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No ‘military logic’ to Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza City
An analyst says Hamas has now reverted to guerrilla warfare and it remains unclear when the tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers will be able to finally wrest control of northern Gaza from the armed Palestinian group.
“I don’t think you’ll see that kind of pitched battle military warfare that would necessitate so many soldiers to be deployed,” said Rob Geist Pinfold from King’s College London, noting an estimated 20,000 Israeli soldiers are engaged in the ground invasion of Gaza City.
“Hamas has basically gone back to its roots as a so-called resistance movement conducting a guerrilla or insurgency campaign against Israeli troops.” The problem for Israel’s army is “it doesn’t have any targets left to hit” in the area, Geist Pinfold told Al Jazeera.
“This [attack] does not have military logic, it does not have strategic logic. It’s got political logic for Netanyahu to stay in power, to deflect from his corruption trial.”
The point is ethnic cleansing, force out all the remaining people to the south.
‘Extreme pressure’: Israel ramps up attacks on towers in Gaza City
Judging from the patterns and pace, the Israeli military is scaling up bombardment of areas where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering inside the remaining standing buildings or nearby in makeshift tents.
More people were recently pushed from their neighbourhoods in Zeitoun, Shujayea, and the northern, eastern and western parts of Gaza City, namely the Sheikh Radwan district, a densely populated area.
The Israeli military is deliberately intensifying attacks on these areas. Over the past few days, it’s interesting to note many of these displaced people were actually living in the vicinity of residential high-rises, believing they provided a level of safety.
The Israeli army has carried out these attacks in order to apply an extreme level of pressure that gives the impression there is nowhere safe, not even near these large residential towers.
Leaflets ordering residents to evacuate are dropped over Gaza City
Leaflets dropped by Israeli forces ordering residents of Gaza City to evacuate
Israel ‘paying lip service to international law’ with Gaza City leaflet drops
Israel has been trying to make it more difficult to hold it legally accountable for its abuses in Gaza, says Sultan Barakat, professor of public policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar.
“They try to make sure that they tick [off] the principles – just a very light tick – to make it much more difficult to pin them down as having breached the law itself,” he said.
He cited Israel’s aerial drops of leaflets with evacuation orders for residents of Gaza City as an example. “The throwing of leaflets to warn the population is actually in line with international requirements,” he said.
“But what the international law actually says is that you have to give them the warning, but it has to be feasible – feasible in terms of time … and most importantly, alternative shelter elsewhere.”
“They don’t do the whole package,” he added. “What they do is they throw the leaflets and they say, ‘Well, we warned them.’”
