With its “warnings” to evacuate Gaza, Israel is playing to the Western public. But the severity and scale of its attacks on civilians, as well as the growing death toll, prove these efforts are futile.
There is a problem with Israel’s new propaganda and public relations techniques that aim to burnish its army’s image in the West as one of the world’s “most moral armies.” The problem is that the world sees the inhuman severity and scale of Israel’s killing, starvation and siege of Palestinian civilians on television and social media, which has an impact beyond its public relations capabilities. Even its most ardent supporters, such as the United States, are now calling for a “humanitarian pause” to allow ravaged Palestinian civilians access to essentials for survival like food, water and medicine.
As Israel continues to attack hospitals, schools housing women and children, and the few remaining water tanks and bakeries, its propaganda includes “warning” civilians in northern Gaza to leave their homes. houses and their neighborhoods before bombing them. On October 13, the army dropped leaflets and sent telephone messages to the 1.1 million residents of Gaza City and its surrounding areas, giving them 24 hours to move south. Otherwise, the leaflets say, they could be considered “accomplices of a terrorist organization”. Since then, the warning has been repeated several times, but many Palestinians have not evacuated.
Israel says its warning is aimed at minimizing risks to civilians. Such claims are widely dismissed by anyone who follows these conflicts, but they seem to sit well with Western audiences (which perhaps explains why some of the leaflets are in English and Arabic). Yet this amateur PR stunt is belied by the fact that most Israeli missile attacks are not preceded by warnings. This may be one reason why on average nearly 1,000 Palestinians are killed or injured every day, almost half of them children – and half of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have been displaced within the country.
Israel’s forcing civilians from their homes could well constitute a war crime, according to Amnesty International representative Saleh Higazi, who said after the leafleting of Gaza began in October: “The deliberate attacks against civilians, as well as against civilian property and infrastructure, are war crimes. just like disproportionate attacks. The International Criminal Court is actively investigating the situation in Palestine and should urgently investigate these attacks as war crimes.”
“Israel’s genocidal intent is clear,” Noura Erekat, a law professor at Rutgers University, told me in an interview this week. “Any ‘warning’ is meaningless and inadequate, as it is clear that the aim is to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, or force them to settle in its southernmost region.”
These “warnings” do not constitute credible efforts to reduce civilian deaths, for many reasons:
- Israel remains the “occupying power” of Gaza, despite its 2005 withdrawal, as it still exercises key elements of its authority over the Gaza Strip and maintains full control of its borders. The use of force by a state is only authorized by international law and conventions to the extent of the force used against it, and international law also prohibits bombing occupied lands.
- The Fourth Geneva Convention requires the occupying power to ensure the food and medical needs of the civilian population under its occupation. Israel is doing the exact opposite.
- If Israel really wanted to kill or capture individual Hamas leaders, it has many other options than destroying entire neighborhoods beneath their inhabitants.
- If Israel really wanted to protect civilians, it would direct them to safe routes to safe areas, rather than killing them as they try to flee south.
- There is no safe place in all of Gaza, so asking people to flee to safety is a cruel hoax.
- Thousands of civilians cannot go south even if they wanted to, due to their physical condition or their status in hospitals or schools transformed into shelters.
- Considering those who refuse to leave their homes, hospitals or shelters as accomplices of terrorism is a form of collective punishment prohibited by international law.
- Even if Israel warns civilians to move, it does not have the right to attack them. Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch, recently told the New York Times: “Many of those who left found they were still in the crosshairs… Giving a warning does not absolve the parties of the obligation to protect civilians. »
Amnesty International noted in 2014, after examining Israeli attacks on suspected military targets in civilian areas of Gaza: “In cases where Amnesty International has been able to determine the possible target, it has found that it is not was not actually a military objective. , that the devastating toll on civilians and civilian property was disproportionate to any military advantage gained from the attack and/or that Israel failed to take necessary precautions to minimize damage to civilians and civilian property civil.
The Israeli charade of advising Gaza residents to leave their homes for their safety appears to informed analysts to be a sign of Israel’s intention to empty all or most of Gaza by driving its residents to Sinai or elsewhere – otherwise known as ethnic cleansing, or even genocide. Palestinians see it as a horrific repeat of their 1948 Nakba, which saw half the Palestinian population become permanent refugees.
Lex Takkenberg, who for decades served as general advisor and ethics officer at UNRWA and is now senior advisor to the NGO Arab Renaissance for Development and Democracy, said in an interview: “Au- beyond revenge and the attempt to destroy Hamas, the Israeli government sees a golden solution. opportunity to get rid of Gaza once and for all.
“Israel cannot easily pursue such goals of ethnic cleansing and genocide while the world witnesses the immense suffering of Palestinian civilians. They may need, with U.S. support, a humanitarian pretext to push many or all Gazans toward the Sinai. Or they continue to create panic, as they did in 1948, this time by cutting off all communications and depriving Gazans of food, water or medicine, while the bombings continue. This forces desperate and fearful people to move elsewhere to survive. »
If this is Israel’s goal, the world can see its maneuvers as leaflets asking the Palestinians to get to safety – while Israel ensured that there was no safety for them at all. Gaza.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.