The “General’s Plan” by Israel involves activities to fully force Palestinians out of northern Gaza and conquer it altogether.
With no end in sight, Israel’s war in Gaza has so far taken the lives of more than 42,000 Palestinians in almost a year. Israel has failed to achieve its claimed goals in the war and this has created increasing discontent among both people and high raking officials.
Israeli hostages continue to be held under siege by Hamas and a second front has opened up for the IDF with its September invasion of Lebanon.
Many in the Israeli military officials are now looking for the “Generals’ Plan”, also known as the Eiland Plan, to ensure the defeat of Hamas. At its simplest term, the plan involves ethnically cleansing the northern Gaza Strip of Palestinians and then encircling the area, including cutting off humanitarian supplies to starve the remnants.
Who was the mastermind behind the General’s Plan?
The plan was released in late September this year by the Association of Commanders and Veterans, an Israeli NGO that describes itself as a professional body in war strategies with more than 1,500 army officers working for it.
This group has criticized the strategy of the Israeli army in Gaza since October 2023 and its inability to achieve Israel’s war goals.
The General’s Plan seeks to achieve four main goals including changing the doctrine of war, moving from the concept of deterrence to the concept of decisiveness, introducing more aggressive officers to the General Staff to manage the army, and achieving victory against the enemy on all fronts
Who is Giora Eiland, the creator of the General’s plan?
The central figure behind the plan is Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli army general who headed the army’s operations and planning division and later headed the National Security Council. Eiland, who participated in the Arab-Israeli war in 1973, the war with Lebanon in 1982, and the Entebbe operation in 1976, is considered a center-left pamphlet in Israel. During the current war, he has repeatedly made headlines for calling on the military to take actions that could amount to war crimes.
In an interview on October last year, Eiland said that Israel needed to apply much stronger pressure. “The fact that we are failing humanitarian aid to Gaza is a serious mistake…Gaza must be completely destroyed: the terrible chaos, the extreme humanitarian crisis, the cry to heaven… These must happen in Gaza.”
He also later suggested in December that if Hamas was unwilling to discuss the Israeli hostages, humanitarian aid to Gaza should be completely cut off with the aim of ousting the Hamas leadership.
“All of Gaza will starve, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will be angry and offended. This is the only thing that will destroy Hamas,” Eiland said.
