Total siege Fears Israel plans to seize land in Gaza

Israel has tightened its siege of northern Gaza in the face of warnings from the UN and other aid agencies that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian lives at are risk, raising questions over whether the Netanyahu government’s ultimate war aims include territorial expansion.

- Malak A Tantesh and Julian Borger

The IDF says it is hunting Hamas, but suspicions are growing that Israel is putting into practice a blueprint it had offi cially distanced itself from, known as the “generals’ plan”.

The plan, named after the retired senior officers promoting it, was intended to depopulate northern Gaza by giving the Palestinians trapped there an opportunity to evacuate and then treating those that stayed as combatants, laying total siege.

The government insisted the plan had not been adopted, but some IDF soldiers in Gaza , as well as Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, say it is being implemented daily , but with a major diff erence: the Pales tinians in northern Gaza were not given a realistic chance to evacuate. They are trapped.