Israel orders mass 'evacuation' from Northern Gaza, humanitarian crisis certain to ensue

[bilateralrope]

So worst case scenario they're about equal so far. And the ceasefire will give the Palestinians at least a little relief.

I don't remember Biden openly calling for Gaza to be depopulated. Could you point me to where he said that ?

Nah he just gave unlimited aid and support to the people who wanted to. Also that aid Trump didn't cancel? Who do you think went out of his way to send it? Including two packages sent after the election when Biden didn't have to worry about politics anymore.

White House makes 2,000-pound bombs available to Israel, undoing Biden’s pause

Published Sat, Jan 25 20252:35 PM EST

President Donald Trump’s White House has instructed the U.S. military to release a hold imposed by the Biden administration on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, a White House source told Reuters on Saturday.

The move was widely expected. Then-President Joe Biden put the hold on the delivery of those bombs due to concern over the impact they could have in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. A ceasefire to halt the war was recently agreed.

The Biden administration’s particular concern had been over the use of such large bombs in the city of Rafah, where more than one million Palestinians in Gaza had taken refuge.

Biden put a hold on these bombs. Trump undid it.

Please explain how that means that Biden is the one providing " unlimited aid and support".

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Yeah, tried and failed. If they couldn't do it with Biden backing them don't see any reason to think they'll be more successful with a less competent, less dedicated and more easily distracted US president backing them up.

Not unless Trump decides to send in the B-52s to carpet bomb the entire strip

Have you even been paying attention for the past year and a half? Gaza has already basically been Hiroshima-ed (like I read the other day they literally have the same percentage of destroyed buildings). You think Trump can do better than the genocide army set up next door with?

Absolutely- America has B52s. Israel doesn't. If they want to carpet bomb the strip, they have the means to do it. It's the ideal shape for bombing runs.

[bilateralrope]

Yeah, tried and failed. If they couldn't do it with Biden backing them don't see any reason to think they'll be more successful with a less competent, less dedicated and more easily distracted US president backing them up.

Not unless Trump decides to send in the B-52s to carpet bomb the entire strip

Have you even been paying attention for the past year and a half? Gaza has already basically been Hiroshima-ed (like I read the other day they literally have the same percentage of destroyed buildings). You think Trump can do better than the genocide army set up next door with?

Gaza still has people living in it.

Trump doesn't like that

[Ralin]

Absolutely- America has B52s. Israel doesn't. If they want to carpet bomb the strip, they have the means to do it. It's the ideal shape for bombing runs.

And then when the bombing runs are over the survivors will salvage what they can from the rubble and keep clinging on the same way they have been this entire time. This has been going on for quite a long while.

Israel has proven it cannot force the Palestinians to leave, and neither can the US. Otherwise they would have done it by now.

Gaza still has people living in it.

Trump doesn't like that

Happily Trump doesn't have anymore ability to do that than his predecessor.

[Dark Hellion]

Ralin, it is not a dearth of firepower that has kept people in Gaza, it's a lack of political will and capital. We could absolutely kill every living being in Gaza without breaking a sweat. This is not some big challenge, we know what industrial scale total genocidal warfare looks like and can do from WWII. The current Gaza conflict is nowhere near that.
It's shit to say it, but the reason the Gazan people are alive is not some special resiliency, its that they are more useful for the powers that be alive than dead. Trump doesn't give a shit about this at all. The Gazans are just vermin in the way of his property.

[Ralin]

Ralin, it is not a dearth of firepower that has kept people in Gaza, it's a lack of political will and capital. We could absolutely kill every living being in Gaza without breaking a sweat.

Prove it. I've heard variations of how the US could have won every single conflict it's lost in the past century if we REALLY wanted to and this just sounds like another version of that. Prove that this time the US really could just press the win button if it stopped hiding its power level.

This is not some big challenge, we know what industrial scale total genocidal warfare looks like and can do from WWII. The current Gaza conflict is nowhere near that.

Yeah we do know what it can do from World War II. And one thing it can't do is wipe out a country's population. Massive bombing campaigns cause mass death and horror but they don't actually break countries' will to fight or ability to keep doing so. Something like 2/3rds of all buildings in Gaza have been reduced to rubble in the past year and a half. Hospitals, schools, apartment complexes, government buildings, etc. And you seriously think bombing them again plus the other third that wasn't as much of a priority is going to change the outcome?

It's shit to say it, but the reason the Gazan people are alive is not some special resiliency, its that they are more useful for the powers that be alive than dead.

It's because wiping out the population of an entire country is non-trivially difficult no matter how much stronger your military is. It's because Israel flat out didn't have the manpower and willingness to go in on foot and round up all of the Palestinians. And neither does the US Army.

You can't conquer a country from the air. Soldiers can raid and occupy. Bombers can only do the raiding part. Turns out that people can hunker down and survive an amazing amount of raiding if they have to.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Who is going to clean up the mess and rebuild Gaza as tens of thousands make historic return home?

History is unfolding in Gaza today.

For the first time ever, Palestinians expelled from their land are being allowed to go back.

The exodus of tens of thousands from southern to northern Gaza represents the mythical ‘right of return’ actually happening in practice. Or at least a version of it.

From the Palestinian perspective that term officially refers to refugees displaced during the wars of 1948 and 1967 and now living in exile in neighbouring countries, as well as the West Bank and Gaza.

Just a day after President Trump went public with a proposal to send up to one and a half million Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, the symbolism of today’s return from south to north should not be underestimated.

It’s a year since more than a million people were forced out of northern Gaza by advancing Israeli forces.

Ever since that evacuation there have been signs of Israeli preparations to re-settle that part of the Strip, which Israel left back in 2005.

Mr Trump recently extolled the virtues of Gaza’s location and climate. The real estate mogul in him sees the potential for some sort of riviera.

And while in practical terms, moving people out so the demolition site can be cleared and redeveloped, has some merit, in emotional and historical terms it’s a non-starter.

After all, until today, Israel has never allowed expelled Palestinians to return home.

Neither Jordan nor Egypt is inclined to accept any more Palestinian refugees.

Mr Trump may only have been thinking out loud, but his idea highlights the one big missing component as the Gaza ceasefire unfolds - what is the plan for Gaza?

Who is going to administer the Strip? Who is going to clean up the mess and rebuild? And who is going to pay for it?