2024-11-04
By Beverley Dight, Green Issue Co-editor
Lebanon is now becoming another Gaza with Israeli air strikes leveling buildings, killing over 2,000 people so far and displacing more than a million, while its onslaught on Gaza has intensified, especially in the north of Gaza.
Some 70% of Gaza's agriculture and tree cover has been destroyed. Every sewage plant has been destroyed, as well as 90% of the water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure. The healthcare system is essentially non-functional with most hospitals destroyed.
The General Delegation of Palestine to Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific recently issued a Statement "Condemning Israeli Atrocities in North Gaza and Calling for Immediate Intervention." They condemn in the strongest terms the relentless and accelerating atrocities being perpetuated by Israel, the illegal occupying power, against the Palestinian people in Gaza, particularly in the increasingly isolated northern Gaza Strip.
As stated by HE Dr Riyad Mansour, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN, to the Security Council, what is happening in northern Gaza now is another level of monstrosity. Since tightening Israel's military siege on northern Gaza at the start of this month Israeli occupying forces have further intensified their efforts to isolate and depopulate the area including through intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians of essential means of surviving while bombing them relentlessly, and ordering the expulsion of an estimated 400,000 Palestinians trapped in northern Gaza.
Oxfam and 37 other humanitarian organizations have stressed in a joint statement that "this is not an evacuation ̶ this is a forced displacement under gunfire" and warn that hospitals are being forced to evacuate while wounded victims of Israeli air strikes continue to flood in, with no resources to treat them. The UN World Food Programme reports that no food aid has been permitted to enter northern Gaza since 1 October; people have run out of ways to cope, and food systems have collapsed.
[And if the above is not enough the Israeli Knesset has now banned the operation the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from operating anywhere in Gaza, the West Bank or Israel. This is the coordinating agency for providing shelter, food, health, sanitation, etc. aid to Palestinians. The pretext for the ban is that Hamas members lurk among its thousands of aid workers.]
Tens of thousands of civilian families trapped in northern Gaza are being forced to choose between staying to die by starvation, or being displaced to face death elsewhere. These gross violations of international humanitarian law come within the framework of the far-right Israeli government's vision for the so-called "day after" which involves separating northern Gaza entirely, and imposing a long term Israeli administrative regime through direct military control potentially extending over the entire Gaza Strip.
The General Delegation welcomes Australia's condemnation of the killing of innocent civilians by Israel, as articulated by Australian Foreign Minister the Hon Penny Wong in a statement published on X describing the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza as "unacceptable" and calling for Israel to allow essential supplies to flow. However, it is incumbent upon the Australian Government to translate these words of condemnation into IMMEDIATE AND CONCRETE ACTION.
The International Community including Australia and Aoterao New Zealand must urgently intervene through joint and separate action to put pressure on Israel to allow humanitarian assistance throughout the Gaza Strip. The importance and significance of this cannot be overstated.
The General Delegation further welcomes Foreign Minister Wong's call for Australia to engage in new ways to build momentum towards a lasting peace, including the role of the Security Council to set a pathway to two-states, with a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood. It should be highlighted in this context that the UN General Assembly recently adopted a Resolution (ES-10/24) endorsing the 19 July advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This Resolution, supported by 124 countries, demands inter alia that Israel ends its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) within 12 months.
Crucially, the ICJ advisory opinion and Resolution ES-10/24 call upon all States to comply with their legal obligation not to recognise as legal the situation arising from Israel's unlawful presence in the OPT, nor to render aid or assistance in maintaining it. It is our hope and expectation that Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand will respect and implement this vital element of the ICJ advisory opinion through obliging Israel to immediately end its unlawful prolonged occupation without further delay.
The international community is not powerless. We must respond to the brutal use of force with the full force of the law. It is time to act.
Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem, which first said about Israel "this is apartheid", in a recent press release said that "the magnitude of crimes that Israel is currently committing in the northern Gaza Strip in its campaign to empty it of however many residents are left is impossible to describe, not just because hundreds of thousands of people are enduring starvation, disease, without access to medical care and incessant bombardments and gunfire defies comprehension, but because Israel has cut them off from the world.”
“Israel is committing some of the gravest crimes under the laws of war. Without immediate decisive action from the international community, without using every tool available ̶ political, legal, economic ̶ the mass killings in the northern Gaza Strip will continue and the suffering of its besieged civilians will grow."
A brother's eulogy of a soldier killed in Lebanon, as reported in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reveals that the mass slaughter of the Palestinian people in Gaza is intentional:
"You went into Gaza to take revenge, as much as possible ̶ women, children, everyone you saw, as much as possible, that's what you wanted. We thought we would slaughter the enemy, slaughter them all, drive them out of the country."
The Israeli Government has rebuffed offers of peace. Ismael Haniyeh the chief Hamas negotiator for a ceasefire, said that he would disband the military wing of Hamas if a Palestinian State was established. Shortly afterwards he was assassinated by Israel, and the Knesset voted against the establishment of a Palestinian State.
The Israeli Government chose to assassinate him in Tehran, Iran, where he was an honoured guest at the inauguration of the new President of Iran, thus inviting retaliation by Iran.
Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated after he agreed to a ceasefire deal.
Israeli organization Peace Now, in a recent newsletter, pointed out that "our Government is engaged in a perpetual war of total destruction. It must be removed from our lives."
Peace Now reported that "settler violence (in the occupied West Bank) is not a bug. It is a feature. It is part of an ongoing effort by the Israeli Government to systematically expel Palestinians from their houses and land in Area C." Area C comprises 60% of the West Bank, and includes the Jordan Valley, which is the most fertile part of the West Bank.
For decades Peace Now has been calling for the end to the Occupation of the Palestinian Territory, and for there to be a two-state solution, resulting in the establishment of a Palestinian State.
Haaretz warned that "when Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's warmongering national security minister threatened last week to topple the Netanyahu Government if it agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon amid reports of negotiations he revealed a dark reality. WAR IS WHAT KEEPS THIS ISRAELI GOVERNMENT INTACT.”
Haaretz also reported there was a recent conference ̶ "Preparing to Resettle Gaza", attended by many settlers and some of Israel's most prominent politicians. "We will sun ourselves on the sandy beaches of Gaza", said one conference participant.
Daniella Weiss, the main conference organizer, declared that "we know from the Bible that the real borders of Greater Israel are the Euphrates and the Nile. And the sooner we make this a reality the better. You will see. Jews will go into Gaza, and ARABS WILL DISAPPEAR FROM GAZA."
Likud MK Tally Gotlin said "We have to speak to them in the only language they understand. Take their land away from them."
It is disgraceful that children are the main casualties in Gaza. Save the Children reported that the Palestinian Territory is now ranked as the deadliest place in the world for children, with at least 3,100 children under 5 years of age killed. Gaza has the highest rate of child malnutrition globally.
On 3 November The Washington Post reported that "At least 50 children in northern Gaza's Jabalya were reportedly killed in the past 48 hours according to UNICEF. The entire population of the region, especially children, is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and ongoing bombardment."
MSF (Doctors without Borders) Australia recently reported that "hospitals in Gaza have been brutally attacked. In the latest of a series of vicious attacks in Gaza Israeli forces have besieged the Indonesian, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals in north Gaza. According to the Ministry of Health and healthcare workers on the ground more than 350 patients are reported to be trapped inside the three hospitals.
These include some of the most vulnerable patients, such as pregnant women and post-operative patients. The horror of what these people are experiencing within the hospitals is unfathomable. When hospitals are attacked, their infrastructure destroyed and electricity cut off the lives of patients and medical staff are under threat.
It is absolutely crucial to ensure the protection of the few remaining healthcare facilities. People must continue to access medical care and lifesaving treatment. We call on the Israeli forces to immediately stop their attacks on hospitals in north Gaza.
The continuously escalating violence inflicted by Israeli forces has horrific consequences. Tens of thousands of people remain trapped in Jabalia camp under daily bombing, including six of our staff, who we are unable to contact due to an electricity blackout.
Hundreds of people in north Gaza are in need of urgent care. Essential items, including food, are only entering in quantities that are insufficient for the population in the north of the Strip.
This is purely and simply collective punishment imposed on Palestinians in Gaza, who must choose being forcibly displaced from the North or killed. We fear that this will not stop.
These military assaults from Israel continue to demonstrate flagrant disregard for the safety and protection of civilians, medical staff and facilities. This also extends to the atrocities in Lebanon where as of 1 October 2024, six hospitals and 40 general healthcare centres are closed.
The unmitigated slaughter in Gaza needs to immediately end. Words are not enough. As our emergency co-ordinator Anna Halford pleads: NOT TOMORROW, NOT IN A WEEK, NOW."
Regional Director of Save the Children, Jeremy Stoner, said that "the damage has shattered the very foundation of life in Gaza, and will thereafter threaten the future of Palestinian children for generations. It is heartbreaking to see such young children deprived of any hope."
The New York Times has reported that volunteer American doctors returned from Gaza have said that it is common to see children shot in the head or the left hand side of the chest.
Efforts by the ICJ, the United Nations Security Council, etc. to stop Israel slaughtering and starving the Palestinian people in Gaza have been futile. Israel simply ignores them, as it is backed by the United States of America, which gives it diplomatic cover, and all the weapons it asks for to continue its perpetual warfare.
The journal, The Conversation, reported that in 1986 when President Biden was a member of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he emphasized that the "naked self interest of the US should always guide their Middle East policy, and that his support for Israel is situated within that self interest. As he bluntly explained ̶ "Were there not an Israel the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect our interests in the region."
The international community must put pressure on the US Government to stop arming Israel, giving it the means to carry out its incessant wars on Gaza, Lebanon and the occupied West Bank, engulfing the region in conflict, and endangering its own people.
Compassion demands that we take immediate and resolute action to protect the destroyed and traumatized people in Gaza. They have no future living on land that is no longer habitable, and facing an enemy that is determined to annihilate them, unless we help them NOW!
Jews for Palestine have a message for Western governments that continue to support Israel's war on Gaza:
"Palestinians were not responsible for antisemitism in Europe, let alone the Holocaust. We refuse to let Western politicians make them bear the burden of Western guilt. You don't atone for one genocide by supporting another."
Header photo: A wounded Palestinian infant being treated at the overcrowded emergency ward of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City following an Israeli airstrike on October 11, 2023. Al-Shifa hospital has now been completely destroyed. Source: Wiki Palestine (Q117834684) WAFA (Q2915969) in contract with a local company (APAimages)
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]