The Global Sumud Flotilla, aiming to deliver aid, is nearing Gaza but is expected to be intercepted by Israeli forces. Photo / Getty Images
The Israeli military has begun tightening its siege of Gaza City as it announced it would stop Palestinians from returning to the north of the enclave and suggested that anyone who remained would be characterised as “militants and supporters of terror”.
The escalation of the assault came less than 48 hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiated and accepted a proposal from President Donald Trump to end the war, which Hamas is weighing, and as an international flotilla of more than 500 people, including lawmakers, activists and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, has since neared Gaza in a bid to deliver aid to the famine-stricken territory.
“The IDF is now currently completing the capture of the Netzarim Corridor to the coast of Gaza, dissecting Gaza between north and south,” Israel Defence Minister Israel Katz said. “This will tighten the siege around Gaza City, and anyone leaving it south will be forced to pass through the IDF’s checkpoints.” Katz’s office described the moment as “the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south”.
Earlier in the day, the military gave fresh evacuation warnings to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who – lacking the money to flee and find shelter in the overcrowded south – have stayed in Gaza City since Israel formally launched its ground invasion to capture the city on September 15. The Israeli military said that the coastal al-Rashid Rd – the only functioning road between the north and south of Gaza – would in the coming hours be closed in the northbound direction, but that civilians would continue to be able to flee to the south.
“It seems whoever does not have the money has no right to escape,” said Shaimaa Abu Haseera, a mother currently stuck in Gaza City with her children. “I never imagined that my blood, my children’s, and my husband’s, would be so cheap.”
Hamas said Katz’s comments showed “a further escalation of war crimes being committed by his army against hundreds of thousands of innocent residents”.
In response to questions from The Washington Post, Cogat – the Israeli Defence Ministry unit that coordinates civil affairs in the occupied territories – said that humanitarian aid would continue to be allowed to the north despite the tightening siege.
UN officials said it was not immediately clear to what extent humanitarian operations would be affected by the closure but stressed that it has already been increasingly difficult to get the green light from the Israeli military for missions to Gaza City and the north portion of the enclave over recent weeks.
As the offensive to capture Gaza City has grown in ferocity, aid agencies have also increasingly struggled to maintain a presence in the city as their staff flee for safety. On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross became the latest international organisation to announce that it had been forced to cease its operations there because of the intensity of the violence.
Despite the escalating dangers, Palestinians in Gaza City in recent weeks have told The Post that they did not consider any other areas of the besieged and bombarded Strip to be any safer.
“Currently the operation is in Gaza City, and we all realise and know that the operation will extend to the areas of the central Gaza Strip and then to the south of the Gaza Strip until we have reached the process of displacement and extermination,” said Ahmed Abu Qamar, an economist and writer stuck in a tent in Gaza City with his wife and four children, the youngest of whom is 3. “There is no safe place in Gaza, whether in the north or the south. We hear the news that strikes are also continuing in the areas of displacement.”
For weeks, he has watched the neighbourhood around him empty out as people fled south. But Abu Qamar said he cannot afford the several thousands of dollars that displacement demands, from the cost of a car out of Gaza City with his family’s few remaining belongings to renting land to pitch a tent and start all over again. Last year, he fled by foot from his hometown of Jabalya after Israeli forces cut off North Gaza in a similar operation.
Meanwhile, the Global Sumud Flotilla, made up of more than 40 vessels, is now less than 90 nautical miles away from the shores of Gaza, according to its organisers, and within what they describe as a “high-risk” area that they expect to be intercepted by Israeli forces.
Activists on board the vessels said on Wednesday that they were back on track after being confronted and “aggressively circled” by Israeli warships in the early hours of the morning. The Israeli military did not comment on the accusation, but Israeli officials have claimed that the flotilla supports Hamas and has said that it will not allow it to reach Gaza.
The flotilla is expected to be intercepted by Israeli forces before its anticipated arrival on Thursday morning. Israel polices the area within 120 nautical miles of the shores of Gaza to stop boats from approaching it.
Last month, Spain and Italy said they would send warships to escort the flotilla for part of the journey, after organisers said drones had dropped stun grenades and irritants on the boats as they sailed in international waters near Greece. Those naval escorts pulled away late Tuesday, citing safety reasons as they neared the Israeli-policed zone.
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