By Abdel Raouf Arnaout
JERUSALEM, (AA) – Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter described the displacement of large numbers of Palestinians from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip as the "Gaza Nakba 2023."
"We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba." Dichter, a member of the right-wing Likud party, told Israeli Channel 12 on Saturday evening.
He added: "From an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war – as the Israeli army seeks to do in Gaza – with masses between the tanks and the soldiers."
When asked about comparing the situation in Gaza to the Nakba, Dichter said again: "Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end."
He added, "I do not know how the war will end. Gaza City occupies a third of the Strip's area and contains half of the Strip's population, but this is only a third of the Strip, and there are the other two-thirds of the Gaza Strip and six refugee camps."
Palestinians use the word "Nakba" in reference to the events of 1948, when armed Zionist militias forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to leave their homes and villages under the pressure of bombing and mass massacres in the historical lands of Palestine, pushing them further into the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and neighboring countries, in a major ethnical cleansing move prior to the announcement of the independence of Israel.
Following the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel is "at war," calling the Israeli war on Gaza a "second war of independence."
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said at a press conference on Saturday evening that tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced in recent days from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip.
For more than a month, the Israeli army has been attacking all parts of the Gaza Strip, while its ground operation focuses on isolating the north of the Strip and establishing a heavy military presence.
Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip -- including hospitals, residences, and houses of worship -- since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.
The number of deaths in the ongoing Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 has surpassed the grim figure of 11,100, including more than 8,000 children and women, the government media office in Gaza said on Sunday.
The Israeli death toll is nearly 1,200, according to official figures.