Israel Says Next Stage of Gaza War Is Coming as UN Expert Warns of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’

TZEELIM, Israel – Israeli government officials have announced an impending, open-ended operation to invade the Gaza Strip, with plans to remove and destroy the military capabilities and leadership of the Hamas militant group.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released a video of a meeting with reservist troops preparing for the ground invasion – which Israeli officials have widely said is imminent in the coming days – where he announced, “the next stage is coming.” This week Netanyahu declared that every Hamas member was “a dead man.”

Last Saturday Hamas fighters broke out of Gaza and carried out a series of assaults that killed more than 1,300 people in Israel, in the deadliest attack in the nation’s history. Around 150 people were kidnapped and taken into Gaza as hostages.

Israel launched thousands of air-strikes against Gaza – under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade and governed by Hamas since 2007 – in response that have killed more than 2,300 people. Hamas is designated as a terror group by the US, UK and EU.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) has ordered the roughly 1.1 million residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the southern half of the thin, densely populated coastal strip, despite concerns by human rights groups, the United Nations, and aid workers that such a move might amount to ethnic cleansing of a civilian population. Israel has cut deliveries of food, water, fuel and medical supplies from the strip.

The UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees said that everyone in Gaza was now at risk as water supplies run out due to supplies from Israel being cut, and desalination plants in Gaza running out of fuel.

“It has become a matter of life and death. It is a must; fuel needs to be delivered now into Gaza to make water available for 2 million people,” said Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

A surgeon at Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera that unless military operations stopped there was going to be a “public health catastrophe.”

“There are thousands – if not tens of thousands – of people who have flocked to the hospital,” said surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta. “They are sleeping on the ground, in the corridors, between patients’ beds. People are absolutely terrified.”

Even prior to the IDF evacuation order, 400,000 people had been internally displaced in Gaza in the last week, the UN said.

“In the name of self-defence, Israel is seeking to justify what would amount to ethnic cleansing,” said Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories. “Any continued military operations by Israel have gone well beyond the limits of international law. The international community must stop these egregious violations of international law now, before tragic history is repeated. Time is of the essence. Palestinians and Israelis both deserve to live in peace, equality of rights, dignity and freedom.”

In a regular briefing on X, formerly Twitter, IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said Hamas was deliberately preventing civilians from leaving northern Gaza. When the evacuation order was issued, Hamas told civilians to ignore it, dubbing it “propaganda.”

An hour before Netanyahu spoke at the Tzeelim military base in the Negev desert, civilian cars stretched for miles along the side of the road, as more than 100,000 reservists assigned to combat units – more than 300,000 Israeli reservists have been mobilised in the largest such deployment since 1973 – arrived over the course of the last week to prepare their equipment and to briefly train for the operation.

Tzeelim, one of the largest IDF training facilities, sits about 15 miles from Gaza and contains multiple firing ranges for small arms, tanks and artillery, as well as mock-up villages for urban training, including a $45 million replica of the urban conditions of Gaza City, which is among the most densely populated places on earth.

“Normally there’s one to two battalions training here but because of the mobilisation we have to integrate thousands of reservists,” said Lt. Colonel “Avi,” the commander of a reservist infantry battalion and a full time military combat fitness instructor.

“It takes at least a week for this preparation, it takes time to get everyone equipment, to make sure the equipment works, to go to the range and make sure the weapons work properly… reservists also need to train together for unit cohesion,” said Avi, who asked to be identified only by his rank and first name for security reasons.

The commander said the impending operation would be different from past Gaza incursions, which have generally relied on air power and heavy weapons that can be used at a distance, to avoid casualties.

“This time we have to go in as infantry first, this isn’t punishment, this is war and the rescue of our more than 150 hostages, it cannot be done by planes, drones and tanks. There need to be infantry to find specific Hamas leaders hiding as civilians, to clear tunnels where they store their weapons and hostages. It has to be done step by step with the gun because air-strikes are too imprecise and will kill too many civilians. We are not only risking our lives for the hostages but risking our lives to make sure only terrorists are targeted.”

As he spoke to VICE News in front of a line of scores of parked tanks, heavy artillery fired in the background in training and infantry units could be seen practising house clearing tactics on an urban shooting range nicknamed “Chicago,” in a dark joke about the American city’s history of violence.

Netanyahu has set up an emergency unity government and war cabinet in response to the attacks, but Israeli society has been deeply divided in recent years, with anger directed towards Netanyahu’s coalition government – described as the most right-wing in Israeli history – and particularly its judicial reforms. 

There has also been sharp criticism of how long it took the armed forces to respond to the Hamas attacks on Saturday and the intelligence failure that led to the attack not being foreseen. Idit Silman, the environment minister who is from Netanyahu’s Likud party, was this week heckled by people at the Assaf Harofeh Hospital in Tzrifin, central Israel. “You ruined this country. Get out of here,” a man wearing scrubs was heard yelling at Silman.

And in a separate incident at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, videos on social media captured Netanyahu's economy minister Nir Barkat being yelled at by Israelis in a waiting room. “Can’t you see what is happening to us,” a man is heard to shout at Barkat in a video. There have also been protests in Tel Aviv criticising Netanyahu for not preventing the Hamas attack.

In a symbolic move, the IDF called up its oldest reservist, 95-year-old Ezra Yachin, who fought in the 1948 war that established the state of Israel. In a video released on social media, Yachin – who was personally implicated in the 1948 massacre of Palestinian civilians in the village of Deir Yassin – said of the Palestinians, “These animals can no longer live,” as he posed in uniform with an M-4 assault rifle. Some of Yachin’s statements are too incendiary to even be published.

The video horrified many Israelis, who support a military operation but want it focused on Hamas and its militant allies.

“Do not put this video in your article… this does not reflect the normal Israeli mentality,” said a retired Israeli major who VICE News cannot name for security reasons. “These people are crazy, I do not understand why the government would allow this to be released. He’s calling for murder. He’s senile and speaks foolish things.”