What is their real goal in Gaza?
In their own words
(Originally published on my Substack.)
It has been over 65 days since the current onslaught on Gaza began.
The devastation and death toll in Gaza
So far, over 17,700 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, approximately two-thirds of whom are children and women. (One US official, assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, at one point during the conflict, said the actual numbers are likely higher than those being reported.)
A UN assessment “identified 10,049 destroyed structures, 8,243 severely damaged structures and 19,087 moderately damaged structures, for a total of 37,379 structures. This corresponds to around 18% of the total structures in the Gaza Strip.”
Over 60% of housing units in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged.
Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are now suffering from a severe lack of food and clean water. And, with a demolished health infrastructure, diseases are threatening the lives of those still living.
The captives
So far, only one of the captives the resistance groups have been holding was said to have been freed as a result of military action. Four were released unilaterally by resistance groups before both sides agreed on an exchange. 105 were released as a result of the exchange deal.
Statements from some of those released are now confirming that the bombardment of Gaza was so close to their locations that the captives heard them, with one saying, “We were in tunnels, terrified that it would not be Hamas, but Israel, that would kill us, and then they would say Hamas killed you.” There have also been reports that some of the captives have indeed been killed since the violence has resumed after the truce ended.
After over 65 days, the current rate of success or failure at freeing the captives suggests that negotiations and exchanges, not military action, have proven to be more effective and successful.
Dismantling Hamas
Can this be achieved? I believe the opinions of experts in this CNBC article would be informative and enlightening to anyone interested in knowing the answer to this, and to whether it can be achieved through this onslaught on Gaza.
In addition to that, the enormous loss of civilian life and infrastructure has compelled Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to warn Tel-Aviv officials that they risk replacing “a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.”
In response to a statement that described the death of two civilians for each Hamas member that was killed as “tremendously positive,” Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton, a member of the House Armed Services, said, “By that number, Israel so far killed about 5,000 Hamas terrorists but in the process they’ve recruited about 100,000 new adherents. And this is bad news for Israel.”
Simply put, the current techniques and strategies being used in this onslaught that result in the staggering civilian death toll and the massive destruction to the infrastructure, along with the new generation of traumatized orphans and widowers, the real result of this violence would be a more radicalized population that will see violence as absolutely justifiable after losses and tragedies they’ve suffered. ‘Dismantling’ Hamas in this way will not bring safety, security, nor peace.
What do they really want to achieve?
Whether Netanyahu and his government were indeed shocked by the unprecedented attack on October 7 or if they anticipated it but failed to take the necessary security measures, he certainly sought to exploit the shock and anger the population felt to achieve other goals, and, likely, to delay his removal from office as long as possible.
But what did he and the rest of the government and war cabinet say they want to achieve?
Nakba, ethnic cleansing, forced expulsion, and settlement building
“We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said.
While not a member of the government, Knesset member Ariel Kallner echoed Avi Dichter’s statement. “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!”
Times of Israel quoted Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu as saying “That’s one way. The second way is to work out what’s important to them, what scares them, what deters them.” When a reporter asked him about his expectation “that tomorrow morning we’d drop what amounts to some kind of nuclear bomb on all of Gaza, flattening them, eliminating everybody there.”
The same Times of Israel article said that “several ministers have stated that Israel could or should consider rebuilding settlements in the Strip, again contradicting Israel’s official position that it has no intention to reoccupy Gaza for the long term.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “I welcome the initiative of the voluntary emigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world,” and described the idea as “the right humanitarian solution for the residents of Gaza and the entire region after 75 years of refugees, poverty and danger.”
Genocide and collective punishment
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as:
“any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
© Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
The International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) says that the term collective punishments “refers not only to criminal punishment, but also to other types of sanctions, harassment or administrative action taken against a group in retaliation for an act committed by an individual/s who are considered to form part of the group. Such punishment therefore targets persons who bear no responsibility for having committed the conduct in question. Historically used as a deterrence tool by occupying powers to prevent attacks from resistance movements, collective punishments for acts committed by individuals during an armed conflict are prohibited by IHL against prisoners of war or other protected persons.”
Two days after the October 7 attacks, Energy Minister Israel Katz said, “I instructed that the water supply from Israel to Gaza be cut off immediately.” The Times of Israel report that quoted Katz also mentioned that Katz said the flow of power and fuel was ceased two days prior to that statement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified the killing of Palestinian men, women, infants, and babies when he said, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. 1 Samuel 15:3 ‘Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass’.”
President Isaac Herzog justified the killing of all Palestinians and collective punishment when he said, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.”
Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian said, “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”
Written intentions
A few days after the October 7 attacks, the Intelligence Ministry finished a draft wartime proposal presented options “to effect a significant change in the civilian reality in the Gaza Strip in light of the Hamas crimes that led to the Sword of Iron war,” according to the Associated Press.
“The document proposes moving Gaza’s civilian population to tent cities in northern Sinai, then building permanent cities and an undefined humanitarian corridor. A security zone would be established inside Israel to block the displaced Palestinians from entering.”
When intentions, statements, and actions match
While Netanyahu can claim that the statements of these government ministers and officials do not reflect his and his government’s alleged goals and intentions, it is clear that, through the current mass slaughter of civilians (which Yagil Levy described as “unprecedented” and the pace of which the New York Times has described as “historic”), the destruction of housing and infrastructure, the cutting off of water and electricity, and by both a written option of forced expulsion and the statements of those ministers and officials, the actions on the ground are vividly marching the rhetoric and intent.
Their goal of eradicating two million Palestinians or expelling them from their homeland is becoming increasingly clearer by the minute.
This is genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced expulsion, and collective punishment. Each of those is their goal.
