Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel’s military operations are intensifying in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) urging civilians to evacuate and move south. New reports suggest that this may be the precursor to a contentious plan to seal off humanitarian aid to the region, a strategy aimed at starving out Hamas militants but which could trap hundreds of thousands of Palestinians without food or water
No trucks of food, water or medicine have entered the north since Sept. 30, according to the U.N. and the website of the Israeli military agency overseeing humanitarian aid crossings.
The plan calls for Israel to maintain control over the north for an indefinite period to attempt to create a new administration without Hamas, splitting the Gaza Strip in two.
Israel has issued many evacuation orders for the north throughout the yearlong war, the most recent of which was Sunday. The plan proposed to Netanyahu and the Israeli parliament by a group of retired generals would escalate the pressure, giving Palestinians a week to leave the northern third of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, before declaring it a closed military zone.
Those who remain would be considered combatants — meaning military regulations would allow troops to kill them — and denied food, water, medicine and fuel, according to a copy of the plan given to the Associated Press by its chief architect, who claimed the plan is “the only way to break Hamas in the north and pressure it to release the remaining hostages.”
