A year after the October 7 attack, the Gaza Strip is reduced to ruins and at least 42,000 of its inhabitants have been killed and 95,000 others injured following indiscriminate attacks carried out by the Israeli army, which does not no distinction between civilians and civilians. and military objectives. Control of the Philadelphia Corridor, on the border with Egypt, allowed Israel to further restrict the entry of humanitarian aid, causing widespread famine with the spread of diseases such as polio and hepatitis. The objective seems clear: destroy all means of life to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable.
Last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never tired of repeating that Israel is waging its second war of independence, which shows that he intends to take advantage of the unconditional support of the West to establish a new reality on the terrain based on the expansion of borders. and massive population displacements. At this point, it seems clear that the Israeli Government has no intention of achieving a ceasefire or withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, it is very likely that he will resort, once again, to his policy of “fait accompli” with the division of the band and the concentration of its population in increasingly smaller spaces.
An uninhabitable territory
For now, the Israeli army has divided the Gaza Strip in two with the creation of the Netzarim Corridor, a barrier six kilometers long and two kilometers wide, which separates the north and south of the Strip. This corridor prevents the return of displaced people who were forced to abandon their homes in Beit Lahia, Beit Hanun, Jabalia and Gaza City at the start of the military offensive. On October 13, the million inhabitants of the latter received an ultimatum to evacuate the city under the pretext of “guaranteeing their safety”. To date, only 30% of displaced people from the northern Natzarim corridor have been able to return to their homes, most of which have been reduced to ruins.
Today, the powerful settler movement aims to make the Netzarim Corridor Israel’s new border. The Forum of Commanders and Reserve Soldiers has presented a plan to expel the 300,000 Palestinians still remaining in northern Gaza and which envisages the imposition of a complete siege preventing the entry of water, food and medicine to force them to leave their territory permanently. houses. Professor Uzi Rabi, director of the influential Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, put it bluntly: “Move the entire civilian population from the north; Those who remain will be legally considered terrorists and subjected to a process of starvation or extermination. »
Although Netanyahu has stated that “Israel does not intend to permanently occupy Gaza or displace its civilian population,” the truth is that this assertion, like many others from the Israeli president, has not no connection with reality. On January 28, the conference “Settlements bring security and victory” was held in Jerusalem, organized by the Nachala organization, in which 12 ministers of the Israeli government participated. During this meeting, its director Daniella Weiss declared: “This is the end of the Arab presence in Gaza. In their place there will be many, many Jews returning to the colonies and building new colonies. »
This position is not only shared by the settler movement, but by much of the supremacist and messianic Israeli government, openly in favor of the expulsion or annihilation of the population of Gaza. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of the Interior and head of the supremacist Jewish Power, spoke out on May 14 in favor of “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians, a euphemism for ethnic cleansing: “To end the problem, we need to do two things. : the first is to return to Gaza now, to return home, to return to our holy land; The second is to encourage emigration: to promote the voluntary departure of Gaza residents because it is ethical, it is rational, it is the right thing to do, it is the truth, it is human and This is what the Torah says. Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance and head of the Religious Zionist Party, went much further when he declared it “justified and moral to starve two million civilians until our hostages are returned” during a conference given on August 6, while recognizing that the international community would probably not allow it.
If these proposals are implemented, the territories south of the Netzarim corridor, which represent two-thirds of the Palestinian strip, would concentrate more than two million displaced people, thus becoming the most densely populated area on the planet. The fate that awaits them is anything but reassuring, since Netanyahu does not intend to allow the massive entry of humanitarian aid nor to promote their reconstruction, as a large part of the international community is demanding. Its main objective is to maintain the current precariousness indefinitely to make the strip completely uninhabitable, which would create the conditions for a mass exodus if the gates of Egyptian Sinai were opened.
A Gaza without authority
An essential element in achieving this scenario is to prevent at all costs the reestablishment of any type of authority in the Palestinian territory. As Netanyahu himself said: “I am not willing to exchange a Hamastan for a Fatahland,” referring to the two main Palestinian political groups. At the same time, the Israeli authorities have intensified their campaign against the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in an attempt to discredit it and prevent its activities throughout the occupied territories. A bill adopted on July 22 by the Israeli Parliament qualifies it as a “terrorist organization”.
Netanyahu’s intention would be none other than to prevent the emergence of an authority capable of governing the Gaza Strip and undertaking its reconstruction. Instead, the Israeli government intends to strengthen tribal clans so that they take on the task of managing the chaotic situation and redistributing the scarce humanitarian aid flowing into the Palestinian enclave, in a new edition of the hunger games. As highlighted in a report by Tutor“Gaza faces growing chaos as the last vestiges of civil order collapse, leaving a vacuum increasingly occupied by armed gangs, clans, powerful families and criminals, who determine who receives aid. “humanitarian aid that they so badly need”, led various analysts. to warn that if the situation is not reversed, Gaza could become the Mogadishu of the Mediterranean.
For Netanyahu and his hardline government, a possible Somaliization of Gaza would bring countless benefits, including preventing Hamas from returning to power or the Palestinian Authority from managing reconstruction funds. At the same time, it would further divide the Palestinian scene with the emergence of tribal clans as political actors, in a process similar to that recorded in Syria, Libya or Iraq in recent years due to the collapse of the state . The emergence of warlords is openly encouraged by the Israeli government, as it also helps cement its colonial narrative of a chaotic society that can only be governed through the use of force.
Ignacio Álvarez-Ossorio is professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the Complutense University of Madrid and co-author of Gaza. Chronicle of a nakba announced (Catarata, 2024)
