What’s behind Israeli Assassination Campaign Targeting Gaza Government Body and Social Activists?

After warlike remarks of Netanyahu and his cabal in recent days against Lebanon, the Israeli cabinet has now revealed its decision for administration of Gaza without Hamas in the future. 

According to the Israeli broadcasting organization, the war cabinet approved a pilot project in the Gaza Strip which will allow for testing the formation of an alternative government to replace Hamas, and this project covers several neighborhoods in the northern Gaza Strip. 

As part of this project, the Israeli army will guard several neighborhoods in northern Gaza and will allow for formation of a local leadership in charge of administering the affairs of the enclave. 

According to this report, in the first stage, this project will include assisting neighborhoods in the north and assisting their local leaders for administration. 

Undoubtedly, the approval of this plan in the current situation that the war is approaching its decisive points and the Palestinian resistance is close to a great victory is aimed at turning the tide in favor of Tel Aviv. 

With this action, the Israeli regime shows that despite the defeat in the war, it continues to pursue its occupation plans in the north of the Gaza Strip in a different way. In this regard, it is important to take into consideration that even in the recent proposed plan of Biden, there is no mention of the withdrawal of the occupiers from the entire territory of Gaza, and only the withdrawal from the crowded areas is explicitly mentioned. 

Even beyond this, the stances of the American officials show that planning and coordination have been done among Washington, Tel Aviv, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and some Arab countries to sieze the control of Gaza from Hamas. In fact, the pressure on Netanyahu's cabinet to accept the ceasefire should not be seen as the end of Washington's conspiracies to solve Israeli security challenges in Gaza. On Saturday, the Times of Israel published the content of an American plan, which includes Washington's vision for progress in the peace process after the end of the Gaza war. 

According to this report, the American plan states 10 points, the most important of which is calling on the international community to support the reconstruction of Gaza and open the border crossings to ensure the flow of aid without obstacles.

The plan also stresses on rejection of continuation of Hamas administration and disarmament of the resistance movement under this excuse. 

The US also proposed the integration of Gaza and the West Bank under PA leadership during a transitional period post-war. 

The Times of Israel claims in this report that Washington's proposed plan also calls for the complete withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza without any occupation of its lands and allowing the displaced Palestinians to return, and this clause of the plan even does not conflict with the Israeli plan for establishing a buffer zone, naming a replacement for Hamas administration, and even stirring an anarchic situation in this coastal enclave to justify political, security, and military interventions. 

Targeted attacks on the Hamas administration body

The Israeli government has been mulling an alternative option for Gaza administration, but its struggle to remove Hamas and other Resistance factions in the future has several times met its failure. In this regard, one of the most media-repeated plans is establishing contacts with the old tribes of Gaza to set up civil institutions for its future administration like the West Bank. But these efforts have been stillborn given the resolute opposition of the tribes. 

According to such a plan, under an attempt to divide Gaza Strip, the Israelis sought to temporarily entrust the administration of this area to delegations from distinguished Palestinian tribes so that the new administration does what the Israelis dictate. 

But the tribes have strongly stood against this scenario, suggesting that it is ridiculous and part of plot to sow division and sedition among the Palestinians. 

The failure to appease and align the tribes of Gaza to remove Hamas from Gaza rule did not end the Israeli regime's moves, and according to local sources in a conversation with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, during the past month, the occupation army began its operations to assassinate all of Hamas figures that have an active role in providing public services to people. 

In recent days, Ayad al-Moghri, the mayor of Al-Nasirat camp, along with two other mayors of central Gaza cities Marwan Hamad and Hatam al-Moghri were assassinated by the Israeli forces. Additionally, the Israeli army in a targeted way follows all of the state officials working in security services. At the beginning of this week, the Israelis assassinated eight policemen in the city of Deir al-Balah and five security personnel in the Shati camp. 

According to Al-Akhbar, the Israeli government seeks undermining the state and public services like street reopening, water provision, garbage collection, security control, and aid distribution in Gaza to pave the way for state service vacuum, eruption of chaos, and public unrest. 

However, the mayors are doing their duties as dictated to them by the central government despite the wave of assassinations and meanwhile the civil committees voluntarily fill the security and public vacuum. In other words, the Israeli-prosecuted state administration body is filled by a public volunteers who prevent the Strip from sinking in a state of chaos. 

In this regard, an intelligence source in Hamas revealed that assassination of local officials is related to the Israeli plan of "humanitarian islands" according to which the Israeli army is seeking to cleanse the northern and central Gaza of Hamas state officials. 

Israel believes that it can destroy the body of Hamas government by eliminating active civilian figures. However, the reality on the ground is far from Israel's ambitions, because Hamas has a very flexible body that can deal with various critical situations and prevent eruption of chaos and internal conflicts even in areas that witness the highest population density. 

It should be added that even this new body of volunteers does not break with the resistance and does not submit to the Israeli plans. 

Abu Hamed, from a Gaza neighborhood, says that people agreed to voluntary work of the civil figures and cooperate with them to deal with daily affairs. "These figures, he says, have no faction nature, but are not hostile to the resistance and do not want to submit to the occupiers... We refused to leave our homes and we are doing our part to provide water for the families and I am also part of the social service. The factions, including Hamas, belong to us and we belong to them." 

In another comment, another public service figure in Gaza confirms that everything the enemy is hoping for is doomed to fail in advance because the pulse and will the public neither submit to the Israeli plans nor do them approve of treasonous figures.