The Generals' Plan for Northern Gaza
In late September 2024, a controversial military strategy for the Gaza Strip emerged from Israeli reserve commanders that would fundamentally alter the trajectory of Israel's conflict with Hamas. The Generals' Plan, formally unveiled to Israeli political and military leadership, proposed a radical approach to ending the war through the systematic evacuation and siege of northern Gaza. Conceived by retired Major General Giora Eiland, a former head of Israel's National Security Council, the plan called for giving hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians a strict one-week deadline to evacuate northern Gaza before designating the entire area a closed military zone where anyone remaining would be considered a combatant and subject to military targeting. The strategy would then implement a complete blockade denying all food, water, medicine, and fuel to the sealed area until Hamas surrendered or starved. While Israeli government officials officially denied adopting the plan in its entirety, military operations beginning in October 2024 exhibited striking parallels to the proposed strategy, prompting intense debate about whether Israel had commenced implementation of what critics characterized as a deliberate campaign of starvation and forced displacement.
The Generals' Plan represents the culmination of frustrations within segments of Israel's military establishment regarding the conduct of the war that began after Hamas's attack on October 07, 2023. The plan emerged from the Forum of Commanders and Soldiers in the Reserves, an Israeli organization defining itself as a professional body with more than 1,500 army officers established to critique the Israeli Defense Forces' strategy in Gaza and propose alternative approaches. The forum had consistently criticized what it perceived as the Israeli military's failure to achieve stated war aims of destroying Hamas and securing the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the initial attack. In April 2024, Giora Eiland presented a comprehensive critique of Israel's military strategy during an interview, identifying what he viewed as fundamental failures in Israel's exclusive reliance on military pressure against Hamas given the organization's guerrilla warfare capabilities.1 Eiland identified Gaza's dependence on external sources for basic necessities such as fuel, food, and water as key leverage points that could be used more effectively than military force alone.
The plan's intellectual architect, Giora Eiland, brought considerable credentials and controversy to his proposal. Born in 1952, Eiland served in various roles within the Israeli Defense Forces including as head of the army's operations and planning divisions before becoming head of the National Security Council. His military service included participation in major conflicts including the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1976 Operation Entebbe rescue mission in Uganda, the 1978 Operation Litani incursion into Lebanon, and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. After retiring from military service, Eiland founded a consulting company providing strategic advice to governments and multinational organizations. He was appointed to head examination committees investigating the 2006 capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas and the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid. Despite his military background, Eiland has been characterized as center-left within Israeli politics, having supported reservists who refused military duty during Israel's 2023 judicial reform crisis.2 During the current war, however, Eiland made statements that generated substantial controversy regarding the legitimate treatment of Gaza's civilian population.
The Conceptual Framework and Strategic Rationale
The Generals' Plan rests on several fundamental assumptions about the nature of the conflict and the means necessary to achieve Israeli objectives. The plan's authors argued that Israel's strategy of relying exclusively on military pressure to secure hostage releases and destroy Hamas's capabilities had demonstrably failed after more than ten months of intensive operations. They identified what they characterized as a concerning gap between Israeli leadership assessments and ground reality, noting that while Hamas had suffered heavy losses when under direct attack, the organization consistently proved able to recover and reconstitute its forces once Israeli military operations moved to other areas. This pattern suggested to the plan's advocates that military operations alone could not achieve decisive victory without addressing Hamas's fundamental sources of resilience.3
The architects of the Generals' Plan identified four critical resources sustaining Hamas that required targeting: money, manpower, supplies, and motivation. They argued that previous Israeli strategies had focused predominantly on depleting Hamas's manpower through military operations while largely neglecting the other three factors. The plan proposed that Israel could achieve more decisive results by systematically targeting Hamas's access to supplies and undermining the organization's motivation to continue fighting. The authors contended that Hamas's control over humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza provided the organization with both material resources for its fighters and political legitimacy among the civilian population. By breaking this control and creating severe humanitarian pressure, the plan's proponents believed Israel could force Hamas into surrender while simultaneously creating conditions for the emergence of alternative Palestinian leadership not affiliated with the militant organization.4
Eiland's strategic thinking reflected a particular interpretation of warfare ethics and international law that proved highly controversial. In statements accompanying the plan, Eiland argued that "it is permissible and even recommended to starve an enemy to death," contending that humanitarian pressure constituted a legitimate means of warfare when the objective was forcing surrender rather than inflicting suffering for its own sake. He explicitly rejected American and international concerns about humanitarian consequences, stating that Israel must not "shy away" from creating severe humanitarian disasters or epidemics if such conditions would bring military victory closer and reduce casualties among Israeli soldiers. In a November 2023 op-ed published in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Eiland wrote that "severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers," arguing that Israel should embrace rather than avoid creating public health catastrophes as instruments of military strategy.5
The plan also reflected Eiland's broader view of the conflict as being not merely against Hamas fighters but against Gaza as a political and social entity. In his November 2023 op-ed, Eiland stated explicitly that Israel was "not fighting a terrorist organization but against the State of Gaza," arguing that all of Gaza's civilian population bore responsibility for Hamas's actions. He wrote that legitimate targets included not only Hamas fighters but "all the 'civilian' officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population that enthusiastically supported Hamas and cheered on its atrocities on October 7." This expansive definition of legitimate targets represented a fundamental rejection of the principle of distinction between combatants and civilians that forms a cornerstone of international humanitarian law.6 Eiland's positions regarding the elderly and women in Gaza also generated controversy, as he stated that elderly women in Gaza were "the same mothers and grandmothers of Hamas fighters who committed the terrible crimes on October 7," suggesting they too constituted legitimate targets for humanitarian pressure.
The Plan's Operational Framework
The Generals' Plan envisioned a two-phase operation focused on northern Gaza, the area north of the Netzarim Corridor that Israeli forces had established cutting across the Gaza Strip from east to west. The Netzarim Corridor, approximately four kilometers wide, divided northern Gaza from the central and southern portions of the territory, providing Israeli forces with both logistical advantages and control over Palestinian movement between regions. Israeli military forces had been stationed at multiple points along the corridor since its establishment in November 2023, effectively preventing Palestinians from moving northward and making it a key component of any strategy to isolate northern Gaza.7
The first phase of the plan called for the complete evacuation of the civilian population from northern Gaza within a seven-day period. Israeli forces would establish two secured evacuation corridors through which civilians would be required to depart, with those leaving to receive food and water at designated points. The plan's authors estimated that approximately 250,000 to 400,000 people remained in northern Gaza at the time of the plan's conception, though estimates varied and the actual number was uncertain given the fluid population movements caused by previous military operations. The evacuees would be directed southward beyond the Netzarim Corridor to designated humanitarian zones, primarily the al-Mawasi area along the coast that Israel had designated as a safe zone, though this area was already severely overcrowded with displaced persons from previous operations. The plan specified that humanitarian residence complexes should be allocated for the evacuated population, though it provided limited details about how such facilities would be established or maintained.8
Following the one-week evacuation period, the second phase would commence with the declaration of northern Gaza as a closed military zone. At this point, anyone remaining in the area would be designated as an enemy combatant and become subject to military targeting. The plan's authors estimated that approximately 5,000 Hamas fighters remained in northern Gaza and would face a choice between surrender or starvation once the siege was implemented. A complete blockade would be imposed, with no supplies of any kind—food, water, medicine, or fuel—permitted to enter the sealed area. Israeli military forces would maintain the perimeter and enforce the blockade until Hamas fighters either surrendered or perished. The plan's proponents argued this approach would be far more effective than continued military raids and would result in fewer Israeli military casualties than ground combat operations.9
The strategic logic underlying this approach drew heavily from Eiland's analysis of the November 2023 temporary ceasefire and hostage exchange. During that period, Israel had agreed to allow increased humanitarian aid into Gaza in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages. Eiland argued that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had agreed to the exchange specifically because the prior restriction on humanitarian supplies—only two aid trucks per day were entering Gaza at that time—was creating severe pressure on Hamas both from supply shortages affecting its military capability and from popular anger among Gaza's population. According to Eiland's assessment, when Israel subsequently increased aid flows to approximately two hundred trucks per day, it surrendered its most effective leverage over Hamas. The Generals' Plan sought to reimpose and intensify this supply pressure, not just temporarily but as a sustained siege strategy until Hamas's complete capitulation.10
Political Context and Government Response
The Generals' Plan emerged during a period of intense political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from multiple directions. Netanyahu's governing coalition included far-right parties whose leaders openly advocated for permanent Israeli control over Gaza and the forced displacement of Palestinian residents. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich expressed strong support for the Generals' Plan, viewing it as a means to achieve their objective of Israeli annexation and eventual settlement of Gaza. Both ministers had made public statements endorsing policies that would create unbearable living conditions to encourage what they termed "voluntary emigration" of Palestinians from Gaza. At an October 2024 conference attended by members of Netanyahu's Likud Party, Ben Gvir stated that "encouraging emigration" of Palestinian residents would be "the most ethical" solution to the conflict, while Smotrich asserted that Gaza was "part of the Land of Israel" and that "without settlements, there is no security."11
Netanyahu's own position on the Generals' Plan appeared deliberately ambiguous, possibly reflecting the competing pressures he faced from different constituencies. His office officially denied that the government was considering or implementing the plan, with statements asserting that Israel had no intention of permanently depopulating northern Gaza or imposing military governance over the territory. However, Israeli officials speaking anonymously told the Associated Press that Netanyahu had "read and studied" the plan and that elements of it were being implemented in military operations. Political analysts suggested Netanyahu may have allowed partial implementation of the plan to maintain support from his far-right coalition partners, particularly during a critical period before budget approval deadlines when defections could have brought down his government.12 This political calculus may have created a situation where military operations proceeded in ways that aligned with the Generals' Plan even without formal government adoption of the complete strategy.
Within Israel's military and defense establishment, responses to the plan were divided. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant opposed implementation of the Generals' Plan, apparently concerned about both its military feasibility and its potential to damage Israel's international standing. Israeli military sources indicated that while some elements of the plan informed operational planning, the Israeli Defense Forces had not adopted it as comprehensive doctrine. Military officials emphasized that operations in northern Gaza were being conducted to combat Hamas forces that had regrouped in the area, particularly around the Jabalia refugee camp, rather than to implement a wholesale depopulation strategy. However, Israeli media reports and military analysts noted that actual operations in northern Gaza beginning in October 2024 corresponded closely to the Generals' Plan in their systematic nature, including targeted evacuation orders, creation of one-way movement corridors southward, and restrictions on humanitarian aid entry.13
Implementation and Ground Reality
Beginning in early October 2024, Israeli military operations in northern Gaza intensified in ways that closely paralleled the Generals' Plan framework, regardless of whether formal adoption had occurred. On October 06, 2024, Israel designated all of northern Gaza as a combat zone and issued comprehensive evacuation orders affecting an estimated 400,000 remaining residents in the area. These orders affected the cities of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia, with residents instructed to evacuate southward through specified corridors to reach the al-Mawasi humanitarian zone. The Israeli Defense Forces issued these orders through Arabic-language spokespersons with detailed maps showing evacuation routes and warnings of prolonged military operations conducted with "great force."14 On October 07, Israeli forces launched a major ground offensive in the Jabalia refugee camp coinciding with the evacuation orders, while simultaneously issuing evacuation orders for three hospitals in the area.
The humanitarian impact of these operations proved severe and immediate. Within the first two weeks of October 2024, no food entered northern Gaza according to humanitarian organizations monitoring aid flows. The World Food Programme and other aid agencies reported that Israel had blocked virtually all humanitarian assistance from reaching the approximately 400,000 people estimated to remain in the besieged area. Hospitals in northern Gaza, already operating under dire conditions from previous months of conflict, reported critical shortages of fuel for generators, medical supplies, and basic necessities. The Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the last functioning medical facilities in northern Gaza, came under particular pressure, with Israeli forces conducting raids and eventually detaining the hospital's director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyah, in late December 2024. The World Health Organization verified at least fifty attacks on or near the hospital since October 2024.15
Testimonies from Palestinian civilians attempting to evacuate described harrowing conditions during the displacement process. Rescue workers and human rights organizations reported that Israeli forces fired at families attempting to comply with evacuation orders, turning what was supposed to be an organized humanitarian evacuation into what some witnesses described as a "death march." Israeli forces reportedly separated men from women and children at checkpoints, interrogating and in many cases detaining or abducting military-age males. Many of those detained were feared to have been tortured or killed in custody. Buildings that had been serving as shelters for displaced persons, including United Nations schools, were systematically bombed or razed after populations evacuated, making return impossible and suggesting the intent to create permanent depopulation rather than temporary tactical evacuations.16
The scale of destruction in northern Gaza intensified markedly during this period. Palestinian and international observers reported unprecedented levels of devastation, with entire neighborhoods leveled by airstrikes and artillery bombardment. On October 29, 2024, Israeli airstrikes on densely populated buildings in Beit Lahia killed approximately 250 people according to local health authorities, with roughly half of the victims remaining buried under rubble. Such attacks occurred repeatedly throughout the siege period, with residential buildings and shelters targeted regularly despite Israel's stated policy of warning civilians before strikes. By late October, Israeli journalist Amos Harel noted that military operations in northern Gaza exhibited clear overlap with the Generals' Plan, though he reported that the Israeli military claimed "the plans currently underway do not include the extreme elements" of Eiland's proposal.17
By mid-November 2024, United Nations agencies estimated that between 100,000 and 131,000 people had been displaced from North Gaza governorate to Gaza City since October 06, while between 65,000 and 75,000 people remained in the besieged northern areas. This represented less than 20 percent of the population that had been present before the intensification of military operations. The humanitarian situation for those remaining reached catastrophic levels. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification published an alert on November 08, 2024, stating that famine was likely imminent in areas within northern Gaza. The alert warned that the situation had deteriorated significantly beyond the already dire conditions documented in mid-October, with the systematic blocking of humanitarian aid creating conditions for mass starvation.18
Access for humanitarian organizations became virtually impossible despite repeated attempts. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that between October 01 and November 25, 2024, the UN attempted to reach besieged areas in North Gaza 41 times, of which 37 were outright denied by Israeli authorities and four were severely impeded on the ground such that assistance could not be delivered. Out of 99 aid movements that needed to pass through Israeli military checkpoints to reach areas north of Wadi Gaza during the same period, 40 were denied, 25 were impeded, nine had to be cancelled, and only 25 were facilitated. This represented more than a 100 percent increase in denials compared to September 2024, with facilitation of movements dropping by 21 percent. Throughout November, no attempts by UN agencies to provide full assistance to besieged people in northern Gaza were facilitated.19
International Reactions and Legal Concerns
The operations in northern Gaza and their apparent alignment with the Generals' Plan generated significant international concern and condemnation from human rights organizations, legal experts, and governments. On October 13, 2024, United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a letter to senior Israeli officials giving Israel a thirty-day deadline to substantially increase humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza or face potential suspension of American military assistance. The letter specifically demanded that Israel surge humanitarian aid, hasten deliveries of commercial goods, and reaffirm that "there will be no Israeli government policy of forced evacuation of civilians from northern to southern Gaza." The letter represented an unusually stark warning from Israel's closest ally, though skeptics noted that the thirty-day timeframe would extend past the November 2024 United States presidential election, potentially limiting its effectiveness as leverage.20
Legal scholars and human rights experts raised serious concerns about whether the strategy constituted violations of international humanitarian law. Professor Janina Dill of Oxford University noted that the Generals' Plan raised multiple challenges under international law, particularly regarding the prohibition on starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, the protection of civilians during military operations, and prohibitions on forcible transfer of populations. Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard stated that the campaign in northern Gaza might amount to forcible transfer of civilians from a vast area, noting that despite evacuation orders being issued under the pretext of creating a war zone, there were no assurances that displaced people would be allowed to return when fighting ended. Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, deportation or forcible transfer of a population as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians constitutes a crime against humanity.21
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, generally considered center-left and a consistent critic of the Netanyahu government, published an editorial on October 22, 2024, stating that mounting evidence indicated Israel was pursuing a policy of siege and starvation to force complete evacuation of northern Gaza's civilian population, thereby implementing the Generals' Plan. The editorial asserted: "Make no mistake, it is a war crime, and it runs contrary to UN Security Council decision 2334, which states that land may not be taken through force, referring to acts of war." The editorial noted concerns that the strategy aimed not merely at defeating Hamas but at permanently altering demographic realities on the ground in ways that would facilitate eventual Israeli annexation and settlement.22 These concerns were reinforced by conferences organized by Israeli settler groups and attended by government ministers discussing plans for settlement construction in Gaza following the war.
Palestinian, Israeli, and international human rights organizations described the operations as potentially constituting genocide or ethnic cleansing. The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem characterized the humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza as an "intended result" of Israeli policy rather than an unfortunate byproduct of military operations. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued statements expressing grave concern about the tactics being employed and calling for immediate action by the international community to prevent further catastrophe. Several United Nations officials, including special rapporteurs, used language suggesting that Israeli actions might meet the legal definition of genocide, particularly when combined with broader patterns of destruction and statements by Israeli officials about Gaza's population.23
Humanitarian Crisis Deepens Through Year-End
As 2024 drew to a close, the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza continued deteriorating with the siege entering its third month. By December 2024, multiple UN agencies reported that parts of North Gaza governorate had been under tightened siege for more than 60 days, with between 65,000 and 75,000 people estimated to remain trapped without access to adequate food, water, electricity, or healthcare. The destruction of the healthcare system reached a critical point in late December when Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the last functioning medical facilities in northern Gaza, rendering it inoperable. The World Health Organization reported that with Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals entirely out of service and Al-Awda Hospital barely able to function after recent airstrikes, the healthcare system for northern Gaza had reached a breaking point.24
Throughout December 2024, humanitarian organizations reported that aid missions to northern Gaza faced systematic obstruction. Of 339 humanitarian movements coordinated with Israeli authorities across Gaza between December 01 and December 16, 141 were denied access, 62 were impeded, 34 had to be cancelled, and only 102 were facilitated. Aid missions specifically to North Gaza governorate faced even worse success rates. Between December 01 and December 16, the UN attempted to reach besieged areas in North Gaza 40 times, with 38 attempts outright denied and two impeded. The systematic pattern of denials suggested deliberate policy rather than ad hoc security decisions, supporting claims that elements of the Generals' Plan strategy of complete isolation were being implemented.25
The onset of winter weather in late November and December added another layer of crisis for Gaza's population. Heavy rains on November 25 worsened conditions for displaced people living in makeshift shelters and tents, with flooding affecting an estimated 1.6 million people across the Gaza Strip. In northern Gaza, where infrastructure damage exceeded 80 percent according to the Palestinian Water Authority, the combination of destroyed buildings, blocked aid, and harsh weather created conditions approaching what humanitarian officials characterized as societal collapse. Reports emerged of babies and children dying from hypothermia due to lack of adequate shelter and heating fuel, with the World Health Organization noting that weather-related deaths among vulnerable populations were increasing.26
By year's end, casualty figures for the entire Gaza conflict had reached at least 45,541 Palestinians killed and 108,338 injured according to Gaza's Ministry of Health. The ministry noted that these figures represented only those deaths that could be documented, with unknown additional numbers buried under rubble or otherwise unrecorded. Among verified fatalities, the demographic breakdown showed approximately 13,319 children, 7,216 women, 3,447 elderly persons, and 16,735 men. The ministry also reported that as of October 07, 2024, at least 35,055 children had lost one or both parents during the war. The concentration of casualties in northern Gaza during the October-December period appeared disproportionately high, though precise breakdowns by geographic area remained difficult to verify given communication disruptions and restrictions on journalist access.27
Debate Over Efficacy and Strategic Rationale
Even among those potentially sympathetic to the Generals' Plan's objectives, questions arose regarding its military and strategic effectiveness. Some Israeli military analysts argued that while the plan addressed real problems in Israel's Gaza strategy, it overlooked significant practical challenges. The Institute for National Security Studies, while acknowledging that the plan contributed to debate about Gaza's future, noted that it failed to advance the broader objectives of the war, could seriously harm Israel's international legitimacy, and might accelerate a trend toward permanent Israeli occupation and military governance of Gaza. The institute argued that managing humanitarian aid from a distance while cooperating with international humanitarian agencies would better serve Israeli interests than assuming direct responsibility for Gaza's population through siege tactics.28
Doubts about the plan's feasibility centered on several factors. The sustained military commitment required to maintain a siege of northern Gaza while simultaneously confronting Hezbollah in Lebanon and managing tensions with Iran raised questions about whether Israel possessed sufficient military resources for such a strategy. Palestinian resistance continued operating in northern Gaza despite the siege, suggesting that Hamas's organizational capacity had not been fully degraded by the strategy. Perhaps most fundamentally, the extent of international pressure on Israel to relieve the humanitarian crisis might prove unsustainable politically even if the strategy appeared militarily effective. The steadfastness shown by portions of Gaza's population who refused to evacuate despite increasingly dire conditions also challenged assumptions underlying the plan about the ease of complete population displacement.29
Interestingly, by early 2025, Giora Eiland himself appeared to acknowledge significant limitations in the approach he had championed. In a radio interview in January 2025, Eiland stated that "the path to ending Hamas's rule is not through the military solution, which has proven ineffective," and called for Israel to declare willingness to end fighting in exchange for the return of all captives. He warned that continuing the war under conditions of Israeli military rule would result in the deaths of dozens of Israeli soldiers annually without achieving meaningful objectives. These statements suggested that even the plan's architect had concluded that the military-siege approach could not achieve its stated goals, though by that point extensive damage had already been inflicted on northern Gaza and its population.30
Long-Term Implications and Unresolved Questions
The implementation, whether partial or complete, of the Generals' Plan approach in northern Gaza likely will have lasting consequences extending well beyond the immediate humanitarian crisis. The systematic destruction of infrastructure, housing, and essential services in northern Gaza has rendered much of the area uninhabitable according to assessments by various organizations. The Financial Times analysis published in December 2023 had already found northern Gaza virtually uninhabitable, and subsequent operations intensified rather than reversed this situation. UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths's January 2024 statement that Gaza had "simply become uninhabitable" applied with particular force to the northern governorate by the end of 2024.31
The question of whether displaced Palestinians would ever be permitted to return to northern Gaza remained fundamentally unresolved. While Israeli officials stated that depopulation was not permanent, several factors suggested otherwise. The systematic demolition of residential buildings and infrastructure after evacuations, the designation of areas as closed military zones, and statements by settler groups and right-wing Israeli politicians about plans for resettlement all pointed toward possible permanent annexation. The precedent of the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, when settlements were dismantled and approximately 8,000 Israeli settlers relocated, hung over discussions of Gaza's future, with some of those former settlers and their supporters viewing the current crisis as an opportunity to return.32
The Generals' Plan and its apparent implementation also raised profound questions about the evolution of warfare ethics and international humanitarian law enforcement. The explicit advocacy by senior Israeli military and political figures for using starvation and epidemics as weapons represented a direct challenge to established norms prohibiting such tactics. The apparent willingness of a democratic state with strong international ties to employ or threaten such methods suggested either a breakdown in the normative constraints on warfare or an assessment that those constraints lacked meaningful enforcement mechanisms. The response, or lack thereof, from the international community to the situation in northern Gaza may influence future conflicts regarding what tactics states believe they can employ with impunity.33
The plan also illustrated broader tensions between counterinsurgency objectives and humanitarian obligations in densely populated areas. The challenge of combating organizations like Hamas that operate among civilian populations has confounded military strategists in numerous conflicts. The Generals' Plan represented an extreme approach to this challenge, essentially proposing to remove the entire civilian population to create a pure military zone. While this might simplify military operations in a narrow tactical sense, it generated enormous human costs and political complications that likely outweighed any military advantages. The apparent conclusion by Eiland himself that the approach had failed suggested that even proponents of aggressive tactics recognized the limitations of strategies that prioritize military considerations while disregarding humanitarian and political consequences.34
As Gaza entered 2025 under conditions of continued conflict and humanitarian catastrophe, the legacy of the Generals' Plan remained deeply contested. Supporters argued it represented hard-headed realism about what military pressure was necessary to defeat an entrenched militant organization, while critics characterized it as a blueprint for war crimes that violated fundamental principles of international humanitarian law. The reality that operations in northern Gaza exhibited striking parallels to the plan's framework regardless of formal adoption suggested that the underlying logic resonated with elements of Israel's military and political establishment. Whether this approach would be judged by history as a necessary if brutal tactic in asymmetric warfare or as a humanitarian catastrophe that crossed fundamental moral and legal boundaries remained an open question, one whose answer would likely shape both immediate policy debates and longer-term historical assessments of this phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.