{"id":16662,"date":"2025-08-28T07:33:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T14:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16662"},"modified":"2025-08-29T07:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T14:36:10","slug":"the-israeli-assault-on-gaza-city-a-hell-foretold-without-any-legal-basis-el-pais","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16662","title":{"rendered":"“The Israeli assault on Gaza City: A \u2018hell\u2019 foretold without any legal basis”, El Pais"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A human rights lawyer, a former officer and activist, and a reserve soldier, all Israelis, describe the Netanyahu government\u2019s actions as \u2018criminal\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Guerra
Protesters in support of an end to the Israeli offensive in Gaza, Tuesday in Jerusalem.MAHMOUD ILLEAN (AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

JOAN CABAS\u00c9S VEGA<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beirut –\u00a0AUG<\/abbr>\u00a028, 2025 – 04:42\u00a0EDT<\/abbr><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Israeli authorities are ramping up the machinery to carry out the assault on Gaza City<\/a>. On August 8, the security cabinet led by Benjamin Netanyahu launched its plan to occupy the Strip\u2019s main population center, and the countdown has been on ever since. The operation aims to expel, within a few weeks, the one million people that United Nations agencies estimate \u201cexist\u201d in Gaza City. \u201cAnd I say \u2018exist\u2019 because there\u2019s no way you can call this life,\u201d laments a UN spokesperson from inside the enclave. Once the civilian population has been removed, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intend to raze the surface and pull up the subsoil of the Palestinian city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan has sparked a still relatively limited opposition within Israel. IDF chief Eyal Zamir<\/a> has expressed in various meetings that he fears the offensive will result in the deaths of the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, according to local media reports. The families of the captives and tens of thousands of Israelis who have joined their protests reject the proposed assault for the same reason. But those who openly criticize the recipe for destruction and violent subjugation of Palestinians are still in the minority. In this report, a human rights lawyer, a former soldier who is now an activist, and a retired military officer discuss the risks in this shift by Netanyahu\u2019s government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are war crimes\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer who defends cases involving Palestinian communities in Israel and the occupied territories, warns that the Netanyahu administration\u2019s plans have no legal basis. If Israel forcibly displaces civilians without committing to returning them to the city when the military campaign ends, it would constitute committing a war crime of forcible transfer, he asserts. \u201cFurthermore, since we are talking about hundreds of thousands of people who would be subject to this evacuation, it could constitute a crime against humanity,\u201d Sfard says in a telephone conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawyer also considers Israel\u2019s recent demand that hospital managers and humanitarian organizations working in Gaza City dismantle their facilities<\/a> and relocate them to the southern part of the Strip to be unacceptable. Sfard points out that these facilities \u201cenjoy special protection [under international humanitarian law] that obliges the parties [to the conflict] to allow them to continue their medical work, facilitating and protecting it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israeli authorities have often done the opposite. Their military actions have already destroyed<\/a>, in whole or in part, 94% of hospitals, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). They have also resulted in the deaths of at least 1,581 health workers and the detention or disappearance of another 360, according to data from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The brutality of the Israeli offensive is preceded by the words of its leaders. Defense Minister Israel Katz announced last Friday the government\u2019s final authorization to take Gaza City, and did so by threatening its complete destruction. \u201cThe gates of hell will soon open on the heads of Hamas\u2019 murderers and rapists in Gaza,\u201d he wrote on X<\/a>. If the Palestinian militia does not accept Israel\u2019s conditions to end the war, Gaza City \u201cwill become Rafah and Beit Hanoun,\u201d he added, in a direct admission of the destruction the Israeli army has wrought on those towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister\u2019s announcement, which openly claims responsibility for razing a city that before the war was home to some 600,000 people \u2014 and to which tens of thousands of displaced persons from other areas of Gaza have fled over the past two years \u2014 is similar to previous messages from Israeli leaders. In March, at the height of the truce, Netanyahu announced that he would block all supplies and humanitarian aid to the Strip, punishing two million civilians, until Hamas accepted Israel\u2019s demands. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich proclaimed in May that the enclave would be \u201ccompletely destroyed\u201d and that the Palestinians would leave \u201cfor third countries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese statements are chilling and constitute mafia-style threats<\/a>,\u201d Sfard believes. \u201c[These leaders] act more like a criminal gang than like leaders of a country that calls itself democratic,\u201d he emphasizes. But international law, he recalls, does not criminalize \u201cissuing threats to commit war crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Residents
Residents of Rafah, in southern Gaza, walk through the city destroyed by Israeli bombing last January.MARIAM DAGGA (AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWipe you off the map\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Israeli authorities are announcing the destruction of Gaza City because that is their ultimate plan, not to intimidate or instill fear. This is the opinion of Yehuda Shaul, a former officer and co-founder of Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers who denounce the IDF\u2019s crimes in the Palestinian territories<\/a>. He currently co-directs Ofek, an Israeli think tank that aspires to peace between Israelis and Palestinians through a two-state solution<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf Israel is allowed to continue the war and invade Gaza City,\u201d Shaul predicts, \u201cthe next step will be to wipe that municipality off the face of the earth.\u201d The activist cites as examples the precedents of Khan Younis and Rafah, where Israeli troops have launched operations that have turned parts of those municipalities into unrecognizable wastelands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Israeli army launched the invasion of Rafah<\/a>, the largest municipality in the southern part of the enclave, in May 2024. The operation took place despite strong international opposition, which anticipated a humanitarian catastrophe that later proved true. During the previous eight months of conflict, Israeli bombs and evacuation orders had driven Gazans from the north and center of the territory to the south, where the majority of the population was then concentrated. At the time, the Israeli government presented the move as definitive in the fight against Hamas, using the same arguments with which it now justifies the capture of the Strip\u2019s capital city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaul points out that Gaza City is the largest Palestinian urban center, suggesting that its destruction will complicate the Palestinian people\u2019s projection into the future. \u201cThat\u2019s the idea [of the operation],\u201d Shaul concludes: \u201cto make it remain in the memory of Palestinians and the rest of the region that if you do something against Israel like the attacks of October 7, 2023 [when Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israeli territory], they will wipe you off the map.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExhausted from so much death\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Israeli troops have targeted the Zeitoun and Sheikh Radwan neighborhoods in Gaza City for days, from where UN agencies report thousands of people have been displaced in just one week. The exile of these Gazans to the south, motivated by incessant bombing, is a consequence of the preparatory phase that the Israeli army acknowledges it has begun to later launch the invasion of the city, where several witnesses have observed the presence of tanks and bulldozers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis phase is known militarily as the softening of the terrain,\u201d says Ethan (not his real name), an Israeli reservist who fought last year in Sheikh Radwan and other locations in the enclave. In telephone messages, the soldier details how Israeli troops prepare to enter large urban centers. \u201cAt the beginning, the army launches aerial bombardments on a \u2018bank of targets\u2019 where [the presence of] militants, weapons, or military commanders is suspected.\u201d In many cases, he adds, the navy and artillery units join these operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the ground forces move in. \u201cSuspicious houses can be bombarded by tanks beforehand. Before entering the building, infantry units fire to reduce risks.\u201d Once inside, they search for combatants, weapons, captives, and tunnels. Excavators, which \u201cmove the ground,\u201d are key to underground exploration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethan wants to stay away from the fighting. This young reservist is overseas, dodging new drafts that might take him back to Sheikh Radwan. \u201cWe are exhausted from so much war and death,\u201d he says sadly. He asserts that the majority of the Israeli people only want the return of the hostages and the holding of elections. \u201cWe no longer trust this corrupt, murderous, messianic government that is dragging us, and the Palestinians, toward final destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A Palestinian woman tries to collect rice, lentils, and beans from humanitarian aid packages that were dropped from the air and broke upon impact, August 5 in Gaza City.MOIZ SALHI (ANADOLU\/GETTY IMAGES)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A human rights lawyer, a former officer and activist, and a reserve soldier, all Israelis, describe the Netanyahu government\u2019s actions as \u2018criminal\u2019 JOAN CABAS\u00c9S VEGA Beirut –\u00a0AUG\u00a028, 2025 – 04:42\u00a0EDT The Israeli authorities are ramping up the machinery to carry out the assault on Gaza City. On August 8, the security cabinet led by Benjamin Netanyahu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16662"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16663,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16662\/revisions\/16663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}