Palestinians, carrying whatever belongings they could, fled to Gaza City as residents of Beit Lahia and Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, which has been under heavy Israeli bombardment and strict blockade for 19 days, are being forced to migrate from the north to the south once again on October 23, 2024. [Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea – Anadolu Agency]
As Israel’s offensive against Gaza gains escalation and increasingly seems to guarantee a Zionist victory, the vision for Gaza after the war continues to post an ever-important question.
Almost since the offensive and invasion began a year ago, the question has been at the centre of debate amongst Israeli officials, organisations and factions, with some calling for the allowance of limited Palestinian self-rule in the Strip under the Palestinian Authority or a different structure, some calling for the implementation of an administration by a coalition of other Arab nations, and yet others calling for the outright occupation of Gaza for an unspecified and even unlimited period of time.
It is that last camp that is perhaps the most direct, speaking into theory what Israeli forces are already putting into action. After devastating well over half of the Territory’s infrastructure and killing over 47,000 of its inhabitants, Israel is now focusing on the long-term aspect of their operation – widening and maintaining security control while continuing to undermine and disempower the Gazans – primarily by implementing the required infrastructure necessary to do so.
Palestinians, the Arab nations and the larger international community must make no mistake, and must not view the situation through the lens of naivete: Israel’s authorities, occupation forces and particularly its hardliners have every intention of occupying Gaza. If they have refrained from expressing that throughout much of the past year, then that is only due to the ongoing auctioning of the Palestinian Territory to the highest bidder or the most useful and efficient administrator.
The question, therefore, is not if Israel will run Gaza, but how it will do so. Will it be through direct control and military occupation as was the case prior to its withdrawal in 2005? Will it be through indirect control, in which it will allow a Palestinian or Arab administration beholden to Tel Aviv, as is the case in the West Bank? Or will Israel outsource the issue – as is the trend amongst many governments and militaries nowadays – to private contractors?
Currently, the Occupation is planning on clearing the way for and constructing numerous security corridors in Gaza. Those include the Netzarim Corridor, which separates the north of Gaza from the south, the Philadelphi Corridor, which separates the Strip from Egypt and isolates it from the outside world, and potentially the Kissufim Corridor, which cuts across Gaza and separates the centre of the Territory from the south.
There is also talk of two other corridors possibly in the pipeline – as of yet unnamed – which would further isolate areas in Gaza from each other.
Each of these will reportedly utilise surveillance technology such as cameras, spotlights and other tools of detection, much of which may be powered by artificial intelligence. Such methods will be used to keep the Strip’s Palestinian population – at least what will be left of it – in check, in an effort to ensure the continued suppression of Hamas fighters or other Gazans who choose to take the path of resistance in that future.
A potential component of such plans were revealed this month in reports that Israel and the US are considering a joint plan to deploy a private American-Israeli security firm to administer Gaza, primarily by subjecting Palestinians to biometric screenings with the threat of withholding humanitarian aid if they refuse to comply.
This will reportedly begin as a pilot programme in north-western Gaza, involving 1,000 private mercenaries who would create “gated communities” within the Strip, in which they would control the inhabitants and their movements through the use of a biometric control system.
Israel’s objectives in those plans are increasingly clear: to pursue a policy of psychological warfare and bombardment against both the Palestinians and the very idea of Palestinian sovereignty. Under such a dystopian system, after all, what hope is there for the Gazans to possibly continue to resist the overwhelming force of Israeli military and technological dominance, or even to dream of reclaiming a Gaza that Palestinians can live in freely?
That is all alongside the gradual stated aim of expanding Israel’s territorial borders across the region, starting with Gaza and Lebanon, in the classic Zionist strategy of “bit by bit”.
In the expansion of that Occupation, Gazans – and Palestinians more broadly – will be an entirely subjugated people under the fulfilment of the Zionist promise of complete mastery. What Israel fails to realise, however, is that it will still have a primary issue on its hands in such a future, and that is one which would persistently be a thorn in the Occupation’s feet.
Conquest and Occupation are steps that could, although hated, still be tolerated or swallowed by many. Humiliation, however, is an entirely different beast, and one that is a powerful stimulant to resist an injustice. The constant humiliation of a conquered and Occupied people will, eventually, force them into an inevitable path of resistance.
That is a path which recognises no bribery or blackmail, and which is swayed by no amount of promises of economic prosperity, political legitimacy, limited autonomy or international applause. To the humiliated party, all such guarantees are almost meaningless in the face of their continued humiliation and subjugation. Dignity and freedom are priceless things, and all objects that glitters are but trifles in comparison.
Those who have ever undergone an abusive relationship or situation may understand that best, and the manipulation, the threats and the punishments employed by abusers look eerily similar to those Israel commits against the Palestinians and is utilising in Gaza currently.
As one Palestinian leader put it in an interview, years before his killing at the hands of Israel forces, “does the world expect us to be well-behaved victims while we’re getting killed? For us to be slaughtered without making a noise? That’s impossible.”
What Israel has subjected Gaza to over almost two decades was sufficient in provoking such an idea, and Israel’s planned subjugation of the Strip – and the wider Palestinian Territories – under a dystopian control system will only enhance that.
Source: middleeastmonitor
