The Gaza Manual: the five -step ethnic cleaning strategy of Israel

Israel is executing a longtime Zionist plan to expel the Palestinians and to realize the “great Israel”: silence the press, kill, kill hunger, destroy and seek diplomatic coverage.

The notion of “Great Israel” represents a fundamental objective of Israeli’s Zionism and political elite.

For decades, Israel has worked to perform mass transfer from Arabic populations of historical Palestine.

For Israel’s current leadership, as well as for great sectors of Israeli society, the war in Gaza presented what they see as a crucial opportunity: the chance to remove Gaza Palestinians once and for all.

Since the beginning of the war, in October 2023, Israel has signaled its desire to rid Gaza from the Palestinian population. For most of the war, however, Israeli leaders hesitated to explicitly declare the plan – which is equivalent to ethnic cleaning.

As Israel approaches the implementation of its comprehensive goal, it is important to examine its path towards ethnic cleaning, which follows a comprehensive five -step program.

Israel is a veteran in ethnic cleaning, having performed, in 1948, one of the greatest campaigns of this kind of modern times. Since then, it has continued a slower pace campaign, especially in West Bank, where it has taken vast extensions of Palestinian lands, has established more than 200 illegal settlements and advanced posts and brought approximately 700,000 illegal Israeli settlers.

The Israeli illegal settlement expansion program involves routine confiscation of land, demolitions of houses and neighborhoods and forced transfer from populations.

Step 1 – Gagging the media

Based on decades of practice in the removal of Palestinians from their lands, the current Israeli leadership recognized that, as a first step for Gaza’s depopulation, the critical coverage of the media needed to be limited to the maximum. To this end, and since the beginning of the war, Israel has isolated Gaza from the outside world.

In October 2023, Israel reinforced the isolation at the borders of Gaza and banned international journalists in the region. In the same month, he informed Agence France-Presse and Reuters that he could not guarantee the safety of his journalists in Gaza.

During ceasefire negotiations in November 2023, the US, Israel’s main ally and financier, would have expressed concern that a temporary break in the fighting could allow greater access to the international media to Gaza. In response, Israel and the US probably worked to ensure continuous closure of Gaza’s borders during what turned out to be a six -day break in hostilities.

Israel has also systematically attacked journalists – over 200 have been killed in Gaza so far, a world record in modern conflicts.

Two weeks ago, Israel bombed a press tent, burning the Palestinian journalist Ahmad Mansour. His last moments were recorded in horrible cell phone images.

Israel also prohibited various media within its borders and closed the offices of Al Jazeera in Israel and the West Bank.

Step 2 – Reduction of the population

The second stage of Israel’s ethnic cleaning plan involved the extermination of as many Palestinians as possible, mainly through relentless and large -scale air bombing. At a cabinet meeting at the end of 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about his desire to “reduce” the “minimum” population.

To this end, Israel has launched thousands of bombs indiscriminately in the small enclave, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians – most women and children.

Israel did not seek to avoid low civilians-instead sought them as a matter of politics. Perhaps the scariest example of this is its 100: 1 target rate, a system that allows the Israeli army to kill “more than 100” civilians by reaching a single Hamas commander.

Several “death zone” policies ensure that Israeli soldiers shoot first and ask questions later. As an Israeli commander said recently to the troops, “Everyone you find is an enemy. If you see a figure, open fire, neutralize the threat and keep moving. Do not hesitate and do not hesitate.”

In December 2023, Israel killed three of his own prisoners who had entered an extermination zone arbitrarily demarcated, despite shaking white flags. Palestinians are routinely shot dead in these zones.

Bombings and shootings were not the only means by which Israel sought to reduce the population of Gaza. Israel also adopted a policy of forced hunger.

Retired Israeli general Giora Eiland told Israeli media in early October 2023 that a “humanitarian crisis” was necessary in Gaza. Subsequently, Eiland published a “plan of the generals” outlining a strategy to combat hunger in which Palestinians would have the option of “surrendering or hungry.”

Israel seems to have followed Eiland’s instructions. Throughout the war, it blocked the entry of food and water into Gaza. In the summer of 2024, the United Nations stated that hunger had settled and that countless children had died of malnutrition.

Human Rights Watch, Euro-Med Monitor and B’Tselem-among other human rights groups-concluded that Israel has been deliberately killing hunger Palestinians with Human Rights Watch stating that Israel has used “hunger as a weapon of war.”

Step 3 – Destroying the health system

The third stage of Israel’s ethnic cleaning program coincides with the second. Here, Israel has sought to destroy Gaza’s health system as much as possible. This has ensured continuous suffering – and in many cases slow death – thousands of bombing wounded.

As part of this effort, Israel has attacked and destroyed hospitals systematically. In December 2024, the UN Human Rights Office stated that such attacks took the Gaza Health System “on the verge of total collapse, with catastrophic effects on Palestinians’ access to health and medical care”.

It also targeted health professionals, killing more than 1,000 doctors and nurses and holding or torturing more than 300 others, according to the Gaza Government’s media office.

In December, Israel kidnapped the director of one of the last hospitals in operation in Gaza. Last month, she killed 15 paramedics and rescuers and buried them in an ordinary ditch along with their ambulances.

Fundamentally, Israel also worked methodically to block the entry of essential medical supplies. A 2024 CNN investigation concluded that Israel prevented the entry of “anesthetics and anesthesia, oxygen cylinders, fans and water filtering systems”, as well as “drugs to treat cancer… and maternity kits… crutches, generators… [e] X-ray machines ”, among other items.

The lack of anesthetics caused many Palestinians – including children – had amputated members without anesthesia. The lack of fuel to feed generators caused incubators failure, leading to the death of newborns.

American doctor Mark Perlmutter, who recently served in Gaza, said surgeons work “without soap, antibiotics or X -ray facilities” and noted that patients die routinely due to lack of supplies.

Another American doctor, Samer Attar, who was also volunteer in Gaza, described the slow death of a boy who “lost half his body skin” after Israeli bombing. The doctors could not save him. “We just watched powerless to his death,” said Attar.

Israel’s strategy fulfills a promise made by the then Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, at the beginning of the war, when he announced a “complete siege” to Gaza, stating that there would be no “electricity, food or fuel.”

It is also consistent with Eiland’s Council to the Ministry of Defense of Israel. In an opinion article published in November 2023 on Yedioth Ahronoth, Eiland suggested that “serious epidemics” “would bring victory closer [de Israel]” – A vision endorsed by high -ranking Israeli figures, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Step 4 – Make Gaza Inhabitable

The first to the third step itself is enough to create an infernal scenario. But the room may be the most critical component of Israel’s ethnic cleansing effort.

Here, Israel tried to make Gaza so uninhabitable that the Palestinians had no choice but to flee.

Houses, schools, universities, shelters and roads were systematically destroyed. According to doctors without borders, until January, more than 90% of Gaza housing units had been totally or partially destroyed.

Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff after visiting Gaza in January said “almost nothing left.” He ruled out reconstruction plans as “impossible.”

Shortly thereafter, Trump referred to Gaza as a “demolition site.”

These comments were not neutral observations, but tacit endorses to Israel’s plan. The logic is as follows: as Gaza is now a desert, the “human” answer is to relocate the remaining residents.

Step 5 – Diplomatic Legitimation

Israel expects the fifth stage to serve as the final stage in the full ethnic cleaning of Gaza. This step focuses on aggressive political maneuvers and logistics coordination to achieve this goal.

In January, Trump proposed the mass expulsion of Gaza Palestinians – a plan that Israel immediately endorsed.

But the so -called “Trump proposal” did not originate with Trump. It emerged in Israel as part of its broader vision of “great Israel” and its longtime ethnic ethnic cleaning strategy.

Classifying it as a “Trump plan” helps protect Israel and give credibility to the plan.

In addition to the marking, Israel created an agency to facilitate Gaza, announced the territory of the track and pressed third countries – including Somalia and South Sudan – to accept Palestinians.

It is not yet clear if Israel will succeed. A complete ethnic cleaning seems unlikely for now.

Many Palestinians rejected the plan, and the Arab League proposed its own five -year reconstruction initiative.

Still, the short -term perspective is uncertain – not to mention the long term.

What happens when there is nothing more to destroy, no nation offers refuge and the Palestinians refuse to leave?

These are open questions.

Even though Israel’s plan is failing – and most of the international community expects this to happen – it will have left behind something dangerous: a 21st century ethnic cleaning model.

Originally published by Mee on 16/04/2025

By Mohamad ElMasry

Mohamad Elmasry is a professor of media studies at the Doha Graduate Studies Institute.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s responsibility and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.