Destroying Shelters and Services Centers... The Password of Israel's "Generals' Plan" in Northern Gaza

As part of the so-called "generals' plan" aimed at evacuating the northern Gaza Strip of its residents, the Israeli army has escalated, during its ongoing military operation in the northern governorate for 23 days, the deliberate targeting of shelters, hospitals and service headquarters.

This targeting varied between “direct shelling and firing in the vicinity of those places, or besieging them with fire via quadcopter drones or military vehicles and soldiers, and preventing food, water and medicine supplies from entering them, and even storming them, detaining and arresting those inside, killing some of them and torturing others,” according to Palestinians.

This comes within the framework of the Israeli army's efforts to empty the Northern Governorate of its residents who refused to respond to evacuation warnings, by eliminating life opportunities, destroying infrastructure, and stopping the provision of humanitarian services there.

Since October 5, the Israeli army has been sending repeated warnings to the governorate’s residents to move to the southern regions, either through statements, by dropping leaflets, or by using quadcopter aircraft, but thousands have refused to respond.

Since then, the Israeli army has deliberately targeted dozens of shelters and health and medical service centers, the most prominent of which were the Kamal Adwan and Indonesian (governmental) hospitals and Al-Awda (private).

As for the targeted shelters, the most prominent of them are located in the areas of “Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia towns and their project, Jabalia camp, Al-Nazla, Al-Fallujah, Al-Saftawi neighborhood, and Al-Tawbah.”

On October 5, Israel began unprecedented bombing of the Jabalia camp and town and large areas in the northern Gaza Strip, before its army announced the next day that it had begun its invasion of the area under the pretext of "preventing Hamas from regaining its strength in the area," while the Palestinians say that Israel wants to occupy the area and displace its residents to implement what is known as the "generals' plan."

On September 4, the Hebrew website Ynet revealed the “generals’ plan,” which aims to “turn the entire area north of the Netzarim corridor (established by Israel in the middle of the Strip), i.e. the Gaza and North governorates, into a closed military zone.”

The plan was prepared by former Israeli soldiers, and calls for "evacuating the population within a few weeks, and imposing a siege on the area, to force the militants in Gaza City to surrender or die," according to the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on September 22.

The details of the plan, according to Israeli media, include "tightening the siege on the northern Gaza Strip, cutting off humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians inside it, preventing them from obtaining food and drink, and considering those who remain inside it as fighters, which means they can be targeted and killed after declaring the area a closed military zone."

Paralyze the health system

In an effort to disrupt the service and health system, the Israeli army stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital on Friday morning, which housed about 600 patients, wounded people, their companions, and medical staff, according to what the Ministry of Health in Gaza reported at the time.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is the only facility that continued to provide the minimum level of health services to the citizens of the Northern Governorate after the Israeli army, during its military operation, took the Indonesian and Al-Awda hospitals out of service following the imposition of a tight siege on them.

Palestinian refugees in shelters around the Indonesian Hospital have had this experience.

On the night of October 17, Israeli vehicles surprised the shelters in that area, surrounded them at dawn, and then stormed them.

Eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency at the time that the Israeli army warned them to evacuate the centers immediately and forced them, at gunpoint, to forcibly leave through a corridor it had designated for them via Salah al-Din Street, claiming that it was safe.

During the raid, the Israeli army arrested a number of men, some of whom are still unaccounted for today.

Palestinian Malak Al-Masry (26 years old) says about those moments: “We thought we were safe in those centers because all the army’s movements were in the western areas of Jabalia camp, and we were present in the northeastern areas, but the Israeli army insisted on targeting all the shelter centers.”

She added to Anadolu: "The army insists on targeting the centers, as each one of them contains thousands of displaced people, and it is easy to control them and force them to flee under the threat of fire and gunpowder."

Al-Masry explains that the shelter where she was staying “housed about 2,000 displaced men and women, all of them civilians, and no one fired a single bullet at the occupation from there to justify targeting it and other shelters.”

According to the young woman, she saw pictures “published by the occupation soldiers on their electronic accounts showing the burning of those schools, turning them into a mass of flames, and destroying all the supplies and belongings of the displaced people inside them.”

She pointed out that when the army forced them to flee, it prevented them from carrying all their belongings, "which indicates its premeditated intention to commit the crime of burning and destroying life in the shelters, especially in the northern Gaza Strip."

Forced displacement persists

In turn, Palestinian Samer Abu Al-Aish, who was displaced in the Abu Hussein School shelter center west of Jabalia camp in the north, said, “The Israeli army bombed the school with shells and fired at it from its drones more than 10 times during its military operation.”

He continued in his statement to Anadolu: "There are a large number of victims, including martyrs and wounded, as a result of the Israeli targeting. Also, more than one fire broke out in the school corridors, and a number of rooms were destroyed."

He describes the process of evacuating his family from this shelter to the “Khalifa School” in the Beit Lahia town project a few days ago as “very difficult.”

He continued, saying: “Two days after we arrived there, the army surrounded the school and forced us to leave it by force after arresting a number of men and young men to Gaza City via Salah al-Din Street.”

He added, "The occupation's policy in this military operation is clear: emptying the northern Gaza Strip, destroying the means of life there, destroying hospitals and shelters, and preventing citizens from returning to the places where they lived."

He says about this: “These Israeli intentions require rapid international action to stop these crimes because we always hear that shelters are protected according to international laws and agreements that govern wars and conflicts.”

In a previous statement to Anadolu Agency, Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the government media office in Gaza, said, "The Israeli army deliberately burned the tents of the displaced people inside the shelters in the northern governorate during the past few days."

The Israeli incursion and bombardment of various areas of the North Gaza Governorate continues, coinciding with the army's continued efforts to empty the area of its residents through forced evacuation and displacement.

With American support, Israel has been waging a genocidal war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving more than 143,500 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

Tel Aviv continues this war, ignoring the UN Security Council resolution to end it immediately, and the International Court of Justice’s orders to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Source: Anadolu Agency