THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA
Reuters
THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA
ICJ South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention) CC-BY-SA-4.0
Foreword:
Dear Readers
On the request of drs J Wijenberg, former Dutch ambassador and
an important activist of the Palestinian Case, hereby I publish
the following article of another great advocate for Palestinian Rights:
AMIRA HASS:
The article is titled:
”IF THE ISRAELI ARMY INVADES RAFAH, WHAT WILL BE OF MORE
THAN 1.5 MILLION PALESTINIANS WHO TAKE SHELTER THERE?”
The article was published in the Israeli newspaper The Haaretz
SEE MORE ABOUT AMIRA HASS
And see for more information about drs J Wijenberg
OR
Read further o Readers
FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!
ASTRID ESSED
AND NOW THE AMIRA HASS ARTICLE!
IF THE ISRAELI ARMY INVADES RAFAH, WHAT WILL BE OF MORE
THAN 1.5 MILLION PALESTINIANS WHO TAKE SHELTER THERE?
AMIRA HASS
PUBLISHED IN THE HAARETZ
10 FEBRUARY 2024
PAGE 2
Since Yahya Sinwar, his close aides and Hamas militants have never been
found in Gaza City and then not in Khan Yunis, the Israeli army is
considering expanding its ground operation into the southern Gaza city of
Rafah.
The army is doing so because it assumes that Sinwar and his aids
are hiding in the tunnels underneath this southern region of the Gaza Strip,
presumably holding on to the Israeli hostages who are still alive.
Most of the Gaza Strip residents, some 1.4 million people, are concentrated
in Rafah.
Tens of thousands are still fleeing into the city from Khan Yunis,
where the fighting continues. The thought that Israel will invade Rafah and
that fighting will take place between and near civilians terrifies the city's
residents and the internally displaced persons.
The terror they feel is
augmented by the conclusion that nobody can prevent Israel from carrying
out its intention – not even the ICJ ruling that orders Israel to take all
measures to avoid acts of genocide.
Military correspondents in Israel report and assume that the army intends to
order residents of Rafah to move to a safe area. Since the war started, the
army has been waving around this evacuation or
der as evidence that it is
acting in order to prevent any harm to ”uninvolved civilians”
This safe zone, however, which was bombarded and still is bombarded by
Israel, is gradually shrinking.
The only safe zone that truly remains, and
which the IDF is now designating for the masses of people in Rafah, is Al-
Mawasi – a southern Gaza coastal area of approximately 16 square
kilometers (about 6 square miles).
It’s still unclear by what verbal measures the IDF and its legal experts
intend to reconcile this squeezing of so many civilians with the orders
given by the ICJ.
PAGE 3
”The humanitarian zone designated by the army is around the size of Ben-
Gurion International Airport (about 6.3 square miles)” concluded Haaretz
journalists Yarden Michaeli and Avi Scharf in their report earlier this week.
The report, titled "Gazans Fled Their Homes.
They Have Nowhere to
Return to”, revealed the vast devastation across the Gaza Strip as captured
in Satellite images.
The comparison with Ben-Gurion International Airport invites one to imagine
a density beyond anything imaginable, but Israeli TV commentators don't go
much further beyond the deep insight that the ground invasion of Rafah will
indeed, ”won’t be that simple.”
Although it’s difficult, we must imagine what awaits the Palestinians in
Rafah if the army’;s plan is carried out.
We must do so not so much as of humanist and moral considerations, which after October 7 aren’t that relevant to the majority of the Israeli-Jewish public, but because of the military, humanitarian, and -eventually- legal and political entanglementsthat are surely expected if we go down that road.
The compression
Even if ”only” about a million Palestinians will flee for the third and fourth
time into Al-Mawasi – an area which is already full of displaced Gazans –
the density will be about 62,500 people per square kilometer (about
157,000 people per square mile).
This will happen in an open area with no skyscrapers to house the
refugees, that has no running water, no privacy, no means of living, no
hospitals or medical clinics, no solar panels to charge phones, and all while
aid organizations will have to cross through or near battle zones in order to
distribute the small amounts of food that do enter the Gaza Strip.
It seems that the only position in which this narrow area could
accommodate everyone would be if they're all standing or kneeling.
Perhaps it’ll be necessary to form special committees that will determine
sleeping arrangements in shifts: a few thousand would lie down while the
rest continue to stand awake.
The buzzing of the drones above and below,
the cries of babies born during the war and whose mothers have no milk or
not enough of it – these will be the unnerving soundtrack.
From what we saw during the IDF’s ground raids and the battles in Gaza
City and Khan Yunis, it’s clear, that the ground operation in Rafah if it
PAGE 4
eventually unfolds, will last many weeks. Does Israel believe that the ICJ
will consider the compression of hundreds of thousands or a million
Palestinians on a small piece of land a proper ”measure”; that prevents
genocide?
About 270 thousand Palestinians lived in the Rafah district before the war.
The one-and-a-half million who are currently staying there suffer from
hunger and malnutrition; they suffer from thirst, cold, diseases and
spreading infections, from lice in their hair and skin rash; they suffer from
physical and mental exhaustion and a chronic lack of sleep.
They crowd in
schools, hospitals and mosques, in tent neighborhoods that have sprung up
in and around Rafah, and in apartments that house dozens of displaced
families.
Tens of thousands of them are wounded, including those whose limbs were
amputated due to the army's attacks or surgeries that followed. They all
have relatives and friends – children, babies and elderly parents – who
have been killed in the past four months.
The houses of most of them were destroyed or badly damaged. All their
possessions are lost.
Their money has run out due to the high and
exorbitant food prices.
Many escaped death only by chance, and witnessed
the dreadful sights of dead bodies. They don’;t mourn the dead yet because
the trauma continues.
Along with displays of support and solidarity, disputes
and fights also occur. Some lose their memory and sanity from all the
suffering.
As it has done in other areas in the strip, to maintain the element of
surprise, the IDF will issue a warning about two hours before a ground
invasion into Rafah. This will give the residents a time window of a few
hours that day to evacuate the city.
Imagine this convoy of refugees and the mass panic of people fleeing
toward Al-Mawasi in the west. Think of the elders, the sick, the disabled and
the wounded who will be ”lucky” to be transported in donkey carts or
makeshift wheelbarrows and in cars that run on cooking oil.
All the others – both sick and healthy – will have to leave on foot. They’;ll
probably have to leave behind the little that they’ve managed to collect and
take with them in previous displacements, like blankets and plastic sheets
for shelter, warm clothes, some food and basic items such as small
cookers.
This forced escape march will probably go through the ruins of some of the
buildings that Israel bombed not long ago, or the craters created on the
PAGE 5
road due to the attacks. The whole convoy will then stand still until a detour
is found. Someone is bound to trip; a cartwheel will get stuck in the mud.
And all of them – hungry and thirsty, frightened by the imminent attack or
the expected tank shelling – will continue going forward. Children will cry
and get lost. People will feel bad.
Medical teams will struggle to reach
whoever needs care.
Only 4 kilometers (about 2.4 miles) separate Rafah from Al-Mawasi, but it’;ll
require several hours to cross.
The people marching will be cut off from any
communication, if only because of the packed convoy and the
overcrowding. They’;ll fight over the area where they wish to set up a tent.
They’ll fight over who gets to be closest to a building or a water well.
They’;ll
faint due to thirst and hunger.
The following image will repeat itself several times over the next few days:
A march of starving and frightened Palestinians starts fleeing in panic each
time the IDF announces another area whose residents are supposed to
evacuate, while the tanks and infantry troops advance toward them.
The
shelling and ground troops will get closer to the hospitals that are still
functioning. Tanks will surround them, and all the patients and medical
teams will be required to evacuate to the crowded Al-Mawasi area.
The ground operation
It’;s hard to know how many of them will decide not to leave.
As we learned
from what happened in the northern Gaza districts and Khan Yunis, a
significant number of residents prefer to stay in an area that is destined for
a ground operation.
Among them will be tens of thousands of displaced,
sick and seriously wounded Gazans who are hospitalized, pregnant women
and others who will decide to stay in their own homes and the homes of
their relatives or in schools turned into shelters.
The little information they
will get from the concentration area of Al-Mawasi is enough to discourage
them from joining.
IDF soldiers and commanders, however, interpret the evacuation order
differently: anyone who remains in an area designated for ground invasion
isn’t considered an innocent civilian; they aren’;t considered ”uninvolved”
Anyone who stays in their homes and goes out to fetch water from a city
facility that is still operating or from some private well, medical teams called
to treat a patient, a pregnant woman walking to a nearby hospital to give
birth – all of them, as we saw during the war and in past military campaigns,
are criminalized in the eyes of the soldiers.
Shooting and killing them
follows the IDF’s rules of engagement.
PAGE 6
According to the army, such shootings are carried out in accordance with
international law because these individuals were warned that they must
leave.
Even when soldiers break into houses during the fighting, Gazans,
mainly men, are at risk of death from gunfire.
A soldier shooting someone
because they felt threatened or followed an order – it doesn’t matter. It
happened in Gaza City, and it might happen in Rafah.
Just as the aid teams aren’t authorized or are unable to reach the northern
Gaza Strip to distribute food, they won’t be able to distribute it in the fighting
areas in Rafah.
The little food that the residents managed to save will
gradually run out.
Those who remain in their homes will be forced to choose the lesser of two
evils: either they go out and risk Israeli fire or starve at home.
Most of them
already suffer from a severe lack of nutrients. In many families, adults are
giving up food so that their children can be fed. There’s a real danger that
many will starve to death while in their home as the fighting rages outside.
The bombings
Since the war started, the army bombarded residential buildings, open
areas and passenger cars in every location it had defined as ”safe” (that its
residents weren’;t required to leave). It doesn’t matter if the attacks target
Hamas facilities, the group’s officials or other members who were staying
with their families or have come out of hiding to visit them – civilians are
almost always killed.
The bombings didn’t stop in Rafah either. Overnight into Thursday, two
houses were bombed in the western Rafah neighborhood of Tel al-Sultan.
According to Palestinian sources, 14 people were killed, including five
children.
The sources also said that a mother and daughter were killed in an Israeli
attack on a house in northern Rafah on February 7 and that a journalist was
killed together with his mother and sister in western Rafah the day before.
Also on February 6, the sources added, six Palestinian police officers were
killed in an Israeli attack while they were securing an aid truck in eastern
Rafah.
These attacks indicate that the so-called collateral damage calculations
approved by IDF legal experts and the State Prosecutor’s Office are
extremely permissive. The number of uninvolved Palestinians that it is
”permitted”; to kill in return for hitting an army’s target is higher than in any
previous war.
PAGE 7
People in Rafah are afraid that the IDF will apply these permissive criteria
also in Al-Mawasi, and attack there as well if a target is in the area, among
the hundreds of thousands who take shelter. This is how an announced
safe haven will become a death trap for hundreds of thousands.