[News] Israeli extermination plan underway in northern Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-extermination-plan-underway-northern-gaza>
Israeli extermination plan underway in northern Gaza

Maureen Clare Murphy
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy> Rights and
Accountability
<https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability> 20 October
2024
------------------------------

Palestinians at a food distribution point in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, on 19
October.
TASS

Dozens of people were killed in Beit Lahiya on Saturday as Israeli
warplanes razed entire residential blocks just days after the UN warned
<https://www.unocha.org/news/todays-top-news-occupied-palestinian-territory-lebanon-0>
that tens of thousands of Palestinians are “in grave danger” in northern
Gaza.

Reality for Palestinians throughout Gaza, where more than 43,000 people
have been killed since last October, with thousands more dead and uncounted
under the rubble, is becoming more brutal by the day.

“Supplies essential for people’s survival and humanitarian assistance are
blocked at every turn,” a senior UN official told the Security Council
<https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/ms-joyce-msuya-acting-under-secretary-general-humanitarian-affairs-and-emergency-relief-coordinator-briefing-security-council-humanitarian-situation-gaza-16-october-2024>
this week.

Joyce Msuya, the acting UN relief chief, added on Wednesday that the
Security Council and all UN member states “must exert all their influence”
to ensure the respect of international humanitarian law.

“The atrocities in Gaza must end, but this cannot happen through words; it
must happen through action – urgent, unequivocal action,” she added.

Three prominent Palestinian human rights groups – Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the
Palestinian Center for Human Rights – said
<https://pchrgaza.org/urgent-appeal-stop-the-renewed-wave-of-genocidal-violence-against-palestinians-in-northern-gaza-now/>
this week that civilians in northern Gaza are “are being punished for
continuing to refuse to follow Israel’s unlawful forcible displacement
orders.”

With no safe place to go, Palestinians in Gaza’s north are fearful that if
they flee, they will never be able to return.

Israel’s plan to resettle Gaza by illegally transferring its own civilian
population to and annexing the north “is becoming clearer with every day
that passes,” the Palestinian human rights groups said.

Demonstrating that point, several Israeli lawmakers from Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party plan to participate
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/it-is-doable-10-likud-mks-to-attend-conference-calling-for-resettling-gaza/>
in a conference titled “Preparing to Resettle Gaza” to be held on Monday.

Palestinians who are trying to flee from Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit
Hanoun in northern Gaza, or are moving around in search of food or safety,
“are being shot at and killed by Israeli snipers, quadcopters and drones,”
the rights groups said.
“Forced displacement under gunfire”

The Palestinian groups said that Israel is implementing a plan spearheaded
by Giora Eiland
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-kills-40-gaza-humanitarian-zone>,
a close advisor to defense minister Yoav Gallant, aimed at exterminating or
expelling Palestinians in northern Gaza.

The scheme involves “laying a full siege, denying the entry of humanitarian
aid, forcing Palestinians to leave and unlawfully declaring whoever remains
to be a military target,” they added.

Early in the genocide, Eiland had advocated
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/former-israel-general-says-severe-epidemics-gaza-would-help-israel-win>
for Israel to allow or encourage epidemics
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/white-house-denies-genocide-unfolding-gaza>
among the Palestinian population in Gaza as a means to “bring victory
closer” and “reduce casualties” among Israeli soldiers.

Earlier this week, more than three dozen humanitarian organizations
described
<https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/urgent-joint-statement-northern-gaza-being-erased-global-leaders-must-act-now-end>
Israel’s order for some 400,000 Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza as
“forced displacement under gunfire.”

“Northern Gaza is being wiped off the map,” the organizations warned, with
civilians being starved and bombed and hospitals deprived of essential
supplies needed to save the lives of people injured in Israeli attacks.

The groups called for an immediate ceasefire, an end to the Israeli
occupation and the halt of weapons transfers “that could be used to commit
further violations of international humanitarian law.”

Four human rights groups in Israel likewise called for
<https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20241014_international_community_will_be_complicit_if_israel_forcibly_transfers_the_population_of_northern_gaza>
international action to prevent the forcible transfer of civilians in
northern Gaza through siege and starvation.

If third states continue their “wait and see” approach, thereby enabling
“Israel to liquidate northern Gaza, they will be complicit,” the human
rights groups in Israel added.

“All states and relevant international institutions should act now and use
all tools at their disposal – legal, diplomatic and economic – to prevent
this,” the Israeli groups said.

Noting that their appeals to the “international community” over the past
year have been ignored, the three Palestinian human rights groups called on
“free people across the world to exert the maximum pressure on their
governments” to end the genocide in Gaza.
US warning

On Monday, the US secretaries of state and defense sent a letter
<https://x.com/BarakRavid/status/1846182689222664471> to senior Israeli
officials demanding that Israel take measures to improve the provision of
humanitarian assistance in Gaza, noting that the amount allowed to enter in
September “was the lowest of any month during the past year.”

The US officials gave Israel 30 days to implement a surge in “all forms of
humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza” to avoid potential restrictions on
US military aid.

Meanwhile, this week Washington sent an advanced US anti-missile system to
Israel and 100 troops to operate it after a barrage of ballistic missiles
fired by Iran hit three military and intelligence installations
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/04/iran-missile-israel-attack-video/>
on 1 October.

It is the sharpest ultimatum delivered to Israel by the Biden
administration over the past year. But its timing, with any potential
consequence coming only after the US election in early November, has raised
the eyebrows of many observers.

US public stances urging more aid are, moreover, undermined by what
Washington’s real policy has been over the last year: knowingly falsifying
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/day-376-how-us-helps-israel-starve-gaza>
government reports to cover up how Israel has been deliberately blocking
the entry of humanitarian supplies to Gaza.

Admitting the reality would trigger provisions in US law that prohibit the
transfer of weapons to governments that block humanitarian aid – precisely
what Israel has been doing all along with Washington’s knowledge and
approval.
Netanyahu doubles down on “maximum pressure”

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has dashed any prospect that the killing of Hamas
leader Yahya Sinwar
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/yahya-sinwar-killed-combat-israeli-forces-gaza>
on Wednesday would revive a diplomatic track to end the war and secure the
release of Israeli and foreign captives held in Gaza.

On Saturday, the Israeli military dropped leaflets
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strikes-kill-32-gaza-siege-around-hospitals-tightens-health-officials-2024-10-19/>
over southern Gaza showing Sinwar’s corpse and bearing the message that
“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza.”

“Whoever drops the weapon and hands over the hostages will be allowed to
leave and live in peace,” the leaflet read in Arabic, echoing a statement
made by Netanyahu after the announcement of Sinwar’s killing on Thursday.

On Friday, while confirming Sinwar’s death, senior Hamas official Khalil
al-Hayya reiterated
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/18/hamas-confirms-leader-yahya-sinwar-killed-in-combat-in-gaza-by-israeli-army>
that the captives in Gaza would not be returned to Israel until after the
war ends.

All indications are that Netanyahu is maintaining his “maximum pressure”
strategy in Gaza and Lebanon, increasing the likelihood of a catastrophic
regional – or even global – military confrontation involving the US and
Iran.

Netanyahu accused Iran
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-19/ty-article/.premium/hezbollah-drone-hits-caesarea-home-netanyahu-residence-was-target-pmo-says/00000192-a3b2-d2d8-a7df-f3b23e310000>
of attempting to assassinate him after a drone reportedly launched from
Lebanon hit his home in Caesarea, central Israel, on Saturday.

The prime minister’s office stated that Netanyahu and his wife were not at
the home when it was attacked, and there were no casualties.

Iran distanced itself from the drone strike, with the spokesperson of
Tehran’s mission to the UN telling American media outlets that Hizballah in
Lebanon carried out the operation.

Meanwhile, Washington is “investigating a leak of highly classified US
intelligence about Israel’s plans for retaliation against Iran,” CNN
reported
<https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/politics/us-israel-iran-intelligence-documents/index.html>
on Saturday.

The leaked documents, dated on 15 and 16 October, began circulating on
Telegram on Friday, according to CNN, which said that one of three people
familiar with the matter confirmed their authenticity.

The leak of top secret documents outlining Israel’s tactical plans would be
a “serious breach” that could challenge “future coordination between the US
and Israel,” Mick Mulroy, a former senior defense department official and
retired CIA officer, told CNN.
“Extermination” in northern Gaza

The Israeli military escalated its attacks on Jabaliya, the largest of the
refugee camps established in Gaza after the 1948 ethnic cleansing of
Palestine, and the nearby cities of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.

Israeli troops besieged several shelters housing displaced civilians before
storming them on Saturday. Videos circulated on social media showing dozens
of detained men, and potentially also boys, blindfolded and their hands
bound:
Palestinians warned that Israel was obliterating Jabaliya camp, and a
communications blackout in the area prevented people from knowing the fates
of their loved ones as the military reportedly blew up entire residential
blocks in Beit Lahiya. Eid Sabbah, the director of nursing at Kamal Adwan
hospital in Beit Lahiya, said
<https://x.com/AnasAlSharif0/status/1847755085373190362> that four or five
residential blocks were razed to the ground in Israeli airstrikes.

The hospital had received around 70 fatalities and dozens of injured
people, while more victims remained trapped under the rubble, Sabbah said.

“We ask God Almighty to have mercy on our nation’s children and to lift
this cloud and burden from us and our nation’s children,” he added.

“And to lift the siege on Kamal Adwan hospital and all the hospitals, for
life to return to normal, and for the entire world … to speak up before
it’s too late, before our nation is exterminated.”

Al-Awda and Indonesian Hospital – the only other hospitals that have
remained functional in northernmost Gaza – were directly hit in Israeli
attacks on Friday.

“In the past two weeks, Israeli forces increased their pressure on these
hospitals to be evacuated, but patients had nowhere to go,” Muhannad Hadi,
the UN humanitarian coordinator in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said
<https://www.ochaopt.org/content/attacks-hospitals-northern-gaza> on
Saturday.

Two critical patients died at Indonesian Hospital because it lost
electricity when its generator was hit in the attack, according to
<https://x.com/DrTedros/status/1847690266645274784> Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, the director of the World Health Organization.

Hadi said that Kamal Adwan hospital was treating more than 370 patients,
most of them trauma cases, and “is running critically low on beds,
medicine, medical supplies and fuel.”

Hadi added that Israel had not fulfilled an urgent request by the UN to
access northern Gaza to rescue injured people trapped in the rubble of
destroyed buildings.
Palestinians killed at UN school

Scores of people were killed in an Israeli strike on a school being used as
a shelter for displaced Palestinians in Jabaliya refugee camp on Thursday.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees,
said <https://x.com/UNLazzarini/status/1847211994673479973> on Friday that
it was “the third such attack” on its facilities “this week alone.”
At least 231 UNRWA staff have been killed since Israel’s offensive on Gaza
began last October, according to Lazzarini.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said
<https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/10/1155886> on Friday that it had
“submitted an urgent request for the Israeli authorities to facilitate the
evacuation of a few dozen people reported to be alive and trapped under
rubble.”

“In previous instances, OCHA accompanied rescue teams whose access was
facilitated too late, resulting in only dead bodies being recovered,” the
UN office added.
An estimated 55,000 people have been displaced from the Jabaliya area so
far this month, Joyce Msuya, the acting UN relief chief, told the Security
Council
<https://www.unocha.org/news/brutal-reality-gaza-worsening-day-acting-un-relief-chief-warns-security-council>
on Wednesday, “while others remain stranded in their homes with water and
food running out.” Hospitals under siege

The three hospitals in northern Gaza functioning at a minimum capacity were
facing “dire shortages of fuel, blood, trauma treatment and medications,”
Msuya said.

A humanitarian convoy was able to reach two of those hospitals to deliver
fuel and transfer some patients to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on 12
October. The convoy was allowed to the north “after nine separate attempts
where they were denied or impeded by Israeli forces,” Msuya added.
Israeli forces subjected UN and Palestine Red Crescent Society humanitarian
workers to “humiliating treatment” while they were screened and detained at
a checkpoint, Msuya said.

“Medical staff kept one child alive by hand pumping oxygen for over seven
hours until they made it through the checkpoint.”

Meanwhile, with humanitarian access “nearly non-existent,” the acting UN
relief chief warned that “all essential supplies for survival are running
out” in Gaza’s north.

There is “barely any food left to distribute, and most bakeries will be
forced to shut down again in the next several days without additional
fuel,” Msuya said.

UN agencies say <https://press.un.org/en/2024/db241018.doc.htm> that no
food entered northern Gaza in the beginning of October and the World Food
Program has only reached around “100,000 people, given supply shortages,
access restrictions and ongoing fighting” in the area, according to OCHA.

Twelve trucks carrying flour were allowed into northern Gaza on Tuesday,
but that was “only enough for 9,200 families,” OCHA added.

Water production from municipal wells in Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya was
currently at zero, OCHA said on Thursday.

Famine threatens Palestinians in all areas of Gaza.

Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, said this week that “the number of
people at catastrophic levels of hunger is expected to double in coming
months” and that “this crisis is principally the consequences of decisions
made by the Israeli authorities.”
Türk added that starvation as a means of warfare is a war crime. Polio
vaccination campaign

This past week, the World Health Organization began delivering supplies for
a second phase of a polio vaccine campaign that began on Saturday.

“The UN and partners aim to provide more than 293,000 children in southern
Gaza with the second dose of the vaccine, and more than 284,000 with
vitamin A supplements,” according to OCHA.

UN agencies and the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza began the
vaccination campaign at the beginning of September after a 10-month-old
baby, now paralyzed in one of his legs, was found to be the first case of
polio
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/ceasefire-needed-avert-mass-polio-outbreak-gaza>
in the territory in 25 years.

In September
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-kills-40-gaza-humanitarian-zone>,
Israeli forces stopped a UN convoy heading to northern Gaza to roll out the
polio vaccination campaign in the area. Troops rammed the vehicles carrying
UN staff, dropped debris on the convoy and held the humanitarian personnel
at gunpoint.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has previously accused
<https://x.com/EuroMedHR/status/1833448805238181922> Israel of “critically
undermining Gaza’s polio vaccination campaign” by bombing the vicinities of
deconflicted vaccination centers.
Lebanon

Israel pounded the southern suburbs of Beirut on Saturday, claiming
<https://x.com/AvichayAdraee/status/1847674345293803586> to target
Hizballah weapons depots, as Lebanon grappled with the humanitarian impact
of escalated attacks on the country over the past month.

“According to Lebanese authorities, 1.2 million people have been displaced
or otherwise directly affected by the crisis,” OCHA said on Friday.

Around 190,000 people were staying in more than 1,000 formal shelters,
according to the International Organization for Migration.

But Lebanese authorities believe that more than four times that number of
displaced people are living outside formal shelters. “Many of them are
highly vulnerable and at risk of homelessness and precarious housing
situations,” OCHA said.

Israel attacked the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon,
on Wednesday, killing its mayor and members of the city’s local relief team
during a crisis meeting. More than 3,000 of Nabatieh’s remaining 12,000
residents fled after the attack, according to OCHA.

Imran Riza, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, condemned
<https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/lebanon/statement-humanitarian-coordinator-lebanon-imran-riza-call-protect-civilians-and-civilian-infrastructure-amid-escalating-strikes-16-october-2024-enar>
the “devastating attack” in Nabatieh.

Riza stated that Israeli airstrikes were having an “increasingly severe
impact on civilian infrastructure and civilians across Lebanon.”

“Health care facilities, mosques, historical markets, residential complexes
and now government buildings are being reduced to rubble,” he said.
“Displaced families continue to feel at risk, even after fleeing to safe
areas.”

On Saturday
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/two-killed-israeli-strike-north-lebanons-capital-2024-10-19/>,
the mayor of another town was among four people in an Israeli strike in
Lebanon’s Bekaa valley.

That same day, two people were killed in an Israeli strike while traveling
on Lebanon’s main highway near Jounieh and one person in Israel was killed
by rocket fire from Lebanon.

Over the past year, more than 2,400 people have been killed in Israeli
strikes in Lebanon, most of them in the last month, and around 60 people
have been killed in Israel and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as a
result of fire from Lebanon.
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