The architect of the Israeli regimes so-called Generals Plan to depopulate northern Gaza has described the entity's 16-month-long war in the besieged Gaza Strip as an "absolute failure."Writing in an opinionpiece for Ynet, a retired major general and the plan's creator Giora Eiland said that Israel had failed to achieve its aims in the blockaded Palestinian region."Israel has failed in three-and-a-half out of the four goals of the war: we have not demolished Hamas military power; we have not overthrown Hamas rule; we are not managing to return the residents...
safely to their homes [in Israel], and as for the return of the abductees, the fourth goal we have partially succeeded," he wrote.
Eiland acknowledgesthat Hamas has not only prevented Israel from achieving its goals but has also secured its own.He further stressed that the Hamasmovement had, conversely, "achieved all of its goals, chief among them: continuing its rule in Gaza."Eiland added that part of the problem was that the Israeli authorities had treated Hamas as purely a "terrorist" organization when it had already established state power in Gaza.Rights groups saw theoriginal plan as part of a long-term project of ethnic cleansing that would result in the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in the blockaded Palestinian region.The plan sought to tighten the regimes siege against the area, cut off humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians inside, and label those who remained there as combatants so it could target and kill them after declaring the area a "closed military zone.The regimes plan for the northern part of the Gaza Strip, through which it sought to starve the targeted area to advance its war goals, was already seen as doomed to failure.The vicious scheme was published by a forum of commanders and soldiers in the reserves in late September 2024.In an interview on October 29, 2023, only weeks into the aggression, Eiland said that Israel needed to exert much stronger pressure on Hamas and other resistance groups to achieve total victory."The fact that we are breaking down in the face of humanitarian aid to Gaza is a serious mistake...
Gaza must be completely destroyed: terrible chaos, severe humanitarian crisis, cries to heaven..."And in December 2023 he suggested that if Hamas was not willing to discuss Israeli captives then humanitarian aid should be cut in the hope of ultimately deposing the Hamas leadership.There has been discussion about whether the Generals' Plan was partly underway during the Gaza war, which killed thousands of Palestinians and saw millions displaced.Israeli rights groups including Gisha, B'Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and Yesh Din, said in October 2024 that there were "alarming signs" that the plan was being implemented.Eiland's most recent comments come after Hamas said it would delay the release of the next tranche of Israeli captives "until further notice", accusing Israel of failing to comply with the terms of the ceasefire deal.On Tuesday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the ceasefire in Gaza would end and the military would resume fighting Hamas until it was defeated if the Palestinian resistance group did not release captives by midday February 15.Hamas later issued a statement renewing its commitment to the ceasefire and accusing Israel of jeopardizing it.Hamas has gradually been releasing captives since the first phase of a ceasefire began on January 19.
But Hamas said on Monday it would not free any more captives over accusations that Israel was violating the deal.(Source: Press TV)