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Israeli ministers want issue of captives in Gaza to be solved ‘naturally and tragically’: Report

The Cradle | November 10, 2024

The Israeli government is waiting and hoping for the captives held by Hamas in Gaza to die while expanding the military occupation of territory in Gaza as part of a broader effort to cleanse the strip of Palestinians and to build Jewish settlements, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on 10 November.

The Hebrew media paper reported that “According to every intelligence report that is submitted to the cabinet ministers, the situation of the dozens of abductees who are still alive in the captivity of Hamas is getting worse from week to week.”

“As long as the negotiations are not restarted, the problem of the abductees will be solved naturally and tragically, according to some right-wing ministers. The resistance of those ministers to release hundreds of terrorists will be redundant,” the paper added.

Since Hamas’ Qassam Brigades took around 250 Israeli soldiers and civilians captive on 7 October last year, it has sought to release them in exchange for a ceasefire, the release of thousands of Palestinians held captive in Israeli prisons, and an end to the Israeli siege of Gaza that began in 2007.

However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have successfully sabotaged ceasefire negotiations, preferring to extend the war, destroy Gaza, and annex its territory to ultimately build Jewish settlements.

Israeli forces have killed many of the captives, both by bombing the locations in Gaza where Hamas was holding them and by opening fire and killing them directly.

If ceasefire negotiations are not quickly resumed, the remaining 70 captives who remain alive will likely die, providing Netanyahu with the pretext to move forward with the permanent occupation of Gaza.

“The deaths in captivity of another 20-30 hostages will be swallowed up in the sea of ​​mourning for the fallen soldiers, and then, when public anger is channeled against Hamas, the Israeli leadership will not be in a hurry to withdraw from the Gaza territory that the IDF captured from the terrorist organization – ministers and MKs on the right do not hide their ambitions to establish [Jewish] settlements there,” Yedioth Ahronoth wrote.

The Hebrew paper adds that the slow death of the captives and Israel’s increased control over Gaza territory are moving forward in tandem.

“These are actually two trends that are expanding quietly … One is the expansion of the occupied IDF territory and establishment [of military bases] within it. The second is the government’s ignoring of the abductees’ death throes. The two trends, unfortunately, will merge at some point in the future.”

The expansion of territory occupied by the Israeli army is illustrated by the construction of a massive military base in the Netzarim Corridor, Yedioth Ahronoth says.

The corridor was initially constructed as a road to bisect Gaza from north to south. However, in recent months, the corridor has doubled its area to about 56 square kilometers, making it a large Israeli military enclave in the heart of the northern Gaza Strip.

Today, the army is pressuring the approximately 300,000 Gazans remaining in the north of the Gaza Strip to cross to the south, Yedioth Ahronoth says.

“The most important part of this base is the innovative coastal barrier through which, the army hopes, a large mass of the Palestinian population will soon pass to the south of the strip, with the expansion of pressure on the Jabalia area.”

“The army established a large outpost on the beach to identify the tens of thousands it hopes will arrive soon and cross south. This will happen, the army hopes, with the expansion of the ground raid in Jabalia to other areas and neighborhoods in Gaza itself. In the base, apart from the interrogation rooms and the temporary detention cells.”

The Israeli army has been abducting Palestinian men en mass at checkpoints as they move south. The men are then stripped to their underwear and taken on trucks to detention facilities, where they are regularly tortured and raped.

In addition, the army plans to copy the Netzarim Corridor model and implement it at the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border as well, specifically in the area where the Gush Katif settlement bloc was located before the 2005 evacuation plan, Yedioth Ahronoth says.

November 10, 2024 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism