It’s a plan that takes Israel’s war efforts out of neutral and moves them ahead to goals of securing hostages, both dead and alive, while securing the base from which Hamas murdered more than 1,200 Israelis, Chris Mitchell, Middle East bureau chief for the Christian Broadcasting Network, explained this week.
The Israel plan seeks:
– To disarm Hamas.
– Free remaining hostages.
– Demilitarize Gaza.
– Establish Israeli security control.
– Establish non-Israeli peaceful civil administration.
It’s also a plan that creates the inevitable displacement of Palestinian civilians, an estimated 600,000, from the northern and coastal regions of Gaza.
Israel is using these days before the advance to find safe places for the Palestinians. It has begun work on a “humanitarian zone” in Rafah in southern Gaza.
It has also been in talks with multiple African nations –Somaliland, Uganda, South Sudan and Libya – plus Indonesia in Southeast Asia to accept some relocated Palestinians. Indonesia and Somaliland are more open to the idea than some others, according to The Times of Israel.
Military lawyers have raised concerns that relocating such a number of people could violate international law including the Geneva Conventions. Some call it forced displacement or internment which might constitute a war crime.
That theory is way off base, Eugene Kontorovich, a law professor at George Mason University, said on Washington Watch Thursday.
“It’s quite the opposite, actually," he insisted. "International law is being violated by the current status quo when the people of Gaza are trapped by Hamas, by Egypt, in their land and not allowed to flee during war.”
Entrapment in a conflict zone is the true violation of international law, Kontorovich told show host Jody Hice.
“Think about other conflicts in the world, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Millions of people have fled Ukraine for elsewhere in Europe. Iraq – millions of people have fled. Syria, Afghanistan … but no one has been allowed to flee Gaza.
“The entire population has been caged in and trapped by Hamas to basically use as human shields against Israel and to use their suffering as a political weapon against Israel. It's like an iron curtain, like in the Soviet Union. They're not allowed to leave.”
Many Gazans want to leave, Kontorovich said.
“Even before the war, close to half of young Gazans in surveys said they want to emigrate. Now it's much, much more,” he said.
It’s really about the status quo
The idea is to bring the entire civilian population to the zone while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) secures it from a distance, Defense Minister Israel Katz said via The Times of Israel.
“The question isn't whether international law allows Israel to offer these people an opportunity voluntarily to flee and seek a better life elsewhere, but rather how does anyone tolerate this current status quo, which violates international refugee law?” Kontorovich asked.
It would be a violation of international law if Israel forced Gazans into the humanitarian zone. It’s not a violation for Israel to facilitate the means to leave for those who so wish.
The status quo not only violates international law but exposes the underlying problem between much of the world population and the Palestinians.
“We see there's really two different (sets of) international laws. There's international law for the whole world, and then there are the rules that people make up when Israel is involved,” Kontorovich said.
He compares the Israeli plan for Gazans with his own immigrant experience many years ago.
“I fled the Soviet Union. Was that against international law? Did America violate the international law by helping bring over Jews from the Soviet Union? That would be ridiculous. So certainly the people of Gaza are the only people in the world treated this way, and it's quite clear why. Because nobody actually cares about their dignity,” Kontorovich said.
What about the Arab neighbors?
Noticeably absent from the talks of accepting these civilians are the Arab nations that surround Israel – Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Saudia Arabia doesn’t share a border with Israel but is geographically nearby.
Lebanon and Syria border Egypt in the north – the other end of the country from Gaza. Jordan’s border runs along almost the entirety of Israel and all of the southern parts of the country. Egypt actually borders the Gaza Strip at Khan Unis.
“Egypt, they’ve made it quite clear. They see the Palestinians crowded into Gaza suffering as something that weakens Israel, and they're on bad terms with Israel. The other Arab countries also, they look at October 7 and say, ‘why do we want to bring this terrorism to our country?’ So it’s a combination of not wanting the terrorism that has accompanied the Palestinian national movement, with wanting to continue to destabilize Israel, and also not really caring about the people in Gaza,” Kontorovich said.
