TEHRAN- The Israeli news outlet Haaretz has reported on Israel’s war crimes in the besieged northern Gaza.

Yaniv Kubovich, the military correspondent for Haaretz, says, “The area looks like it was hit by a natural disaster,” after joining Israeli occupation forces on a tour of Gaza last week.

The left-leaning Israeli news outlet reported that “the Israeli military is conducting an ethnic cleansing operation in the northern Gaza Strip. The few Palestinians remaining in the area are being forcibly evacuated, homes and infrastructure have been destroyed, and wide roads in the area are being built and completing the separation of the communities in the northern Strip from the center of Gaza City.”

In an editorial on November 6, the newspaper said, “The Israeli public must look at what its army is doing in its name in the northern Gaza Strip straight in the face. In early October, the Israel Defense Forces announced a military operation, and for more than a month now, the area around the towns of Jabalya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia have been under a tight siege.” 
 
The paper said a UN official has called it, "A siege within a siege within a siege." 

In an analysis, the newspaper said the Israeli military “has expelled residents from the northern quarter of Gaza and is preparing to keep hold of the area. It said, “This raises concerns that, contrary to his declarations, Netanyahu plans to realize the resettlement vision of his extreme-right partners – even at the cost of the hostages' lives.”
 
Kubovich, quoting the military, also reported on November 8 that Israel won’t allow residents to return to their homes in the north. 
 
"No one is returning to the northern area. There is no return to the north, and there will not be," military sources said, Kubovich said.

“Targeting anyone remaining in northern Gaza”

“The military acknowledged that this is the implementation of ‘certain parts’ of the ‘General's Plan,’ developed by retired senior officers, which calls for the forcible expulsion of the entire Palestinian population to the southern half of Gaza, south of the Netzarim corridor (the Gaza River area),”   Haaretz’s Kubovich said. 

He added, “According to the plan, anyone choosing to remain in northern Gaza would be considered a Hamas militant and could be targeted. The plan also called for blocking the entry of humanitarian aid into the north.”

The acknowledgment by the newspaper, which seriously criticizes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies, adds to the growing global outrage on what the Israeli occupation forces are doing in Gaza.

Analysts have pointed out that while Haaretz has spoken out against Netanyahu and the war on Gaza, it does not necessarily mean that the news organization has turned pro-Palestine. 

Some Israeli media as well as political and military officials are opposed to the Israeli government’s handling of the genocidal war in Gaza.

In essence, this is to protect the image of the Israeli regime, which is facing growing international isolation over its treatment of the Palestinians over the past 400 days. 

Haaretz represents the many Zionist circles both inside and outside Israel that strongly believe the best interests of the regime are served without Netanyahu at the helm. 

There are pro-Israel officials at the U.S. Capitol who have made similar remarks critical of the American-backed genocidal war on Gaza. 

They belong to the group of Zionists in Tel Aviv and Washington that see the genocidal war on Gaza as detrimental to the survival of the occupation regime. 

A second group, which consists of the likes of Netanyahu and his fascist cabinet members see the expansion of Israeli occupation as part of the “greater Israel” project, although experts believe this approach will lead to the collapse of the apartheid Israeli regime. 

Nevertheless, the fact that an Israeli news platform has documented ethnic cleansing and other atrocities in Gaza speaks volumes. 

It is another wake-up call for the international community to take serious action and end the genocide in the enclave.     

“The area looks like it was hit by a natural disaster,” Kubovich said. 

Indeed, the most tragic story of Gaza is that it is man-made with the ongoing supply of arms to the regime by its staunchest supporters in the United States, Germany and Britain. 

When Israeli media are reporting on ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the image of the Israeli regime has just taken another painful blow.