Operation Iron Swords - November 2024
Wars generally end with one side accepting that it has lost. So long as neither side gives up, then the war goes on.
The Palestinian militant movement Hamas reportedly informed multiple international mediators that it was willing to reach an armistice with Israel, following the announcement of a truce in Lebanon. The US-brokered ceasefire provides for a withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon within 60 days and the deployment of the Lebanese army along the border previously held by Hezbollah. “Hamas appreciates the right of Lebanon and Hezbollah to reach an agreement that protects the people of Lebanon and we hope that this agreement will pave the way to reaching an agreement that ends the war of genocide against our people in Gaza,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters on 27 November 2024.
Abu Zuhri added that Hamas has shown “high flexibility” and remains “interested in reaching an agreement that ends the war in Gaza,” but that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t seem interested. An unnamed Hamas official told AFP that the group has informed Egypt, Türkiye and Qatar it is “ready for a ceasefire agreement and a serious deal to exchange prisoners.”
The ceasefire would also mean “the withdrawal of the occupation forces, the return of the displaced, and the achievement of a real and complete prisoner exchange deal,” the group said in a statement published earlier on 27 November 2024.
Netanyahu had presented the Lebanon ceasefire as Hezbollah leaving Hamas in a lurch and allowing Israel to “increase pressure” on Gaza. “From day two of the war, Hamas was counting on Hezbollah to fight by its side. With Hezbollah out of the picture, Hamas is left on its own,” the Israeli prime minister said on Tuesday, adding that the main reason for the truce was “to separate the fronts and isolate Hamas.” Netanyahu added “We are of course committed to completing the annihilation of Hamas”.
According to Israeli media, two hardliners in Netanyahu’s cabinet – Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – remain opposed to any ceasefire with Hamas and have been pushing for West Jerusalem to fully occupy Gaza.
A poll broadcast 27 November 2024 by Israel's Channel 13 showed that regarding the Gaza front , the poll showed that 65.7% believe that the war in the Strip should end and a deal should be reached to return the detainees. 67.4% of the survey participants also responded that they support the establishment of a government investigation committee into what they consider Tel Aviv’s failure on October 7, 2023, when the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ) launched the “ Al-Aqsa Flood ” battle, which inflicted heavy human losses on Israel.
The most prominent military analyst in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Yoav Zeitoun, acknowledged 03 November 2024 that the Israeli forces are actually implementing a modified version of the " Generals' Plan ", which aims to divide the Gaza Strip and isolate its north from the rest of the parts, noting that this plan may take 6 months to achieve its goals. Zaitoun confirms that the Israeli army "began weeks ago to implement what can be described as a partial implementation of the 'Eiland Plan', a plan previously proposed by retired Major General Giora Eiland, former head of the Israeli National Security Council, which aims to besiege strategic areas.
He added, "Despite the Israeli statements that denied the full implementation of this plan, the Israeli army cut off the Jabalia area from the rest of the northern parts of the Strip via a line extending from the coast to the border." While indicating that this isolation came despite intense American pressure, he claims that Israel was forced to bring humanitarian aid into the region, which the Palestinians have repeatedly denied, and confirmed that the residents of Jabalia continue to suffer from real famine.
The military analyst quotes the Israeli army as continuing to carry out a broad operation in the northern Gaza Strip, specifically in the Jabalia area, with the aim of undermining Hamas’s military structure and restricting its movement there, according to “complex field tactics accompanied by restrictions imposed on civilians, which led to a ‘partial siege’ aimed at isolating Jabalia from the rest of the northern Gaza Strip.”
Zaitoun explained that the Israeli army is adopting a sustainable approach over a long period of time, with the aim of eliminating Hamas's military capabilities, with military estimates indicating the possibility of continuing operations for more than 6 months to achieve the goals. Zeitoun points out that “the Israeli army continued to fortify its positions at strategic isolation points in the area, and relies mainly on establishing checkpoints controlled by advanced technologies such as facial recognition, which allows it to control the movement of residents and screen people leaving Jabalia towards Gaza City.”
According to the Yedioth Ahronoth report, Israel views Jabalia as the main stronghold of Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip, where it hosts a number of prominent leaders in the movement and hundreds of fighters. “As the IDF advanced in the area, Hamas elements used intensive defensive tactics that included hundreds of mines and explosives that were randomly planted in roads and buildings,” the military analyst notes. “These explosives are known to be ‘unsophisticated’ compared to those used in other locations, as they lack remote control or electronic guidance, making them traditional traps that are difficult to detect.”
Zeitoun quotes Israeli military sources as saying that “most of the explosives planted in Jabalia lack advanced technology. They are primitive explosives distributed irregularly under carpets, in corners and in abandoned buildings.” This type of trap represents a challenge for soldiers who face great risks during their movements in the area.
In addition, the report also addresses the status of Israeli military support, noting that the Israeli army currently relies on limited artillery and air support in the area after evacuating a large part of the Jabalia population due to being forced to distribute its forces on several fronts, including southern Lebanon. It also draws attention to the fact that the Israeliforces are trying to target specific Hamas sites with precision "to avoid depleting ammunition," but at the same time ignores the fact that this ammunition has caused the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the area.
Zeitoun also highlights what he calls the challenges facing the Israeli army in Jabalia, particularly dealing with ambushes and tunnels. Although he claimed that many combat tunnels used by Hamas to transport fighters and ammunition had been found, he recalled that these tunnels remain among the most prominent obstacles that Israel seeks to eliminate in its current operations, "given the major role they play in enabling Hamas fighters to move and hide."
“The recent battles reveal that Hamas has adapted to the IDF’s tactics and has begun to change its methods,” the newspaper’s military analyst admits, citing last week’s incident that killed four soldiers from the multi-mission unit. “An explosive device was placed on the second floor after Hamas fighters noticed that Israeli forces were focusing on searching the ground floors before storming,” he said, noting that Hamas seeks to increase the challenges facing the army on the ground through different tactics and improvised explosive devices.
The report points out that "the military operations led by the Israeli army in Jabalia to eliminate Hamas' military infrastructure will require more than 6 months of fighting," stressing that the IDF "has already begun establishing a permanent field base in the northern Gaza Strip, indicating the army's intention to maintain a long-term military presence in the area, to ensure that Hamas does not return to its previous positions," according to the report. The report concludes by pointing out the strategic importance of this operation, as an Israeli military source indicates that “the goal of this permanent presence is to prevent Hamas from rebuilding its military power in the area, and to ensure the stability of the areas adjacent to the northern Gaza Strip (the settlements).”
What Middle East experts had been warning about for months finally happened: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 05 November 2024 fired the country's defense minister, combat general Yoav Gallant, with whom he had irreconcilable differences over the conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip.Gallant is a figure seen by Israel's international allies as a "brake" on the far-right elements of the country's coalition government. A previous attempt to oust Gallant in March 2023 sparked massive street protests against Netanyahu.
The apparent differences between Netanyahu and Gallant are a reflection of the wider rift between the right-wing ruling coalition and those army commanders who have long been in favor of reaching an agreement to stop the attack on Gaza and return the prisoners. Gallant repeatedly objected to the continuation of the "war without a clear direction", but Netanyahu has always emphasized that the war will only stop when Hamas is completely destroyed; That is, the same goal that even the army commanders do not believe in the possibility of its realization.
Gallant was replaced by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, a hardliner on the Palestinians. Gideon Saar was appointed Israel's Foreign Minister. Commenting on Galant's resignation, Netanyahu said that there were "too many differences of opinion" between him and the defense minister over the management of Israel's wars. He added that a "crisis of trust" gradually developed between him and Galant, which prevented them from managing the war normally, Reuters reports. "Unfortunately, although there was such trust in the first months of the campaign and there was very fruitful work, in recent months this trust between me and the defense minister has cracked," Netanyahu said. The final straw appears to have been Gallant's renewed push to introduce conscription into the ultra-Orthodox community, which was opposed by the Orthodox Smotrich and Ben Gvir.
Netanyahu chose settlement activist Yechiel Leiter as next US ambassador. US-born Leiter was active in his youth in Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Jewish Defense League and immigrated to Israel with activists from the far-right organization. The Jewish Defense League was founded by the far-right Rabbi Meir Kahane and was designated a terrorist organisation by the US for a series of attacks and assassinations. It was removed from that list due to inactivity. A rightwing publicist and government aide, Leiter is a longtime backer of settlements in the West Bank. Leiter, an ordained rabbi, has resided in West Bank settlements and been active in their establishment and growth for decades. In a 1994 book, “A Peace Plan to Resist,” Leiter argued against the Oslo Accords, which envisioned an independent Palestinian state.
Leiter's son was killed in 2023 fighting in Gaza in the war against Hamas. At his son’s funeral in November, Leiter addressed Joe Biden and the “rumors that you are putting pressure on Israel to hold off, to cease the offensive. ... If those rumors are true – I hope they’re not – but if they are true, Mr President, I respectfully ask of you, here on my son’s grave, to cease and desist,” he continued. “Stand back Mr President: don’t pressure us. Let us do what we know how to do, indeed what we must do, to defeat evil. This is a war of light against darkness, of truth against lies, of civility against murderous barbarism. Take it from one plain-speaking Scrantonian to another – we’re going to win this one, with you or without you,” he said. “We’re going win it hands down, because we are a people of survival, and this battle is one of survival.”
Hadar Susskind, the CEO of Americans for Peace Now, a nonprofit whose stated aim is to find a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, told Haaretz that "Netanyahu has never been subtle, and this appointment is no different. Sending a Kahanist settler to Washington is a clear sign that Netanyahu and his government are moving toward their goal of annexation and doing so openly. We will continue to oppose his disastrous agenda."
The military stated that so far, approximately 55,000 residents of Jabalya have fled south, adding that 'no one is returning to the northern area. According to a report in The Guardian, the statement was made by the commander of Division 162, Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen. Israel's army said it will not allow residents evacuated from the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes. "No one is returning to the northern area. There is no return to the north, and there will not be," military sources said. The IDF acknowledged that this is the implementation of "certain parts" of the "Generals' Plan," developed by retired senior officers, which calls for the forcible expulsion of the entire Palestinian population to the southern half of Gaza, south of the Netzarim corridor (the Gaza River area) controlled by the IDF.
https://olam-katan.co.il/archives/11458">This is how we will return to Gaza Arnon Segal, October 11, 2023
Generals' Plan
The "Generals' Plan" was proposed by a group of reserve Gederals, and gained quite a bit of support in the political-security cabinet. The plan called for imposing a siege on the northern Gaza Strip, allowing the remaining 400,000 Palestinian citizens to leave, and then starving the Hamas terrorists staying in the area until they surrender. The Israeli government will likely continue to pursue "the Generals' Plan" without officially acknowledging its intentions. The expulsion of the Palestinians from northern Gaza will be presented as a military achievement to the Israeli public, while questions as for its sustainability in the long term remain unanswered.
The "Generals' Plan" is based on displacing the remaining residents of the northern Gaza Strip and turning it into a military zone in preparation for its implementation throughout the Strip. The plan was developed at the initiative of the former head of the Operations Division, reserve general Giora Eiland, who is described in Israel as the theorist of the war on Gaza, and is supported by dozens of officers. The name of the "generals’ plan" was first mentioned in the Israeli media in early September 2024.
It is a two-stage military plan, according to what was announced by the Reserve Officers and Fighters Forum. The first phase of the plan requires the displacement of the remaining residents in the northern Gaza Strip, which will be declared a military zone during the second phase, and the experiment will later be generalized throughout the entire Gaza Strip. The plan calls for turning the area north of the Netzarim axis into a closed military zone and forcing about 300,000 Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip to flee.
The plan begins by calling on residents to evacuate their areas towards the south of the Gaza Valley and to consider any civilian who chooses to remain in the north after that as a combatant, allowing Israeli forces to target them, according to military regulations. The plan also seeks to impose long-term control over the northern Gaza Strip and divide Gaza into two regions with the aim of establishing a new administration away from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
Four sources told CNN that the Israeli cabinet did not adopt the blockade proposal put forward by retired general Giora Eiland. But the process that is being carried out was similar to the plan presented by Eiland (known as the Generals' Plan) in a public video, and in a private meeting of the Israeli Cabinet and Knesset. A former senior military official familiar with the thinking of the Israeli government and the security leadership - although not directly involved in the decision-making - told CNN that the cabinet adopted a "version" of the Eiland proposal, dubbed the "Generals' Plan". Eiland told CNN that the claim was "absolutely true," but said there were significant differences between his proposal and what was being implemented on the ground. The operation comes at a time when it is known that the Israeli government is considering several plans to reset the war in Gaza.
Eiland proposed to force all civilians out of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, and then cut off all supplies to the area. According to him, the goal is to force a reset of the war and overthrow the calculations of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. "The reality today in Gaza is that Sinwar is not really tense," he said in a video published at the time. "What [the government] adopted was the need to do more in Gaza, to change Sinwar's way of thinking," said the former military official who spoke to CNN. "This proposal was adopted without any conceivable means in violation of international law."
Retired major general Gershon HaCohen, who co-drafted the proposal, told CNN that Eiland's proposal does not include any plan to allow Gaza citizens to return to northern Gaza. This situation seems likely to raise accusations of ethnic cleansing, which have already been raised by academics such as Omar Bartov, an Israeli-born professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University in Rhode Island. Eiland told CNN in a text message that the cabinet is "already acting on my recommendation with the intention of controlling the northern Gaza Strip, but I recommended imposing a blockade (after evacuation of civilians) and stopping supplies from entering this area. None of this is happening."
At the meeting of the Knesset's foreign affairs committee in September 2024, Eiland was reported to have said : "What is important (to Hamas leader Yahya) Sinwar is land and honor, and with this maneuver you are taking away both land and honor from him." A week later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed the members of that committee that he was considering implementing the proposal. It is likely that he hopes that the plan can provide him with an opportunity to declare "victory" to save face in front of the Israeli public, given the fact that a year into the war, his government still has not achieved its goals of "destroying Hamas".
Senior American officials raised questions on the subject to their Israeli counterparts. General David Petraeus, who was the head of the CIA and previously served as commander of the US Army's Central Command, commander of the Multinational Force in Iraq and commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, suggested that Israel stay in the territory and not leave for the time being. Petraeus emphasized that if the IDF adopted a strategy in Gaza where the IDF would enter the territory, destroy the enemy and damage his infrastructure and then leave - a vacuum is inevitably created, and the enemy recovers. According to him, the "clear and hold" strategy includes three main stages: first, cleaning the area of terrorist elements; secondly, maintaining a continuous military presence and preventing the return of hostile elements to the territory; And third, rehabilitation - building infrastructure and services for the local population.
Twice before Israeli forces occupied the Gaza Strip, and contrary to the monstrous image of Gaza today, in both cases the mission was completed quickly, within a day and a half to two days, and with a relatively small number of casualties. Historian Dr. Hagai Ben Artzi estimates the number of those killed in Gaza to be no more than a few dozen in each of the wars. Needless to say, every person is a world and full.
The most prominent military analyst in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Yoav Zeitoun, acknowledged 03 November 2024 that the Israeli forces are actually implementing a modified version of the " Generals' Plan ", which aims to divide the Gaza Strip and isolate its north from the rest of the parts, noting that this plan may take 6 months to achieve its goals. Zaitoun confirms that the Israeli army "began weeks ago to implement what can be described as a partial implementation of the 'Eiland Plan', a plan previously proposed by retired Major General Giora Eiland, former head of the Israeli National Security Council, which aims to besiege strategic areas.
He added, "Despite the Israeli statements that denied the full implementation of this plan, the Israeli army cut off the Jabalia area from the rest of the northern parts of the Strip via a line extending from the coast to the border." While indicating that this isolation came despite intense American pressure, he claims that Israel was forced to bring humanitarian aid into the region, which the Palestinians have repeatedly denied, and confirmed that the residents of Jabalia continue to suffer from real famine.
The military analyst quotes the Israeli army as continuing to carry out a broad operation in the northern Gaza Strip, specifically in the Jabalia area, with the aim of undermining Hamas’s military structure and restricting its movement there, according to “complex field tactics accompanied by restrictions imposed on civilians, which led to a ‘partial siege’ aimed at isolating Jabalia from the rest of the northern Gaza Strip.”
Zaitoun explained that the Israeli army is adopting a sustainable approach over a long period of time, with the aim of eliminating Hamas's military capabilities, with military estimates indicating the possibility of continuing operations for more than 6 months to achieve the goals. Zeitoun points out that “the Israeli army continued to fortify its positions at strategic isolation points in the area, and relies mainly on establishing checkpoints controlled by advanced technologies such as facial recognition, which allows it to control the movement of residents and screen people leaving Jabalia towards Gaza City.”
There are several reasons why Israel seeks to cut off and control the northern part of the Gaza Strip. First, it wants to separate Gaza City, the administrative center of the Strip and the seat of political power, from the rest of the territory, thereby dismantling the physical infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority. It has a political meaning.
Second, Gaza City is a major social services center, home to Gaza's main hospital, Al-Shifa Medical Complex, and most of its universities. Many organizations, businesses and a large part of the Gazan middle class were based there. Many of the prominent families historically connected to the government in the Gaza region find their roots in the city. The loss of Gaza City will have a tremendous social impact on the Palestinian population.
Thirdly, the north of the Gaza Strip is also important to Israel from a security point of view. It is home to the Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest in Palestine, where the first Palestinian intifada began and where several major Israeli military campaigns were thwarted. Northern Gaza is also close to key places in Israel, such as Ashkelon port, which is only 10 km (6 miles) from the Gaza border. A significant portion of the southern population of Israel lives in the Ashkelon-Ashdod area. Controlling the northern shores of Gaza can also ensure greater security for southern Israel and for drilling infrastructure its gas and possibly assist in the illegal allocation of the Gaza offshore gas field.
With all of this in mind, the Israeli military began preparations for some form of extended control over northern Gaza long before the "Generals' Plan" was issued as official policy. In November of last year, it began work on what has come to be known as the Netzer Corridor, a strip of land that stretches from Israel's official borders to the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off northern Gaza from its central and southern parts.
The corridor, 4 km (2.5 miles) wide, provides the Israeli army with significant logistical and tactical advantages, allowing it to resupply its forces stationed in Gaza City and the central Gaza Strip and to control the flow of humanitarian aid entering northern Gaza. It is defined as a closed military area and prevents the Palestinians from returning north from the south, as anyone who tries to enter risks being shot. Israeli forces are stationed at several points along the corridor, and use it as a central base for assembling forces and launching military operations. From the beginning of October 2024, the transfer of aid trucks to the north of the Gaza Strip was completely stopped. At the same time, the IDF began a ground operation in Jabaliya and called on Palestinian civilians in the area to evacuate to the south of the Strip.
Israel repeatedly issued evacuation orders to the north and sought to push out its remaining population by reducing access to humanitarian aid, bombing, raiding and destroying health centers and hospitals and targeting other essential infrastructure such as water wells and electricity. generators. It also systematically targeted residential buildings and schools turned into shelters to deny people shelter and spread fear. As a result, an estimated 400,000 of the pre-war population remain in the north. 1.1 million .
The "Generals' Plan" includes increasing all these activities to fully force the Palestinians out of northern Gaza. As soon as the area is evacuated of its residents, the Israeli army will declare it a closed military area, denying Palestinians access to their homes and lands. If Israel also maintains control over Rafah in the south, then this will effectively limit the majority of the Gaza population to a smaller and denser area in the center or along the coast, creating difficult living conditions. This strategy may pressure part of the population to leave the Gaza Strip over time. Advocating such measures, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gabir has repeatedly called for a policy that would force Palestinians into "voluntary migration" by creating intolerable living conditions.
The Israeli army began to carry out a large-scale operation in northern Gaza, issuing evacuation orders 05 October 2024 to the Palestinian citizens in the area, numbering more than 400,000, and preventing the arrival of food supplies, a few weeks later. It is reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu studied and discussed the plan with the "mini-war ministry", which is based on a siege of the region, starving its people and forcing Hamas to release the hostages.
Israeli forces launched the operation following intelligence information that it said showed "the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure in the Jablia area in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as the efforts made by Hamas to restore its operational capabilities in the area." In fact, the renewed attack was much wider than just the Jabaliya refugee camp.
On October 5, Israel launched a ground military operation, demanding the evacuation of the Palestinians living in Beit Hanon, Beit Lahia, the Jabaliya refugee camp and the town of Jabaliya. It then cut off the delivery of humanitarian aid to the region, leading aid agencies to sound the alarm of impending famine. The stated goal of this operation is the destruction of renewed Palestinian resistance forces in the north. However, observers noted that this new attack may be the first stage of what the Israeli media called the "general plan" of ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza as a form of collective punishment of Palestinians.
An Israeli army spokesman issued an order in Arabic to all Palestinians in the northernmost areas of Gaza - Beit Hanun, Jabaliya and Beit Lahia - to leave and move to al-Mawasi, an Israeli-declared "humanitarian" area in southern Gaza. , which was nevertheless subjected to intense aerial bombardment for several days. On Saturday, the army added additional mandatory evacuation zones, dropped banners and posted on X ordering people in the Nazla area and other areas in Jabaliya to leave. "The army is working very strongly against the terrorist organizations and will continue to do so for a long time," said Avichai Adraei.
It was clear to the entire top of the Southern Command that it was only a matter of time before the IDF forces crushed the reorganization of Hamas in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. Southern Command estimated that an attack on the broad center of terrorism in the Jabaliya refugee camp would result in a wide-ranging effect: the defeat of the forces of the Northern Gaza Brigade, damage to Hamas's ability to control the entire northern region and damage to the terrorist infrastructure of Jabaliya, which dates back to the beginning of the war or rather over decades. It was a symbol of opposition to Israel in general and the IDF in particular. As time passed, combined with informational operations and the advance of the forces by fire, 55,000 civilians left Jabaliya in stages. According to IDF estimates, the occupation of all of Jabaliya will enable the IDF to fully control the entire northern Gaza Strip. As a result, the entire area will be defined as a combat zone free of terrorists.
"The Generals' Plan" may succeed if Israel continues without time or resource limitations. However, it is unlikely that the Israeli military will be able to sustain operations in Gaza indefinitely, especially with the ongoing war with Lebanon requiring the deployment of significant forces and strategic focus and with the potential for escalation with Iran. The spirit of determination shown by the people who remain in northern Gaza also challenges the effectiveness of this plan.
Moreover, the question arises as to how long Israeli forces can maintain their positions in northern Gaza without suffering increasing losses from the Palestinian resistance that continues to operate there. This is only possible if Israel achieves a decisive victory, which will require the destruction of the resistance groups. But developments in the past year have proven that this is not a realistic outcome.
External pressure is also a critical factor. Arab countries, especially Egypt and Jordan, have consistently opposed any large-scale transfer of the Palestinian population outside the Gaza Strip. The ethnic cleansing of the north may be the first step towards the deportation of Palestinians beyond the borders of the Strip. Such actions will destabilize these countries and risk triggering a new phase of the conflict - a development that is feared not only in Cairo and Amman but throughout the region. This may oblige the Arab countries to act beyond the usual verbal condemnations.
Shahab news agency, the Palestinian government's information office in the Gaza Strip announced 09 November 2024 in a statement on the 400th day of the war: Since the beginning of the war against Gaza on October 7th of last year, 53552 people have been martyred and missing in this strip. The information office of the Palestinian government in Gaza stated: 400 days have passed since the genocide in Gaza. The occupying army committed 3 thousand 798 massacres, as a result of which 53 thousand 552 people were martyred and missing. 10 thousand people are missing and 43 thousand 552 people have been martyred. Among them, 17 thousand 385 people are children.
It is stated in this statement: 209 babies were born and died. 525 children did not even reach one year old. 1367 Palestinian families lost all their members and the family disappeared. 38 people were martyred due to hunger. The information office stated: 11 thousand 891 of the martyrs are women. 10 thousand 54 people from medical staff and 85 people from civil defense have been martyred. 184 journalists have also been martyred.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said 13 November 2024 that Israel had "achieved its strategic objectives" from the war in the Gaza Strip, calling for an end to it, stressing the importance of having a "clear plan for the post-war phase." At the end of his talks at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Blinken stressed that his country seeks to ensure the return of the residents of the Gaza Strip to their homes after the end of the Israeli military operations. “We want to see, alongside humanitarian aid, commercial trucks bringing in commercial goods,” he said. “This is crucial because many of the things that traders bring in, including fruits and vegetables, are absolutely essential for the balanced nutrition of people in Gaza. This in turn is crucial to ensure that they have the immunity they need to fight off disease.” He continued: "There is a big problem of lawlessness and looting inside Gaza, which must be addressed. We are working to find a solution to it." Yaniv Kubovich and Avi Scharf writing in Haaretz reported 13 November 2024 that the IDF was gearing up to remain in Gaza until the end of 2025, at least. Satellite images were the same in several parts of the Gaza Strip: the Israeli Army is widening roads, building substantial outposts and installing long-term infrastructure – including on roads that used to lead to the Israeli settlements. According to one officer serving in Gaza: 'The IDF won't withdraw before 2026'.
The Sevice Fmployees lnternational Union (SFIU) issued public support 18 November 2024 or the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval in the Senate that would block the sale of certain offensive weapons to lsrael. "SEIU members have made clear that they want an end to taxpayer dollars being used to fund military aid that enables attacks against innocent civilians in Gaza" said SEIU International President April Verrett. "lt's time for Senators to take action to help bring about a peaceful resolution to this conflict." SEIU urged Senators to support the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens due to lsrael restricting the flow of food and medicine to tens of thousands of Palestinians who face malnutrition and starvation and as Prime Minister Netanyahu's refusal to finalize a deal puts the remaining hostages' lives in danger.
The Washington Post quoted relief organizations as saying that organized gangs are stealing aid in Gaza and operating freely in areas controlled by the Israeli army, and confirmed that looting has become the biggest obstacle to distributing aid in the southern part of Gaza. The newspaper added - quoting relief workers and transportation companies - that gangs killed and kidnapped aid truck drivers around the Kerem Shalom crossing. The newspaper confirmed that the aid theft gangs in Gaza are benefiting from the leniency of the Israeli army, and that looting operations took place near it without it intervening.
Linoy Bar Gefen, a journalist and TV presenter, said 30 Novembe 2024 that the longer Israel delays the deal, the higher the price will be, "while Hamas has not budged even a centimeter from its positions." She considered that sentencing 101 prisoners to death would be a scandal for Israel. For his part, Yaya Pink of the Equality in Reserve Service Foundation pointed out that they “don’t want to end the war in Gaza, because there are political ambitions of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich , and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , who is somewhat hostage to them, to try to renew the settlement there in Gush Katif, and this in my opinion is the reason why the war in Gaza has not ended compared to Lebanon.” According to former Northern Corps commander Noam Tibon, Netanyahu's government, for partisan considerations, is currently preventing a prisoner swap deal, and is concerned about ending the war on the southern front, fearing for the government's survival. For his part, Danny Yatom, a former head of the Israeli foreign intelligence agency ( Mossad ), explained that Netanyahu does not want to release the prisoners, "because he realizes that if they are released, the worst government in the history of the State of Israel will collapse, and then he may be forced to stand 'naked' in court with all the crimes attributed to him." He added in a discussion session on Channel 13, saying: "The matter is very simple, these are partisan reasons, only partisan reasons, and he has no other reasons." Yedioth Ahronoth's Arab affairs correspondent, Avi Issacharoff, does not believe that ending the war in Lebanon will lead to a quick end to the war in Gaza, and pointed to two main differences: "First, Hamas did not rush to a ceasefire, even though military pressure on it will escalate in light of the end of the confrontation in the north." The second, and perhaps more important, flaw, according to Issacharoff, “is that the Israeli government is not interested in ending the situation, that is, ending the war in Gaza, for partisan considerations among other considerations.” The Israeli correspondent said that he does not currently see Israel heading toward ending the war in the Gaza Strip in the coming days or weeks.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
