Israel's plan to exterminate northern Gaza is a headache for Kamala Harris
Retired Major General Giora Eiland is one of the pillars of the Israeli security establishment. Besides his Israeli military senior command, he has been one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest military aides, serving as national security adviser, among other roles.
Since the Hamas attack of 7 October, he has published articles openly advocating genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
He refuses to distinguish between civilians and combatants, saying they are one and the same.
"[We] absolutely must not adopt the American narrative that 'permits' us to fight only against Hamas fighters instead of doing the right thing - to fight against the entire opposing system," he wrote, "because it is precisely its civil collapse that will bring the end of the war closer."
He also has suggested that even women and children should be starved because they produce future "terrorists".
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There are many reasons not to dismiss these views as those of a deranged Dr Strangelove. Eiland is a figure who commands respect in the country's military-intelligence community, which is the main power centre in Israeli society.
To prove this point, he created a group of fellow military and intelligence officials who share his agenda. They compiled a two-stage "Generals' Plan" for Gaza which would implement genocide.
There are currently 400,000 Palestinians sheltering in the north. Eiland's main objective is to permanently expel all of them and eliminate anything supporting life there. All within the zone would be razed - eliminated. Israel would give those currently there a week to evacuate, after which it would consider anyone remaining a combatant.
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After the civilians are expelled, the area will, says the plan, be subject to a “full and tight blockade, which includes preventing movement to and from it, and preventing the entry of supplies, including food, fuel and water”.
Anyone remaining will be treated as a combatant. The plan's YouTube video states that the Hamas operatives who remain can choose to "surrender or die of starvation”. After that, "it will be possible to enter and cleanse the area of Gaza City with almost no enemy”.
'Peace' through genocide
How do you “cleanse” human beings? Eiland views offering Palestinian residents the "opportunity" to abandon their homes as a charitable gesture. For 75 years, Israel has used the euphemism “voluntary transfer" to portray ethnic cleansing. This is what he’s advocating.
A well-informed Israeli security source confirmed to Middle East Eye that the Israeli government had approved the implementation of the Generals' Plan.
In an interview with Haaretz, Eiland turns international humanitarian law on its head.
"Under international law… one of the things that's not only possible, but also recommended, is to implement a siege technique...to starve an enemy to death," he said, "provided you've allowed the civilians corridors of exit beforehand".
Peace through genocide. Salvation through starvation. Of course, that doesn't even remotely reflect international law. Only in the minds of generals desperate for the world to believe in their righteousness can such thinking exist.
The US has aided and abetted such human catastrophe by certifying months ago that Israel's genocide did not violate US human rights standards. It gave Netanyahu the green light to push deeper into Gaza. That in turn led to the killing of tens of thousands more women and children.
Eiland declared that northern Gaza would be a "closed military zone". The only presence there would be Israeli military forces. It's unlikely such a vacant zone would remain so indefinitely. Just as Israel once established settlements in Gaza, which were evacuated in 2005 by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, it would likely do so again.
In fact, the Israeli general foresees just such a prospect: "Israel's government sees the ability to win in northern Gaza as a first stage that will lead to a permanent Israeli military government, and in the next stage may also [lead] to renewed settlement.”
Israeli settler extremists have proposed such plans and even suggested that settlers buy land in Gaza for such purposes. There are thousands of them who would relish the prospect of Judaising the land of their enemies, cleansing it of Palestinians.
Not one to lose the prospect of a lucrative deal, Donald Trump proposed building seaside villas for wealthy Israelis, and said Gaza "could be better than Monaco".
Jared Kushner, a senior foreign policy adviser under Trump’s presidency, suggested that Gaza's "waterfront property could be very valuable". There's nothing like turning genocide into a real estate deal.
Mass starvation strategy
Nor is this plan theoretical. In fact, the Israeli military ordered the closure of the only three hospitals in the north. It has also commanded all residents to leave their homes. The army has ruthlessly attacked the Jabalia refugee camp, a major northern enclave, and the Beit Lahiya Project area, currently home to 150,000 people. Those who leave will likely never return.
The army has implemented the plan's provision to starve residents out of their homes. In all of September, only 64 aid trucks entered Gaza. The normal number before October 2023 was 500. No aid trucks entered Gaza till last week.
Video footage from PBS's Frontline even showed children scooping up flour spilt in the dirt and stuffing it into their jacket pockets. A Brown University study estimated that over 62,000 Gazans had died of starvation.
In a Hebrew opinion piece last year in the printed edition of the centrist Yedioth Ahronoth, Eiland described the strategy behind mass starvation.
"The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics," he wrote.
"We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers.
"And no, this is not about cruelty for cruelty's sake, since we don't support the suffering of the other side as a goal but as a means."
The US is deeply implicated in the Gaza genocide. It has provided Israel with its most devastating weapons - 2,000lb bunker-buster bombs produced by US weapons maker Boeing assassinated Hamas's most senior military commander, Mohammed Deif.
Eighty of these munitions murdered Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. The latter attack toppled four high-rise apartment buildings and killed an estimated 300 Lebanese civilians.
The same weapons allegedly murdered his successor, Hashem Safieddine. In a separate development, Israel used US munitions to kill Yahya Sinwar, the sole remaining member of the Hamas leadership triumvirate, during combat operations.
The Washington Post earlier reported the US was "offering Israel… sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders and eliminate all of them". Despite this, the Pentagon claimed it had no involvement in the Sinwar slaying and "no US forces was [sic] directly involved”.
US ultimatum
As it slowly dawned on the world what Israel was doing in the north, a furore has ensued. The Biden administration responded by issuing a two-page letter to Israel's defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and Ron Dermer, a minister and Netanyahu confidant.
It defined, for the first time, specific metrics that it expected Israel to meet in order to continue receiving US military aid. It threatened suspension of arms shipments if Israel failed to achieve them.
It demanded that Israel allow 350 aid trucks daily to enter via all four major crossings, including two in the north. It also expected Israel to reopen a transit corridor to Jordan, which had been providing additional aid.
The day after the Biden administration offered its ultimatum, the Israeli military permitted 30 aid trucks to enter Gaza. This is six percent of the normal daily number of vehicles entering the enclave.
Before the letter was prepared, MEE asked the State Department if it had any comment on the Eiland plan. A spokesperson suggested turning to the Israelis for a response. Then they added: "We have been consistent in our calls to protect all civilians and civilian infrastructure."
The savagery of hostilities in northern Gaza indicates just how much Israel respects US "consistency". Nor did the response address the Eiland plan. But several days later, the US sent the warning letter. Global news coverage of the plan caused a degree of panic within the Biden administration and spurred them to act.
Many of these voters are outraged at the administration's indifference to Palestinian suffering. Harris cannot afford to lose these votes
The letter is notable for what it omitted: there was no demand for a ceasefire, a provision Netanyahu has refused for months. Only such a truce can end hostilities and the needless slaughter of the past year, but the US administration refused to approach the subject.
The letter warned that if Israel did not comply, the US could make a finding that Israel was violating the human rights provisions governing foreign aid. The result would be a suspension of all US military aid.
The 30-day deadline falls after the presidential election. This was a deliberate political decision to avoid alienating pro-Israel voters and donors before the November election.
Also, the letter may have originated from the campaign of Vice-President Kamala Harris. She has been hammered for months over her full-throated support for Israel's military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon. A February poll showed that Americans overwhelmingly disapproved of the Biden-Harris approach to the conflict. A June poll found that 61 percent favoured stopping military aid. Nevertheless, Biden and Harris have refused to budge.
With two weeks left before the election, the race has become excruciatingly tight. Harris leads in a number of battleground states which are critical for victory. Yet her lead is razor-thin and within the polls' margin of error.
Every vote is crucial. But Michigan, one of those critical states, has the largest Arab-American population in the US. Many of these voters are outraged at the administration's indifference to Palestinian suffering. Harris cannot afford to lose these votes.
This certainly played a major factor in the stiffening of the Biden administration's resolve regarding the starvation crisis. The letter and its ultimatum was the result.
But it remains to be seen whether Biden will have the will to enforce it. He has failed so many times since 7 October.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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