Like her, some 450 thousand people have abandoned the capital of the Gaza Strip for the beginning of the land offensive announced by the Israel government, after the army warnings that leave the city in the face of the imminence of its destruction.
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The Israeli army spokesman, Effie Defrin, said that taking control of the city “will take several months, and several more months until it is completely destroyed.”
Palestinians move with their belongings to the south along a road in the area of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the center of the Gaza Strip. (Photo of Eyad Baba / AFP)
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In Ciudad de Gaza alone, more than one million people lived, of the more than 2 million from the entire strip, which are now overcrowded in just 18 square kilometers because the rest is already under Israeli military control. If before the war, the strip – which extends in an area of 365 square kilometers – was considered the most densely populated place on the planet, now the situation is more than catastrophic.
According to the pamphlets that the army launches where the immediate evacuation is ordered, the destiny of the Gazaties of the capital must be to the Mawasi, located 29 kilometers to the south, considered “humanitarian zone” by Israel, but where there is almost no space and there is an alarming shortage of basic services, such as water and food. It is estimated that between 800,000 and one million people would already be living in Al Mawasi in bad hygiene and safety conditions.
But leaving Gaza City is not so easy and transport in a medium truck can cost up to 2 thousand dollars, a money that most do not have. Therefore, many have undertaken the exodus on foot or mounted in donkeys, loading with the few belongings they have left. The rest has preferred to stay therefore on previous occasions, the places considered insurance have also been bombed.
Diffuse objectives
For the Benjamin Netanyahu government, the objective of this offensive is the total control of the Gaza Strip and the destruction of Hamas, something that has not achieved in two years of war. The recovery of the twenty hostages that remains in the hands of the terrorist organization is almost not mentioned, which continues to generate frustration in relatives who do not cease to demonstrate in Tel Aviv.
And the statements of the most extremist sectors of the Netanyahu government make it clear that the fate of the kidnapped ceased to be a priority. “We have invested a lot of money in this war. We have to see how we share [con Estados Unidos] The Earth in percentages. Demolition is the first step of the renewal of the city, something we have already done. Now we just need to build, ”said Israeli Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, just days after a UN commission declared the genocide in the strip.
However, things are not very clear within the same Israeli military dome. As transcended in the country’s press, the Chief of the General Staff, Eyal Zamir, has not received enough information about the claims of the Netanyahu government and its cabinet. “The prime minister has not told us what the next stage is. We do not know what to prepare for us. If they want a military government, to say it,” Zamir had complained during an encounter with the ministers on the eve of the beginning of the land offensive in Ciudad de Gaza.
“We will have to be Athens and a ‘Super Sparta’, and adapt to an autarkic economy. We will have to defend ourselves and know how to attack our enemies. We will have to assess ourselves”
“There are two logic behind this offensive. One of a military and another policy,” says Román Ortiz, an analyst at the Francisco de Vitoria University International Safety Center. “The military strategy is being questioned within the Israeli armed forces themselves, because with a conventional military invasion it will be very difficult and unlikely to dismantle Hamas that, although it still has organized elements, its strength is infinitely lower than what it initially had. They will obviously wear it, but its members will be confused even more with the civilian population,” he adds.
Most of the militants left of Hamas would be concentrated in Gaza City, and would hide in the extensive network of tunnels that have not yet been destroyed by the Israeli army.
“A large -scale offensive about the city of Gaza could allow Israel to seize territory and inflict serious damage to Hamas, but it is unlikely that he ends the offensive in the decisive sense that Israeli leaders promise,” Turco Trt Andreas Krieg portal, a professor associated at the King’s College in London and director of Mena Analytica.
Who takes over?
For Ortiz, the second objective of the Israel government is political. “The second logic is political and only defends Netanyahu and its most ultra -nationalist allies, and it implies reocuping Gaza, placing it under Israeli control and progressively absorbing it. However, this clashes with a very large opposition within Israeli society, for the human and economic costs it would have,” he explains.
And so far, the government has not raised what the political solution will be after the supposed total occupation of Gaza. “Netanyahu has refused to give an option or establish the political status of the strip after the dismantling of Hamas. What is moving to his government is to obtain absolute military control and create an irreversible situation, since it will be very difficult to return to a form of Palestinian self -government after this degree of destruction and displacement of the civilian population,” adds Ortiz.
The Israeli army has intensified its attacks in Gaza City, the capital of the Palestinian enclave. (Photo of Jack Guez / AFP)
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Although Minister Smotrich is already thinking about how to distribute profits with the territory, or more sure that the resources for what will come later will leave the pockets of Israeli taxpayers. And it is not a minor fact that the Israeli economy has contracted in the last quarter of April-June with a fall of the GDP in 3.5%, while defense expenses remain priority in the budget.
With the genocide label under his shoulders, an increasingly arisca international community and the justice of his country stepping on his heels, Netanyahu and his most ultra -nationalist circle continue with their strategy to go forward. The destruction of Gaza City is one more step.
