Israeli authorities launched a plan on August 8 to occupy Gaza City and expel about one million residents within weeks. A UN spokesperson inside the enclave described current conditions as not life. The IDF plans to raze the city's surface and pull up its subsoil after removing civilians. Opposition inside Israel remains limited, though IDF chief Eyal Zamir and families of hostages fear the offensive could kill Israeli captives and therefore oppose the assault. Human rights lawyer Michael Sfard warns forcible displacement without guaranteed return could amount to forcible transfer and possibly a crime against humanity.
The operation aims to expel, within a few weeks, the one million people that United Nations agencies estimate exist in Gaza City. And I say exist' because there's no way you can call this life, 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.
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. Furthermore, since we are talking about hundreds of thousands of people who would be subject to this evacuation, it could constitute a crime against humanity, Sfard says in a telephone conversation.
The plan has sparked a still relatively limited opposition within Israel. IDF chief Eyal Zamir 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.
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