Isarel ordered 1.1 million people in Gaza to move south

Dr Susan de Groot Heupner is an expert in political sociology from Griffith University she talks about the possibility of a ground offensive.

Transcript

00:00 I think we can refer back to the developments of the last 18 months in the West Bank to

00:06 get a bit of a better understanding of what we might see and what the implications might

00:10 be of this major offensive.

00:14 We have seen ground offensives, though at a much smaller scale in the West Bank, in

00:18 particularly the northern areas, targeting the towns of Naples and Yenin, and these were

00:24 the targets for ground offensives because they are considered the stronghold of a militant

00:29 Palestinian resistance, consisting of different groups and organisations.

00:34 What we can learn from these targeted ground offensives in the West Bank is that it is

00:38 extremely difficult to distinguish between a militant, for example, or a student who

00:44 supports the resistance and the call for a popular uprising, and is not a militant, and

00:49 other civilians who might enter the streets in support of a resistance as a whole but

00:54 do not support or partake in any militant actions.

00:57 The reason behind the ground offensive, as we've heard, is to eliminate Hamas, including

01:02 its leadership and its military arm, the Al Qasem Brigades, and release any Israeli hostages.

01:08 But we are unclear at this point still how this major offensive will be executed and

01:13 how these distinctions will be made between who is a Hamas a real threat to Israel at

01:20 this point, and who are there to support Hamas resistance as a symbol for Palestinian resistance,

01:28 and under the current circumstances, the only force who can protect civilians in Gaza.

01:34 I think that distinction is something that we really need to get some clarity on as to

01:38 how IDF soldiers who will be entering Gaza, how they are trained to differentiate between

01:45 militants and between those who are defending their homes and lives in Gaza.

01:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]