Zoom-in 3: The ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza, October-December 2024
Last updated:1 December 5, 2024
In October 2024, Israel began another operation in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Almost immediately, it became clear that this operation was qualitatively different from those that preceded it. Israel de facto began a complete siege of northern Gaza, directly attacked civilians and hospitals, and attempted to remove the local population from the area in what was quickly recognized as ethnic cleansing.
This section focuses on this operation, beginning with its framing and purpose in Israeli and international discourse, and thus providing evidence that the events were well evident from early on. The section proceeds to examine the siege itself, Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon, and the attacks on the civilian population in northern Gaza, all of which supported the ethnic cleansing campaign. It also focuses on the attacks on healthcare facilities and workers in the area.
Plans, voices and media coverage
The blueprint for this operation had long been discussed in Israel as the so-called “Generals’ Plan”. The strongest and most vocal supporter was the former general and former head of the National Security Council, Giora Eiland. The plan itself proposes that Israel warn all residents in North Gaza that they would have one week to evacuate. Those who would choose to evacuate would be supplied food and water in a designated area. The IDF would then tighten the siege and stop the entry of all food, water and humanitarian aid to the evacuated area, forcing the remaining residents to surrender or starve to death (for more details, see the section Ethnic Cleansing/Prominent voices and plans in this document).2 Israeli investigations revealed that the plan was designed by other organizations such as “Tzav 9”,3 which was responsible for blocking aid from entering Gaza over the spring and summer of 2024 (and was sanctioned by the US in response).4
Within Israeli discourse, the plan received considerable media attention, which was generally supportive. The plan was published by an NGO that claimed more than 1,500 IDF officers as members.5 Already in mid-September, Israeli media noted that IDF generals were considering the Generals’ Plan (also described as Eiland’s Plan),6 while a letter signed by 27 ministers and MKs (Members of the Israeli Knesset) called upon Israel’s prime minister to formally accept it.7 The plan received some support in Israeli academia as well.8 In late September, the prime minister stated that the plan “made sense and was under consideration”.9 An MK stated in early October that the plan was being executed.10 In late October, an Israeli settler NGO held a major event in preparation of Jewish settlements in Gaza. The event was attended by 19 Israeli ministers and MKs.11
Soon after the military operation in North Gaza began (see below), it became clear that the Generals’ Plan, or a version of it, was being executed de facto. Israeli journalists stated it already on Oct. 6.12 More Israeli media recognized this by mid-October,13 with indications that it was neither discussed in detail nor formally decided upon politically.14 Many international voices also became aware of the plan at this point.15 In response, Eiland himself claimed that what was being implemented was not his plan because the IDF began the military operation before evacuating the civilians, which would increase casualties.16
Some voices in Israeli discourse – including the Ha’aretz editorial in late October – called for IDF soldiers to refuse to serve and implement the plan.17 These voices had no obvious immediate effect on soldiers. Other Israeli voices called for widespread action by international institutions – including sanctions – to stop Israel. Among these was a petition signed by a few thousand Israelis who called for “every possible sanction” on Israel to stop its attack on Gaza.18 This, too, had little effect. However, soon after, Israel’s Minister of Justice called for a 20-year prison sentence for Israeli citizens promoting sanctions against Israel.19
By mid-late October there were clear indications that the operation was following a formal plan. This was supported by Israel’s prime minister himself, who declined US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s request to state publicly that Israel was not planning to remove or starve the population in northern Gaza. Blinken warned that not reversing Israel’s action could risk US military support.20 In late October, IDF generals admitted that despite reaching their military objectives in the area, IDF forces were preventing Palestinians from returning to their homes.21 International voices were similarly alarmed. A UN relief official stated that “the entire population of North Gaza is at risk of dying”.22
By early November, an IDF general explicitly stated that Palestinians would not be able to return to their homes in Jabaliya after the end of the military operation.23 The Ha’aretz editorial stated that the IDF was ethnically cleansing the northern part of the Gaza Strip.24 International voices used harsher words to voice their alarm. In a joint message, the leaders of 15 United Nations and humanitarian organizations stated that “the situation unfolding in North Gaza is apocalyptic” and reiterated that the entire population in North Gaza “is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence”.25 By mid-November, Israel’s Finance Minister said Israel should remain in northern Gaza indefinitely to pressure Hamas to release its hostages.26 A major Israeli TV channel aired an interview with an Israeli professor who called for resettling Gaza and explicitly agreed to ethnically cleanse up to two million Palestinians, killing hundreds of thousands who would not leave.27
By late November, Oxfam stated that Israel was in the late stages of ethnically cleansing the North Gaza governorate.28 A few days later Moshe Ya’alon, a former Israeli Chief of Staff and defense minister, accused Israel of ethnically cleansing Palestinians from northern Gaza.29 Many politicians – including the leaders of the two Jewish center-left parties – and media outlets, as well as the IDF attacked Ya’alon for his statements.30
Siege and ethnic cleansing
The siege
On the ground, the first step in the operation was the implementation of three nested sieges. The overall siege on the Gaza Strip, originating in 2007 but beginning in its current form at the beginning of the war, was tightened. During October 2024, Israel shut down almost all humanitarian aid entering Gaza. The average entrance of 58 trucks/day in this month was the lowest since November 2023 (the previous minimum was 113 trucks/day in Dec. 2023).31 The amount of supplies (food, water, medical equipment) entering was one quarter of the average of the nine preceding months of 2024 (26.4 thousand tons in October 2024 compared to 103.4).32 These numbers correspond to the entire Gaza Strip. They began to be reported in the Israeli media in late October.33
Compounding the overall siege, a stricter siege was placed on the northern part of the Strip, i.e. the area north of the Netzarim Corridor, which included Gaza City and North Gaza. The amount of supplies and humanitarian aid that entered this area was one fraction of the meagre amount that entered the southern part of the Strip.34
The third and tightest siege was placed on North Gaza – the northern-most governorate of the Strip’s five governorates, north of Gaza City – specifically on Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahiya. These were also the areas where the most military force was used, as evident by many daily attacks, commonly by airstrikes (see below). As many observers noted already in mid and late October, no food or water entered this area for weeks.35 The IDF soon established another East-West corridor, separating North Gaza from Gaza City.36 Evidence from witnesses indicates the absence of food.37 Video footage showed an IDF tractor destroying humanitarian aid supplies in a warehouse in Jabaliya.38
Both the UN and 39 humanitarian organizations raised the alarm regarding the situation in North Gaza. The UN reported in early November that all attempts by humanitarian organizations to deliver food to the besieged areas of North Gaza in October were blocked by Israel.39 Israel falsely claimed that there was “no population” left in places like Beit Lahiya, where it continued to bomb civilians for many more days.40 Only 11 percent of coordinated aid movements to provide humanitarian assistance to the northern Gaza Strip were facilitated by Israel.41 One mission supplying humanitarian assistance was finally allowed in on November 11, but delays in movement authorization and crowded routes led to the convoy’s reducing its size from 14 trucks to only three.42 One aid truck reached a school in Beit Hanoun, which was raided soon after, reportedly killing over 20 civilians.43 The tight siege continued in mid-November, with humanitarian assistance to northern Gaza largely denied.44 None of the attempts to reach these besieged areas with aid in November were fully facilitated. Only 5 of 53 missions in November were initially approved but were “severely impeded” on the ground, limiting their impact.45 Winter weather in late November exacerbated the poor conditions displaced people experienced.46
Following earlier precedents during the war, it was widely assumed that any changes in the distribution of aid would require US approval. Already in mid-October, a few weeks before the US elections, the US secretaries of state and defense issued a letter that delineated 19 measures that required Israel’s compliance. The most notable of these measures was allowing far more humanitarian aid into Gaza, with the letter stating that 350 trucks should enter Gaza every day. The US threatened to stop supplying Israel with weapons if it would not comply with these measures within 30 days. However, Israel did not comply,47 despite a Famine Review Committee report from Nov. 8 that stated that there was a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas in the northern Gaza Strip.48
At the US letter’s deadline a month later, a group of eight aid organizations noted that there was “non-compliance, significant delays, or backtracking” on 15 of the 19 measures outlined in the letter, and concluded that the situation in Northern Gaza was “in an even more dire state today than a month ago”.49 The aid entering Gaza – the item that drew the most public attention on the list – was less than one-third of the required amount (see above for more details).50 Already before the deadline, the US signaled that it would not follow through on its threats.51 The top US official involved in the humanitarian situation in Gaza had told aid groups that the US would not consider suspending military aid if Israel blocked food and medicine from entering Gaza since Israel is too close an ally.52 Following these early indications, when the deadline did arrive, the US refrained from action.53 By late November, very few supplies remained in North Gaza. The Oxfam staff member responsible for aid distribution in the area said he was able to have one daily meal consisting of one item.28
The military operation
Israel’s military operation into northern Gaza began on October 5, with airstrikes killing dozens of Gazans as Israeli tanks moved in.54 Israel continued by planting and detonating explosive barrels in residential areas, which destroyed dozens of homes, many uninhabited.55 After a few days of siege, Israel began to call upon the local civilian population to evacuate.56 In parallel, orders were issued to evacuate the three remaining hospitals in northern Gaza.57 While some Gazans moved south,58 many of them chose to stay.59 At the same time, multiple testimonies revealed that people who tried to evacuate were bombed or shot at – including large families carrying white flags.60 On some occasions, the IDF detained people seeking to evacuate.61 The IDF used some detained Palestinians as human shields, forcing them to knock on people’s doors and tell other Palestinians to evacuate.57 By mid-October, the UN condemned the “large number of civilian casualties” in Israel’s operation.62
As part of its attack, Israel attempted to shut down various means of support to the Gazan population. Already on Oct. 9, the last warehouse for flour in North Gaza was burned in an Israeli attack.63 The last two bakeries in the north closed in mid-late October.64 The local Civil Defense units – groups of people whose role was to dig people out of the rubble and evacuate them to hospitals – were ordered to stop working. Israel subsequently detained some members of these units and killed others. By October 23 the local units declared that they had “completely stopped” their operations and that civilians were left “without humanitarian services”.65 As a result, in many subsequent attacks, the local population was without support to clear rubble after bombings or to evacuate the injured to hospitals, or even to remove the dead.66 For several days, Israel prevented the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), from accessing collapsed buildings, until eventually pointing out that there was no point in providing access anymore because the people under the rubble would have died.67 In mid-October Israel also barred six medical NGOs that had operated in Gaza from entering the Strip entirely, providing no explanation.68 By late November, local Civil Defense noted that all their fire, rescue and ambulance vehicles in Gaza governorate stopped working as well because of the lack of fuel.69
Israel also limited or removed other means of support to North Gaza. This included attempts to shut down the water supply by not allowing fuel for the local pumping stations and desalination plant.70 Evidence from mid-November indicated that the IDF took over the local desalination plant and was using it as a makeshift base.71 The humanitarian campaign led by the WHO to vaccinate some 120,000 children against polio was temporarily stopped.72 Israel also attempted to reduce the amount of information emerging from North Gaza, killing some of the remaining journalists and declaring that others were affiliated with Hamas, a move widely understood as rendering them targets.73 At the same time, the area experienced “severe disruptions of communications, including internet”.39
The daily bombings of northern Gaza continued throughout the operation, killing at least hundreds of civilians. Already by late October there were daily mass casualty events – with attacks hitting dozens to hundreds of civilians at a time – which continued at least until early December.74 On dozens of occasions, the IDF did not claim that people hit during the attacks were affiliated with Hamas.64 The consequences of many attacks were filmed. However, due to the conditions of the healthcare system, the limitations on cellular internet service, and the absence of external journalists, the international media is dependent on the numbers published by the Palestinian Ministry of Health and local journalists. Estimates of the number of dead in northern Gaza have varied, yet almost all have exceeded 1,000 in the first month.75 By early December, Palestinian Civil Defense estimated that over 2,700 people were killed in North Gaza, half of whom were not retrieved, and more than 10,000 were injured.76 The personal tragic stories of several Palestinians demonstrate the impacts of the attacks on the local population.77 Video evidence reveals improvised graveyards in the middle of urban areas such as the Beit Lahiya market.78
One of the largest attacks was on Jabalia, where over 150 civilians were killed when the IDF bombed 11 residential apartments on the same street on Oct. 24.79 Details of the attack were lacking as the IDF did not allow health professionals and civil defense teams to reach the area.80 Another large attack took place on October 29, when the IDF attacked a five-story building where over 200 Palestinians were sheltering. The IDF claimed the building was attacked because a Hamas lookout was identified on top of the building on the previous day.81 Eventually about 137 were identified as dead.82 According to a Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson, 255 people died, many of whom remained under the rubble as there was no way to rescue them.83 Anecdotal visual evidence from northern Gaza shows many individuals crushed under buildings,84 as well as other explicit imagery.85 Another attack on 17 November targeted a five-story building in Beit Lahiya, reportedly killing at least 50 or 72 Palestinians.86 An attack near Kamal Adwan hospital on 20 November reportedly killed 66 Palestinians.87 Some smaller attacks also drew public attention. One video shows a child injured in an attack – probably a rocket – lying on the street (“in pieces”, according to the person filming from afar). Several bystanders came to help him and were hit by a subsequent attack.88 Other large attacks drew less public attention, such as an attack on a Beit Lahiya building that killed 87 Palestinians that took place during a communications blackout on 19 October.89
Attacks on schools – as centers in which hundreds of displaced Palestinians were sheltering after their houses had been destroyed – were common.90 A UNICEF report in early November found that at least 64 of 226 attacks against schools since the beginning of the war had taken place in October 2024, and that most of these attacks took place in the North.91 An NGO found dozens of attacks on schools in northern Gaza in October 2024.92 A substantial amount of evidence from November indicates that the pattern continued.93 One local journalist noted that he witnessed a new school bombing almost every day.94 These attacks were also covered in Israeli media.95
In parallel to the above, field executions of Palestinians were reported,96 including of Palestinians who were detained.97 Some civilians were killed after lining up to get water.98 Others died of exposure or exhaustion as they were evacuating.99 Survivors expressed their despair towards their reality, amidst airstrikes, destruction and lack of supplies.100 According to a UN humanitarian coordinator who visited a school in northern Gaza, the conditions of the families that sought shelter there were “unbearable”. He reported that sewage was running everywhere and that waste was ubiquitous, asserting, “This is not a place for humans to survive. This is beyond imagination”.39
Already in mid-October, many IDF soldiers uploaded photos showing their burning of various buildings in Jabalia.101 At least twice over two days in mid-November, soldiers set afire UN schools that housed displaced Palestinians.102 Other IDF soldiers spoke about establishing Jewish settlements.103 Anecdotal evidence starting from late October – for example of soldiers placing a mezuza on a door in a building they resided in104 or printing a Jewish philosophical book105 – suggests that some were planning to stay in northern Gaza. Satellite imagery from mid-November indicated that Israel was destroying buildings to create another East-West route, this time cutting North Gaza (Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahyia and Jabaliya) from Gaza City.106 By late November, satellite imagery revealed Jabaliya was “almost completely destroyed”.107
Most Israeli media paid little attention to the events on the ground.108 One exception is an Israeli journalist, embedded with the IDF in Gaza, who interviewed displaced Gazans. He asked them who was responsible for their condition and expressed approval when they blamed Hamas.109 The responses could be expected, as they were surrounded by IDF soldiers. On other occasions, Israeli media focused attention on negligible stories, such as a group of soldiers who discovered a pelican in petrol and saved its life.110
The combination of attacks, the dismantling of what remained of civil society and the use of forced displacement led many Palestinians to leave northern Gaza. Images of Palestinians leaving northern Gaza en masse circulated in the media and social media. In one, over 200 Palestinians were ordered by the IDF to strip, and were then held for hours outdoors in the cold while being subjected to verbal abuse.111 Locations where Palestinian refugees were sheltering, such as schools, were burned, while the refugees sheltering in them were displaced again.112 Anecdotal evidence shows the destitution of the refugees.113 By mid November, the UN estimated that about 100,000-131,000 people were displaced from northern Gaza to Gaza City, and some 65-75 thousand people remained.114 The number of Palestinians who left to the southern part of the Strip, beyond the Netzarim Corridor, has been negligible as of writing.
By late November, eyewitness accounts referred to corpses on the ground everywhere, as well as wounded people “drowning in their own blood with no one to help them”.115 In early December, both Israeli and Palestinian sources reported that Gazan civilians were displaced from the last school shelters in North Gaza, specifically Beit Lahia and Jabaliya.116 There were also indications of an Israeli private company operating bulldozers in Jabaliya, as well as reports of non-military individuals entering the area.117
The healthcare system
Three hospitals remained in northern Gaza at the beginning of this period: Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda, and the Indonesian Hospital. Their struggle to remain operational drew some public attention. Early on in the operation, local doctors had to perform surgeries in the street to save lives.118 In mid-late October, humanitarian attempts to bring in food, fuel, blood and medicine were denied.119 The IDF called upon doctors to evacuate hospitals because their lives were in danger, as the IDF was planning to blow up the hospitals.120 Soon after the warnings, the IDF surrounded the hospitals,121 and then raided them.122 The IDF detained 57 medical staff of Kamal Adwan Hospital, and later released 14, shooting and injuring some as they tried to reenter the hospital.123 At least one unidentified individual was buried just outside the hospital’s walls (where they were supposed to be identified, presumably because it was too dangerous to bring the corpse in)124. The raid at this hospital also damaged the oxygen station, causing the deaths of at least two infants.125 In this context, the WHO noted that accessing hospitals across Gaza “is getting unbelievably harder” and that it lost connection with Kamal Adwan.126 Subsequent videos show the destruction in the area of the hospital.127
The key voice narrating the deterioration of the healthcare system in northern Gaza was Kamal Adwan’s Director, Dr. Hossam Abu Safieh.128 Already in early October, Abu Safieh declared that he would not leave the hospital as long as there were patients in it,129 and in a later interview noted that another country offered to evacuate him and his family, but he refused out of commitment to his patients.130 Abu Safieh reported on conditions within the hospital during its siege and invasion, and was shortly detained with other staff members during the raid in late October. Although he was soon released, his 15-year-old son was killed the same day.131 Abu Safieh stated that he and another doctor were the only ones remaining in the hospital then, together with over 145 patients who needed surgery, some of whom were dying due to lack of treatment, and had no supplies with which to treat the patients.132
For much of October and November, Abu Safieh continued to relay daily updates about the conditions and the operating of his hospital. He implored the international community to provide humanitarian aid and supplies; and to send rescue teams to dig people out of the rubble, and doctors to help treat the many patients. Notably, Abu Safieh and the only other doctor remaining in the hospital after the raid were pediatricians, with no expertise in surgery.133 Abu Safieh asserted that “the healthcare system is now completely collapsed”, although the hospital continued to operate at a reduced level.134 Video evidence suggested that there were no rescue services or ambulances to remove people from the rubble or to evacuate injured people, or shrouds to cover the dead.135
By early November, only one surgeon remained among the three hospitals in northern Gaza.136 Again, on multiple occasions in early November, the IDF attacked Kamal Adwan, causing direct injuries to pediatric patients.137 One attack caused a fire that destroyed the hospital’s water tanks, obliterating the water supply.138 The hospitals were partially evacuated in early November, as some severely injured patients were transferred to hospitals in southern Gaza.139 Patients requiring ventilators could not be evacuated because no ambulances with ventilators remained in the Strip. Those patients’ lives were thus dependent on the remaining fuel in Kamal Adwan.64 Other attempts to deliver supplies failed.140
Abu Safieh’s subsequent updates referred to the deaths of injured patients due to the lack of supplies,141 the death of people trapped under the rubble as there was no way to dig them out without the Civil Defense units,142 and the deaths of more doctors in North Gaza.143 On several occasions he noted that those who could reach the hospital may survive, and those that could not were left to die.144 Abu Safieh also spoke about attacks on the hospital itself, which injured staff members, and recounted how quadcopters would drop “sound bombs” and other bombs on the hospital courtyards.145 Several attempts to bring specialist doctors to the hospital were denied.146
By mid-November, Abu Safieh began reporting on Gazans with malnutrition who arrived at the hospital.147 A few days later, in the course of 24 hours the hospital received 17 cases of malnutrition and dehydration among children while an elderly died of dehydration.148 During another raid on the hospital dozens of Palestinians, including patients, were stripped (during cold weather) and detained, and some were subsequently taken to unknown locations.149 Very few resources remained, so that the hospital called local Gazans with access to any medications to bring them to the hospital.150 Anecdotal evidence, reportedly from the hospital, affirms the absence of doctors and resources, as well as the suffering of patients.151 Doctors had to cope with the loss of their family members. Two of the doctors who worked in Kamal Adwan lost 17 and 19 family members on consecutive days in mid November.152 A humanitarian mission on 17 November delivered fuel and evacuated more patients and caregivers, but was not allowed to deliver food and was able to deliver only some of the planned medical supplies.153 The hospital continued to be attacked – including injured people right outside the gate or Abu Safieh’s office.154 Late November attacks injured several medical staff, disabled the hospital’s power and oxygen supply, and targeted its water supply.155 The Director of the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit was killed in one of these attacks.156 Abu Safieh himself was seriously injured together with his two daughters in another.157 Abu Safieh and other staff members held a makeshift protest in one of the hospital rooms, stating that 20 staff members have been hit within the hospital.158 Attacks on the hospital, sometimes as often as five times a day, continued into early December.159 An international Emergency Medical Team was deployed to the hospital for the first time in 60 days on Dec. 1.76
Information from the other two hospitals in northern Gaza was far less accessible, but evidence collected by an early November 2024 AP investigation that spent months gathering accounts of the raids on the three hospitals in northern Gaza suggests similar experiences.160 A humanitarian mission to al-Awda hospital in mid-November delivered fuel and medical supplies to the hospital, and evacuated patients, but was not allowed to deliver food and water. Due to the lack of supplies, the hospital operated for only 4 hours a day.161 The hospital was attacked again in late November.162 Hospitals in Gaza City experienced many shortages as well.163
The aforementioned AP team interviewed many witnesses but “found that Israel presented little or even no evidence for a significant Hamas presence” in the northern hospitals.164 In al-Awda hospital, Israel never even claimed a Hamas presence. In the Indonesian Hospital, the IDF claimed to have identified a tunnel entrance in the yard using aerial photography, but after its raid showed no evidence for it and did not reply to a question about whether any tunnels were found in its raid. The IDF stated that Hamas used Kamal Adwan as a command center, but produced no evidence for this, and showed footage of a single pistol allegedly found in the facility.165 From all the hospitals the IDF raided since the beginning of the war until the AP report, the IDF showed only a single tunnel shaft (the one on al-Shifa’s grounds, see above).166