A document on behalf of the Ministry of Intelligence, the full content of which is published here for the first time, recommends the forced transfer of the population of the Gaza Strip to Sinai permanently, and calls for the international community to be harnessed for the move. The document also suggests promoting a dedicated campaign for the residents of Gaza that will “motivate them to agree to the plan”
By: Yuval Avraham 28.10.2023
image caption: “Massive population migration from combat zones is a natural and necessary result.” Minister of Intelligence, Gila Gamliel, October 3, 2023 (Photo: Haim Goldberg / Flash 90)
An official document of the Ministry of Intelligence recommends that the security system carry out a full transfer of all residents of the Gaza Strip to North Sinai, as the preferred option among the three alternatives it offers regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Strip at the end of the war.
The existence of the document does not necessarily indicate that its recommendations are being considered by the security system. Despite its name, the Ministry of Intelligence is not responsible for any intelligence body, but independently prepares studies and policy papers, which are distributed for perusal by the government and security bodies but are not binding on them. The annual budget of the office is about NIS 25 million and its influence is considered relatively small.
The document recommends that Israel act “to evacuate the Gazan population to Sinai” during the war: to establish tent cities and new cities in northern Sinai, which will accommodate the deported population, and then “to create a sterile zone of several kilometers inside Egypt and not allow the population to return to activity or residence near the Israeli border.” At the same time, countries in the world, and primarily the USA, must be harnessed to implement the move.
The ten-page document is dated October 13, and features the logo of the Ministry of Intelligence headed by minister Gila Gamliel of the Likud. An official at the Ministry of Intelligence confirmed to “Local Talk” that this is an authentic document, which was distributed to the security system on behalf of the Ministry’s Policy Division, and “was not supposed to reach the media.”
The document unequivocally and explicitly recommends carrying out a transfer of civilians from Gaza as the desired outcome of the war. This week its existence was reported in “Calcalist” and it is published here in full. The transfer plan is divided into several phases: in the first phase, the population in Gaza must be “vacated to the south”, while the Air Force strikes will focus on the northern part of the Strip. In the second phase, ground entry into Gaza will begin, which will lead to the occupation of the entire strip, from north to south, and the “cleansing of the underground bunkers from Hamas fighters.”
link to the previewed scribd document: https://www.scribd.com/document/680677071/חלופות-לדירקטיבה-מדינית-לאוכלוסייה-האזרחית-בעזה-4-0 document reuploaded to internet archive: https://archive.org/details/alternatives-to-political-directive-for-civilian-population-in-gaza-4.0
At the same time as the Gaza Strip is occupied, the citizens of Gaza will move to Egyptian territory, leave the Strip, and will not be allowed to return to it permanently. “It is important to leave the traffic lanes towards the south usable, to allow the evacuation of the civilian population towards Rafah,” the document states.
According to an official at the Ministry of Intelligence, the Ministry’s personnel stand behind these recommendations. The source emphasized that the ministry’s studies “are not based on military intelligence” and are only used as a basis for discussions in the government.
In the document, it is proposed to promote a dedicated campaign for citizens in Gaza that will “motivate them to agree to the plan”, and make them give up their lands. "The messages should revolve around the loss of the land, that is to make it clear that there is no longer any hope of returning to the territories that Israel will occupy in the near future, whether this is true or not. The image should be “Allah made sure that you lost this land because of the leadership of Hamas - there is no choice but to move to another place with the help of Your Muslim brothers,” the document reads.
In addition, it is written that the government must lead a public campaign that will promote the transfer program in the Western world “in a way that does not incite and blacken Israel”, in which the deportation of the population from Gaza will be presented as a humanitarianly necessary move and will receive the support of the world because it will lead to “fewer casualties among the civilian population compared to the expected number of casualties And the oculus remains.”
image caption: “Allah saw to it that you lost this land.” Palestinians in Khan Yunis, October 14, 2023 (Photo: Abd Rahim Khatib / Flash 90)
The document also states that the US should be harnessed to the move so that it will put pressure on Egypt to take in the residents of Gaza, and to harness other European countries, and in particular Greece, Spain and Canada, to help take in and settle the refugees who will be evacuated from Gaza. The Ministry of Intelligence said that the document was not distributed through the ministry to US officials, but only to the Israeli government and security agencies.
Last week, the Meshgav Institute, a right-wing research institute led by Meir Ben Shabat, a close associate of Netanyahu and the former head of the National Assembly, published a position paper that similarly called for the forced transfer of the population of Gaza to Sinai. The institute recently deleted the publication from Twitter after it drew strong international reactions .
Interestingly, the deleted study was written by Amir Weitman, an activist in Likud, and according to evidence, also an associate of Minister Gila Gamaliel in the Ministry of Intelligence. Weitman recently interviewed Knesset member Ariel Kellner of the Likud, who told him that “the solution you are proposing, to move the population to Egypt, is a logical and desirable solution.”
And this is not the only connection between the Likud, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the right-wing research institute: about a month ago, the Ministry of Intelligence pledged to transfer about one million shekels from its budget to the “Meshgav Institute”, so that it would conduct research on Arab countries for it. If the “Mashgav Institute” was involved in drafting the transfer document of the Ministry of Intelligence, its logo, at least, does not appear on the document.
Officials at the Ministry of Intelligence said that this was an independent study by the Ministry’s policy department, without cooperation with an outside party, but confirmed that they recently started working with the “Meshgav Institute” and emphasized that they work with various research institutes with diverse political agendas. No response has yet been given from the “Mashgav Institute”.
And here is another connection: the document of the Ministry of Intelligence was leaked for the first time in a small internal WhatsApp group of right-wing activists, who promote, together with Amir Weitman of the Likud, a lobby for the re-establishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and transfer to the Palestinian citizens who live there. According to one of these activists, the document from the Ministry of Intelligence reached them through the mediation of “a member of the Likud” and its public distribution is related to an attempt to find out whether “the public in Israel is ready to accept ideas of a transfer from Gaza.”
The chances of implementing such a plan, which amounts to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, are nil in many respects. The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, recently stated that he strongly opposes the opening of the Rafah crossing for the absorption of civilian population from Gaza. He said that the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza to Sinai would threaten Israeli peace with Egypt, and warned that it would lead to Israeli attacks on Egyptian territory. Al-Sisi himself proposed, however, several years ago to expand the territory of the Gaza Strip to Sinai and establish an independent Palestinian state there, a proposal that was rejected by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, outright. A plan in a similar spirit was also presented in the past by other Israeli officials, and it also did not mature into a real discussion.
In relation to this difficulty, the document states that Egypt will have an “obligation under international law to allow the passage of a population”, and that the United States can contribute to the move by exerting “pressure on Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to contribute to the initiative either in resources or in accepting displaced persons”. In the document, it is proposed to run a dedicated public campaign that will be addressed to the Arab world, to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Libya, and Tunisia, “in which the message of aid to the Palestinian brothers and their rehabilitation is focused even at the cost of a tone that scolds or insults Israel.”
Finally, it is written that “massive migration” of the population from combat zones is a “natural and necessary result” that also happened in Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine and that only the deportation of the population will be “an appropriate response that will allow the creation of a significant deterrent in the entire region.”
“The most dangerous alternative”: a Palestinian state
The document presents two other alternatives regarding the citizens of Gaza the day after the war. The first is to import the rule of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, and the second is to grow another local Arab rule as an alternative to Hamas. Both alternatives, it is claimed, are not desirable from a strategic and security point of view for the State of Israel, and will not provide a sufficiently deterrent message, especially to Hezbollah in Lebanon, as a response to the massacre by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The drafters of the study claimed that the introduction of the Palestinian Authority into Gaza is the “most dangerous alternative” of the three, because it could “lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
“The division between the Palestinian population in Yosh and Gaza is one of the main obstacles today to the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is not possible that the result of this attack (the massacre by Hamas on October 7; 11), will be an unprecedented victory for the Palestinian national movement and paving the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” the document reads.
The document claims that a model of Israeli military rule and PA civilian rule, as exists in the West Bank, is expected to fail in Gaza. “There is no way to maintain an effective military occupation in Gaza only on the basis of a military presence and without settlement. In a short time there will be an internal Israeli and international demand for withdrawal.”
The drafters of the document added that in such a situation the State of Israel “will be considered a colonialist power with an occupying army… similar to the situation of Yosh today, only worse”. A reason to think that it will be possible for her to rule there today.
The last alternative, the formation of a local Arab leadership to replace Hamas, is not desirable according to what is written in the document, because there are no local opposition movements to Hamas and the new leadership may be more radical. “The likely scenario is not a change in ideological perception, but the establishment of new, perhaps even more radical, Islamist movements,” it says in relation to this alternative.
Finally, it is claimed that if the population of Gaza remains in the Strip, there will be “many Arab deaths” during the expected occupation of Gaza, and this will damage Israel’s international image even more than the deportation of the population. For all these reasons, the recommendation of the Ministry of Intelligence is to promote the transfer of all citizens from Gaza to Sinai permanently.
There was no response from the Ministry of Defense, the spokeswoman for the army and the “Meshgav” Institute until the time of publication of the article.
translated using google translate.