International Crisis Group Statement / Middle East & North Africa 18 October 2024

 International Crisis Group 

Statement / Middle East & North Africa

18 October 2024 17 minutes

In Gaza, the Time of Greatest Peril

The U.S. should not wait to see if Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s killing opens a window to end the Gaza war. Washington must move to halt Israel’s campaign in the strip’s north and ensure a regular aid flow throughout. Admonitions alone will not suffice.

Whether or not the 17 October killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar opens a window of opportunity to end the war in the Gaza Strip, the besieged population there cannot afford to wait to find out. Eleven days earlier, exactly a year after Hamas-led attacks killed 1,200 in Israel and took 250 hostages, Israel launched its largest ground offensive yet in northern Gaza. Its stated objectives are to suppress Hamas militants and civil authorities there, who have regrouped since Israel last swept through the north, to pave the way for alternative governing arrangements. Civilian casualties have surged, and aid deliveries to parts of the north have been suspended for almost three weeks, deepening the humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes are reducing still more of the territory to rubble.

Israel’s tactics during the campaign, coupled with statements made by certain officials, suggest that the government might push for an outcome that surpasses the publicly declared objectives. With world attention partly diverted by war in Lebanon and the spectre of more in Iran, and the U.S. presidential election only weeks away, Israel has expanded its campaign in Gaza with less scrutiny. The steps it is taking threaten to forever alter the demographic landscape, depopulating parts of the north as the army establishes a buffer around Gaza’s periphery. Firm U.S. pressure is likely the only factor that could prompt Prime Minister Netanyahu to reconsider his approach.

The new offensive has brought a series of intensifying objections from Washington, including from senior U.S. officials. The most notable is a 13 October letter to the Israeli government, signed by Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, which demands that the government take specific actions to ease Gaza’s humanitarian plight and warns of possible implications for U.S. military aid to Israel should it fail to do so. Subsequently, Israel renewed aid shipments to parts of the north, and the cabinet is holding intensive discussions about how to meet the U.S. benchmarks. But the experience of the past year demonstrates that an ad hoc intervention like this letter is unlikely to end the humanitarian emergency or to stop Israel from pursuing a far-reaching agenda in Gaza, one that could undermine the strip’s territorial integrity or drive Palestinians out of portions of it for good. Sinwar’s killing has prompted U.S. talk of ending the war, but it has not changed Gaza’s predicament, which requires immediate remedy.

As the U.S. works toward a negotiated ceasefire and hostage release, the optimal path to long-term de-escalation in Gaza, it must also push Israel to prioritise the protection of Gaza’s civilian population.

As the U.S. works toward a negotiated ceasefire and hostage release, the optimal path to long-term de-escalation in Gaza, it must also push Israel to prioritise the protection of Gaza’s civilian population. Necessary steps include ending forced displacement and facilitating the regular, unimpeded entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance, particularly in northern Gaza, which is most severely affected at present. In light of the dire situation, the U.S. should press Israel to suspend its military operation in the north while addressing the urgent humanitarian needs of the civilian population throughout Gaza.

Israel’s New Offensive

The start of the Israeli army’s latest campaign in northern Gaza, its third in twelve months, signalled a new phase in the war that has devastated the Palestinian enclave. Despite having significantly degraded Hamas’s military capabilities, Israel remains in a strategic deadlock with the movement. Hamas’s armed brigades and local administrative structures have demonstrated resilience, replenishing their ranks and re-emerging in the wake of Israeli withdrawals. According to Israeli officials, the new offensive was designed to prevent that from happening again.

Israel has taken several steps to that stated end. First, on 1 October, the army began issuing orders to the 300,000-400,000 Palestinians now living in the north, down from 1.4 million before the war, to relocate to a designated “humanitarian area” in the south. Secondly, a week before its incursion, Israel rolled out a combination of measures virtually halting the entry of food, water, fuel or medical supplies into the north. Israel imposed new customs requirements that in effect cut off aid imports from Jordan, which had previously been northern Gaza’s most reliable supplier of assistance. It also curtailed commercial shipments into the north, citing exaggerated claims that Hamas has been stealing goods or otherwise profiting from the trade. These measures worsened shortages in the north: already, the number of humanitarian aid convoys from the south had declined precipitously. Thirdly, the Israeli army ordered the area’s health care facilities to close. Fourthly, as Hamas fighters engaged it in close combat, the army moved to segment the north, dividing it into parcels and blocking routes of egress, particularly from the Jabalya refugee camp north of Gaza City. 

The army gave northern Gaza residents 24 hours to evacuate to al-Mawasi, the ostensibly protected “humanitarian area” in the south, declaring northern Gaza a “dangerous combat zone” in which it would be operating “for a long time”. Al-Mawasi is 8 sq km of sandy coastline, largely uninhabited before the war. It now hosts the majority of Gaza’s 2.1 million uprooted people, who are living in grim conditions. Despite the area’s “humanitarian” designation, Israel continues to target militants it claims to have located there. While Israel asserts that it takes exceptional precautions to safeguard civilians, many organisations and governments have described its attacks as indiscriminate. A senior aid official told Crisis Group that Israel’s instructions to the population to leave were not an evacuation but forced displacement. 

 

[Palestinians in the north] prefer to take their chances at or near home.

Up to 50,000 people may have heeded the 24-hour warning, but many more chose to stay, either because they could not leave or because they do not believe that any place in Gaza is truly safe. They prefer to take their chances at or near home. Several Jabalya residents contacted by Crisis Group expressed their intention to remain, citing concerns about danger elsewhere, reports of people killed by Israeli forces along evacuation routes and regrets of relatives who had fled south earlier, only to be displaced again, often several times. Hamas, for its part, has called on the population not to comply with Israeli orders. As its fighters’ clashes with the Israeli army intensified, movement within northern Gaza, let alone exit, became impossible. Residents told Crisis Group that the army first encircled Jabalya, then razed buildings and erected earthen berms between and within neighbourhoods, in effect partitioning the area and setting up a perimeter around it. Irrespective of these obstacles, interviewees said, it has become too perilous for civilians to venture outside their homes or places of shelter, with many saying Israeli forces have fired upon non-combatants.

The steps above, though ostensibly geared toward rooting out Hamas, suggested that Israel was gearing up for a long operation with more expansive goals. It moved an entire infantry division – the same one that took Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, in the spring – into the north. Isolating Jabalya camp, the army began to carve out a new east-west corridor (akin to the Netzarim corridor it has already established, which roughly bisects the strip) just north of Gaza City. Prime Minister Netanyahu convened a discussion about transferring responsibility for distributing relief from the UN to the Israeli army. 

Together, the Israeli measures raised the alarming prospect, including for the Biden administration, that the operation might quickly escalate into an offensive aimed at emptying the north of its inhabitants and starving Hamas and whoever remained into submission. Such proposals have in fact circulated in Israel, most prominently the “generals’ plan”, formulated by former national security adviser Giora Eiland and backed by senior figures in the Forum of Commanders and Fighters for Israel’s Security, an association of retired officers and reservists. According to this proposal, residents would be given a week to evacuate, after which the army would declare the entire area a closed military zone and place it under complete siege. Israel would then use the threat of starvation to push Hamas combatants to surrender and return the remaining Israeli hostages. After the siege, some form of local governance (which would not include Hamas or the Palestinian Authority) would be established. The scheme is sketchy at best on the details of those arrangements and silent on central issues like the return of Palestinians to their homes in the north.

The “generals’ plan” was not approved by the government, but it remains the subject of rampant speculation. The prime minister has insisted that he does not envision permanently reoccupying Gaza, much less appropriating it for Israel. He has not brought the plan to the cabinet for a vote, and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has also told U.S. Defence Secretary Austin that Israel will not pursue it. Yet Netanyahu himself has spoken favourably about the plan in government meetings and several ministers have urged its adoption. Some in the army, believing that the plan would eventually become official policy, started to conduct themselves accordingly.

Netanyahu, for his part, appears to be testing the limits of the Gaza offensive without making a firm decision about how far it will go. He pushed for an aggressive campaign to break Hamas without envisioning a precise outcome, leaving himself margin for manoeuvre pending early assessments of progress, developments on Israel’s other war fronts, and the level of pushback from the U.S. and others. In this case, pushback came soon.

A Humanitarian Catastrophe

Whatever the offensive’s eventual extent, the results are already horrific and could get much worse, particularly with the arrival of winter. Given access constraints and chaotic conditions on the ground, there is no reliable count of the dead and injured, but estimates suggest the toll runs at least in the hundreds. Many of the casualties appear to be women and children, according to eyewitnesses to whom Crisis Group spoke. Residents have told Crisis Group that the streets are strewn with dead bodies, as many people have been killed trying to flee the violence. Evacuating the injured is highly risky even when the Israeli army is not on the scene, due to the threat of drone strikes. Ambulances and other emergency vehicles are increasingly short on fuel, and even those that have enough are often unable to reach victims amid the hostilities, according to Crisis Group conversations with aid officials. The harrowing situation has been compounded by the interruption of humanitarian aid to the area both from the northern crossings with Israel and from the southern parts of the strip.

Disruption of humanitarian aid has occurred at other moments during the war. While the duration of previous disruptions varied, the prolonged current suspension, combined with the reported discussions of depopulation in official Israeli circles, stirred Blinken and Austin to write their joint letter implicitly threatening to suspend U.S. military aid to Israel if it does not take steps to reverse the siege in 30 days’ time. The letter, which was leaked to the press, expresses “deep concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza” and demands “urgent and sustained actions” to halt the deterioration. The text makes explicit reference to existing U.S. legal and policy restrictions on military aid and the need to assess whether Israel is complying with previous assurances on humanitarian access and U.S.-supported relief efforts. It is the strongest signal yet that the Biden administration might begin enforcing the provisions in U.S. law and policy that condition U.S. military assistance and U.S. arms on both non-obstruction of humanitarian aid and compliance with the law of war. Many, including within the U.S. government, believe Israel has already crossed the lines that are supposed to trigger enforcement.

Making concrete demands of Israel, as the letter does, is a positive step. Blinken and Austin call on Israel to greatly increase humanitarian assistance, allowing a minimum of 350 trucks to enter the strip per day through all four crossings and pause military operations long enough to see the aid safely delivered and distributed. (As of 17 October, according to an aid official who spoke to Crisis Group, about 50 trucks have reached Gaza City. In addition, there was one run in the past week through the Jordan channel, which had previously been stopped.) Moreover, they demand that Israel rescind evacuation orders where there is no operational need, improve civil-military coordination for aid convoys, facilitate commercial traffic and end the isolation of northern Gaza. The letter also notes U.S. concerns about Israeli legislation aimed at stripping privileges from staff of the UN Relief and Works Agency, which serves Palestinian refugees.

The 30-day period the letter lays out for Israel’s corrective measures is time Gaza does not have.

But the 30-day period the letter lays out for Israel’s corrective measures is time Gaza does not have. Winter is quickly approaching, and it has been impossible during the conflict for residents and humanitarian workers to make adequate preparations, especially construction of temporary shelters. A month is an especially long time given that famine could well occur in Gaza before April 2025, according to the most recent review from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the gold standard of famine assessment. This review, published on 17 October, identifies Gaza’s north and the southern Rafah governorate as the areas in greatest peril. The last time this organisation concluded the famine risk was so high, U.S. pressure and outrage following the killing of seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen, including citizens of Western countries, led to a surge of aid from May to August. In September, however, after global attention had faded, combined commercial and humanitarian aid imports dropped to the lowest level since March (53 trucks per day).

Aid delivery inside the strip is often severely hampered. An aid official told Crisis Group that as entry has been constricted, an increasing number of convoys are looted by organised criminal gangs or desperate people. Humanitarian officials also explain that convoy movements take days to negotiate with the Israeli army, which often denies the trucks passage. When convoys are allowed through, hostilities make travel life-threatening in some areas. Roads are in bad shape. Palestinians remaining in the north told Crisis Group that Israel has destroyed several access roads, apparently as a way of isolating their neighbourhoods. The number of available drivers has decreased significantly, as many have been killed and Israeli authorities are slow to vet new ones.

Humanitarian agencies, an NGO director told Crisis Group, often find cooperation with their Israeli counterpart, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, difficult due to the unit’s low technical capacity and linguistic barriers. As a result, an aid official told Crisis Group, of the 80 trucks that Israel has admitted through the northern Erez crossing as of 17 October, only twelve have been “retrieved”, that is, had their cargo picked up on the Palestinian side. The others are sitting at Erez. In conversations with northern Gaza residents, Crisis Group has not heard of a single truck that had made it to the hardest-hit places – Jabalya camp, Jabalya city, Beit Hanun and Beit Lahia – since 1 October. Israel has damaged the food distribution centre in Jabalya camp, which will hinder operations if and when trucks arrive.

Meanwhile, the health care system in the north has all but collapsed. On 8 October, Israel ordered the three barely functioning hospitals in the north – Kamal Adwan Hospital, Al-Awda Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital – to close within 24 hours. The hospitals’ medical and administrative staff reportedly have refused to leave, at least in part due to the difficulty of transporting patients along rutted roads and under Israeli fire. All three hospitals are running desperately low on fuel. After nine attempts in a week, the World Health Organization reported on 13 October that the army allowed passage for a convoy that was able to deliver medical supplies and fuel to two of the hospitals. An aid official told Crisis Group that, due to the siege, it may be impossible to carry out a second round of polio vaccinations in the north, leaving the strip at risk of an epidemic (a second round started in central Gaza on 14 October).

The breakdown of governance in northern Gaza has further worsened the humanitarian crisis. Before the latest offensive, the Gaza government was still able to perform some basic functions throughout the strip, issuing birth and death certificates, identity cards and other personal documents. The police also continued to patrol, but in smaller numbers and in plainclothes, as Israeli forces had been shooting at uniformed officers trying to protect aid shipments from theft. Since the offensive started, however, nearly all government services have ceased in northern Gaza. The result, as a senior aid agency representative put it, is that public order has vanished, with guns all around.

Needed: A More Proactive U.S. Approach

The U.S., which has struggled to influence Israel’s war strategy to date, must now adapt its approach to prevent further calamities that could do irreversible damage to what is left of Gaza. For some time, the Biden administration has focused on trying to broker a ceasefire and get the hostages taken on 7 October 2023 released by engaging in dialogue with Israel, but these efforts have proven largely ineffective. Now, following Sinwar’s killing, both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have said Israel can end the war, suggesting that renewed ceasefire talks could be in the offing. But the U.S. must learn from its experience: while renewing such talks is crucial, Washington should not relegate humanitarian concerns to the back burner. Netanyahu’s initial response to Sinwar’s death indicated no retreat from his belief in total victory. Forced displacement as a strategy has entered the mainstream of Israeli public opinion. The far right’s representation in the Israeli cabinet gives it a platform to advance its territorial ambitions. At the moment, it seems likely that Israel will expand its Gaza campaign unless confronted with significant external pressure.

As the situation in northern Gaza deteriorated, the Biden administration urged Israel to change its policy.

As the situation in northern Gaza deteriorated, the Biden administration urged Israel to change its policy. On 9 October, President Biden spoke of the “imperative to restore humanitarian access to the north” with Netanyahu. That day, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield expressed concern about “actions by the Israeli government to limit the delivery of goods into Gaza”. She reaffirmed U.S. positions that displaced Palestinian civilians should eventually be allowed to return home, destroyed residential areas rebuilt, and Gaza’s demography and boundaries preserved – pointedly highlighting the clause from UN Security Council Resolution 2375 prohibiting reduction of Gaza’s territory. On 13 October, with food still blocked, Vice President Harris, in the midst of her own campaign for the presidency, posted on X: “Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need. International humanitarian law must be respected”. The same day, Secretaries Blinken and Austin sent their letter intimating that arms shipments could be at risk absent a course correction by Israel.

This episode highlights a disturbingly familiar pattern for U.S. officials: it can take the personal intervention of top U.S. leaders to get Israel to take even minimal steps toward fulfilment of basic humanitarian responsibilities. Even then, it is never clear how long the reprieve will last. Early in the war, Biden travelled to Israel to convince Netanyahu to lift the complete siege imposed on Gaza after the 7 October 2023 attack. He succeeded only in getting the prime minister to agree to the entry of twenty trucks a day (down from more than 500 before the war). The U.S. president also had to speak directly with Netanyahu to convince Israel to raise the daily quota of trucks by 50 (to 200) during the temporary ceasefire and hostage/prisoner exchange in November 2023. Secretary Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan held multiple, sometimes contentious conversations with their Israeli counterparts before Israel agreed to open the Kerem Shalom crossing, shut after 7 October 2023, which previously had been the main transshipment point for goods from Israel into Gaza. All three times, according to U.S. officials, the administration subsequently grew frustrated when Israel, it believed, dragged its feet putting the agreement into practice.

Occasional pressure from senior officials who cannot spend all their time managing aid shipments is no substitute for a consistent policy on humanitarian assistance, including provisions for applying meaningful consequences when access is denied. Setting aside the wisdom of such an approach, the demands on senior officials tasked with managing U.S. national security render it impractical at best.

Given the limited effectiveness of its measures to this point, it is long past time for the Biden administration to shift to a more proactive approach. The U.S. has no shortage of tools at its disposal, starting with enforcement of its own laws and policies regarding military support to Israel. Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, for instance, prohibits military aid to any country restricting delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance. While the Blinken-Austin letter contemplates a 30-day period for Israeli compliance on humanitarian access, it also suggests, rightly, that Israel immediately begin taking the specific measures it outlines. The U.S. should make clear that without such prompt action, Israel is unlikely to be able to meet the metrics it has delineated. On top of its regular assessments of humanitarian access to Gaza, the Biden administration should also immediately re-examine whether Israel’s actions in Lebanon trigger section 620I. Additionally, the administration should investigate whether Israel’s use of U.S. defence articles in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon is consistent both with the law of war and the UN Charter, as required by the Arms Export Control Act, the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy and National Security Memorandum 20. To the extent that Israel’s conduct fails those legal tests, then further restrictions on the transfer of U.S. arms should apply.

The Blinken-Austin letter seems to put U.S. military assistance on the table, an option that has not been pursued vigorously to date, suggesting that the administration might be considering more decisive action. Until now, domestic politics and the exigencies of the U.S.-Israel alliance have inhibited such steps. The administration continues to be worried about the war’s impact on Vice President Harris’s campaign. If she prevails in the November election, the politics of cutting aid would remain difficult. But the lame-duck period may afford the administration greater flexibility to take heretofore difficult measures. Should former President Donald Trump win the vote, he might reverse any such steps, and in the interim between the election and the inauguration, Israel would likely feel no pressure to de-escalate. These last possibilities make the present moment more urgent still.

Pending a ceasefire and hostage deal, which remains the only viable path to de-escalation and should remain Washington’s paramount objective, the U.S. will need to use its leverage in ways it has resisted thus far. The time is now to press Israel more decisively to halt its offensive in the north. Failure to do so could result in irreversible territorial and demographic changes that severely undermine prospects for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the medium term or maybe ever.