Israel is preparing for a new phase of the offensive in the Gaza strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that the Israeli army will enter “with all our strength” in the Palestinian territory in the next few days, declaring that there is no “no situation in which we will stop the war”. The premier also announced the launch of a plan to empty the strip of at least half of its population.
Conquer Gaza
Gaza’s occupation is an operation announced by Israel on May 5. It provides for the “conquest” of the strip and, according to the armed forces, will lead to the internal displacement of the “most” of its inhabitants. The army has already recalled “tens of thousands of reservists” to support the new military campaign.
“In the next few days, we will enter with all our strength to complete the operation and defeat Hamas,” Netanyahu said yesterday (Monday 12 May) during a meeting with reserve soldiers. “There will be no situation in which we will stop the war. A temporary respite is possible (to guarantee the liberation of the hostages still held in Gaza), but we will go all the way”, added the prime minister.
Ethnic cleaning
Netanyahu has also confirmed that Israel is looking for countries willing to welcome the Palestinians who, according to him, could leave Gaza in a very large number. “We have set up an administration that will allow them to leave, but the problem on our part is reduced to one thing: we need countries willing to welcome them. It is on this that we are currently working,” explained the Israeli leader.
“If we offer them the opportunity to leave, I tell you: more than 50 percent will start, and I believe many more. But Hamas will not be there anymore,” he continued, reiterating that one of the objectives of the war is destroying the Palestinian Islamist movement.
Humanitarian emergency in Gaza
Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is catastrophic. Malnutrition rates are increasing and emergency treatments to combat it are running out, with the hunger that could have a lasting impact on “an entire generation”, said an official of the World Health Organization.
Israel has blocked supplies in the Enclave since the beginning of March, when he resumed his devastating military campaign against Hamas, and yesterday a worldwide observatory on hunger warned that half a million people risks dying due to the lack of food.
The WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, said he had seen children who seemed smaller years of those who really had, due to the lack of food that blocked their development, and to have visited a hospital north of Gaza where 20 percent of the children examined suffered from acute malnutrition.
“I saw a five -year -old boy who would say to have two and a half,” he said, underlining that “without enough nourishing food, clean water and access to health care, an entire generation will be affected permanently”.
The head of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, told the BBC that Israel is denying food and aid to civilians as a weapon of war. “Hunger is spreading, people are exhausted. We can expect that in the coming weeks, if aid will not arrive, people will not die from bombing, but for the lack of food. This is a use of humanitarian aid as a weapon of war,” he said.
International Property Community
But despite all this, the international community remains inert and does not exert any real pressure on Tel Aviv to give at least the entry of humanitarian aid.
“Israel says that humanitarian aids are exploited by Hamas, because they are given to those close to them, but then the answer is to flood Gaza of help, so that there is no deficit and cannot be used as they say,” said the high EU representative Kaja Kallas, who however excluded concrete actions.
Holland asks to suspend the association agreement with Israel: because it is a strong signal
The Netherlands, historically allies of Israel, have come to ask to suspend the association agreement with the country, but Estonian Kallas has closed this hypothesis. “I know how it will end, because I know the positions of the 27. And even if we suspend it we will not stop the killings, we need the USA to be with us,” he said.
