The images coming from the north of the Gaza Strip are terrible, posted by Palestinian journalists in the absence of the international press, which is still denied access by Israel.
The images coming from the north of the Gaza Strip are terrible, posted by Palestinian journalists in the absence of the international press, which is still denied access by Israel. Mahmoud Issa/ZUMA

-Analysis-

PARIS — “The smell of death is everywhere.” That is what Philippe Lazzarini, Director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, wrote yesterday about the situation in Gaza.

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The Swiss diplomat added that “in northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die. They feel deserted, hopeless and alone. They live from one hour to the next, fearing death at every second.”

Lazzarini came on France Inter‘s morning radio show last year to sound the humanitarian alarm, following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and the subsequent Israeli bombardments. One year on, the situation is far more catastrophic. And there is little prospect of this war coming to an end, even after the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Terrible images

The images coming from the north of the Gaza Strip are terrible, posted by Palestinian journalists in the absence of the international press, which is still denied access by Israel. They have provoked deep emotions around the world, but left Israel indifferent: The pain of the Oct. 7 victims and hostages still prevented it from seeing the pain it is inflicting on the Palestinians.

In the images, we see inhabitants of northern Gaza pass in front of an Israeli tank, hands in the air holding identity papers. These are people who have been ordered by Israel to leave the north, displaced for the umpteenth time in a year, exhausted, with the plastic bags in their hands holding what is left of their lives. Humiliated men, women, children and elderly people.

After days of air strikes, artillery shelling and horrific massacres Israeli occupation still pushing people to leave their homes from Jabalia towards the south of the strip in a very humiliating ways
u003cpu003eAfter days of air strikes, artillery shelling and horrific massacres Israeli occupation still pushing people to leave their homes from Jabalia towards the south of the strip in a very humiliating ways.u003c/pu003e – u003cpu003eu003ca href=u0022https://www.instagram.com/p/DBYwXWWOLVu/?igsh=YzJnbTAzNjZpMWZ2u0022 target=u0022_blanku0022u003emotaz_azaiza/Instagramu003c/au003eu003c/pu003e

Centuries to recover

And there is the video, seen millions of times, in which a little girl carries her injured sister on her shoulder. An Al Jazeera journalist asks her where she is going: to the hospital for her sister, who has a leg injury. He gives them a lift in his car, two children alone in the war, plunged too quickly into the adult world, which is not a pretty sight.

What is happening in Gaza goes beyond the right to self-defense.

Israel has the right to defend itself. That has been rightly said and repeated. But what is happening in Gaza from a humanitarian point of view goes beyond the right to self-defense, and transgresses international humanitarian law in more ways than one.

Israel’s war aims in Gaza remain a mystery. Israel has destroyed most of Hamas’s military resources, killed its leaders and razed the territory to the ground, which, according to a UN report released on Monday, will take centuries to recover from.

Israel’s ambiguity

The ambiguity lies in the fact that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has still not set out his vision for the post-war period in Gaza: Who will run the territory of 2 million inhabitants? Who will provide security? With what status?

On Monday evening, several thousand Israelis, including several members of the government, gathered on the Israeli side of the border to advocate the recolonization of the Gaza Strip. Security Minister and far-right leader Itamar Ben Gvir has even said that he is prepared to help Palestinians who agree to leave the territory.

Netanyahu says this is not his plan, but he is letting it happen. In the meantime, the descent into hell continues, with no one really trying to stop it.