Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are still deaf to the removals of an international community horrified by the humanitarian crisis that takes place in the Gaza Strip. Almost two years after the beginning of the war against Hamas, Israel, far from participating in a reduction in the conflict in the Palestinian territory, gave the opposite turn.
This Friday, August 8, the Israeli security firm validated a plan for “defeating Hamas” while “took control of the city of Gaza”, the main agglomeration of the enclosure devastated by military operations carried out by Tsahal in response to the attacks of October 7, directed by the terrorist movement.
• What is the Israeli plan?
The adoption of the plan by the security firm and its content is not in itself a surprise. For several days, the Israeli press echoed such a design. On Thursday, in an interview with the American Channel Fox News, Benjamin Netanyahu had revealed “the intention” of his government to take control of the entire Gaza Strip.
In the version of the plan voted by the majority of the members of the cabinet, after a meeting has lasted a good part of the night from Thursday to Friday, a total control of the Gaza Strip is no longer mentioned. However, the press release of the offices of Benjamin Netanyahu said that Tsahal “is preparing to take control of the city of Gaza”, north of the enclave.
Specifically, the difference is about a few tens of km². In fact, Tsahal is already controlling around three quarters of the territory with a total area of 365 km². These regions occupied by the Israeli army are essentially the closest to the border with the Hebrew State.
The Israeli plan consists more specifically in five principles that should lead to the end of the war. Therefore, the Hebrew State intends to obtain the disarmament of Hamas and the return of all the Israeli taken as hostages on October 7, 2023, either alive or dead. Israel also plans to “demilitarize” the Gaza Strip while guaranteeing “security control”.
Finally, the Benjamin Netanyahu government wants to establish an “alternative civil administration that is not Hamas or the Palestinian authority.” “We do not want to keep” the Gaza Strip, the prime minister said Fox News. “We want to give it to the Arab forces that will govern it properly, without threatening, and will offer Gazanis a pleasant life.”
A perspective that leaves more than the skeptic David Rigoulet-Gze, a researcher associated with the International and Strategic Research Insitut (IRIS) interviewed in BFMTV:
“Even if the prime minister talked about the Arab countries, without specifying which, for the governance that would take care, we do not see very well how things could happen.”
• What consequences for Gazaouis?
The acquisition of the city of Gaza by Israel would imply the evacuation of the inhabitants of the agglomeration “in the next two months towards the refugee camps located in the center of the Gaza Strip and other places”, according to the Israeli public radio.
Currently, according to several Israeli media, there are around 900,000 people living in the city, which has already been the objective of large land and aerial attacks. Among these inhabitants are many gazanes that have been forced in the past to flee from the cities of the northern enclave.
For the Palestinians who are still in the Gaza Strip, the fatalism and the fear of the worst predominate. “They tell us that we go to the south, then let’s return to the north, and now they still want to send us to the south. We are human beings, but no one can listen to us or see us,” he deplored Maysa Al-Chanti, 52, 52 years old and a six-year-old mother.
“There is nothing more to occupy,” said Maysaa al-Heila with Associated Press, who lives in a displaced camp. “There is nothing gaza left.”
With this new stage in the Israeli offensive, the main fear of the international community is health.
• Is the Israeli hostages sacrificed?
The return of all Israeli hostages is one of the main objectives shown by the Benjamin Netanyahu government. According to a last count, there are still 49 retained by the Islamist movement and 22 of them would remain alive. The fate of these hostages eliminated 22 months ago continues to arouse a great emotion in public opinion in Israel. The publication last week by Hamas and its ally, the Islamic Jihad, of images of two hostages that appear very weakened and demacred once more.
Again on Thursday, about twenty relatives of Israeli hostages were aboard the boats and approached the Gaza Strip to request their release. “The Netanyahu government acts to kill them, looking for war throughout the Gaza Strip, endangering hostages,” said a megaphone and Cohen, the father of a hostage.
The critics also formed by Yaïr Lapid, the head of the opposition to Benhamin Netanyahu, who said that he saw in the decision of the prime minister a “disaster” that will bring, among other things, “the death of the hostages”, “that of many soldiers” and “will cost dozens of billions to Israeli taxpayers.”
These divisions on the fate of the hostages were also in the heart of the debates among the participants in the security firm meeting, David Rigoulet-Gze underlines: “There were extremely strong tensions between Eyal Zamir, who is the head of Tsahal personnel, and the ministers of the extreme right. The personnel head has argued that the tax potentially was an extreme risk and that the injury is not resolved The time, the main day. “
Presenting Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan as a “criminal adventure” in a statement, Hamas said he would have the “hostage sacrifice.”
A soft and “destined threat not for Mr. Netanyahu but for international Israeli public opinion,” he emphasizes in BFMTV, Lieutenant Colonel Vincent Abaretier, military historian and doctor of Political Science.
“If Hamas implements what he says, he deprives himself of his best gun against any concession,” Mate.
• What international reactions?
The Israeli government plan quickly caused very strong criticism abroad. One of the most vehement criticism came from the UN High Commissioner to Human Rights, Volker Türk, who requested that this plan “immediately detained.”
“Everything leads to think that this new climbing will lead to even more massive forced trips, more murders, more unbearable suffering, crazy destruction and unbearable crimes,” he denounced in a statement.
For the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the roadmap presented by Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, described as “error”, is “reconsider immediately”, while the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, urged Israel to “return” to his plan X.
Antonio Costa, the president of the European Council, went a little beyond his counterpart in the Commission by stating that the decision of the Israeli government should have “consequences” in relations with Brussels with the Hebrew State, without giving more details.
Also very critical regarding the plan of the security firm, Germany, one of Israel’s most faithful allies, did not wait to join the gesture to the word. Berlin announced the suspension of arms exports that the Hebrew State could use in Gaza “until new notice.”
In a statement, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz justified this decision by judging that it becomes “increasingly difficult to understand” how the Israeli military plan would achieve its objectives in the Palestinian territory.
Source: BFM TV
