The General’s Plan: Israeli attack on Northern Gaza “Surrender or Starve”

‘Surrender or starve’ strategy displacing thousands amounts to crimes against humanity

On Saturday morning, the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesman posted a chilling message on social media: residents of the ‘D5’ area in northern Gaza must move south immediately. The area, split into dozens of blocks on a grid drawn by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), had been labelled a “dangerous combat zone.” With a map attached, marked by a large yellow arrow pointing south along Salah al-Din Road, the message made no mention of when—or if—people could return to their homes. The IDF’s warning was clear: the operation will continue “with great force” and for “a long time.” Translation? Don’t come back anytime soon.

The designated “safe zone” is al-Mawasi, an agricultural patch near Rafah that has already been bombed several times, according to the BBC. Israel’s airstrikes don’t pause for these so-called humanitarian areas, and as civilians scramble southward, they face the grim reality that nowhere in Gaza is truly safe. Meanwhile, Hamas insists residents should stay put, claiming the south is no better, knowing full well that their return to northern Gaza may never be allowed.

This is not an evacuation—it’s a trap, a system of slow suffocation, a kettling of an entire people and it’s happening in plain sight.

A trap born in the shadowy recesses of war rooms occupied by retired Israeli generals. No, this isn’t the fever dream of a Hollywood screenwriter—it’s the nightmarish reality unfolding in Gaza today.

As I sit here, keyboard at my fingertips, I’m struck by a sickening sense of déjà vu. Haven’t we seen this movie before? Isn’t this the same article written and repeated over the last year? The relentless bombing of civilian areas, the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands, the deliberate starvation of an entire population—it’s a script that could have been lifted straight from the darkest chapters of 20th-century history.

And yet here we are, in 2024, watching it play out in high definition on our TV screens and smartphones. The world wrings its hands, muttering platitudes about Israel’s right to “self-defence,” “proportionality,” and “civilian casualties,” while Israel’s far-right government carries out what can only be described as a campaign of systematic extermination against the Palestinian people.

And of course, our politicians speak of Hamas as if it were some alien entity, forgetting conveniently that it was Israel itself that once nurtured this very organisation as a counterweight to the secular nationalism of the PLO. Now they reap the whirlwind of their own shortsighted policies, and innocent Palestinians pay the price in blood.

But as for what’s happening in Gaza right now, let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? This isn’t a “military operation” or a “counter-terrorism campaign.” Don’t dare call it “self-defence.” It’s genocide, plain and simple. The numbers don’t lie—over 41,000 dead, mostly women and children. Entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. A healthcare system in tatters. And now, the spectre of mass starvation looms as Israel tightens its stranglehold on Gaza’s already desperate population.

But wait, I hear the apologists cry: what about Hamas? What about October 7th? To which I say: two wrongs don’t make a right. The actions of Hamas, horrific as they were, do not justify the wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians. They do not give Israel carte blanche to wipe Gaza off the map in a planned annihilation.

This is the Generals’ Plan…

The “Generals’ Plan” – how quaint a name for such a monstrous scheme. As if christening it with military parlance somehow lends it legitimacy. Make no mistake, this is not strategy but sadism, not tactics but terrorism. The notion that an entire population can be starved into submission, that civilians can be made legitimate targets through mere geography, flies in the face of every principle of international law and basic human decency.

And what of our vaunted democracy, that shining beacon we so proudly proclaim to the world? It lies in tatters, hijacked by ultra-nationalists and religious zealots who dream of a “Greater Israel” built upon the bones of Palestinians. The mask has slipped, revealing the ugly face of ethno-fascism that has long lurked beneath the surface.

The suspicion among Palestinians, the UN and relief agencies is that the IDF is gradually adopting some or all of a new tactic to clear northern Gaza known as the “Generals’ Plan”. It was proposed by a group of retired senior officers led by Major-General (ret) Giora Eiland, who is a former national security adviser.

Speaking to members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in a closed session, Netanyahu indicated that the plan is one of several being examined and brought to the cabinet for further discussion in the coming days.

Addressing the committee in September, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Giora Eiland said that the plan, which is not backed by the United States, would “change the reality” on the ground in Gaza.

“We have to tell the residents of north Gaza that they have one week to evacuate the territory, which then becomes a military zone; [a zone] in which every figure is a target and, most importantly, no supplies enter this territory. A siege is not only an effective military tactic; it is also compliant with international law. What matters to Sinwar is land and dignity, and with this manoeuvre, you take away both land and dignity,” Eiland explained at the time.

Over the past six months, Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Eiland has been one of the prominent ex-generals dispensing advice from Israel’s television studios. If that fading map exemplified an optimistic potential path ahead all those years ago, the early post-October 7 days saw Eiland bleakly castigating the government and defence establishment for what he believed was a fundamentally misguided war strategy. Israel’s leaders, he declared, had failed to recognize Hamas’s Gaza as a full-on terror state, with its citizens largely complicit, and thus the reliance on military pressure alone to destroy Hamas and get back the hostages was destined for failure. He tarnished 2 million people with the same brush…

At its heart is the idea that Israel can force the surrender of Hamas and its leader Yahya Sinwar by increasing the pressure on the entire population of the north. The first step is to order civilians to leave along evacuation corridors that will take them south of Wadi Gaza, an east-west stream that has become a dividing line in Gaza since the Israeli invasion last October.

Giora Eiland believes Israel should have done a deal straight away to get the hostages back, even if it meant pulling out of Gaza entirely. A year later, other methods, he says, are necessary.

In his office in central Israel, he laid out the heart of the plan.

“Since we already encircled the northern part of Gaza in the past nine or 10 months, what we should do is the following thing to tell all the 300,000 residents [that the UN estimates is 400,000] who still live in the northern part of Gaza that they have to leave this area and they should be given 10 days to leave through safe corridors that Israel will provide.

“And after that time, all this area will become to be a military zone. And all the Hamas people will still, though, whether some of them are fighters, some of them are civilians… will have two choices either to surrender or to starve.”

Eiland wants Israel to seal the areas once the evacuation corridors are closed. Anyone left behind would be treated as an enemy combatant. The area would be under siege, with the army blocking all supplies of food, water or other necessities of life from going in. He believes the pressure would become unbearable and what is left of Hamas would rapidly crumble, freeing the surviving hostages and giving Israel the victory it craves.

And make no mistake, that seems to be the endgame here. The so-called “Generals’ Plan” – a euphemism worthy of Orwell himself – lays bare the true intentions of Israel’s military brass. Force civilians from their homes at gunpoint. Seal off entire areas. Let those who remain “surrender or starve.” It’s ethnic cleansing dressed up in the language of counter-insurgency.

Make no mistake: this is genocide, plain and simple. The deliberate destruction of a people, their culture, their very means of existence. Future generations will look back on this dark chapter with horror and ask how we allowed it to happen. And what shall we say? That we were afraid? That we believed the lies? That we simply didn’t care?

Meanwhile, the far-right vultures in Netanyahu’s cabinet circle overhead, salivating at the prospect of replacing Palestinians with Jewish settlers. As if displacing an entire population wasn’t bad enough, they seek to salt the earth behind them creating a buffer zone a wall of uninhabitable wilderness.

A call for an embargo on Israel

However, the deafening silence from Western capitals has finally been shattered, and not a moment too soon. As Israel’s actions grow ever more brazen, ever more reckless, the international community is at last finding its voice.

France’s President Macron, in a refreshing display of moral clarity, has called for an arms embargo on Israel. “Stopping the export of weapons,” he declares, is the “unique lever” that can end this madness. It’s a stark contrast to the mealy-mouthed equivocations we’ve become accustomed to hearing from world leaders.

But Macron doesn’t stop there. He goes further, accusing Israel of deliberately targeting UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. “Absolutely unacceptable,” he thunders, and who can disagree? This is what leadership looks like in a time of crisis – clear-eyed, unequivocal, and unafraid to speak truth to power.

Across the Channel, we’re treated to a master class in moral cowardice. Prime Minister Starmer, that self-proclaimed “staunch ally” of Netanyahu’s far-right regime, maintains his customary silence. As Gaza burns and UN peacekeepers come under fire, Downing Street’s response is a deafening void.

Starmer’s refusal to condemn Israel’s actions – from the ongoing genocide in Gaza to these latest provocations in Lebanon – speaks volumes. It tells us all we need to know about the moral rot at the heart of his leadership.

The contrast couldn’t be starker. On one side, we have leaders willing to take a stand, to call out atrocities regardless of who commits them. On the other, we have those who cower in silence, their principles apparently as flexible as a weathervane in a storm.

The question now is: which example will the rest of the world follow? Will they heed Macron’s call for concrete action, or will they emulate Starmer’s craven silence? The fate of countless lives may well hang in the balance.

The United States, that self-proclaimed beacon of democracy and human rights, bears particular shame here. As Gaza burns, Washington continues to funnel billions in military aid to Israel, effectively bankrolling this campaign of extermination. All while mouthing empty platitudes about “de-escalation” and “humanitarian concerns.”

Let us be clear: there can be no peace without justice. And there can be no justice while Israel continues to act with impunity, flouting international law and basic human decency. The time has come for a radical reassessment of our relationship with Israel. No more blank checks. No more looking the other way. We must demand accountability, and we must demand it now.

For if we do not, if we allow this slaughter to continue unchecked, then we are all complicit. The blood of Gaza’s children will be on our hands as surely as it is on Netanyahu’s.

The choice before us is stark. We can continue down this dark path, enabling a rogue state as it commits unspeakable atrocities. Or we can take a stand for human dignity, for international law, for the basic right of all people to live free from fear and oppression.

The clock is ticking. Gaza burns. And history watches, waiting to see which side we will choose.

Paul Knaggs

Editor, founder, Labour Heartlands, Citizen journalist. LeFT wing political refugee. Fighting a constant struggle with dyslexia that’s overcome with a burning desire to speak out against the corrupt political system and the social injustices it creates. Advocate for Free speech and open, accountable, democracy. #GTTO