Democracy Now reports: “U.N. Experts Declare Israel’s ‘Targeted Starvation Campaign’ Has Led to Famine and Genocide” and “Their Goal Is Total Ethnic Cleansing: Mustafa Barghouti on Israel’s Expulsion Order for Gaza City.”
JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN, sarinj111@gmail.com
Loewenstein is former Associate Director of Middle Eastern Studies and Senior Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has lived and reported from Gaza and Beirut. She highlights a series of critical recent reports:
Haaretz reports in “Road to Redemption: How Israel’s War Against Hamas Turned Into a Springboard for Jewish Settlement in Gaza” that: The army’s activities in the occupied areas are diverse: expanding military bases, building infrastructure and even paving roads, all while under persistent Hamas fire. Based on satellite imagery analysis and other open sources, Haaretz calculates that the Israeli army now controls about 26 percent of Gaza. … After nine months of war, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the southern part of the Strip is becoming permanent. The IDF has occupied strategic areas from which Gazans fled, flattened them and turned them into positions used to control the Strip.” Haaretz reports that Israel has a plan in place which includes surrounding the Gaza strip and cutting it in half.
AP reports: “The Israeli military urged all Palestinians to leave Gaza City and head south Wednesday, pressing ahead with a fresh offensive across the north, south and center of the embattled territory that has killed dozens of people over the past 48 hours. The stepped-up military activity came as U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators met with Israeli officials in the Qatari capital, Doha, for talks seeking a long-elusive cease-fire deal with Gaza’s Hamas group in exchange for the release of dozens of Israeli hostages it is holding. …
“Israel informed people in Gaza of the evacuation order by dropping leaflets urging ‘all those in Gaza City’ to take two ‘safe routes’ south to the area around the central town of Deir al-Balah. Gaza City, it said, will ‘remain a dangerous combat zone.’ … Israeli troops have pushed into parts of Gaza City in recent days, triggering the flight of thousands of Palestinians trying to escape shelling and airstrikes. This past week, the military ordered Palestinians to evacuate from eastern and central parts of the city. …
“Israeli bombardment early Wednesday hit four houses in Deir al-Balah and the nearby Nuseirat refugee camp, killing 20 Palestinians. Among the dead were six children and three women, according to officials at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the casualties were taken. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies. The house hit in Deir al-Balah was inside the ‘humanitarian safe zone’ where Israel has told Palestinians to flee for refuge.
“Israel’s new ground assault in Gaza’s largest city has prompted what the U.N. called a ‘dangerously chaotic’ exodus of people scattering in multiple directions, unsure where to go. Some have fled to other parts of the north. The new Israeli military leaflets encouraged a mass movement south to the purported ‘humanitarian zone,’ promising that people leaving Gaza City on the defined routes would not be stopped at Israeli checkpoints.”