Israel is setting up 'complex network' of checkpoints to prevent 'military age' men from fleeing Rafah assault, senior western official tells MEE

Israel is setting up a complex system of checkpoints that will prevent men of “military age” from fleeing Rafah in preparation for its offensive on the southern Gaza border city, a senior western official familiar with Israel’s plans has told Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity.

The creation of gender-based checkpoints around Rafah would put a spotlight back on Israel’s practice of stripping and forcibly detaining male Palestinian men and children, as it faces rising scrutiny in the West of its conduct in the war.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness
        18•1 month ago

        Uh… You do realize Northern Gaza is in famine and Israel intends to attack Rafah where 1.4 million people are taking shelter right? The Holocaust was also a multi-year project.

        Today, Gaza’s entire population, about 2.2 million people, is classified in IPC 3 (Crisis), IPC 4 (Emergency), or IPC 5 (Catastrophe/Famine). This represents, according to IPC, “the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country.” As early as December 2023, according to the IPC, data showed that nearly all households were skipping meals every day. People went entire days and nights without eating in four out of five households in the northern governorates and among displaced populations in the southern governorates.

        The crisis in Gaza is also exceptional for the number of people in IPC 5 levels of food insecurity. From February 15 to March 15, the IPC classified 677,000 people in IPC 5, and from March 16 to July 15, 2024, the IPC projects 1,107,000 people, a full half of the Gazan population, to be in IPC 5 (Catastrophe/Famine). At the time of declaration of famine in Somalia in 2011, approximately 490,000 people were classified in IPC 5, while 80,000 people were classified in IPC 5 when famine was declared in South Sudan.

        Source: https://www.csis.org/analysis/famine-gaza

        • VoxClamans
          -8•1 month ago

          @NoneOfUrBusiness @Linkerbaan @Woozythebear

          Seriously, Israel could reduce to famine (the real one, not the restrictions that make you fat western puppies faint) the entire Gaza strip in one day. Doesn’t do it. Prepares to attack Rafah? THAT’S WAR, and a war launched by a terrorist movement which killed all its Palestinian opponents (PLO/Fatah) when it SEIZED power, and machiavellianly (or by stupidity, who knows) attacked Israel without any consideration about the inevitable consequences.

          • NoneOfUrBusiness
            6•1 month ago

            If you have a problem the definition of famine used here, take it up with the IPC (preferably after actually reading what it is).

            Israel could reduce to famine (the real one, not the restrictions that make you fat western puppies faint) the entire Gaza strip in one day.

            They actually did. There’s a reason only Northern Gaza is at stage 5.