SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
general's plan
Israeli Security Cabinet Approves Plan for 'Mass Ethnic Cleansing' of Gaza
"There is nothing 'voluntary' about the program," said one critic. "The population of Gaza is to be forced out of their ancestral homeland through deliberate mass starvation and mass killings."
Mar 24, 2025
Israel's Security Cabinet on Sunday approved the creation of new Defense Ministry directorate tasked with ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip under the guise of "voluntary emigration."
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz euphemistically called the new agency the "Voluntary Emigration Bureau for Gaza residents interested in relocating to third countries" and claimed it will operate in accordance with international law.
However, given Israel's incessant flouting of international law—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a fugitive from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice is hearing a genocide case against the country—critics excoriated Katz's claim.
"In reality, there is nothing 'voluntary' about the program the Netanyahu government is implementing," wroteWorld Socialist Web Site editor Andre Damon. "The population of Gaza is to be forced out of their ancestral homeland through deliberate mass starvation and mass killings by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)."
The Israeli cabinet has approved the establishment of an “administration for the voluntary transition of Gaza’s residents to third countries” - aka for mass ethnic cleansing
[image or embed]
— Hanno Hauenstein (@hahauenstein.bsky.social) March 23, 2025 at 2:55 AM
Katz also said the new directorate would be run "in accordance with the vision of U.S President Donald Trump," who last month said that the United States would "take over" Gaza after emptying the strip of its approximately 2.1 million Palestinians and transform the coastal enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
After doubling down on his proposal, Trump then attempted to gaslight the world by directly contradicting his previous remarks when he said earlier this month that "nobody is expelling any Palestinians" from Gaza. By then, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had declared that the so-called Trump Plan was "taking shape" in coordination with the U.S. administration.
However, leaders of Egypt and Jordan, where Trump has proposed sending Gazans, vehemently oppose the plan. A counterproposal issued by Egypt and other Arab nations—which involves rebuilding Gaza without forcibly displacing its residents—has the support of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation and nations including China, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy.
The reconquest of Gaza is a longtime goal of Israel's far-right, which, since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 and subsequent obliteration of the strip, has moved to put its recolonization plans into action.
Israeli Col: Hamas is not the issue Gaza's people are 'The population of Gaza are barbaric riffraff....the only solution is Trump's vision,' national security expert and colonel in the Israeli army's reserve force Gabi Siboni called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza during a panel programme.
[image or embed]
— Middle East Monitor (@middleeastmonitor.bsky.social) March 24, 2025 at 8:31 AM
"October 7 changed history. As a result of the brutal massacre, the Gazan Arabs have lost their rights to be here forever, they'll not stay here," Daniella Weiss, co-founder of the extremist settler movement Nachala, said during an October 2024 conference on the ethnic cleansing of Gaza attended by Smotrich and numerous other Israeli lawmakers.
"Each of you will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs will disappear from Gaza," Weiss added.
The modern state of Israel was founded largely through the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians, sometimes accomplished via massacres and death marches. The majority of Gaza's population today are survivors and descendants of Palestinians forced from their homeland to make way for Jewish immigrants in the post-World War II era.
Palestinians call the mass forced displacement of 1948 the Nakba, or catastrophe, and far-right Israelis today threaten to carry out a new Nakba to "finish the job," as Smotrich and others have said.
Critics including Israeli troops have claimed that the IDF is carrying out the so-called "General's Plan," a blueprint for the starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from northern Gaza. Since October 2023, Israel has enforced what former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—who is also wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity—called a "complete siege" of Gaza, a blockade which has exacerbated deadly starvation and illness in the strip.
On Sunday, the Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll from Israel's 535-day assault on Gaza surpassed 50,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children. This, as Israeli forces have renewed their ferocious bombardment and invasion of the strip, killing hundreds of Palestinians including nearly 200 children, and wiping out entire families.
The ministry said that more than 113,000 others have been wounded since October 2023, and at least 14,000 more Palestinians are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings.
However, experts—including the authors of two peer-reviewed articles in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet—say the actual death toll is likely much higher.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Humanitarian Group Leaders Say Israel Causing 'Apocalyptic' Situation in Northern Gaza
"The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and violence."
Nov 01, 2024
The heads of 15 humanitarian organizations operating under the United Nations umbrella on Friday accused Israel of creating "apocalyptic" conditions in northern Gaza and called on Israeli forces to stop attacking the Palestinian enclave and the aid workers trying to help its people.
"The situation unfolding in North Gaza is apocalyptic. The area has been under siege for almost a month, denied basic aid and lifesaving supplies while bombardment and other attacks continue," the 15 group heads wrote in an open letter. "Just in the past few days, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, and thousands have once again been forcibly displaced."
The letter's 15 signers include directors of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, a forum of United Nations and non-U.N. humanitarian partners, including the International Council of Volunteer Agencies.
"Hospitals have been almost entirely cut off from supplies and have come under attack, killing patients, destroying vital equipment, and disrupting lifesaving services," the group leaders wrote. "Health workers and patients have been taken into custody. Fighting has also reportedly taken place inside hospitals."
"Dozens of schools serving as shelters have been bombed or forcibly evacuated. Tents sheltering displaced families have been shelled, and people have been burned alive," the letter continues. "Rescue teams have been deliberately attacked and thwarted in their attempts to pull people buried under the rubble of their homes."
The signers wrote that "we have received reports of civilians being targeted while trying to seek safety," and that "the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and violence."
The letter warns: "Humanitarian aid cannot keep up with the scale of the needs due to the access constraints. Basic lifesaving goods are not available. Humanitarians are not safe to do their work and are blocked by Israeli forces and by insecurity from reaching people in need."
"In a further blow to the humanitarian response, the polio vaccination campaign has been delayed due to the fighting, putting the lives of children in the region at risk," the signers added.
The humanitarian leaders lamented this week's approval by Israeli lawmakers of a pair of bills targeting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
"If implemented, such measures would be a catastrophe for the humanitarian response in Gaza, diametrically opposed to the United Nations Charter, with potential dire impacts on the human rights of the millions of Palestinians depending on UNRWA's assistance, and in violation of Israel's obligations under international law," the letter states. "Let us be very clear: There is no alternative to UNRWA."
The humanitarian leaders then turned their attention to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case against Israel led by South Africa and backed by around 30 nations and regional blocs. Israeli forces have been accused of flouting ICJ orders that the country prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, allow humanitarian aid into the strip, and stop the assault on Rafah.
"Israel must comply with the provisional orders and determinations of the International Court of Justice," they asserted.
Since October 2023, Israel's assault on Gaza has left more than 155,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, and millions more displaced, starving, or sick. The Israel Defense Forces' renewed offensive in northern Gaza has killed or injured thousands of Palestinians since last month amid fears Israel is implementing the so-called "General's Plan" to starve and then ethnically cleanse northern Gaza to make way for Israeli recolonization, a policy promoted by senior members of Israel's far-right government.
The humanitarian leaders' letter also states that "Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups must release the hostages immediately and unconditionally and must abide by international humanitarian law."
"The entire region is on the edge of a precipice," the signers concluded. "An immediate cessation of hostilities and a sustained, unconditional cease-fire are long overdue."
Keep ReadingShow Less
14 Children From Same Family Among at Least 38 Killed by Israeli Strike on Gaza
"There is apparently no limit to the crimes against humanity that Biden administration officials will support or excuse," said one observer.
Oct 25, 2024
Dozens of Palestinians including many children from the same family were killed in an overnight Israel Defense Forces airstrike on their homes in the southern Gaza Strip following an IDF attack on a hospital in northern Gaza, where a number of children died after their oxygen was cut off.
Reutersreported Friday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strikes across Gaza have killed at least 72 Palestinians since Thursday night. At least 38 members of the al-Farra family, including women and 14 children, were killed when Israel bombed their residences in Khan Younis. Multiple local and international media outlets reported the children—whose bodies were intact after the strike—suffocated to death.
Some Palestine advocates slammed the Biden administration—which has approved tens of billions of dollars worth of military aid for Israel and provides diplomatic cover for its war—for unconditionally supporting the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"If the slaughter of babies in hospitals and children in their sleep does not shock the conscience of the Biden administration officials supporting the far-right Israeli government's genocide in Gaza, nothing will," Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement Friday.
Warning: The following video contains images of dead children.
"What crime would Israel have to commit that would end the Biden administration's complicity in genocide?" Awad added. "There is apparently no limit to the crimes against humanity that Biden administration officials will support or excuse."
Israel's 385-day assault on Gaza—which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case—has left tens of thousands of children dead, maimed, missing, or orphaned and hundreds of thousands more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Experts also say the war has wrought the "complete psychological destruction" of Gaza's children.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Gaza is "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." For the first time, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres this year added Israel to his "list of shame" of countries that kill and harm children during wars and other conflicts.
Overall, nearly 43,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets, with more than 100,000 others wounded and at least 10,000 more believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
Israeli forces also attacked the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on Thursday after besieging the facility for days. Eyewitnesses said IDF tanks and bulldozers repeatedly entered the hospital compound and fired on the facility, damaging the intensive care unit with sick children inside and the storage tanks that provide its water and oxygen supplies. Hospital staff and wounded patients were reportedly kidnapped by IDF troops.
According toAl Jazeera, a number of children including babies died in the hospital due to a lack of oxygen.
"All departments of the hospital are under direct shelling," director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya
toldCNN. "Instead of receiving aid, we are receiving tanks."
Kamal Adwan is one of only three minimally functional hospitals in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have been carrying out an offensive that has left thousands of Palestinians dead or wounded in recent weeks.
On Friday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that WHO officials have "lost touch with the personnel there."
"This development is deeply disturbing given the number of patients being served and people sheltering there," Tedros added.
The IDF said in a statement Friday that its assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital is "based on intelligence information regarding the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure" and claimed it has "facilitated the evacuation of patients from the area while maintaining emergency services."
However, Abu Safiya said Thursday that "we lose at least one person every hour because of the lack of medical supplies and medical staff."
"Our ambulances can't transfer wounded people," he added. "Those who can arrive by themselves to the hospital receive care, but those who don't just die in the streets."
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said Friday that "children are being medically evacuated from Gaza at a rate of fewer than one child per day."
"If this lethally slow pace continues, it would take more than seven years to evacuate the 2,500 children needing urgent medical care," he continued. "As a result, children in Gaza are dying—not just from the bombs, bullets, and shells that strike them—but because, even when 'miracles happen,' even when the bombs go off and the homes collapse and the casualties mount, but the children survive, they are then prevented from leaving Gaza to receive the urgent care that would save their lives."
"This is not a logistical problem—we have the ability to safely transport these children out of Gaza," Elder added. "It is not a capacity problem—indeed, we were evacuating children at higher numbers just months ago. It is simply a problem that is being completely disregarded."
Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director at the U.K.-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, said in a statement Friday that "this assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital is yet another atrocity by Israel that is eradicating Palestinian life in Gaza."
"Patients in need of lifesaving care are now left helpless under siege," Shalltoot added. "Healthcare workers, who should be able to provide care with dignity, are now fearing for their lives."
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory recently released a report concluding that "Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
Israel's intensified assault on Gaza comes as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed during a meeting with Arab leaders in London to work with "real urgency" toward a cease-fire.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who attended the meeting, admonished Blinken: "We look at northern Gaza and we do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop."
Many observers including IDF participants in the war believe that Israel has implemented the so-called "General's Plan," a blueprint for the starvation and forced expulsion of Palestinians from northern Gaza. Hundreds of Israelis including senior government officials recently attended a conference geared toward ethnically cleansing and recolonizing Gaza.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular