10th December 2023
Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza has levelled entire neighbourhoods and displaced hundreds of thousands.
The third vote calling for a ceasefire in Gaza was vetoed at the United Nations Security Council on Friday (8th December) night by the United States, the only vote against the resolution. To its continued shame the British government abstained without speaking. In spite of the massive ongoing humanitarian need, with UN General Secretary, Antonio Guterres, asserting that, “We are at a breaking point. There is a high risk of a total collapse of the humanitarian system”, NATO powers continue to defer to the line of the Israeli regime that any ceasefire would allow Hamas to regroup.
The advent of Israeli ground forces into southern Gaza last week marked a new escalation in the war on the Palestinian people declared by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). While the stated war aims of the Israeli government are to destroy Hamas the sheer scale of civilian casualties, now over 16,000, along with the displacement of over 1.2 million people means that this is effectively a war against the whole population in Gaza.
Contrary to its vote at the UN even the United States last week called for a more restrained military campaign, following the seven day truce and release of hostages. However, it is clear that the religious fundamentalists in the Israeli government are off message with their US military paymasters. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been categorical in what he sees as the mission of the IDF stating,
“We continue to fight with all our strength until we achieve all our goals; the return of all of our abductees, the elimination of Hamas and the promise that Gaza will never be a threat to Israel again.”
Gaza would never be a ‘threat’ to Israel if the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people were acknowledged and a peaceful solution found, rather than one based upon occupation, intimidation and military force. The peace option is clearly not on Netanyahu’s agenda.
The coalition which was assembled, following last year’s elections in Israel, saw Netanyahu pledging to expand illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories and to eventually annex the West Bank. His religious fundamentalist allies in the coalition reject the establishment of any Palestinian state.
The IDF are now looking to divide Gaza into dozens of numbered blocks then direct civilians into areas that will allegedly not be attacked. Given the civilian death toll so far the Palestinian population could be forgiven for not following leafletted QR code directions “to track and follow the instructions of the IDF.”
The stark reality for the people of Gaza is that there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from the IDF threat. While the US may cry crocodile tears over its Middle East proxy running out of control it cannot hide the fact that Israel, as the world’s fourth largest military force, is largely bankrolled by Washington. The US has contributed $3.3 billion to Israel’s military budget this year alone.
The British government is also complicit in the supply of arms to Israel. British industry provides 15% of the components in the F35 stealth combat aircraft that are currently being used in the bombardment of Gaza. The contract for the components is estimated by Campaign Against Arms Trade to be worth £336m since 2016.
While the IDF can deploy state of the art missile technology courtesy of the world’s major arms manufacturers, the Palestinians are largely confined to the use of inaccurate home made missiles when they can be smuggled past the Israeli blockade of Gaza and ongoing occupation of the West Bank.
It is worth remembering that 80% of the inhabitants of Gaza are refugees. This is hardly the basis of a threat to the military might of Israel or the existence of the Israeli state.
The scale of the Israeli bombardment has reduced large parts of Gaza to rubble and reduced the health service to being barely able to cope with even the most severe emergencies. World Health Organisation senior emergency officer, Rob Holden, commenting on healthcare in Gaza recently said,
“There is no standing room. The floor is awash with blood and patients lying waiting to receive life saving care.”
The mass displacement of people from the north to the south of Gaza, enforced by the IDF, now means that the population of the south has doubled to over 2 million people. Save the Children, visiting a shelter in the southern city of Khan Younis, observed that,
“It was designed for 1,000 people but has 35,000 in it. There are 600 people for every toilet.”
This is the actual reality of the mantra of Western leaders that Israel has ‘the right to defend itself’. The operations of the IDF in Gaza are not about self defence they are an exercise in extermination, of Hamas it is claimed, but in reality an attempt to extinguish the will of the Palestinian people to assert their right to defend themselves, a right to resist occupation and to uphold the norms of international law.
Demonstrations worldwide continue to make the case for Palestinian rights against the disproportionate response of the Israeli state and to assert, defend and promote the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people under international law. The call for a ceasefire and the need for a negotiated two state solution to the occupation of Palestine must be addressed by the international community and the crimes of the current Israeli leadership exposed.
Avanti Populo 