On Monday, Israeli officials announced they are planning a new military offensive in Gaza, with aims of “conquering” the land and establishing a “sustained presence” there.
“The offensive is called Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” Bethan McKernan, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, tells Lucy Hough. “It’s designed to make sure that there is an indefinite Israeli presence in the strip. That implies that there is no day after the war now.
“Up until Monday, there’d been no official declaration from Israel that they intended to seize and occupy the entirety of the Gaza Strip. But we can see from what they’re doing that that was the intention, right? Little by little, more and more of Gaza has been taken up and seized as military buffer zones.”
For Palestinians, this has been their fear since the beginning of the war.
“There’s this really core Palestinian political principle, which is called sumud, which translates basically to steadfastness,” Bethan says. “And it’s about the Palestinian connection to the land, to your olive trees, to your home, and about how refusing to leave your home, even during the occupation, whether that’s the West Bank or Gaza … this act of staying is, in itself, a very important part of sort of passive resistance.”
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