Bi-Weekly Brief – February 3, 2025

Bi-Weekly Brief – February 3, 2025

While a river of humanity flows north in Gaza, Israel’s ferocity is unleashed on West Bank

As President Trump bombards the US with ‘shock and awe’ executive orders, including one ordering federal agencies to cleanse the US of ‘illegal aliens,’  he has put forward the  ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt as his ‘solution’ to the war in Gaza.  “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.’”  He appears unfazed by the fact that ethnic cleansing is a serious war crime. 

In a Jan. 27 phone call, Trump tried to induce Egyptian President Al-Sissi to go along with the  plan to empty the “demolition site” that Gaza had become.  One sweetener was the exemption of Egypt (and of course Israel) from the 90 days’ suspension of US foreign aid that Secretary State Rubio had ordered on January 24.   But so far both Al-Sissi and King Abdullah of Jordan have rejected the “displacement” of Palestinians from their land as an “injustice.”  And Gaza’s residents have been voting with their feet. 

On Jan. 27, after a crisis over the release of a civilian hostage  was resolved,  Israel removed some soldiers from the Netzarim Crossing that splits Gaza in two, leaving  Egyptian officials and  military contractorsemployed by two private US firms, Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, to manage the seven-square-mile corridor and check Palestinian cars.   On that day, an astounding procession of 376,000  people moved on foot, donkey cart and in heavily laden vehicles from tented encampments in the south to what was left of their homes in the devastated north.  Some collapsed on the way.   With over 70 percent of Gaza’s population descendants of refugees who were forced into exile during the 1948 Nakba, many were elated that they were returning north rather than being forcibly displaced again. 

In the words of Palestinian Ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot, “A million Palestinians returning to their destroyed homes and towns in the north of #Gaza this morning is the crystal clear response to those who still plot to uproot us from our homeland. There is only one direction of travel ahead of the Palestinian people after a 100 years of forced displacement and oppression: liberation and return!”

But for some who made the trip, the elation did not last long.  Malak Tantesh, a reporter for The Guardian, gave a vivid description of his walk north and what he found when he reached his house in Beit Lahia:   ‘The only things still standing were the trunks of a walnut tree, and some olive trees that used to be in our yard. Seeing them there, surrounded only by rubble, I felt like I had been stabbed in my heart.  Our home was a three-storey building, and the levels had collapsed on top of each other like layers in a cake. I walked around and over the ruins to see if there was a way in, to recover anything from our life. It was dangerous but our memories deserve it.  I couldn’t find even the smallest hole. Nothing had survived. My memories, my family’s memories and everything we owned have all been crushed and buried.”

On Jan. 29, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff visited the Netzarim Crossing surrounded by Israeli soldiers. Going there after meeting in Saudia Arabia with the Palestinian Authority’s  Hussein Al-Sheikh who is close to Israel, and before visiting Netanyahu, Witkoff was the first US official to set foot in Gaza since John Kerry’s brief trip in 2009.  His reported aim was to prepare for negotiations for the second phase of the ceasefire agreement which are due to begin on Feb. 3.  During the second phase of 42 days all the hostages are supposed to be freed.   So far there have been four exchanges of hostages for captives in Israel’s jails, with 18 Israeli and Thai hostages and 583 Palestinian prisoners and detainees (including 111 from Gaza) now released to rapturous welcomes.   According to The Times of Israel, during this first 42-day phase, 1, 904 Palestinian prisoners are due to be released in exchange for 33 hostages.  About 80 hostages, nearly half of whom are believed to be dead, are still in Gaza.  The first phase also calls for the transfer of injured children to hospital care in Egypt, a process that got underway on Feb. 1.

Netanyahu has refused to make public details of the full ceasefire agreement, which was  marred during its week by the killing of 193 Gaza residents and wounding of 397 others.  On Feb. 2, a child was killed and several people injured when soldiers fired rockets near Nuseirat camp.   Netanyahu has meanwhile been wooed by the Trump Administration which lifted Biden’s ‘pause’ on sending Israel 2,000 pound bombs, freed a group of violent settlers from US-imposed sanctions and is considering sending Israel 24,000 assault rifleswhose delivery had been held up by Blinken because of fears they would end up in the hands of settlers.  On Feb. 4, in a display of Presidential disdain for the international legal order and the International Criminal Court that had issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu will become the first foreign leader since the inauguration to visit the White House.  

Israel’s ban of UNRWA, which took effect on Jan. 30, is bound to have a calamitous impact on both the Gaza Strip -- where the organization has been “the backbone of the humanitarian operation” according to OCHA – and the West Bank.  In Gaza, where life expectancy during the war has plunged by 30 years according to an article in The Lancet, UNWRA has taken the lead in the distribution of food and water, shelter supplies and medication, the collection of waste material and the provision of a ‘Back to Learning Programme’ for children. It is unclear what other organization could deal with such matters as the water crisis facing Palestinians returning to the devastated north, where over 75 percent of water wells have been destroyed or damaged and the Gaza City municipality is calling for the urgent delivery of pipes and other equipment to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of residents.  In East Jerusalem  the closure of UNRWA will impact a thousand students and 70,000 patients in the Shuafat refugee camp, while 45,000 students in the West Bank’s 19 refugee camps could be affected, as well as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who depend on UNRWA’s clinics. 

At the start of the ceasefire in Gaza, rioting settlers set houses and cars on fire in several villages in the north of the West Bank.  They were apparently chosen because they were home to prisoners on the list of those to be released.   Israel meanwhile locked down large parts of the West Bank, installing dozens of permanent-appearing metal gates around towns and cities and bringing the total number of checkpoints impeding movement of Palestinians to some 900. 

No sooner had the ceasefire in Gaza got underway than Israel on Jan. 21 launched  its ‘Operation Iron Wall’military invasion of Jenin camp and surrounding villages which has left in its wake Gaza-style destruction.  Journalists have been fired on, houses blown up, roads dug up and neighborhoods and hospitals placed under siege.  More than 20 people have been killed, among them two-year-old Laila Al-Khatib  who was shot in the head by a sniper while having dinner on Jan. 25, and two youths on a motorcycle and a 14-year-old boy struck down in drone strikes on Feb. 1.   The invasion has reportedly displaced up to 80 percent of the population of Jenin camp, and the camp’s water supply has been cut.   

Israel’s Minister of Defense Yisrael Katz has declared that “Jenin is only the beginning” and promised similar operations elsewhere in the West Bank.   By Jan. 28, the army had launched new offensives in Qabatiya (where two young men were slaughtered on Feb. 1), Tulkarem (where, on Feb. 1,  a man was shot by a sniper at his front door and died after soldiers prevented an ambulance from reaching him) and the Nur Shams refugee camp. 

Defense Minister Katz has said that the army intends to stay in Jenin and the water-rich territory Israel has seized in Syria.   It is also showing no signs of leaving southern Lebanon.  On Jan. 24, Israel’s US Ambassador Michael Herzog said discussions were underway with the Trump Administration to delay Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon beyond the agreed Jan. 26 ceasefire deadline being overseen by a US-led monitoring committee.  During the first 40 days of the 60-day ceasefire the Israeli army carried out as many as 350 air strikes and destroyed about  800 buildings.  As the Jan. 26 deadline neared, Israel warned the Lebanese not to return to some 60 villages south of the Litani River.  On Jan. 26, the army fired on thousands of people who had ignored the warning and tried to reach their homes, killing at least 24 and injuring 134.  The truce has been extended to Feb. 18. 

Seeking to push back against the impunity extended to Israel by the US and most of Europe, nine countries of the Global South (South Africa, Malaysia, Columbia, Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras, Namibia, Senegal and Belize) announced on Jan. 31 that they had formed ‘The Hague Group’ to defend the rights of Palestinians and the principles of accountability and justice.  In the words of Anwar Ibrahim, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, “Israel’s violations go beyond the mass murder and persecution of Palestinians.  They strike at the very foundations of international law, which the global community has a duty to defend.”

The countries vowed to uphold the ICC arrest warrants, to do what they can to prevent the transfer of military equipment to Israel and to work for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.  Will other nations risk Trump’s wrath and join them? 

Nancy Murray, Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine

Trump confirms US seeks forcible expulsion of Gaza's entire population

So it’s clear that the US government is dead set on facilitating a grave war crime - the forced displacement of the Palestinian population of Gaza.

That’s what President Trump reconfirmed when responding to questions from journalists at the White House.

The question from British journalist Danny Kemp, the White House Correspondent for the AFP news agency, is a textbook example of media normalisation of US-Israeli crimes. Kemp notes how the Egyptian president and Jordanian king have said they won’t take in displaced people from Gaza as Trump had suggested. “Is there anything you can do to make the do it?” asks Kemp. “I mean, tariffs against those countries, for example?” Trump responds matter of factly: “They will do it. They will do it” - an answer he sticks to.

Read the entire article here. (Embedded is a video of the destruction of Beit Hanoun.)