{"id":293144,"date":"2025-04-14T12:01:25","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T11:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=293144"},"modified":"2025-04-13T13:49:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T12:49:18","slug":"israel-is-about-to-empty-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/04\/israel-is-about-to-empty-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Is About to Empty Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Legacy – by Mr. Fish<\/p><\/div>\n

12 Apr 2025 – The Israeli government, backed by the Trump administration, is laying the groundwork for the full expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, a move that has the potential to ignite a regional conflagration.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Israel is poised to carry out<\/a> the largest campaign of ethnic cleansing since the end of World War II. Since March 2, it has blocked<\/a> all food and humanitarian aid into Gaza and cut off<\/a> electricity, so that the last water<\/a> desalination plant no longer functions. The Israeli military has seized half<\/a> of the territory \u2014 Gaza is 25 miles long and four to five miles wide \u2014 and placed<\/a> two-thirds of Gaza under displacement orders, rendered \u201cno-go zones,\u201d including the border town of Rafah, which is encircled by Israeli troops.<\/p>\n

On Friday Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that Israel will \u201cintensify\u201d the war against Hamas and use \u201call military and civilian pressure, including evacuation of the Gaza population south and implementing United States President [Donald] Trump\u2019s voluntary migration plan<\/a> for Gaza residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Israel\u2019s unilateral ending of the ceasefire on March 18 \u2014 which was never<\/a> honored by Israel \u2014 Israel has been carrying out relentless bombing and shelling against civilians, killing over 1,400 Palestinians and wounding over 3,600, according to the Palestinian health ministry. An average of one hundred children are being killed<\/a> daily according to the United Nations. Israel is, at the same time, inciting<\/a> tensions with Egypt to lay what I suspect will be the groundwork for a mass expulsion of Palestinians into the Egyptian Sinai.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, echoing Katz, said<\/a> Israel would not lift the total blockade until Hamas was \u201cdefeated\u201d and the remaining 59 Israeli hostages were released.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot even a grain of wheat will enter Gaza,\u201d he vowed.<\/p>\n

But no one in Israel or Gaza expects Hamas, which has weathered the decimation of Gaza and sustained mass slaughter, to surrender or disappear.<\/p>\n

The question no longer is will the Palestinians be deported from Gaza but when they will be pushed out and where they will go. The Israeli leadership is apparently torn between driving Palestinians over the border into Egypt or shipping them to countries in Africa. The U.S. and Israel have contacted three<\/a> East African governments \u2013 Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland \u2013 to discuss the resettlement of ethnically cleansed Palestinians.<\/p>\n

The consequences of wholesale ethnic cleansing will be catastrophic, jeopardizing the stability of the Arab regimes allied with Washington and setting off firestorms of protests within Arab countries. It will likely mean the severing of diplomatic relations between Israel and its neighbors Jordan and Egypt, already close to the breaking point, and push the region closer to war.<\/p>\n

Diplomatic relations have fallen<\/a> to their lowest point since the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979. The Israeli embassies in Cairo and Amman are largely empty with Israeli staff withdrawn<\/a> over security concerns following the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel by Hamas and other armed Palestinian factions. Egypt has refused<\/a> to accept the credentials of Uri Rothman, who was appointed to be the Israeli ambassador last September. Egypt did not name a new ambassador to Israel when former ambassador, Khaled Azmi, was recalled last year.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials are accusing<\/a> Egypt of violating the Camp David accords by increasing its military presence and building new military installations in the Northern Sinai, charges Egypt says are fabricated. The peace treaty\u2019s annex permits additional Egyptian military hardware in the Sinai.<\/p>\n

Former Israeli chief of the general staff, Herzi Halevi, warned<\/a> of what he calls Egypt\u2019s \u201csecurity threat.\u201d Katz said<\/a> that Israel would not allow Egypt to \u201cviolate the peace treaty\u201d between the two countries signed in 1979.<\/p>\n

Egyptian officials note that it is Israel that has violated the treaty by occupying the Philadelphi Corridor<\/a>, also known as the Salahuddin Axis, which runs along the nine mile border between Gaza and Egypt and is supposed to be demilitarized.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery Israeli action along Gaza\u2019s border with Egypt constitutes hostile behavior against Egypt\u2019s national security,\u201d Egyptian General Mohammed Rashad, a former military intelligence chief, told<\/a> the Arabic language newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEgypt cannot sit idly by in the face of such threats and must prepare for all possible scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israeli officials are openly calling for<\/a> the \u201cvoluntary transfer\u201d of Palestinians to Egypt. Knesset member, Avigdor Lieberman, stated<\/a> that \u201cdisplacing most Palestinians from Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai is a practical and effective solution.\u201d He contrasted the high population density \u2014 Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet \u2014 with the vast \u201cuntapped lands\u201d in the Egyptian Northern Sinai and noted that Palestinians share a common culture and language with Egypt, making any deportation \u201cnatural.\u201d He also criticized Egypt because it allegedly \u201cbenefits economically from the current political situation,\u201d as a mediator between Israel and Hamas and \u201creaps profits from smuggling operations through the tunnels and the Rafah crossing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Israeli think tank Misgav Institute for National Security, staffed by former Israeli military and security officials, published<\/a> a paper on Oct. 17, 2023, calling on the government to take advantage of the \u201cunique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip,\u201d and resettle Palestinians in Cairo with the assistance of the Egyptian government. A leaked document<\/a> from the Israeli Intelligence Ministry proposed resettling Palestinians from Gaza to the Northern Sinai and constructing barriers and buffer zones to prevent their return.<\/p>\n

Any expulsion would likely happen swiftly with Israeli forces, which are already mercilessly herding Palestinians into containment areas in Gaza, carrying out a sustained bombing campaign against the trapped Palestinians while creating porous evacuation portals along the border with Egypt. It would entail a potentially lethal standoff with the Egyptian military, instantly throwing the Egyptian regime of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who has described<\/a> any ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza as a \u201cred line,\u201d into crisis. It would be a short step from there to a regional conflict.<\/p>\n

Israel has seized<\/a> territory in Syria and southern Lebanon, part of its vision<\/a> of \u201cGreater Israel,\u201d which includes occupying land in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It covets<\/a> the maritime gas fields off Gaza\u2019s coast and has floated plans for a new canal<\/a> to bypass the Suez Canal, to connect Israel\u2019s bankrupt<\/a> Eilat Port on the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. These projects require emptying Gaza of Palestinians and populating it with Jewish colonists.<\/p>\n

The anger on the Arab street \u2014 an anger I witnessed over the past few months during visits to Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Qatar \u2014 will explode in a justifiable fury if mass deportation takes place. These regimes, simply to hold on to power, will be forced to act. Terrorist attacks, whether by organized groups or lone wolves, will proliferate against Israeli and western targets, especially the United States.<\/p>\n

The genocide is a recruitment dream for Islamic militants. Washington and Israel must, on some level, understand the cost of this savagery. But it appears as though they accept it, foolishly trying to obliterate those they have cast out of the community of nations, those they refer to<\/a> as \u201chuman animals.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do Israel and Washington believe will happen when the Palestinians are expelled from a land they have lived in for centuries? How do they think a people who are desperate, deprived of hope, dignity and a way to make a living, who are being butchered by one of the most technologically advanced armies on the planet, will respond? Do they think creating a Danteesque hell for the Palestinians will blunt terrorism, curb suicide attacks and foster peace? Can they not grasp the rage rippling through the Middle East and how it will implant a hatred towards us that will endure for decades?<\/p>\n

The genocide in Gaza is the greatest crime of this century. It will come back to haunt Israel. It will come back to haunt us. It will usher to our doorsteps the evil we have perpetrated on the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

You reap what you sow. We have sown a minefield of hatred and violence.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for\u00a0<\/em>The New York Times,\u00a0where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief. He previously worked overseas for\u00a0<\/em>The Dallas Morning News,\u00a0The Christian Science Monitor, and<\/em> NPR. He used to be the host of the Emmy Award-nominated <\/em>RT America show\u00a0<\/em>On Contact.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Copyright 2024 Chris Hedges<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – chrishedges.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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