GAZA – A highly decorated former Israeli defense minister has caused a firestorm by accusing Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in northern Gaza. Moshe Ya’alon, who served for three decades in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), including in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, and as the military’s chief of staff, also said that he believed Israel was losing its identity as a liberal democracy and becoming a “corrupt and leprous fascist Messianic state.” “Conquering, annexing, ethnic cleansing – look at northern Gaza,” Ya’alon told Israel’s Democrat TV.

The interviewer expressed surprise at Ya’alon’s use of the phrase “ethnic cleansing,” asking, “Is that what you think – that we’re on the way there?” “Why ‘on the way?’” he responded. “What’s happening there? There’s no Beit Lahia. There’s no Beit Hanoun. They’re currently operating in Jabalya, and essentially, they’re cleaning the area of Arabs,” he said, referring to the IDF.

The Israeli military has for two months been carrying out an intense and deadly operation in northern Gaza, targeting what it says are resurgent Hamas militants. It has told all civilians that for their own safety, they must go to a humanitarian area in southern Gaza. Thousands of Palestinian civilians have refused to leave, after more than a year of being told to evacuate to areas of Gaza that are then also targeted by Israeli strikes. Vanishingly few aid deliveries have been allowed into northern Gaza, according to the World Food Programme.

The Israeli military, responding to Ya’alon, denied that it was ethnically cleansing northern Gaza and said that it operated “in accordance with international law, and evacuates civilians based on operational necessity, for their own protection.” The government has not yet presented a plan for post-war governance in Gaza. It has also denied it is implementing a “surrender or starve” proposal in northern Gaza put forward by a retired military general, Giora Eiland – though it did consider the plan. (CNN)

Foto: Palestinians struggle to survive amid food shortage in Gaza.