Israel’s pitiless war on Gaza continues apace

Northern Gaza is no more, at least not as a livable, populated area. This was not an asteroid strike or a tsunami. But such a fate might have been kinder to the nearly 3 million people who have been compelled to undergo deprivations most of us can barely understand.

The Israeli war on Gaza remains pitiless, nowhere more so than the northern part of this enclave.

Israeli leaders declared openly what they were going to do, did it and now promise more. They have made clear that this is irreversible. Palestinians will not be allowed to return. This has been an exercise in ethnic cleansing, as bold and atrocious in design as any on record.

Few times in modern history have such shocking aims been executed with such cold determination. Israeli leaders showed zero hesitation. Not even the International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued against the serving prime minister or the International Court of Justice’s ongoing investigation into whether Israel is perpetrating genocide in Gaza have acted as a partial break.

Some apologists for Israeli crimes have argued, quite falsely, that the initial few months of terrorizing Gaza with carpet bombing was understandable, given the desire for revenge after the Oct. 7 atrocities. But such an immoral argument definitely cannot be trotted out after 15 months, getting on for 500 days. This is not Israel acting in the heat of the moment. It is cold-hearted, premeditated carnage.

This is not Israel acting in the heat of the moment. It is cold-hearted, premeditated carnage

Chris Doyle

Israel tosses out the usual propaganda. Its spokespeople claim that hospitals in northern Gaza were all Hamas command centers and therefore “legitimate military targets.” During the last 15 months, they have made such claims but are yet to provide any substantive evidence. At one moment last week, Israel denied that it was holding Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, only to confirm that it had in fact detained him. His whereabouts, like thousands of others, are unknown. Their fate is unlike the hostages, never mentioned by leaders of the US or EU powers.

Not one single hospital now operates in northern Gaza. Healthcare staff continue to be targeted. The dismantling of the healthcare system here is more than a few notches more severe than in the rest of the Strip.

Aid access is nonexistent for those Palestinians who have not fled. The UN made more than 160 attempts in the last two months of 2024 to reach civilians in northern Gaza, with “almost zero access.” The winter rains are flooding makeshift tents and the freezing weather is lethal, not least for newborns. Israel still blocks fuel and electricity. Disease is spreading, with ever greater contamination of the residual water.

Settler groups dream of colonizing this area once again. Yet already the Israeli military is healing itself. Its soldiers get a military hotel in northern Gaza, flush with all the luxuries of massages, pedicures and a barber. As Gazans die of thirst, Israeli soldiers can make use of a desalination site to provide them water from the sea.

The Israeli message is: “We can do whatever we want and there is nothing that you, the Palestinians, the UN and the human rights community, can do about it.”

As Gazans die of thirst, Israeli soldiers can make use of a desalination site to provide them water from the sea

Chris Doyle

Yes, Israel has banned journalists from entering Gaza, but it was never too concerned about the footage that has emerged. It serves a purpose. Palestinians understand those images and their message in full. Israel knows it can browbeat the Western media to downplay them because these videos and photos were taken by local Palestinian journalists and are, in their view, invalid.

Where to now? Will pulverizing the north suffice? Possibly for some Israeli leaders, given that the rest of Gaza has had 75 percent of the same treatment already. But not for others. Eight members of the Knesset have already penned a letter to the defense minister demanding that Israel destroy all sources of water, food and energy for Palestinians in Gaza. They argue that Israel should do to the rest of Gaza what it has been doing to the north. One of the signatories was Ariel Kallner, chair of the all-party Knesset group on Israel-EU relations. Who would bet against him still having a warm welcome on his next visit to Brussels?

For Benjamin Netanyahu, ethnic cleansing is a negotiating card. Ceasefire talks continue, but the Israeli position is clear. If Hamas does not cave in to each and every one of Netanyahu’s demands, the next area of Gaza can be lined up for exterminatory-level force.

For Israel’s allies, it is simply business as usual. Ever generous, US President Joe Biden leaves office with a parting gift of an $8 billion arms deal for Israel. Congress will undoubtedly wave it through.

In an imaginary world that treats Palestinians as humans, what is happening in northern Gaza alone would be universally condemned as genocide. Ministers would be tripping over themselves to condemn the ethnic cleansing. Israel would be on the receiving end of the same cold, deadening hand of sanctions as Russia. That it is not is precisely why this horror continues.

• Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding in London. X: @Doylech