It began with the IDF spokesman’s announcement on Sunday morning:
“The 162nd Division began operations to destroy terrorism in the Jabaliya area, the forces completed the encirclement of the area.”
Jabalya is a city located 2.5 miles north of Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, close to the Israeli border:
The Spokesman continued: “The forces of the 162ndDivision began to operate during the night in the Jabaliya area, following preliminary intelligence information and after a continuous assessment of the situation and the activity of the forces in the field, which indicated the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructures in the area, alongside attempts to restore terrorist infrastructures by the terrorist organization Hamas in the area.
“The divisional combat teams of the 401st and 460th brigades have completed the encirclement of the area and the forces are now continuing to operate in the area.
“Before and during the operation, Air Force aircraft, under the direction of the 215th Brigade, attacked dozens of military targets in aid of the maneuvering forces, including munitions warehouses, underground infrastructures, terrorist squads, and other military infrastructures.
“The operation will continue as long as necessary, systematically damaging and thoroughly destroying the terrorist infrastructure in the region.”
About which journalist Amit Segal, one of the best connected in Israel, suggested on Sunday:
“The IDF is expanding the evacuation routes from the northern Gaza Strip amid reports of an extensive operation in the area. Behind all this: the reports that the government is embracing the Eiland Initiative.”
In early September, two retired IDF generals, Giora Eiland and Gershon HaCohen, proposed a plan to defeat Hamas, which includes applying pressure on the civilian population in Gaza to bring down the Hamas rule.
Eiland claims that Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar is not afraid of military pressure, but is afraid of a governing alternative and the rise of an angry mob that could topple him. Today Sinwar is not under pressure, Hamas has been seizing the humanitarian supplies that have been entering in huge quantities each day, to satisfy the population’s needs.
Therefore, Eiland claims, Sinwar demanded in the first deal that the trucks be increased from 2 a day to 200 a day and prevented the anger and grumbling of a hungry and angry population that would look for a governmental alternative.
Eiland presented the outline of the plan which centered on ceasing food supplies in the northern strip, transferring the civilian population from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south through monitored paths along the Netzarim corridor (the one north of the Philadelphi corridor), and suffocating the 5,000 or so terrorists who remained in the northern Gaza Strip.
According to the plan, the entire area north of the Netzarim corridor, i.e. Gaza City with all its neighborhoods, will become a closed military area where the entire population, estimated by the army to be approximately 300,000 people, will be required to leave immediately through the secured IDF paths in the Netzarim corridor.
After a week during which the civilian population will be allowed to evacuate, a full military siege will be imposed on the area, leaving the terrorists in Gaza City with the choice – surrender or die.
