When the militant Palestinian group, Hamas, raided Israel on October 7, 2023, killing innocent Israelis and taking others into captivity, we condemned it on this page. Also, when the Israelis, through their Defence Forces decided to avenge the affront, as they perceived it, we said that that country has a right to defend itself from external aggression just as we appealed for a proportional response.
Down the line, as the conflict escalates, we are beginning to see a situation that is unacceptable as that Jewish nation embarks on a campaign that is aimed at annihilating the entire people of Palestine. With the level of destruction in that tiny geographical area, the response is anything but proportional.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, keeps talking of wiping away the entire Hamas and its structures so that it will not continue to be a threat to the state of Israel. An unrealistic and unrealisable goal as it is beginning to seem.
However, his reaction to the October 7 incident was assumed by most as the utterances of a grieving Prime Minister. Was it? The structures of Hamas and its main comrade in the axis of resistance, Hezbollah, may have been decapitated, but Hamas, as an ideology, is very much alive and constituting itself a nuisance of sorts.
After the Trump administration’s inspired ceasefire agreement that included the release of some hostages and Palestinian prisoners, hostilities have commenced with the Israelis resuming their bombing of Gaza. The latest military onslaught, according to reports, has claimed in excess of 400 civilians within the territory, most of them women and children.
We recall that the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, had warned Hamas to release all the hostages or hell will be let loose on that unfortunate piece of land that he is coveting to take over and turn into another French Riviera. Egypt made reference to this when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi averred that the latest strikes with its viciousness were “deliberate efforts to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and force the Palestinians into displacement.”
So, we are not surprised that Washington is placing the blame for the latest Israeli aggression on Hamas for refusing to release the hostages. Israel had already confirmed that the attack on Gaza is coordinated with Washington perhaps to force the Palestinians to flee to Jordan and Egypt.
It is pertinent to emphasise that airstrike on civilian population is a violation of all known international conventions regarding the conduct of war. Gaza, before this latest attack on it, was lying prostrate with no infrastructure that can sustain life and living as is known by decent humanity.
It is cowardly and an overkill, in our opinion, for Israel to continue to pretend that it is not capable of applying its policies within the confines of acceptable principles, laws and conducts expected of a democratic nation that claims to hold on to international best practices especially in crisis situations.
We join the international community in their justified angst against what is becoming, essentially, ethnic cleansing and war crime that have so far defied all known rules of engagement in battle. Just as we regret the role the United States under Trump is playing in this war that has brought unmitigated disaster and its attendant humanitarian crisis on hapless Palestinians, we also warn that the continued bombardment of Gaza will hardly help the resolution of the Middle East crisis that has lingered for so long due to international conspiracy.
If this renewal of Israeli aggression was intended to force the hands of Hamas to release the remaining hostages, it may have failed as that resistant group, in its first reaction to the latest bombings, stated clearly, that it marks a death sentence for the hostages.
Curiously and as this horror plays out, the United Nations has reduced itself to the level of a crybaby merely expressing shock and such platitudinal expressions that do very little to help the plight of the people in distress.
Surprisingly, Russia that has its hands socked in blood in Ukraine had the temerity to condemn the lingering violence. China, too, maybe understudying the United States’ operations in Palestine hoping to apply the tricks learnt soon in Taiwan.
In our opinion, it is in the political interest of Netanyahu for these drastic measures against Palestinians to continue. But for how long? The Israeli Defence Forces had on countless occasions made it clear that, militarily, the country has achieved all it set out to accomplish advising that the politicians should make a deal and end the blood bath.
Unfortunately, Netanyahu’s political interest has found a meeting point with Trump’s business interest in Gaza making the crisis scaringly complicated.
The surprise so far is the seeming acquiescence of the Arab countries, which prefer to look on almost absent-mindedly. At the same time, their kits and kin are decimated on the chessboard of international geopolitics.
The danger looming on the horizon is the megalomanic tendencies of three world leaders- Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping – an alarming combination that is threatening the existence of Gaza, Ukraine, and Taiwan. Who can stop them?
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