Israel is committing mass extermination in northern Gaza, and the world is watching in silence.Here we are, more than a year into Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, a war that has now expanded to engulf Lebanon. In Gaza, this war has reached a critical and dangerous stage: starvation and extermination. The term “extermination” was not coined by Palestinians to describe what is happening in northern Gaza. For months, Israeli politicians, generals, and academics have casually, openly, and explicitly debated the “northern Gaza question” on various media platforms.
A few months ago, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland proposed a harsh and “decisive plan” for northern Gaza, calling for the forced evacuation of all civilians from northern Gaza. Next, the Israeli military would impose a complete and indefinite siege, cutting off all essential supplies, including water, food, and fuel, effectively sealing off the north. Eiland’s plan made it clear that those who refused to evacuate would be treated as enemies, facing either starvation or surrender, aiming not just to defeat Hamas fighters but to entirely depopulate northern Gaza, devastating civilian infrastructure and morale.
Israeli academia was also complicit. Prof. Uzi Rabi, a senior academic at Tel Aviv University, went further in a radio interview on September 15, 2024. He advocated for the total removal of all civilians from northern Gaza. Rabi argued that anyone who remained after the evacuation deadline should automatically be considered a “terrorist,” and those left behind would be subjected to a deliberate process of starvation or extermination. He framed their presence as grounds for their lawful elimination, justifying the use of starvation as a weapon to either force compliance or cause mass deaths.
Meanwhile, far-right Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir openly supported these extreme measures in the weeks prior to the article’s publication. They backed the idea of expelling all Palestinian residents from northern Gaza, aligning with Eiland’s extermination-based approach. Their support went beyond military objectives, viewing the depopulation of Gaza as an opportunity to reassert Israeli control over the territory.
https://israelnationalnews.com/en/news/395677
The vision of Smotrich and Ben Gvir also included the potential establishment of Israeli settlements on the ruins of Gaza City, advancing a settler-colonialist agenda. For them, the Palestinian civilians were obstacles to be removed, and their endorsement of “extermination” reflects a broader push from far-right factions within the Israeli government toward genocidal policies.
Months and weeks later, this hyper-genocidal agenda of extermination is being implemented even more brutally in northern Gaza. With each passing hour, the scale and intensity of bombing, shelling, and devastation in Jabalia and the surrounding areas escalate, surpassing anything witnessed even during the harshest months of this war.
The goal is clear: Israel is carrying out a plan to ethnically cleanse and depopulate Gaza. Now, taking advantage of the scattered attention of regional forces and the international community—especially as the war expands into Lebanon—it is moving forward with its final scheme in northern Gaza.
For Israel, the fact that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, Jabalia and its camp, as well as Gaza City, chose to remain in their cities, towns, and refugee camps—defying all ethnic cleansing orders and facing impossible odds of relentless bombardment, starvation, and the destruction of every foundation of life, including hospitals—meant that Israel’s plans in Gaza had failed.
When Israel’s generals opened their drawers on October 7th and 8th, the plans they implemented were neither improvised nor arbitrary. From the outset, we said this was not a war against a specific Palestinian faction, and the goals were not limited to rescuing hostages, deterring, or dismantling Hamas. No, this war, from the beginning, was intended to depopulate Gaza of all its inhabitants. For 76 years, Gaza has remained a thorn in Israel’s side, and now Israel is using this opportunity to finish what it started in 1948 and 1967.
For Israel, and for the Zionist project, the continued presence of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the north, the fact that Gaza City still showed signs of life, that volunteers were clearing streets, and that hospitals were gradually reopening—this was unacceptable. For Israel, victory in this war means the complete annihilation of the Palestinian people between the river and the sea: first in Gaza, then in the West Bank, and ultimately within the Green Line.
For a year, Palestinians in northern Gaza, with their bare chests, empty stomachs, and open wounds, have challenged and defied this final chapter of Zionism. They did so because they are strong, honorable, and dignified. They refused Israel’s orders to “evacuate” south of Wadi Ghazzah because they knew—knew that Israeli officials are pathological liars, and they were right. Those who evacuated were murdered in Khan Younis, in Rafah, and are now being concentrated in the Middle Area, in Deir el-Balah, awaiting their turn in the extermination scheme.
When these Palestinians remained steadfast in the north for more than a year, they weren’t trying to create a mythological image of heroism and resilience. They endured what they endured and fought to show the world that displacement, elimination, and obliteration of the native people is not their fate. Yet, even with all their resilience and steadfastness, they could only withstand Israel’s killing machines for so long.
Their patience, resilience, and heroism were a call to us—the ones who are next—to take action. Yet here we are, a year later, witnessing their genocide, their extermination, reach its peak, and still we mourn. We mourn our ineptitude and weakness, knowing we are next, but without the honor or dignity of entering history as those who fought and endured.
The lesson Gaza has tried to teach the world over the past year is that the elimination and destruction of indigenous people—rendering an entire population rightless and stateless by the privileged and powerful few—should not be the fate of our world. Gaza showed that another world is possible. It sacrificed everything to challenge “Israel,” not just as a clash between Palestinians and Zionism over land and rights, but as a universal struggle against an ideology rooted in ethnic supremacy, militarism, and the mass denial of rights to entire peoples. Gaza fought a universal battle, and it seems this battle is now poised to expand and engulf us all.