The seven-day ceasefire in Gaza that saw the release of 105 Israeli hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners now seems a very long time ago. Ismael al-Thawabteh, the director general of the government media office in Hamas-run Gaza, said yesterday that more than 700 Palestinians had been killed in 24 hours, while the health ministry said later that 316 had been killed “in the past hours”. The heaviest attacks have been in and around the city of Khan Younis, in the south of the strip.
People in areas to the south-east of the city have now been told by the Israeli military to leave, apparently paving the way for a ground incursion. “As soon as the truce ended, it was clear that the focus would now be on the south, and Khan Younis in particular,” Dan Sabbagh said. “That is where Israel believes Hamas’ leadership to be hiding out.” Israel’s political and military leadership argue that if they can kill senior Hamas commanders, they will take a significant step towards forcing the organisation’s collapse.
In the first phase of the conflict, Israel’s attacks produced limited diplomatic pressure from its allies; most significantly, the US placed few practical limits on its support, though it decried the loss of civilian life. Now it is taking a firmer line on the avoidance of civilian casualties. But it is not yet clear how deeply that will impact Israel’s strategy.
What is the US saying about the new phase of the war?
“Israel arguably has a higher toleraance for international condemnation of its actions than almost any other country,” Dan said. The only country with the leverage to seriously affect its actions is the United States. And in the last few days, US public statements have taken on a new tone.
On Thursday, US secretary of state Antony Blinken was reported to have told Israel’s war cabinet that it may only have weeks to complete its plan to defeat Hamas in Gaza. In a press conference, he said that he had “underscored the imperative – for the United States – that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in northern Gaza not be repeated in the South.” That warning was echoed by US vice-president Kamala Harris and defence secretary Lloyd Austin over the weekend.
“There is a sense that the window of opportunity is closing for Israel,” Dan said. “It is clearly having to frame its strategy in a way that keeps the US on board.” But more consequential than US public statements will be whether it backs them up with concrete actions. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported (£) a surge in US arms supplied to Israel since the war began, with tens of thousands of bombs and shells including heavy “bunker busters” provided on top of billions of dollars’ worth of existing annual support for its military operations. “One question is whether the military support continues in spite of the political narrative,” Dan said.
Have US warnings led to a change in Israel’s strategy?
Israel has devised a new map which subdivides Gaza into hundreds of small blocs, which it is using to announce its evacuation orders. Israel points to that initiative as evidence of its desire to protect civilians by focusing on the most precise areas possible and giving people time to flee by announcing them ahead of its attacks. By Sunday, residents of 34 of the blocs, all of them in and around Khan Younis, had been told to depart for safer territory. Israel’s minister of strategic affairs Ron Dermer called that approach “unprecedented”, adding: “If we wanted to do it fast, we’d harm a lot more civilians.”
But that system has come under heavy criticism from agencies and aid workers on the ground, who say that a map accessed via a QR code on social media posts and leaflets dropped into Khan Younis will be of little use to those without access to reliable internet services – or electricity to charge their phones. Rohan Talbot, advocacy director at the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, said that it amounted to nothing more than a “macabre game of Battleships”. There have been reports of bombing outside the designated areas.
“One problem is whether enough time is being given to civilians to escape,” Dan said. “The bombing started on Friday more or less as the leaflets were dropped. So there is some scepticism about whether this is truly a different strategy.” Fundamentally, he added, critics of Israel’s approach say that “whether you cut the cake into large pieces or small pieces, it amounts to the same thing. They ask where civilians are supposed to go to be safe.” Many have already fled from the bombardment in the north, and may fear that wherever they head next will also be targeted. “People who fled to Khan Younis can’t go back to the north, where large areas are a wasteland anyway,” Dan said. “The safe spaces in the south are being reduced too.”
Nonetheless, the US signalled on Sunday that it viewed the grid approach as evidence that Israel was taking its stance seriously. “We believe they have been receptive to our messages here of trying to minimise civilian casualties,” US national security council spokesperson John Kirby told ABC yesterday, pointing to the map as evidence. “There’s not a whole lot of modern militaries that would do that … to telegraph their punches in that way. So they are making an effort.”
What does all this mean for Palestinian civilians?
The Israeli maps feature large arrows pointing residents of the targeted areas around Khan Younis in the general direction of humanitarian shelters and a so-called “humanitarian zone” towards the coast, where the IDF has previously said that “international humanitarian aid will be provided as needed”. But there are urgent questions about whether there will be any real measure of safety when aid supplies are already drying up under the pressure of vast numbers of displaced people.
The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, said on Saturday that about 1.8 million Palestinians have already been internally displaced – close to 80% of the Gaza Strip’s population. (It added that “obtaining an accurate count is challenging”.) The UN’s high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, told the BBC that people in Gaza are being “pushed more and more towards a narrow corner of what is already a very narrow territory”. And despite an increase in aid being allowed into Gaza during the pause, the supplies are still dwarfed by the need, Dan said.
“This is already a very severe humanitarian crisis,” he added. “But it is at risk of getting even more severe. Shelters are already badly overcrowded – there’s one in Khan Younis designed for 1,000 people where there are now 35,000, with 600 people to every toilet. There is anxiety that there will not be enough fuel to run desalination plants that provide a lot of people with drinking water. And there has been no real opportunity in the last week for aid agencies to do a serious needs assessment for different areas.”
If a ground offensive now develops in the south, civilians will nonetheless have little alternative but to run again. Some are deeply sceptical that doing so will save their lives. Halima Abdel-Rahman, a widow and mother of four who has already fled her home for Khan Younis, told the Associated Press she would no longer listen to evacuation orders. “The occupation tells you to go to this area, then they bomb it,” she said. “The reality is that no place is safe in Gaza.”
