Grégoire SAUVAGE – France24 Feb 22, 2024
The countdown has begun for Rafah. Israel repeated on Sunday its threats of carrying out a major ground attack against the southern Gaza city before the start of Ramadan: the holy month in Islam, during which Muslims fast, is expected to begin around March 10. The perspective of a ground operation in the city, which was once considered “safe” for civilians, is fuelling international concern about the fate of the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in the city.
“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know – if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, including the Rafah area,” Benny Gantz, a former Israeli defence minister currently serving on Netanyahu’s war cabinet, told a conference of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday. “Hamas has a choice. They can surrender, release the hostages and the civilians of Gaza can celebrate the feast of Ramadan,” he added.
Having so far ignored the warnings of his Western allies, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seems more determined than ever to continue the war against Hamas, reaffirming on February 9 that he was aiming for “total victory”. On February 17 he said that foreign countries calling on Israel to spare the city were effectively telling the country to “lose the war” against Hamas.
“Benny Gantz’s statements reflect a rift within the war cabinet,” French military expert Guillaume Ancel said in an interview with FRANCE 24. “While the extremists led by Netanyahu want to go all the way, those who are more moderate, like Benny Gantz, want to leave the door open for negotiations, which are currently going very badly.”
Pressure ‘on partners involved in negotiations’
Palestinians have been ordered to move en-masse by the Israeli authorities, often with only what they can carry. Click to enlarge
According to a Hamas official quoted by Israeli daily Haaretz, the arrival of the movement’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Cairo on Tuesday did not mean there had been any breakthrough in the negotiations.
Organised by Egypt and Qatar, several rounds of talks were held in Cairo earlier this month but failed to reach an agreement on a truce and the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. According to Israel, 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, at least 30 of whom have reportedly died, out of the 257 kidnapped on October 7.
Talks have stalled over Hamas’s demands, described as “delusional” by Binyamin Netanyahu. These include a ceasefire, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, an end to the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory and safe shelter for the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians.
“More than on Hamas, this is about putting pressure on the partners involved in the negotiations, especially Egypt, Qatar and the US”, says Tewfik Hamel, a researcher in military history at Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, who sees Israel’s ultimatum as a call for the Islamist movement to capitulate.
Fears of ‘carnage’
Should new negotiations fail, the prospect of a military ground offensive in overcrowded Rafah raises the worst fears for the trapped Palestinian refugees. Nearly 30,000 people have so far been killed in the conflict, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
“In an area of 10 square kilometres, there are almost 1.5 million Palestinians, so this will necessarily lead to a massacre of the civilian population,” says Hamel. “Attacking the town of Rafah, where two-thirds of Gaza’s population is now squeezed, would mean committing carnage,” agrees Ancel.
The former soldier points out that the town has already been subjected to daily bombardment designed “to prepare the territory” for a ground attack. On Thursday, fresh Israeli bombardment of the city flattened a mosque and destroyed homes in what residents called one of their worst nights yet, killing at least 97 people and wounding 130 others in the last 24 hours, according to Gaza’s health authorities. Most victims were still under rubble or in areas rescuers could not reach.
“We can’t even begin to imagine what this would mean for all these displaced people. A military offensive is going to create even more chaos,” Jamie MacGoldrick, the UN’s Middle East coordinator, told FRANCE 24.
Reports from humanitarian organisations have been increasingly alarming on the situation in the Gaza Strip, where 2.2 million people could face starvation. According to UN agencies, food and drinking water have become “extremely scarce”, and 90 percent of the enclave’s young children now suffer from infectious diseases.
Netanyahu has said Israel would provide “safe passage” to civilians trying to leave Rafah before the assault, but never mentioned to which destination. In the event of an offensive, Palestinian civilians would have to try to force their way across the closed border with Egypt.
“Egypt doesn’t want refugees in Sinai because the authorities don’t know whether Israel would later accept their return to the Gaza Strip, and Egypt doesn’t want to host the refugees out of fears some might end up being Hamas fighters, even if authorities don’t explicitly state it,” explains Bruno Daroux, FRANCE 24’s international affairs editor.
But recently Cairo seemed to be preparing for this scenario. According to reports by the Wall Street Journal and an Egyptian NGO, Cairo is constructing a walled camp in the Sinai Peninsula to receive displaced Palestinian civilians from the Gaza Strip. After satellite images appeared to show extensive construction work along the border, the reports claim the compound could accommodate more than 100,000 people on the Egyptian side, parallel to the border with Gaza.
Ancel sees this flight from Rafah as the real objective of Binyamin Netanyahu’s government. “Rafah is the only urban centre that has not been destroyed by the Israeli army. The government therefore wants to complete the destruction of the Gaza Strip’s infrastructure to make it uninhabitable. Netanyahu’s aim is to empty the Gaza Strip of Palestinians under the guise of fighting Hamas,” says the former officer, who believes that “a terrorist organisation cannot be destroyed by a military offensive”.
Destruction rendering ‘return of civilians impossible’
Adverts for properties in a redeveloped Gaza already begun to appear. Although, of course, the properties would only be available for Israeli buyers.
“The current Israeli government rejects the creation of a Palestinian state. From that point of view, the most reasonable option is to drive the Palestinians out of the territory,” says Hamel. “However, the attachment of the Gazans to the territory remains strong, because they know that as soon as there is a displacement of the population, the possibility of a return completely ceases to exist.”
As well as farmlands, almost 40 percent of the buildings in the Gaza Strip had been destroyed by January 17, an Israeli study revealed. According to satellite data analysis obtained by the BBC, the actual figure is higher. That analysis suggests between 144,000 and 175,000 buildings across the whole Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed – meaning between 50 and 61 percent of Gaza’s buildings.
At least half of Gaza's buildings damaged or destroyed, new analysis shows https://t.co/2nqQCObStB
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 30, 2024
UN human rights chief Volker Turk on February 8 accused the Israeli army of committing a “war crime” in its reported destruction of buildings within one kilometre of the barrier between the enclave and Israel in order to create a “buffer zone” along the border inside Gaza itself.
Turk said the destruction “appears to be aimed at, or has the effect of, rendering the return of civilians to these areas impossible,” adding Israel’s “extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, amounts to a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and a war crime”, he said in a statement.
This story has been adapted from the original in French.
THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE
Recently the government have said their members of parliament need special police protection
from the foreign migrant gangs they all people trafficked in to ruin our country.
They have 24/7 protection now, while we the people get nothing, our shops and stores get robed we get mugged and burgled
and the country goes down the toilet
This week i had election pamphlets through my door, both Labour and Tory, spoke about the state of the roads, nurses pay
parking out side schools, not one mentioned that we the folk whose ancestors built this country
are now a besieged minority, and while foreign nationals get ” positive discrimination” over us
“” A British dictator once said, We shall fight them on the beaches and on the landing grounds we shall fight them in the fields and in the streets
we shall never surrender ”
But we have surrendered, these criminal racist politicians have stolen our country and our children’s future
Jacob Roth schild who died yesterday is said to be King of the Jews has held our country to ransom through the economy
so wealthy is this family that both sides were bankrolled by this one family in the Britain versus France Napoleonic wars
and much of the second world war until Mr Hitler put the Roth childs in prison and shared the money with the people.
We are told VAT taxes are going up again and all old age pensions will be stripped back to age 71, if you live that long
Years ago when i was at med school cancer was a rarity, now its one in two people, why ?
Medical reports mag had several articles saying that there are 50 carcinogenic additives in supermarket foods ?
who owns Tesco Morisons and Sainsburies ?
min share holders were Roth schild and Oppenheimer.
Moshe Solomons on radio said it does not affect us as we eat Kosher, this is behind the massive success of farmers markets ,
locally grown less sprayed and less chemicals so the powers that be declare war on UK farmers
Roth child claims to own the weather, so you think it a coincidence that we in the UK have had rain day and night for weeks
destroying farmers crops this season ?
If Jacob Roth child really is king of the jews why did he let 6 million go up the chimney ?
Moshe Solomons said
“he didnt it never hapened.
One of the “charitable causes” Jacob Rothschild helped create…
“…if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, including the Rafah area…” What a load of bollocks!
More than likely that statement means: that if by Ramadan our hostages are returned home, the fighting will still continue everywhere, one way or another, either by murdering the Palestinians, or starving their wives, children and families to death or by whatever means necessary until we achieve our objective of eliminating them, and removing them entirely from Gaza!😒
I live in a jewish area and this leaflet came through my door
it explained about a recent issue
Hundreds of pamphlets designed to support of Nutenyahu and the racist genocide in palestine
which w complete
she says ere due to be distributed in jewish areas of london have all been found in a refuse bin.
Ruth Harris said this is so distressing a thousand leaflets have just been dumped,
Nutenyahu is losing so much support, we thought by now the clearance of the west bank and gaza would beand the people of the UK need to get behind Nutenyahu to achieve this
Ruth Harris coordinator
what sickos
The usual fake news media spin.
There’s no mention of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (spelt many ways).
During Ramadan, Arabs go to this mosque to pray, and now they will be blocked from doing so.
During Ramadan, when they watch TV, thing get very strained, even without the current Gaza genocide. Now, things are likely to off the charts as Ramadan anger comes to a boiling point.
I understood the importantce of the Alexa Mosque before Gaza, and the fact the Nazis wanted it demolished, and to put settlers on the site, and the Palistinians knew this, and we don’t see it here on this Nazi infested site, but this war in Gaza is called the Alexa War.
This thing about a ceasefire, to me looks like a farce. Even if it goes ahead, they won’t have access to the Alexa Mosque, so the anger is already baked in the cake. Ceasefire, or no ceasefire, there’s going to be trouble, and it’s the Nazis who are stocking the fire.
Naziyahu says they can have safe passage, but he’s a lying murderous cu!/!T! With Nazis shooting at Palistinians who have been given the all clear by the IDF, who then murder them in cold blood.
The UK is a Nazi state and they’ve a hundreds and hundreds of years track records of genocising sheeple all over the world. Israel was a British project, one that was morally and legally wrong, and while they don’t want a big Middle East war, because it detracts from UKraine and Russia. The Nazi Brits don’t want one of their projects to end in failire.
I’m sure Micheal Obama can sort it out.
Later this year Americans will go to the polls to vote and it’s 100% certain that regardless of who’s elected, that candidate WILL give Israel’s brutality a boost! Don’t vote for anyone who doesn’t stand up against this Dark Ages behavior!
I think Nico called it the day after the Mossad-Hamas false flag:
“The ZOG modus operandi: CIA-KGB-Mossad-Hamas creating more coordinated conflict/chaos in nonwhite nations/regions, thus generating hordes of ‘refugees’ who then migrate or are transported by ZWOG to Europe/America/OZ-NZ to supplant whites (Whiteocide) via numbers, murders & miscegenation.”
Another batch of 75 million migrants into Europe. So, migrants in, Jews out. It’s simple. Israel needs a lot of space, not only for their Jewish world controllers, but also for a lot of their smart and valuable friends.
Truly, a (((malignant cancer)))
if not excised, it will spread and kill you
where are the illegal invader traficer ships of NGOs
which traficed since 8 years african parasites northbound
to europa ? seems they (jewNGOs) want only africans .
and european navy dont send one of their many ships
to Gaza beach with food . do they fear to be shot down
by israeli canonboats ? it is all jew steered (european navy) .
jews blackmail the whole world like a criminal extortion mafia !
A good summary document on Israel’s extensive history of murder, pillage, human rights violations and land confiscation, which violate many International Laws numerous times may be found at http://itisapartheid.org/Documents_pdf_etc/IsraelViolationsInternationalLaw.pdf .
Various photos already tell the story. Basically, Gaza already has been laid uninhabitable. The durable Palestinian shelters called homes, which have existed for a long time provided protection from the worst weather elements plus provided safety for the people, a place to live, cook, eat, bathe, socialise and sleep.
These homes for the most part have been sufficiently destroyed. Plus, the utility system supply buildings and distributive infrastructure: potable water, electrical, waste water/sewage have been taken out. The electrical substations have been destroyed, both small and large potable water tanks were destroyed. The sewage treatment facilities were targeted and destroyed. With such a high population density, these facilities were definitely needed to prevent sickness and disease.
Telecommunications: telephone, cellular towers, computer networking buildings have also been substantially destroyed.
Schools, higher learning institutions, records buildings including land ownership deeds, the entire health maintenance facilities to include hospitals have been destroyed.
The roads have been also destroyed and littered with considerable building and wall rubble.
They say they need a buffer zone. Rightly did the 33rd US President conclude as to why the lack of concern over life from the book, The Synagogue of Satan, The Secret History of Jewish World Domination by Andrew C. Hitchcock:
Here, they have shown absolutely no mercy to a population that they have imprisoned, plus have demonstrated many acts of cruelty and hatred.
It appears at this point, given that over the past 76 years, the Khazrian Mafia (KM) have deliberately murdered and stolen from the Palestinians, not even able to abide by the partitioning plan set up by the 1947 UN Resolution. They have also been merciless to their Arab neighbors, even creating provocation when unwarranted.
The whole reason why the Ottoman Empire was defeated with Arabs broken up into warring faction states was because of oil. Now, the KM wants to profit from the oil and gas fields off the coast of Gaza, which rightfully belong to the Palestinians. Because of greed, they also want to turn Gaza into a vacation recreation play area for the ultra wealthy at the cost of over 30,000 murdered and over 70,000 wounded Palestinians, sacrificed to Moloch.
https://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=278885 CONFIRMED: Israel Planning to Dislocate ALL 2.3 Million Palestinians from Gaza Strip by TTS Admin / Hal Turner | Dec 27, 2023
Being Bolsheviks, they do not value human life nor are they willing to compromise. Similar to the 66 million Russians and 40 million Chinese that were murdered by them, now they consider the Palestinians with the same disdain as “useless eaters”.
The agenda for a Greater Israel encompasses all Arab lands without Arab presence, because of the rich yet to exploit mineral resources in the area and opportunities for making even greater vast fortunes. Gaza will be the new Las Vegas recreational playground of the Middle East no doubt, complete with hotels, casinos and brothels.
With the world seeing these murderous atrocities going on right now without the IDF even backing down, in order to prevent these from further advancing will require definitive action which thus far, no nation has challenged Israel on.
However, the greatest Zionist Occupied Territory (ZOT) is currently the puppet US Government and its people’s “representative bodies,” to be followed with the puppet British administration and its people’s “representative bodies”.
Thus one may interpret the Israeli flag’s blue fields, that of Greater Israel does not only encompass all Arab lands in the Middle East, but rather all land from Washington D.C. circumspectly westward to London.
What is happening now to the Palestinians is planned for the entire world. Remember Lahaina and Chile. “You will own nothing and be happy.”
Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! When the morning is light, they execute it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away; thus they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. Therefore thus saith HaShem: Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks, neither shall ye walk upright; for it shall be an evil time. Micah 2:1-3 (Jewish Publication Society)
Correction to first link: https://itisapartheid.org/Documents_pdf_etc/IsraelViolationsInternationalLaw.pdf
Due to censorship in some locations, it may not be available, was obtained from:
Palestine: Apartheid, Stolen Lives and Land, History Erased, United Nations Deaf Mute Global Research, November 04, 2023