UN officials claimed Israel was preventing food aid from reaching Gazan civilians in the northern parts of the Strip, the Associated Press said on Monday.
According to the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering a plan to block humanitarian aid from reaching northern Gaza to force Hamas terrorists into submission.
Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) denied that the crossings to northern Gaza have been closed, but according to the AP, they did not respond to questions about how many aid trucks have reached the area in recent days.
COGAT said on Monday that 30 trucks entered through "Crossing 96" (in central Gaza), but those are likely not intended for the residents of northern Gaza. The UN estimates that about 400,000 Palestinians remain in the north, and a senior UN official noted that only around 100 people have fled to southern Gaza since the raid on Jabaliya began about a week ago.
The plan promoted by former senior military officials, calls for Israel to maintain control over the area for an indefinite period to attempt to create a new civilian administration without Hamas, splitting the Gaza Strip in two.
The cabinet did not decide to implement the plan and it is unclear how seriously it was being considered. When asked by AP if the evacuation orders in northern Gaza marked the first stages of the plan, an IDF spokesperson said no. “We have not received a plan like that,” he said.
IDF troops operate in Gaza
(IDF)
But one official with knowledge of the matter said parts of the plan were already being implemented, without specifying which parts. A second official, who is Israeli, said Netanyahu “had read and studied” the plan, “like many plans that have reached him throughout the war,” but didn’t say whether any of it had been adopted. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan isn’t supposed to be discussed publicly.
The so-called Generals’ Plan was presented last month by a group of retired generals and high-ranking officers, according to publicly available minutes. Since then, officials from the prime minister’s office called seeking more details, according to its chief architect, Giora Eiland, a former head of the National Security Council. Eiland said the only way to stop Hamas and bring an end to the yearlong war is to prevent its access to aid.
“They will either have to surrender or to starve,” Eiland said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to kill every person,” he said. “It will not be necessary. People will not be able to live there (the north). The water will dry up.” He believes the siege could force Hamas to release the 101 hostages still being held by the terror group since its Oct. 7 attack.
So far, despite the IDF's evacuation orders, only a small number of people have relocated from northern to southern Gaza. Many residents remain hesitant, partly due to fears that conditions in the south may not be much better and concerns that they won’t be allowed to return to their homes in the north. “All Gazans are afraid of the plan,” said Jomana Elkhalili, a 26-year-old Palestinian aid worker for Oxfam living in Gaza City with her family.
“Still, they will not flee. They will not make the mistake again ... We know the place is not safe,” she said, referring to southern Gaza, where most of the population is huddled in dismal tent camps and airstrikes often hit shelters. “That’s why people in the north say it’s better to die than to leave.”
In addition to fears about their fate, if they evacuate, some residents report that Hamas terrorists are intimidating them, warning them not to heed the Israeli military’s evacuation orders and to stay inside their homes and shelters.
Gazans say Hamas forcing civilians to stay in combat zone, preventing evacuations
(Video: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)
On Monday, the IDF released a recording of a conversation between a representative of the military intelligence and a Gazan resident. The resident is heard saying "The problem is that when we follow the army's instructions and try to go to Al-Mawasi, there are people who come out against us and start hitting us with sticks, telling us 'go back, go back' What should we do?"
The IDF accused Hamas of using Gaza’s civilians as human shields, preventing them from responding to the army's calls to evacuate to safer areas.
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