Armed and ‘enabled’ by the US, Israel seeks to depopulate Gaza ‘in its totality’: Analyst
Hassan Mneimneh, a political analyst with the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera that Israel’s brutality in Gaza has been enabled by the United States and its supply of weapons to conduct the war on the Palestinian territory.
“At this point, given the silence, the de-facto participation of the US through US weaponry, in all of this, we cannot avoid the statement that there is, indeed, US complicity,” Mneimneh told Al Jazeera.
The siege of northern Gaza and the targeting of fleeing civilians appears to be a deliberate attempt by Israel to grab Palestinian territory and “expel the Palestinians by brute force”.
“The horrors that we are witnessing” in Gaza are “enabled” by the US, he said. “We are witnessing, really, a horror show here. And, once again, we cannot dissociate that from the silence, the apathy – what appears to be apathy, but is really complicity on the part of the enabler. Israel would not have been able to do that had the US administration not enabled them to do that,” he added.
“Israel is achieving what is evidently its clear goal of this whole operation, which is to depopulate the Gaza Strip in its totality.”
Israeli settlers plan ‘observer tour’ of northern Gaza during conference
The “Preparing to Settle Gaza” conference, which begins today, will include a “Gaza Observer” tour departing from an illegal Israeli settlement less than 10km (6.2 miles) away from Beit Lahiya where an Israeli attack killed at least 73 Palestinians overnight.
The tour, which begins in the Givat Kobi neighbourhood of Sderot, is part of a two-day event that will also include “practical preparation workshops for settlement in Gaza”, as well as 10 speakers from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party.
“Gaza is the property of our ancestors since time immemorial, we will not rest until we settle it again,” Limor Son Har Melech, a member of the Knesset from the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, which is part of Netanyahu’s coalition government, said in a post on X, promoting the conference.
The far-right settler organisation Nachala which is hosting the event, also held another conference earlier this year, where a map showing plans for 15 illegal Israeli settlements in Gaza was displayed.
‘The demographic re-engineering of the Gaza Strip is in progress’
Tamer Qarmout, a professor of public policy at the Doha Institute, says the world has failed since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza to provide even basic protection for Palestinian civilians.
“Israel has a green light from a superpower, the US, which is Israel’s partner in these war crimes,” Qarmout told Al Jazeera. “We’re beyond the ‘self-defence’ doctrine. The plan is emerging and it’s more or less clear. This is a rearranging of the entire region that started in Gaza, and I don’t know where it will stop.”
He highlighted Israel’s “General’s Plan” for northern Gaza, which calls for the expulsion of Palestinians from the area and the forced starvation and targeting of whoever stays behind.
“We’re talking about another wave of displacement – another Nakba. The future of Gaza is horrifying. I still worry about what’s coming next. The demographic re-engineering of the Gaza Strip is in progress now.
