Gaza extermination: Netanyahu is 'finishing the job' while the world watches

David Hearst

Netanyahu is burying any chance of Israeli Jews being able to live in peace with their Arab neighbours for decades to come

On 19 November 1995, the indictment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia against Serb leaders Radovan Karadjic and Ratko Mladic was issued.

It said that between about 12 July 1995 and 13 July 1995, Mladic arrived in Potocari, where thousands of Bosnian Muslim men, women and children had sought refuge in and around the UN military compound, accompanied by his military aides and a television crew.

The Bosnian Serb general filmed himself telling Muslims that they would be safely transported out of Srebrenica. Mladic boarded a bus of terrified refugees and addressed them.

"Good afternoon. You heard the stories about me for a very long time. Now you are looking at me (the driver interrupts). You shut up. Your job is to drive. 

"I am General Mladic. There are able-bodied people among you. You are all safe. And you are all going to be transported to Kladanj. We wish you a safe journey. You who are of military age, do not go to the front again. No more forgiveness. Now I'm giving your life as a gift."

In Potocari, the men and boys were separated from the women, driven to Bratunac and shot dead by Bosnian Serb soldiers. 

On and around the same dates, the indictment continued, Muslim men and women who had taken refuge in the UN compound were summarily executed and their bodies were left lying in the fields and buildings in the compound.

Almost three decades later, the same - if not worse - is happening on a daily basis in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. 

The killing is as organised.

Men are being separated from women and are being led off to an unknown fate, some never to be seen again. Bodies litter the streets of Jabalia. 

The streets of the camp are strewn with evidence of summary execution; bodies of men, women and children with their heads torn off are lying in the entrances to buildings. 

Unlike the killing fields of Srebrenica, it's all documented on video. 

Meanwhile, an Israeli soldier is filmed handing sweets out to children awaiting transportation.

What is happening in northern Gaza today is qualitatively different to any horror visited on Gaza in the last year.  

Worse than Nakba

What is taking place before our eyes is worse than the Nakba (the Catastrophe) in 1948 when 700,000 Palestinians were made refugees, because what happened at Deir Yassin or Tantura is happening every night in northern Gaza.

The technology of killing has changed. The intent to leave no survivors behind has not.

Today, a total siege is being laid.

There is no food, water, or medical care coming in. What remains of the healthcare system after a year of bombing is being systematically dismantled. Schools are being bombed. Northern Gaza is being rendered uninhabitable. 

As in Srebrenica, the civilian victims are being shunted to "safe areas" and then killed. 

It's organised on an industrial scale.

"The smell of death is everywhere," writes Philippe Lazzarini, head of Unrwa "as bodies are left lying on the roads or under the rubble. Missions to clear the bodies or provide humanitarian assistance are denied."

More than 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica. 

There are up to 400,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza, dozens of whom are dying every night in artillery fire, drone strikes, or close up in summary executions.

This has been going on for three weeks and there is no international pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to stop. There are no statements of condemnation by any western leader. 

The two cases before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) include some of the most severe allegations of violating international law of modern times, such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. However, they remain stalled. 

Five months have passed since Karim Khan, the ICC prosecutor, requested an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. The Hamas leaders wanted on war crimes charges, Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar are dead, and according to Israel, so too is Mohammed Deif. 

That leaves only the Israeli officials facing warrants and yet none have been issued. 

The average wait for the judges of the pre-trial chamber to approve a warrant requested by the prosecutor is two months. 

The Rome Statute says the purpose of the court is not only to hold those accountable for war crimes to account, but to stop further crimes from being committed.

But for five months this court has been paralysed while war crimes are being committed daily.

'Finish the job'

Far from facing an arrest warrant, Netanyahu is taking a bow to general applause.

At home, Sinwar’s death is being taken as vindication of his policy of defying his chief armourer, US President Joe Biden, who told him to stop the war many months ago.

What is happening in northern Gaza today is qualitatively different to any horror visited on Gaza in the last year

Amit Segal, a commentator of  Israeli TV's Channel 12, said that the "success" in killing Sinwar was due to Israel not listening to anyone for a whole year and continuing its military strategy, avoiding a ceasefire despite all international pressure.

Abroad, a cigarette paper divides the traditional camps of centre left and right on Palestine.

Biden says one thing, but as we all know continues to arm Israel to the teeth. Donald Trump has the dubious distinction of saying what he thinks. 

Both are wholly acquiescent by their silence. If anything the Keir Starmers and and Anthony Blinkens of this world are worse than the likes of the former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.

On his 11th tour of the region, Blinken told Netanyahu that there was "a perception" that a plan conceived by retired generals to force the population of northern Gaza out by starvation was being enacted. He was easily batted away by Netanyahu who simply lied to him, as he has done to Biden repeatedly. 

A perception of a massacre? It's what we report every day.

The killings in Gaza are happening now because Netanyahu knows that Biden is two weeks away from a presidential election and has run out of political capital to stop him

The killings in Gaza are happening now because Netanyahu knows that Biden is two weeks away from a presidential election and has run out of political capital to stop him.

Whether they admit it publicly or not, Netanyahu has been persuading all of them that he is turning the tide of this war in Gaza and Lebanon and that he should be allowed to "finish the job".

But what does that mean? Where does the job end?

For the religious Zionists of the Jewish Power party, the end of the war is eviction of all Palestinians and the total takeover of Gaza by settlers. 

To emphasise their "power", a conference was held on Monday three kilometres from the Gaza border, and to the sounds of shelling. A goodly number of Likud Knesset members came along.

Many of those attending carried stickers celebrating Meir Kahane, the US born rabbi and convicted terrorist who said that all Palestinians should be forced out of Israel.

The extremist settlers' leader, Danielle Weis, claimed that her organisation Nahala had already entered a deal worth "millions of dollars" for temporary housing units as a preliminary to settlement of the strip. "You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza," Weis said.

Watching Gaza burn

Gatherings like these are dismissed by Israel’s supporters in Britain as colourful cranks, unrepresentative of the state they still call "Israel proper". The majority of Israelis reject the plan to reoccupy Gaza, they say.

But the majority of Israelis are witnessing a plan to empty Gaza and are doing nothing to stop it. This is all self deception.

More telling than the presence of Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir at a conference in which Jews were dancing and celebrating Gaza’s collapse, were the Likud Knesset members who turned up.

Never have Israelis been so oblivious to the forces they are stirring up in the hearts of Arabs, regardless of background, clan or creed

Netanyahu denies his plan is to empty Gaza, but his MK, Tally Gotliv, knows her party leader better. She told MEE: "I have no doubt that he is supporting the settlement of Gaza because it will bring more security, not just for the area around Gaza Strip but for Israel."

Gotliv fully supports what is happening in northern Gaza: "The people in the north of Gaza allowed the Hamas fighters to go through on October 7th," she said. "I have no mercy. The only mercy we have is that we give them the chance to leave… They should leave and go to the south."

Watching Gaza burn is a spectator sport. Israelis had gathered in their cars at one vantage point.

Never has the gap in understanding between conquerer and subject been so great. Never have Israelis been so oblivious to the forces they are stirring up in the hearts of Arabs, regardless of background, clan or creed.

Opinion in the two Arab countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel, Egypt and Jordan, could not be clearer.

Mortada Mansour is an Egyptian politician who called the revolution of 2011 "the worst day in Egypt’s history". He hated the Muslim Brotherhood and ardently supported Sisi’s military coup. No Islamist is he.

But he writes of Yehia Sinwar’s death: "The martyrdom of the Palestinian fighter Yahya Sinwar at the hands of the criminal Zionists and his injury to the face confirms that he was a brave soldier who faced death bravely in defence of his occupied homeland and did not flee or hide in a tunnel as the Arab Zionists claimed.

"He did not flee to Paris or London where some wealthy Arabs struggle in gambling halls and nightclubs spending millions of dollars on their whims while the children of the brotherly Palestinian people cannot find a drink of water. Rather, he remained in his occupied homeland resisting until he was martyred."

The Nasserite Hamdeen Sabahi was another fierce critic of  late Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

Addressing the dead Hamas leader he writes: "The image of your martyrdom will throw stones at the skeptics. You were martyred like all the heroic people of Gaza, not hiding in tunnels nor surrounded by their prisoners. You were with your men facing the enemy. Your pure blood is an inspiring support for the resistance until the liberation of Palestine. May you live long in this life and the hereafter."

It's the same in Jordan.

No justice served

The families of the two fighters who staged a cross border attack in the south Dead Sea area, injuring two Israeli soldiers, were mobbed by well wishers.

The father of one of the men, Amer Qawas, was carried on the shoulders of the crowd during a demonstration in Amman. Nasser Qawas said the blood of his son was not more precious than the blood of Palestinian people.

Everyone has forgotten the man after whom the Qassam Brigades were named.

He was a Syrian preacher, Ezzedine al-Qassam, who died in an uprising against European colonisers in the Levant during the Mandate in 1936. Fifty six years after his death, Hamas created its military wing - taking after his name - which fought a longer war against Israel than all the Arab armies combined.

In Yahya Sinwar, Israel has created a legend of resistance even more powerful than Qassam in Palestinian and Arab minds.

As commentator Fadi Quran rightly notes, the more Israel takes the lives of students like Sha’ban al-Dalou, burned alive in the courtyard of a hospital, or Hanan Abu Salami, the 59-year-old woman who was killed by an Israel soldier while harvesting her olive trees in the West Bank, the more hundreds of thousands of Qassams and Sinwars will be committed to fight back.

Netanyahu thinks he is winning this war by burying his enemies in rubble. He is burying any chance of Israeli Jews being able to live in peace with their Arab neighbours for decades to come.

Karadjic and Mladic had their day in court, and are now serving life sentences in The Hague and Parkhurst. 

This year, the General Assembly adopted a resolution designating 11 July as the "International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica", to be observed annually.

I doubt whether Netanyahu, Gallant and all those who have created this genocide will ever be brought to justice in their lives.

Maybe they will have a few questions to answer in the next.