Expulsion is getting closer

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON

On the afternoon of April 2, the Israeli Prime Minister's office released, in Hebrew and English, a statement of considerable significance, revealing his priorities, which above all consist of preparing the Gaza Strip for a massive expulsion, total or partial, of the 2,3 million Palestinians still trapped there.

Since the statement is important, we reproduce it in its entirety, offering some observations below. Benjamin Netanyahu's text is as follows:

“Last night in the Gaza Strip, we shifted gears. The army is taking territory, striking terrorists, and destroying infrastructure. We're also doing something else. We're taking the Morag Corridor. It will be the second Philadelphia Corridor, an additional Philadelphia Corridor. Because now we're dividing the Strip and increasing the pressure, step by step, to hand over our hostages. As long as they don't give them to us, the pressure will increase until they do. We're determined to achieve the objectives of the war, and we're working tirelessly, with a clear line and a clear mission. With the help of God and our heroic soldiers, we're going to achieve it.”

1. Netanyahu confirms the division of the Gaza Strip and the creation of a new corridor called the Morag Corridor, which will cross the Strip just above the town of Rafah, close to the border with Egypt. In this way, Israel will have divided the Strip into three sectors. The first, from north to south, will reach the Netzarim Corridor. The second will be between this corridor and the Morag Corridor, and the third will be between this corridor and the Philadelphia Corridor, which separates the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

2. Pressure on the Palestinians continues to grow, and their expulsion from Gaza depends on a decision by Donald Trump. The US president already indicated in February his intention to create a Palestinian-free Riviera in the Strip, an announcement that was greeted with jubilation by Netanyahu and his government.

3. Ultimately, the decision to expel the Palestinians rests with Trump. The president can wake up any day and tweet that Netanyahu has the green light to deport them. What the prime minister is doing now is "ordering" the Strip so that the deportation can be carried out quickly.

4. Meanwhile, on April 1, Trump spoke by phone with Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a conversation that, according to the former, was excellent. Although the Egyptian president publicly expresses his strong opposition to the expulsion of the Palestinians, pressure from the United States could force him to accept them, justifying it as a humanitarian act of goodwill, which is what Trump and Netanyahu desire.

5. The Israeli army's actions, as Netanyahu describes them, are aimed at causing most Palestinians to leave the Strip "voluntarily." This would be a similar action to that of 1948, when the Jewish state was established and some 750.000 Palestinians were expelled. Israeli historiography largely maintains that these Palestinians left freely, a theory that directly conflicts with contemporary accounts and with independent historiography.

6. When Netanyahu speaks in the statement of his "heroic soldiers," he is also referring to the air force pilots who are killing thousands of Gazans in indiscriminate bombing, including more than two dozen thousand women and children. Entire Palestinian families have disappeared in the bombing raids carried out by the heroic Israeli pilots.

7. The destruction of infrastructure mentioned by Netanyahu in the statement has been ongoing since day one. Drinking water and electrical installations have been systematically destroyed, as have hospitals and schools. The goal is to make the Strip uninhabitable so that Palestinians will leave "voluntarily."

8. Among Netanyahu's goals is the elimination of Hamas. The only way to do this is to expel the entire population of the Strip, since the majority supports the Islamist organization. If not all Palestinians are expelled, the Islamists will not disappear. Perhaps the name Hamas will disappear, but not the political Islam it represents.

9. On the other hand, Netanyahu believes that if he stops the war, his situation will become so complicated that he could fall, hence his promotion of the carnage in Gaza, which the vast majority of the Israeli population accepts. The protests shaking Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are minority protests, and are about the hostages, not about stopping the carnage.

Eugenio Garcia Gascon has been a correspondent in Jerusalem for 29 years. He is a Cirilo Rodríguez journalism award winner.