TheAltWorld Israel’s Fight With Hamas Just a ‘Pretext’ for Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza – Ex-Marine
Israel has killed more than 10,000 Palestinian civilians since the start of its latest assault on Gaza. Geopolitical analyst Brian Berletic, a former US Marine, said Israel had made its intentions to depopulate the enclave clear from the start.
Tel Aviv is using attacks on Southern Israel by the Hamas movement as an excuse to depopulate the Gaza Strip, says a military expert.
The October 7 surprise breakout by the Hamas (also known as Islamic Resistance) and other groups from the besieged territory left almost 300 Israeli soldiers and 1,100 civilians dead, with more than 200 taken back to Gaza as captives.
Following weeks of bombing of the densely-populated Palestinian enclave, the Israeli Defense Forces have surrounded Gaza City and are trying to fight their way into its outskirts.
The Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry, based in Ramallah in the West Bank, said on Wednesday that after a month of attacks, Israeli forces and settlers had killed 10,515 Palestinians, including 4,324 children, 2,823 women and 649 elderly people, and injured 2,600 others.
It said that 2,550 others, with 1,350 children among them, were still missing under the rubble of bombed buildings in Gaza.
Former US Marine and geopolitical analyst Brian Berletic told Sputnik that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration of “war” on Hamas was “just a pretext” for ethnic cleansing.
“Israel is using Hamas as a pretext to erase Gaza,” Berletic said. “This has been an ongoing plan, especially for the Netanyahu administration.”
The commentator noted that Hamas was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which “has played a role for decades in the region as tools of Western hegemony over the region.” and tried to overthrow secular governments from Egypt to Syria. He said the movement rose to power in the Gaza Strip only with Israel’s help in order to create a rival to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
“I know it’s unpopular to point this out, but it is an admitted fact that the Netanyahu administration helped manoeuvre Hamas into power,” Berletic said. “If Israel wanted to eliminate Hamas, they could have started by not putting them into power in the first place.”
Israel favoured Hamas over the PLO because the Islamic resistance movement “was utterly opposed to a two state solution” — as was Netanyahu’s hard-line government. “That is that is what is mandated under international law — a two state solution is an Israeli state, a Palestinian state. This occupation has to end,” Berletic said.
Israel has made its intention to force out the 2.3 million Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza since the start of its bombing campaign a month ago, the analyst said, telling civilians to flee to the southern end of the enclave so it could bomb Gaza City in an attempt to destroy Hamas bunkers and tunnels.
“In the very beginning, they were quite open. They wanted to just displace the civilian population of Gaza and move in militarily,” Berletic said. “Once it’s erased, they don’t have to worry about a two state solution ever again.”
He noted that the Israeli invasion had already lasted longer than previous operations since 2008, ostensibly aimed at destroying Hamas.
“That may suggest that this is their final attempt to achieve this to at least clear out northern Gaza, forcing over a million people to move to southern Gaza where there is no capacity to to house them, feed them, provide them medical care,” Berletic said, which had already caused a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
Egypt, which borders Israel and Gaza, has been under “tremendous pressure” from the West to open the Rafah checkpoint and allow refugees onto its territory in the Sinai peninsula — but has resolutely refused to do so.
“It’s not Egypt being heartless, ” Berletic stressed. “They understand that if the people in Gaza are displaced, they will never be allowed to return.”
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