Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – One reason why Palestinians in northern Gaza are resisting attempts of the Israelis to expel hundreds of thousands of them from what is left of their residences is that the center and the south of the country are still being indiscriminately bombarded by the Israeli military. Early on Monday morning (today), the Israeli army shelled the courtyard of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip, setting fire to refugee tents there. Initial reports said that 3 people were killed and 40 injured, though observers expect the casualty toll to climb. Some images from the scene released on social media showed patients in the courtyard hooked up to IV drips being engulfed by flames.
Israeli attacks on hospitals are common. The UN High Commission on Human Rights has accused Israeli authorities of deliberately destroying the medical infrastructure of Gaza.
Al Jazeera English: “Four killed in Israeli drone attack on Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital”
Meawhile, Israeli shelling of a school at the Nuseirat Camp in central Gaza killed 15 children and a woman and injured 80 others. Israel has bombarded 191 displacement centers in Gaza during the past year, presumably because their automated attack programs, Lavender and Go Daddy, discovered known members of al-Qassam Brigades there, and hit them without regard for the civilians around them.
The Israelis also bombed the Mufti School in Nuseirat Camp, where thousands of displaced children and women had sought shelter.
Haaretz reports that senior Israeli military officers are saying privately that the negotiations for the release of the remaining 101 Israeli hostages in Gaza are being abandoned and that Israel will seek to seize substantial portions of the Gaza Strip. The annexation of territory by military force is forbidden by the United Nations Charter, to which Israel is a signatory.
The officers, reports Yaniv Kubovich, said that the recent offensive in North Gaza was launched without consultations. That statement is likely a code for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hardliners on his cabinet ordering the army in abruptly and without military rationale. The officers seemed confused about why the Israeli government is expelling the 400,000 Palestinians of Gaza from the north. Israel had announced months ago that Hamas was cleared from North Gaza.
Kubovich wonders if the current North Gaza campaign is intended to implement the “surrender or starve strategy” that had been proposed by retired General Giora Eiland, which envisaged that all inhabitants of northern Gaza would be expelled to the south. Anyone who declined to leave would be deemed Hamas and could be legitimately targeted and cut entirely off from food and other humanitarian aid. Only the Palestinians who allowed themselves to be pushed out of their homes and who risked random Israeli bombardment could hope to get so much as an occasional meal in the south of the Strip.
The new campaign against the civilian population of northern Gaza involved ordering the 162nd Division to relocate from southern Gaza to the north. There, it was positioned to launch a wider-ranging attack on the Jabalia refugee camp. Kubovich reports that military circles do not see a military justification for this campaign.
Ground and air operations against Jabalia have been ongoing for the past week, as Israeli officers demanded everyone leave, which one volunteer French nurse on the ground called “a direct death sentence” on the 400,000 civilians. On Saturday, an Israeli bombardment killed 22 and wounded more than 90 persons, including women and children, according to Al Jazeerah
Expulsion of an occupied population is a crime against humanity according to International Humanitarian Law, including the Rome Statute that underlies the International Criminal Court. The ICC prosecutor has asked for warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and the International Court of Justice is considering a case brought by South Africa against Israel charging it with the commission of genocide in Gaza.
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