Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir ignored the advice of IDF Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi when he ordered the mass evacuation of Gaza city, Haaretz reported on Sept. 10. Last week, Tomer-Yerushalmi warned Zamir that it could not be determined that the planned evacuation operations to southern Gaza would be legal and demanded that evacuation notices be postponed until the necessary conditions for receiving the population were in place, but he ignored her position.
Haaretz explains that the Military Advocate General is the IDF authority responsible for interpreting international law, and senior military officials said they could not recall a case in which a Chief of Staff ignored the top lawyer’s position on such a significant issue.
Israeli military sources familiar with last week’s discussions, which included the IDF chief, senior military officials, and the Military Advocate General, told Haaretz that military leaders presented an unrealistic picture of the humanitarian conditions in southern Gaza. “They created a scenario that doesn’t exist, without any serious groundwork, while everyone knew this was not the reality and that the evacuation could not proceed,” said one security official with knowledge of the matter.
The Israeli military sources also noted that, contrary to the army’s claims, hospitals in southern Gaza are on the verge of collapse and cannot accommodate additional casualties, due to severe overcrowding. Moving a million people to areas without adequate medical services could trigger a humanitarian disaster, draw international criticism, and potentially lead to sanctions from countries that support Israel.
There’s more, but the upshot is that the IDF cannot forcibly move as many as a million people from Gaza City into already overcrowded areas in the south with inadequate food, water, medical care, and other deficiencies, lest they create an even bigger humanitarian disaster than already exists. To say otherwise is to tell fairy tales. Tomer-Yerushalmi’s point is that going ahead with this IDF plan poses huge risks for Israel under international law, risks that are being ignored by the top leadership of the IDF.
