Humanitarian disaster in northern Gaza Strip and a "settlement preparation" conference on its borders

On Friday, October 25, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, warned in a video that northern Gaza was experiencing its “darkest hour,” and denounced the “catastrophic” humanitarian situation in which the Palestinian population finds itself, subjected to “bombardment” and “famine,” warning that Israel’s actions could amount to “criminal atrocities” (1). On the same day, the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro published an article by its Jerusalem correspondent, Guillaume Deleufol, entitled: “A situation worse than horrific,” in which he indicated that the humanitarian situation is “catastrophic” in the northern Gaza Strip, which has become “the scene of bombardment, street fighting, famine and the displacement of civilians,” as “the Israeli army issues evacuation orders one after the other, forcing the population to flee from one place to another, with no exit strategy” (2).

"The smell of death is everywhere"

Since October 6, the Israeli occupation army has been launching a large-scale attack on the northern Gaza Strip, during which it imposed a complete siege on three towns: Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, and Jabalia and its camp. On October 12, it declared the northern Gaza Strip a “closed military zone,” calling on all residents to move south, after imposing a ban on the distribution of food, water, and fuel. To starve the population, on October 8, the occupation army bombed the last bakery that was still operating with difficulty in the north, due to the lack of flour bags that were able to cross the checkpoints.

While 17,000 residents left their homes, according to the Ministry of Health, most residents refused to comply with the evacuation orders, “knowing full well that they would not be safer in the Mawasi area in the south, and that they would never be able to return to their homes if they obeyed the army,” which “built earthen barriers to prevent Palestinians from moving towards neighboring Gaza City, forcing them to flee south through a single outlet, Salah al-Din Street” (3). A widely circulated video clip, filmed by an Israeli soldier and circulated by the media, showed images of “hundreds of people lined up among the rubble waiting to be evacuated,” where, according to the British Sky News channel, “men are separated from women and children, their identity cards are checked, while bodies are left on the roads,” because ambulances cannot reach them, so that “the smell of death is everywhere” (4).

Testimonies of a real humanitarian disaster

Foreign journalists, who have been prevented by the occupation army from entering the Gaza Strip, are trying to capture testimonies of the atrocities taking place in the north, from the city of Jerusalem, especially through WhatsApp. On the 24th of this month, Alice Frossard, a correspondent for Radio France Internationale, reported on the testimony of some civilians about “a siege within a siege for about 20 days, and the killing of 770 Palestinians, in the absence of food, water, medical supplies, ambulances and teams.”

She also quotes Amina, “who was held in a shelter in Jabalia for two weeks,” saying, “The situation was very difficult. There was no food or water, and the shelter we were in was bombed, killing and wounding people, and there was no passage for ambulances, so many died from their wounds.” She mentions that the remaining residents of the north “talk about the artillery shelling and massacres that took place around Kamal Adwan Hospital, which is surrounded by tanks,” and whose director explains, “We are losing one person every hour due to lack of equipment” (5).

The same correspondent had published an article on the 22nd of the same month, in which she indicated that “since Monday, October 21, a video clip filmed by a journalist on the scene has been circulating on social media, showing a woman outside Jabalia camp screaming in despair: ‘Who was killed? Oh God, oh God, all of them! ’” The video shows “dozens of blood-stained bodies lying on the ground on the stairs of a UNRWA shelter in Jabalia camp, including the remains of women and children,” in the absence of ambulances to transport the wounded, which “made everyone face indescribable terror.”

She adds that the only Gazans who can be contacted are the displaced, “who managed to leave the area and cross the checkpoints without being shot by Israeli soldiers,” including Nasser, who says: “What is happening to us in the north is not normal, as entire families have been killed. Why is this happening to us, and where are human rights?!” (6).

Another correspondent for Radio France Internationale in Jerusalem, Sami Boukhalifa, reported on the 21st of this month the testimony of a young woman from the northern Gaza Strip, who preferred not to reveal her identity. She fled the bombing and took refuge with her children in the Khan Yunis area months ago, leaving behind her parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters and cousins. She began by saying: “All of my relatives in the north are being exterminated.” She then explained that her family “lives in the Al-Alami neighborhood in Jabalia, where some of her relatives died and others were wounded after the family home was bombed and burned, leaving nothing behind.” She added: “The last message I received from my sister who lives in the north was three days ago. I begged her to flee and told her that her life was worth much more than her home, but at the same time, I said to myself: Where should she flee? Everywhere is being bombed, the streets are full of tanks, and as soon as a person leaves his home, the Israelis shoot him and his children.” (7)

UNRWA and humanitarian organizations warning

On 24 January, UNRWA spokesperson Louise Waterridge noted in a memo that the agency was “receiving desperate appeals from colleagues and friends in northern Gaza,” where “the population is suffering from a sharp increase in malnutrition and hunger.” “We continue to warn that ongoing military operations are putting tens of thousands of civilians at grave risk,” she wrote. “The toll of death, injury and destruction is appalling, and the sick and wounded are being denied vital health care.” While displaced families from the north are “deeply frustrated by the horrors they face,” people suffering under the Israeli blockade are “exhausting all available means of survival,” as “fuel to operate water facilities has run out, forcing people to risk their lives to find drinking water or to consume water from unsafe sources.”

In addition, “there are no longer any UNRWA medical centres operating in the northern Gaza governorate”; while UNRWA teams “are prepared to provide services in shelters, they need medical equipment to do so.” The memo adds that “the third phase of the polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza, which was intended to vaccinate some 120,000 children, has been postponed due to the escalation of violence, heavy shelling and mass displacement orders.” The memo adds that “ongoing attacks on civilian infrastructure continue to undermine security and movement of people in northern Gaza, preventing families from safely taking their children for vaccinations and preventing health workers from working.” Ms. Louise Waterridge appealed to the relevant parties to “facilitate the vaccination campaign in the north through the implementation of humanitarian pauses” (8).

Hospital siege and attack

After its tanks and bulldozers returned to the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of three hospitals in the area: Kamal Adwan Hospital, Al-Awda Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital, after imposing a siege on them. It is believed that more than 350 patients are trapped inside these hospitals, including pregnant women and people who have just undergone surgery, who require ongoing medical treatment and cannot be discharged. “The escalation of violence and the ongoing Israeli military operations that we have witnessed over the past two weeks in the northern Gaza Strip will have serious consequences.”

“It is absolutely essential that the few health facilities that are still functioning are protected,” says Anna Halford, MSF’s emergency coordinator in the Gaza Strip. “This is simply collective punishment imposed on Palestinians in Gaza, who must choose between forced displacement or death.” She believes that Israel’s allies “bear a heavy responsibility for this catastrophic situation, resulting from their unwavering support for the war,” and must “immediately do everything in their power to achieve a lasting ceasefire, not tomorrow, not in a week, but now.”(9) As these lines were being written, news spread that the occupation forces had stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in the town of Beit Lahia, arrested a number of medical staff and patients, and then withdrew after leaving behind extensive destruction. Another report came in that the occupation forces had shelled a residential area on the outskirts of the town, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries.

Sderot: "Preparing for Settlement" Conference

The extremist settler movement Nahala, which supports the establishment of settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, called for a conference under the slogans “Preparing for Settlement” and “It Can Be Done,” to restore Jewish settlement in the Strip and push Palestinians to leave their lands. This goal was previously limited to small groups of extremist settlers, but it has gained increasing support as the war waged by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on the Strip continues. In addition to representatives of the Religious Zionism and settler movements, no less than 10 of the 32 Likud MKs are participating in the conference, as well as a number of its ministers. The invitation to the conference stated: “A year after the massacre, we declare that Gaza is ours forever.” Daniela Weiss, head of Nahala and a resident of one of the settlements in the occupied West Bank, declared on the eve of the conference that “after October 7, the Arab presence in Gaza will end, and the Jews will return to their settlements and establish new ones” (10).

The conference was held on October 21 in the town of Sderot, which borders the Gaza Strip and was built on the lands of the abandoned village of Najd. In her speech, May Golan, the Minister of Social Equality for the Likud Party, declared her support for settlement in the Strip, calling for “the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes as punishment for the events of October 7,” and considering that “any means to prevent the kidnapping of people again, or the killing of men and women, is legitimate, such as the deportation of families or the deprivation of citizenship, but what hurts the Palestinians more than people’s lives is the seizure of land,” and she concluded that “the Jewish presence in Gaza strengthens Israel’s security.”

Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir stressed in his speech that “encouraging the emigration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip is the best and most moral solution to the conflict,” adding that this should not be done “by force,” but rather the residents of Gaza should be told that Israel “gives them the opportunity” to go to other countries. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich supported the idea of rebuilding settlements in the Gaza Strip, announcing on the way to the conference in a tweet on the social network “X” that the lands that Israel had given up in the past had turned into “advanced Iranian terror bases, and endangered the country,” referring to the unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, considering the Gaza Strip “part of the Land of Israel,” and that “without settlements there is no security,” adding that “today’s conference is part of a process of awareness and general mobilization [of the people], and aims to develop a pioneering and Zionist settlement process.”

Daniela Weiss stated that “wars cause major refugee problems, and that October 7 changed history, so that the Gazan Arabs no longer have the right to live here after the brutal massacres.” She added, “We came here to resettle in the entire Gaza Strip, from north to south, not in a part of it,” noting that the Nahala organization had formed “six groups of settler residents, including 700 families, who are already ready to establish new settlements in Gaza, when the opportunity arises.” Likud MK Ariel Kallner declared in his speech that “settlements mean absolute victory,” referring to the mantra that Benjamin Netanyahu has been repeating since the start of the war on the Gaza Strip. He added, “What they consider the abode of Islam will become the abode of the Jews,” stressing that the settlements “improve security.”

After the speeches of the ministers and representatives participating in the conference, it was the turn of the settlers. Haim Waltzer, a resident of the Eviatar settlement outpost in the northern West Bank that was legalized by the government, spoke. Before 2005, he lived in the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip. He stressed that “settling the land is my life’s mission, and the real reason for that is that God commanded us to do so when He gave us the land 3,000 years ago, as written in the Old Testament.”

Another reason that “motivates us to settle in the Gaza Strip is that it brings peace,” he added, “We are a nation of peace, and we only want peace, but I don’t think there is a partner with whom we can make peace; therefore, the only way to ensure calm in Tel Aviv is to resolve the Gaza issue – it’s the only way for them to feel defeated. The only thing that matters to them is the land, and when we take it from them and settle in it, that’s the only thing that gives them the impression that we won and they were defeated!” Oved Hogi, head of the Likud “Yad Eliyahu” branch in Tel Aviv, was “more modest” in his demands, calling for “separating northern Gaza from the coastal territories and allocating its lands to the kibbutzim and other Israeli communities in the border area with Gaza, for the purposes of settlement and development, and maintaining Israeli control over the strategic Philadelphi Corridor,” considering that “the Arabs must lose their lands during the war, so that they remember that they lost,” and that “losing lands” should be “the punishment for the October 7 pogrom” (11).

The conference saw workshops organised by pro-settlement activists linked to the Nahala movement to give instructions on how to build new settlements from scratch, as the movement has done on numerous occasions, including the establishment of the Eviatar outpost.

Finally, while the Israeli occupation army claims that its brutal attack on the northern Gaza Strip aims to “prevent Hamas from reorganizing and re-emerging,” many analysts see what this army is doing as “ethnic cleansing” as part of a strategy aimed at paving the way for the possibility of annexing or even settling the Gaza Strip or large parts of it. Will this dangerous Zionist plan succeed? Only the Palestinian people have the answer to this question.