TEHRAN- Israel’s brutal strikes on northern Gaza over the past 10 days have highlighted the regime’s nefarious schemes in the early stages of its onslaught against the Palestinian territory.

Soon after Israel launched war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, its post-war scenarios came to the fore.

In mid-October last year, Israel acknowledged that its Intelligence Ministry had drafted "a wartime proposal" to transfer the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

The move was quickly dismissed by the Egyptian president. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Egyptians in their millions would reject the forced displacement of Palestinians into Sinai.

About 400,000 Palestinians who are living in northern Gaza are trapped there. Israel has issued evacuation orders but does not allow people to leave the area.  

On Saturday, the Israeli army renewed its evacuation orders for Palestinians still living in the north. But many residents say the Israeli sniper fire makes it impossible to leave.

The residents also say the Israeli army has isolated the areas of Beit Hanoon, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya from Gaza City, and completed severed access. 

They are also posting about the dire situation on social media.

 “As the world is focused on Lebanon and possible Israeli strike against Iran, Israel is wiping out Jabalia,” Nasser, a resident of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, said, according to Al Jazeera.
He added, “The occupation is blowing up roads and destroying residential districts. People also don’t find anything to eat. They are trapped inside their homes, fearing bombs could fall onto their heads.”
 

Starving civilians 

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Saturday that no food aid has reached northern Gaza since October 1, with a 35% drop in the supply of food to families around the rest of Gaza. This has raised new fears of extreme hunger and famine that have already plagued the territory since the start of the war more than a year ago. 

The Israeli military launched a deadly offensive in Jabalia earlier this month under the pretext of stopping the Hamas resistance movement from regrouping. 

Hamas on Saturday slammed the Israeli army and said its “massacres are a continuation of the ongoing criminal genocide against our people, shielded by American support”.

Dr. Mounir al-Bursh, the head of Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that 200 people have been killed in the wake of the Israeli siege in northern Gaza with many dead bodies left on the streets.
 

Carnage in camp 

The UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory has slammed Israel’s intense strikes on northern Gaza. 

Francesca Albanese said Israeli forces are committing “another massacre” in the Jabalia refugee camp.

She said Palestinian civilians in Jabalia “are killed – both in groups and one by one – amid unspeakable cruelty and sadism” by Israeli troops “who have accepted to be willing executioners of a genocidal plan”.

Albanese added that the Israeli attacks are being conducted with Western support and weapons.

“It blows my mind to think that WE KNOW what Israel is doing and altogether we cannot stop it. Looking at where we were 100 years ago, no much progress has been achieved,” she said. 
 

Sinister plan 

Israel’s savage attacks on northern Gaza are aimed at making the area uninhabitable for Palestinians. In fact, the strikes are in line with the regime’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

This sinister plan is a prelude to forcibly transfer Palestinians from the entire Gaza Strip. 

But that will not be the end of the story. Israel is also plotting to expel Palestinians from the West Bank. 

The latest comments made by Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich provide greater insight into the issue.

Smotrich has advocated for the creation of a Jewish state that would encompass all Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab territories, including Syria. 

Smotrich, in an interview for the Arte documentary “Israel: Extremists in Power”, said he hopes to expand Israel's borders deep into Arab land, according to Jewish scripture. 

"It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus," he was quoted as saying. 

This Jewish state, he said, must extend into Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, highlighting the long-standing vision of many Israeli ultra and religious nationalists for significant territorial expansion across West Asia. 

Israel has slaughtered more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October last year. The Israeli army has also killed more than 2,200 people in Lebanon in the same period in the wake of its attacks against the country. 

Israelis have no scruples about butchering Palestinians, Lebanese and residents of some other Arab countries. This reflects their mentality and their fascist and apartheid beliefs. 

Resistance and unity among the regional Islamic nations is the sole means to counter the malevolent schemes of the regime.