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Scene. Published by Palestine Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
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Palestine Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
Aug 18, 2025

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) warns of Israel’s new genocidal plan against Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip, which reportedly includes the forcible transfer of around one million Palestinians to the already devastated and destroyed central and southern areas of the Strip. Last week, the Israeli security cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who described Gaza City as “Hamas’s last stronghold”—to launch a full-scale military assault on the city. On Sunday, media reports confirmed that the head of the Israeli army, Eyal Zamir, finalized the operational plans to “occupy” Gaza City, paving the way for their imminent implementation.

This plan represents yet another stage in Israel’s systematic attempt to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza: to forcibly empty the area of its residents, annex the territory, and establish illegal Israeli settlements. If implemented, it will inevitably lead to mass killings, detention, torture, starvation, and the forcible displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, including children, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups.

Currently, around one million Palestinians are concentrated in the western parts of Gaza City, including displaced residents from the Northern Governorate (Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia), which has been almost completely destroyed. Most of Gaza City’s neighborhoods are already seized and militarily controlled by Israeli occupation forces or declared “no-go zones.”

After 23 months of mass killings, destruction, starvation, siege and repeated displacement, Palestinian civilians across the Gaza Strip are devastated—physically exhausted, mentally shattered, and struggling daily to survive while deprived of the minimum requirements for life. They are living under catastrophic conditions, without shelter, food, electricity, clean water, or medical treatment. They quite literally have nowhere left to go due to the absence of safe zones in Gaza. After nearly two years of nonstop genocide, the civilian population cannot withstand the launch of another genocidal offensive deliberately designed to erase them.

Every day, dozens of civilians are killed as a result of starvation or malnutrition, or while attempting to seek aid through death traps established by the so-called Israeli-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—a mechanism that serves as cover for Israel’s declared and deliberate policy of starvation. Dozens more are killed daily by Israel’s continuous bombardment of what remains of Gaza’s homes, buildings, and makeshift shelters.

PCHR stresses that this is not a plan to “occupy” Gaza. The Gaza Strip has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, as recently reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Rather, it is a another attempt at ethnic cleansing: to forcibly depopulate the Northern Governorate and Gaza City after Israel failed to do so last year when it implemented the so-called “Generals’ Plan.”

The international community must act now and end the ongoing genocide, including by imposing an immediate arms embargo and pressuring Israel to halt its planned offense on Gaza City. After nearly two years of mass atrocities, no one can credibly deny that genocide is taking place in Gaza. The time for hesitation has long passed. Failure to act is complicity. There is no excuse.