Portside

Thousands of Palestinians are preparing to return to northern Gaza from the south this weekend for the first time in months. Under the terms of the “ceasefire” agreement that went into effect on Sunday, Palestinians will be allowed to travel north on foot via a coastal road where Israeli troops are expected to withdraw. Palestinians will also be able to return by vehicle or donkey cart via another route, Salah al-Din road, but will be subject to inspection by private security contractors, including U.S. security firms.

Throughout the war, the Israeli military severed the Gaza Strip along what it called the Netzarim corridor, a seven kilometer-wide military zone running east to west which the Israeli military forcibly evacuated and demolished before setting up their own bases.

“The issue of people returning from the south to the north, is the most vital issue here, because it defeats the purpose of the Israeli aggression in Gaza,” Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative and a prominent politician, told Drop Site News in a wide-ranging interview. Barghouti—who is a former presidential candidate and was elected to parliament in 2006—took part in talks with leading Palestinian political parties, including Hamas, in Doha recently. “The whole aggression on Gaza, this whole 15 months was about one thing—the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population of Gaza. Netanyahu did not hide intentions; he all the time spoke about transferring Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by force, by killing them, by bombardment, to go to Egypt, to Sinai, and he failed and the people showed great heroism in staying steadfast on their land.”

“Netanyahu practically destroyed four cities in the north completely—he destroyed Jabaliya, Jabaliya camp, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun—but the resistance did not disappear, and people were resisting and fighting back after 15 months of destruction,” Barghouti said. “So now, [Netanyahu] is forced to allow them to get back if he wants to get his captives.” The return of forcibly displaced Palestinians to the north of Gaza, which Israel sought to entirely depopulate, “will be the ultimate defeat of the Israeli plans, because it means that the whole goal of ethnic cleansing did not materialize.”

The confirmed death toll from Israel’s 15-month genocidal assault is over 47,000 people and, despite the recent halt in Israel’s bombardment, continues to climb every day as Palestinians dig out the bodies and remains of their loved ones from under the rubble.

Soon after the ceasefire went into effect, Israel launched a large-scale military campaign in the West Bank it dubbed Operation Iron Wall. Israeli ministers and media reports have suggested the military campaign is part of a deal Netanyahu made with his cabinet ahead of the ceasefire in Gaza. On Tuesday, Israeli tanks and troops stormed Jenin and the Jenin refugee camp backed by airstrikes, drones and Apache helicopters. At least 14 people have been killed and dozens wounded across Jenin. Israeli forces are burning and destroying Palestinians homes, conducting mass arrests and displacing large swathes of the Jenin refugee camp where some 2,000 families have been forced from their homes. Across the West Bank, Israeli soldiers have raided several cities and towns, closed down checkpoints and sealed the entrances to major cities while Israeli settlers have gone on a rampage of violence, attacking residents and torching Palestinians homes and vehicles.

“What you see in the West Bank is an escalation of what used to happen anyhow, but now it's a very serious escalation. It's like a war, actually, that is being conducted against the Palestinian people in the West Bank,” Barghouti said. “It's a very dangerous situation, unprecedented since 2002 when the Israeli army reinvaded all of the cities and the villages of the West Bank.”

In Washington, President Trump held his first foreign leader call since his election with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday. Bin Salman told Trump Saudi Arabia intends to increase its investment and trade with the United States by at least $600 billion over the next four years, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. A key priority in the Middle East for the Trump administration is to persuade Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel. If the Saudis reach an agreement with Israel, many analysts in the region believe, other Muslim nations, including Indonesia, would follow suit. Saudi diplomats have maintained they will not normalize relations with Israel unless it includes a clear path to Palestinian statehood.

“Normalization was used as an instrument to enforce a solution on Palestinians that does not satisfy our needs or our future, and it was used as an instrument to liquidate completely the Palestinian issue,” said Barghouti, referring to the deals made during Trump’s first term in power.

Trump nonetheless struck an optimistic note on the prospects of the Saudis moving forward with normalization, telling reporters on Monday: “I don’t think you have to push them. I think it’s going to happen, but maybe not quite yet. But they’ll end up in the accords, the Abraham Accords.”

Barghouti said that if the Saudis do normalize relations with Israel and abandon the issue of Palestinian statehood as a condition, it will not alter the fight for national liberation and self determination. “Let me tell you something as a Palestinian who has followed this situation for so many years and who has witnessed the decline of the support of the Arab and Muslim countries to the Palestinian cause, and who has seen a terrible lack of support during the attack on Gaza and the terrible position of many, many countries in the international community, and still we didn't break,” Barghouti said. “I tell you frankly, if all Arab countries normalize with Israel, this will not stop the Palestinian struggle. We will not stop and we will continue because honestly, speaking, there is nothing much to lose, and we have to survive through our struggle.”

“I don't see the Palestinian issue anymore as a pure Arab or Islamic issue,” he continued, “it's an issue of humanity. It's an issue of all the forces in the world that are supporting the rights of people to be free, as Nelson Mandela said once—the Palestinian cause has become the number one cause of liberty, or freedom worldwide. And I think we should look at it in this way. We don't want normalization, we'll struggle against it until we get our freedom. But if it happens, it will not stop our struggle.”

Mustafa Barghouti is a Palestinian physician, activist, and politician who serves as General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI), also known as al-Mubadara.

He has been a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006 and is also a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Council.

In 2007 Barghouti was Minister of Information in the Palestinian unity government. He is an advocate of the use of non-violence and civil disobedience to confront Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.

Jeremy Scahill is a journalist at Drop Site News and author of the books Blackwater and Dirty Wars. He has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Somalie and the former Yugoslavia.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a journalist and editor at Drop Site News.

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