their backers would commit Holocaust.
What is it about this that you bien pensants are unable to understand? Do you want Jews to be exterminated?
What was wrong with the ceasefire that pertained on 6/10/23?
Just about everything, that’s what was wrong with it. Gaza was being built into a terrorist tunnel network of one overwhelming end capability- the destruction of Israel. Hamas was deliberately outbreeding the Israeli population. No attempt at a two-state solution had been acceptable to the Palestinians, and Israel was subject to constant bombardment and intifada terrorism. October 7th simply indicated that this could NOT GO ON any more. Israel had to act to destroy Hamas (even for the sake of the future of those children being brought up as hate machines in Gaza) and that is what Israel is doing and NEEDS TO DO. What part of this don’t you understand, sir?
They don’t like thinking, Rosie. Thinking pricks comfort bubbles.
And I’ll bet that none of them have ever been to Israel.
If they have, then they learned nothing.
Twisting my words and thus implying that the behaviour of anti-Semitic genocidal Hitlerites is equivalent to what Israel is doing in order to protect itself demonstrates just what level immoral equivalence you are prepared to countenance to progress your prejudices.
Let Israel get on with the job of destroying Hamas tunnels and making life in Gaza under Israeli supervision and education and democracy unpleasant for terrorists. If some of them decide to move elsewhere, all to the good, in my view. It will make a democratic state (or territorial province of Israel) on Israel’s coast far more likely to succeed. Population has been a weapon used by Hamas in this conflict over the years. They have kept women barefoot and pregnant providing martyrs for the cause. No. More. Of. This.
Do not twist my meaning. Solutions and necessities are found IN ALL WARS. Yes, my comment should stand as it is, it is your interpretive lens on it that needs to change.
I was speaking of immigration, as are some Israelis, and not forced immigration but voluntary immigration and at a level that is acceptable to the immigrant population. Whoever mentioned ‘killing’ – that is you, not me. Israel has no plan to ‘kill’ the people of Gaza as a ‘solution’. Not at all. Wars kill people but Israel is not deliberately killing civilians. That should be obvious and accepted, except by those not willing to see. If all wish to remain in current territories, that’s fine. They can sleep in the bed that they have deliberately made (as did Germany in 1945), this population has been absolutely complicit in attempted genocide of Israel since and 1948, so they can live without comforts until such a time as these can be provided by their own democratic means or international sympathies.
Then you are supporting killing of civilians, collective punishment and forced attempts (mentioned as a plan by multiple cabinet ministers in Israel) to migrate (not immigrate) people from Gaza as as a ‘solution’.
You’re not so old and dim that you can’t understand a simple conclusion based on your own words about depopulation of Gaza. Be honest on what you are actually supporting in and for Gaza.
I refer to my comment above. Get rid of them, and let decent people get on with their lives.
If you are disgusted by calls to kill civilians, then please address the frequent numerous calls to wipe out Israel and all its inhabitants over the last 75 years, even from the platform of the UN.
Goes without saying and I don’t need to be out there explicitly rejecting every instance of actions and ideas considered outside the norms of our society.
Will you and Lizzie reject ethnic cleansing , killing of civilians and collective punishment of Palestinians in gaza, as promoted by Israeli Government ministers?
You managed to turn your otherwise reasonable verey general request into BS.
Will you explicitely condemn the constant calls for ethnic cleansing of Jews and Israel, the constant terrorist killing of Jews in Israel, as promoted and practiced by Palestinians. See, that’s how to do it without hiding behind a slimy pretence of impartiality. Be specific about which direction you want another to condemn, and mainly, choose actions and attitudes that actually exist.
That “German guy” was Austrian-born to Austrian parents and didn’t move to Germany until 1913, having been born in 1889, 24 years earlier.
As Billy Wilder once said, “The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian.”
your relativism is not a credit, dissembler
I love the obvious fatuous belief that your mile-high synopsis covers all
yet another don’t-stop-the-boats moment from a leftard
let me be clear here
if you want less killing in the long run
then clearly Hamas must die in the short term
it really isn’t rocket surgery
Jock,
Those “relatively benign” Arabs who inhabit Judea and Samaria would elect hamas tomorrow if they were allowed an election. As it is the ruling body there pays a stipend to the family of anyone killed after killing , or even trying to kill an Israeli.
Yeah, coz the population of Warsaw had just crossed the border and slaughtered 1200 German civilians
Is that what you’re saying?
Cretin.
As are the three (at the time of this post) who gave you the thumbs up.
Take your blinkers off with this emotive and inappropriately applied terminology. I have made it quite clear that a limited population shift or acceptance of living in a war zone is going to be necessary for people to return in any numbers to Gaza. As for collective punishment, if you are on the losing side of a war due to your preferences and voting and agreement to tunnel building and genocide stated bluntly in the aims of your chosen and supported politicos, then you will suffer some consequences. Israel is doing its absolute best to ensure humanitarian assistance and to keep civilians deaths in this WAR at its lowest. Get real. Read some history too.
In my view, the children of Gaza were being ‘collectively punished’ by a vile ideology encouraging them into a death cult of martyrdon.
What do you have to say about that?
Wasn’t there some saying about the sins of the fathers?
Lizzie, I was being ironic, even sarcastic. I’m pointing to the hypocrisy of Hamas and Palestine supporters calling for a ceasefire. It was Hamas who launched a barbaric attack on 7th October.
My mention of moral relativism is directed to those who compare Israel defending itself to Jew haters.
My own view is that Gaza should be flattened and the Palestinians exiled for ever. Of course, no one wants them …
Leave no stone standing
OK Duc. Oct 7th was just a culmination of many attacks. Glad you agree.
Those tunnels aren’t there for a peaceful co-existence. Hamas Delendra Est.
I’ll repeat what I posted above – and was thumb-smacked for:
Scrolling through the above comments, no-one seems to have questioned the declaration of ‘half of all Gazan buildings have been damaged or destroyed.’
Where did that statement – immensely broad, as conceivably ‘damaged’ might include a single bullet hole from previous conflicts – originate? How was that statement arrived at (what method?).
I’ve read it was a visual survey using satellite images; was every building or rubble pile counted, or was an especially damaged section of infrastructure chosen as representative, and then extrapolated across the whole of the territory?
These answers matter, because they provoke the online and then in-the-street outrage that applies even greater pressure on Israel.
I tried to research Clash Report because I wanted to know their potential motivation. How am I to know that the images they present are of the present conflict?
The post itself is such a mishmash of elements that I’m inclined to see it as merely a poke at a termite’s mound.
You beleive children should be “collectively punished” because of the beliefs of their parents. Hmmm.
For an apparently literate older lady as you present yourself here you do seem to be a strong supporter of collective punishment, killing civilians and ethnic cleansing. Deny and deflect all you want, you have not answered the question and so it remains as a valid conclusion.
Then I guess the following quotes and links are ‘BS’ …
Minister of Finance and Additional Minister of Defense Bezalel Smotrich declared that, “Israeli soldiers waging war in Gaza will remain as settlers and rebuild settlements, we have come back to inherit the land.”
Cabinet members call to resettle Gaza, encourage Gazans to leave, at jubilant conference
Israeli ministers join ultranationalist conference urging Gaza resettlement
Alamak!
”So killing or forcibly moving people to provide a ‘solution’. Are you’re sure that this comment should stand as it is?”
What is your opinion on the Koenigsberg/Kalingrad issue? Did it provide a “solution”?
It’s a waste of time to respond to idiots who twist words, and who have no clue about various roles of government officials. Let them sink in their own mental quagmire – they don’t wish to be rescued.
try this
you dont ask any questions although, you do like to frame accusations as questions
I’m only telling this so you don’t keep sounding like an idiot
I asked a simple question. If they don’t want to answer thats fine but then we might draw conclusions. A process which happens here on a continuous basis. As for ‘framing accusations as questions’ I’ll leave that to others.
had to read up on this historical ‘solution’. It seems like a different situation which can’t be easily applied to Israel/Palestine situation but please share if you think that it might work. New ideas that don’t include death, ethnic cleansing and violence are to be welcomed by anybody with an open mind.
I shared some links and quotes but you can’t or won’t respond. So be it.
As for ‘moral quagmire’ that seems to be what Israeli government lead by Netanhanyu is driving the country into by invading Gaza without a plan except killing and removing people.
well then … idiot it is
Is that your question? It’s already been pointed out to you that the final phrase is incorrect, which in turn turns the whole question into BS.
You really should stop misquoting people. Netanyahu has stated the plan a number of times – rid Israelis and Palestinians of Hamas.
Alamak, again, you show little comprehension of my point, which is that children in Gaza are being subjected to the collective martyrdom punishment of Hamas and its ideology. If their parents agree to this, and many Palestinians do, then more fool the parents.
I think you are finding some difficulty in engaging with a literate older lady.
Try harder. Re-read my answer to your very loaded question. You really aren’t very good at comprehension, are you? Let alone being capable of framing a decent question. Give it away before another foot in your mouth makes you completely unbalanced.
Alamak!
“New ideas that don’t include death, ethnic cleansing and violence are to be welcomed by anybody with an open mind.”
The only “new” idea the Pallies seem willing to accept is their takeover of the land of Israel, which would lead to “death, ethnic cleansing and violence”. Is that acceptable to you?