Gaza Herald- On Monday, Israel declared the launch of a ground offensive on Gaza City. But this announcement is misleading; it is not a new operation, but merely the next stage of a campaign of destruction and depopulation that has been underway for months in the northern Gaza Strip.
Since late March, roughly 800,000 civilians in Gaza City have endured unrelenting bombardment, enforced starvation, and the collapse of healthcare. Unlike the south, where Israel and the United States have set up heavily criticized aid centres that themselves have become scenes of massacres, no such relief has been provided in the north. At these southern centres, nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed while trying to collect food or medicine.
Israeli commanders admitted that orders were given in the spring to keep operations at “low intensity” to avoid international scrutiny. But they stressed that the attacks on Gaza City never actually stopped. According to United Nations data, more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed each month between March and June. Since August 11, when Israel intensified its strikes in preparation for this latest ground incursion, over 3,500 Palestinians have been killed across Gaza, nearly half of them in Israeli-designated so-called “safe zones.”
Targeting Civilians Through Technology
The truth behind Israel’s offensive is not a decisive military battle against armed groups, but a calculated campaign to empty Gaza City of its residents. Since August, Israel has used more than 180 booby-trapped robots and explosive-packed remote-controlled vehicles to blow apart civilian neighbourhoods. Areas such as Tel al-Hawa, Sheikh Radwan, Tuffah, Jabal Nazla, and Saftawi Street have seen hundreds of buildings destroyed.
Armoured units and elite divisions, including the 162nd and 98th Paratrooper Divisions, have been sent into Gaza City to reinforce the devastation, with the 36th Division expected to follow. Contrary to Israeli claims of intense clashes with Hamas, officers acknowledged that their troops had not been met with significant resistance. The brunt of the campaign, therefore, has fallen on civilians.
Israeli officers openly apply a policy of collective punishment. One told Middle East Eye that “it’s fair to assume that most of the men and young people who stay in Gaza City are working for Hamas.” Such sweeping, false generalizations have been used to justify treating 400,000 remaining civilians in the city as legitimate targets.
Encircling Gaza City
The military aims to completely encircle Gaza City within days. Plans include sealing off Salah al-Deen Street to the east and al-Rashid Street along the coast, while reinforcing the Netzarim corridor, effectively establishing a permanent barrier bisecting the Strip. Once this siege is complete, an Israeli colonel declared, “We’ll have no reason not to treat everyone in the north as Hamas.”
Over the past month, Israel has issued 13 new expulsion orders aimed at clearing the north of its people. The operation, dubbed Gideon’s Chariots II, is not just a military manoeuvre but a deliberate project of territorial reconfiguration, coordinated closely with the United States.
A Stage-Managed “Victory”
According to Israeli officers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to use the Gaza City assault as political theatre. If the encirclement succeeds, he plans to stand before the United Nations General Assembly on September 26 and declare victory, presenting forced displacement and the mass killing of civilians as a military achievement.
For the people of Gaza, however, this campaign is not a “victory” but another chapter of devastation. Explosive-laden robots, paratroopers, and encircling tanks serve not to protect Israeli security but to erase Gaza City, driving its inhabitants southward and rendering the north uninhabitable. The destruction unfolding today is not only a military assault but a crime against humanity, carried out in plain view of the world.
