A former head of the Israeli national security council has called for a siege on northern Gaza, and the forced displacement of all civilians there, effectively ethnic cleansing the entire north of the Gaza Strip.
Interviewed on Sky News’ The World, Major General Giora Eiland said the 400,000 people located there should be given 10 days to leave and those who stay should be designated combatants.
Eiland claimed that such a displacement would pressure Hamas to release the remaining 100 Israelis held captive in Gaza. But forced displacement is illegal under international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.
The retired general is one of a number who have called for northern Gaza to be cleared of civilians and the remaining militants to be put under siege until they surrender.
He told chief presenter Mark Austin: “A siege is a legitimate, practical measure that can be taken against the enemy, and you can cause your enemy to surrender or to die in starvation.”
He said the alternative was to use “regular military tactics, and the result would be that thousands of civilians will be killed because the terrorists and civilians are living together”.
But Sam Rose, deputy director of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, told reporters with Sky News that civilians who are still in the north have either chosen to be there or are sick and vulnerable.
“Forcible displacement of these people is illegal under international law,” he said, “There is no safe passage out of there.”
Describing the area as a “valley of death”, he argued there was “simply no space” in southern Gaza, with the beaches “teeming with hundreds of thousands of people”.
Israelis forces have already been besieging, surrounding and attacking the city and refugee camp of Jabalia for over a week, with hundreds of Palestinians killed and eyewitnesses reporting that the streets of Jabalia camp are streaming with blood of the people that have been killed there this past week.
In addition, on Sunday night Israeli forces bombed a displaced persons’ camp located at Al Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital in Deir al-Balah, starting a fire that caused dozens of Palestinian civilians to be burned alive in their tents. Among those who burned alive were patients still attached to IV liquids, who perished as the fire spread to areas where patients were being treated.
