IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said in a closed-door meeting on Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not informing the military about the next expected stages of the Gaza war, according to a report Monday by Yedioth Ahronoth.
“If the prime minister wants an [Israeli] military administration [in Gaza], let him say so,” Zamir told lawmakers at the Knesset Intelligence and Secret Services Subcommittee, which falls under the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Zamir also reportedly criticized the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid distribution facilities in the Gaza Strip, calling them a failure. “I don’t understand why they are spending money on it and increasing the number of aid centers to 12, if it failed when there were four,” he said.
Haaretz Weekly’Playing with fire’: How Israel’s attack in Qatar has likely exploded hopes of ending the Gaza war
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Haaretz Weekly
‘Playing with fire’: How Israel’s attack in Qatar has likely exploded hopes of ending the Gaza war
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In late August, Zamir warned the security cabinet that the implication of the plan to occupy Gaza City, which Israel’s political leadership had ordered, is that an Israeli military administration will be established in the city.
At the time, Zamir said that such a military operation would take a year and that there are no sufficient humanitarian services to meet the needs of the Palestinian population that will be pushed south.
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Zamir recently ordered the evacuation of the entirety of Gaza City, home to approximately 1.2 million Palestinians, toward the southern parts of the Gaza Strip after being satisfied that IDF’s Southern Command and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories had taken steps to ensure the population’s absorption.
Haaretz revealed last week that Zamir made the decision contrary to the position of Chief Military Advocate Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who had said the evacuation orders could not be determined to be legal. Yerushalmi asked that the evacuation orders be postponed until the necessary conditions for receiving the population were in place.
The IDF estimates that approximately 300,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza City as the military intensifies its steps to encourage evacuation and the Israel Air Force carries out daily strikes on high-rise buildings in the city.
The army is considering beginning its land offensive in the city in the near future and estimates that the beginning of ground operations will cause the majority of residents to evacuate.