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Israel’s war on Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023, has no parallel in modern history. For the past year, Tel Aviv has been committing three war crimes in parallel: genocide, collective punishment of a civilian population, and ethnic cleansing.
In the first year of this devastating war, which predictably spilled over into neighboring Lebanon, the Israeli military bombarded Gaza’s 2.2 million people, living in less than 360 square kilometers, with more than 83,000 tons of explosives. That’s 32 kg of explosives for every man, woman and child. To put that figure in perspective, 83,000 tons is four times the explosive power of each of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
Nearly 80% of homes were partially or completely destroyed. In Germany, only 10% of homes had been destroyed by the end of World War II. The Israeli war machine intentionally demolished all universities, more than 70% of schools, 34 of the 36 hospitals that exist there, 165 health facilities, 80 care centers, 137 ambulances, 178 shelters, 611 mosques and all 3 churches in Gaza.
“Dad, Will My Hands Grow Back When I Grow Up?”
The bombings have killed more than 41,595 Palestinians so far, with more than 10,000 missing and still lying under the rubble. Of these, 70 percent were children, women and the elderly. Nearly 17,000 children have been killed, including 115 born after October 7. Some, like the children of Mohamed Abu Al-Koumsan, lived less than three days. One recalls the heartbreaking testimony of the father who explained how happy he was that his wife had managed to give birth to healthy twins during the war; he rushed to get them birth certificates, only to return home to find his apartment bombed. His wife, newborn children and mother-in-law had perished.
Added to this toll are the 96,251 Palestinians, mostly civilians, who have been injured. This figure includes 4,000 amputations, including 1,300 children. One day in this brutal and seemingly endless war, I was heartbroken to see on television a five-year-old boy who had lost both hands asking his father, “Daddy, will my hands grow back when I grow up?” The father, tears in his eyes, could not say a word.
By the end of September 2024, the Israeli military had killed or injured 6.5% of the population of Gaza. If this had happened in the United States, it would mean proportionally that more than 20 million Americans had been killed or injured in less than a year.
This offensive against Gaza was accompanied by a ruthless campaign of dehumanization of the Palestinians. This was led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Army Minister Yoav Gallant, who called the Palestinians “ human animals.” Fascists Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir , both previously accused by the Israeli courts of belonging to terrorist groups, led campaigns aimed at eliminating Palestinians who, according to them, were all terrorists, including children.
No Longer Living, No Longer Caring For Oneself
The Israeli army has not only indiscriminately bombed civilians. It has also specifically targeted medical personnel. By the eleventh month of the war, more than 880 doctors, nurses, paramedics and other health professionals have been killed. Worse still, no fewer than 200 health professionals have been arrested and tortured, sometimes to death. Among them, Adnan Al-Bursh and Iyad Rantissi, former heads of the orthopedic surgery department at Al-Shifa Hospital and the obstetrics and gynecology department at Kamal Edwan Hospital, were tortured to death in Sde Timan and Ofer prisons.
Consequences of these attacks on medical and health facilities: of the 95,000 injured, at least 25% are at risk of death due to lack of proper treatment, and cannot receive adequate medical treatment due to Israel’s refusal to allow them to leave the Gaza Strip.
For Tel Aviv has not only carried out genocide through bombing. It has also allowed an explosion of epidemics and diseases by depriving the population of food, proper nutrition, clean water and all forms of energy such as electricity and fuel. According to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society ( PMRS ), which manages medical operations in Gaza and provides medical treatment to approximately 200,000 patients per month, there are, as of September 2024, 1,737,524 people suffering from infectious diseases as a result of their displacement.1, including 112,000 affected by an epidemic of infectious hepatitis, 3,500 children suffering from severe malnutrition, hundreds of thousands suffering from skin diseases including scabies and impetigo2, several children with meningitis and 6 cases of suspected polio, in addition to one confirmed case. The World Health Organization ( WHO ) was forced to conduct a new polio vaccination campaign under Israeli bombardment, as Netanyahu refused to authorize a humanitarian ceasefire, even for a few days.
According to the PMRS , each Gaza resident falls ill on average three times a month, sometimes with respiratory infections, gastroenteritis or skin diseases. Add to this all the people who suffer from chronic illnesses, and who can no longer seek treatment due to lack of infrastructure and the current conditions of displacement. Among them, 10,000 cancer cases are not receiving proper treatment, 12,000 people are in urgent need of medical evacuation and 350,000 people suffer from chronic illnesses that require continuous medical care and the provision of medication.
War On Journalists
To keep the truth about these Israeli war crimes from reaching the world, Israel has also targeted local journalists, while barring their international colleagues from entering Gaza — with the exception of a CNN correspondent who was allowed to spend only three hours there. Here too, the toll has been heavy: 174 journalists have been killed, often with members of their families. Among them are correspondents from Al-Jazeera, one of the main media outlets covering this war and which has been punished by the Israeli government by closing its bureaus in Israel and Palestine.
No serious protest against Israel’s ban on international journalists in the Gaza Strip has been issued by the Western mainstream media. Yet, without the courageous Palestinian journalists and media outlets such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Mayadeen (Lebanon), and without the young social media activists, the world would not have known about the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza.
Israel is now extending its genocide to the West Bank. Since October 7, 2023, 720 Palestinians, again mostly civilians, including 150 children, have been killed by settlers and military personnel in the West Bank. More than 11,000 people have also been arrested. Israeli bulldozers have caused extensive damage in many towns and refugee camps, such as Jenin and Tulkarem, deliberately destroying infrastructure. In addition, the Israeli government has dismantled most of the areas supposedly under Palestinian Authority ( PA ) control , invaded several towns, and stripped the PA of all civilian authority in Area B (Oslo Accords).
A New World Order
But beyond the harm suffered by the Palestinian population, Israeli policy also undermines international and humanitarian law, which the West claims to care about. The Palestinians have had confirmation of the double standards of many Western governments, by comparing their attitude towards Russia and Ukraine with that adopted towards Israel and Palestine. Russia has been subjected to 11,000 sanctions in two months, while Israel has received 50,000 tons of explosives from the United States, as well as thousands of weapons from other Western countries, such as the United Kingdom and Germany.
The world order will never be the same after the Gaza genocide. People are rightly asking: Where are the so-called Western values ??of human rights, democracy and international law? Why do Palestinians have to face Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide? Why are we mistreated by many European and American governments that refuse to treat us as equal human beings?
What will be the impact of this ongoing genocide on the entire international order created after World War II? Will those in power not be held accountable for violating the rules of international law? Will the world be ruled by the rule of ruthless power rather than the rule of law?
The war that began on October 7 is not the cause of the current political situation, but rather the result of 76 years of ethnic cleansing that the Palestinian people have suffered at the hands of Israel since 1948, when 52 massacres were committed by Israeli military bands and 520 Palestinian towns and villages were reduced to ashes. In Gaza, 70% of the population is descended from refugees displaced by Israel in 1948. Now they are being displaced again in 2024. They have been displaced six to ten times in the past year.
October 7 was also the result of 57 years of Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza, which evolved into the worst system of apartheid in modern history. It was the result of 17 years of a ruthless Israeli siege on Gaza, which left 94% of its water polluted or salty and an economy destroyed, with 80% of its young graduates unemployed. It was also the result of an avowed Israeli policy that led to the demise of a two-state solution, in which Palestinians were supposed to build a state on 22% of their territory, while UN Resolution 181 granted them 44% at a time when they owned 82% of the land of historic Palestine.
Neither Better Nor Worse
This policy is the result of the Israeli parliament’s Nation-State Law (2018), stipulating that the right to self-determination in historic Palestine — which they call "Eretz Israel" — is reserved for the Jewish people, followed by the declaration of Israeli fascist minister Bezalel Smotrich that Israel will fill the West Bank with Israeli settlements, until the Palestinians lose all hope of having their own state, and then have to choose between immigration (i.e. ethnic cleansing), submission to the Israelis (eternal apartheid) or death (genocide).
October 7 was a direct result of Israel’s slide not only toward racism and extremism, but also toward theofascism, killing any hope for peace or justice in Palestine. Many Palestinians had hopes in the peace process, in international law and UN resolutions . But they have seen their homeland gradually and violently invaded by extremist settlers. They live in a state of constant threat, their children are in danger, and the United Nations and Western governments are unable to enforce the implementation of no fewer than 84 Security Council resolutions, and some 800 General Assembly resolutions, that support Palestinian rights.
It is clear that the Israeli establishment is trying to annex the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and displace their Palestinian populations. Netanyahu left no doubt about his intentions when he presented the map of Israel to the UN General Assembly two weeks before October 7, which included the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.
No innocent civilian life should be lost or killed. This applies to Palestinians as well. The famous Palestinian poet Tawfiq Ziyad, who was also the mayor of Nazareth, once said: “We Palestinians are not better than any other people, but no other people are better than us.”
We want to be treated as equals, with our rights to full freedom, dignity and self-determination. Whatever the cost, Palestinians will not give up and will not give up until their dream is realized and Palestine is free.
Mostafa Barghouti is a Palestinian politician, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative
Source: https://orientxxi.info/magazine/le-droit-d-etre-un-peuple-comme-un-autre,7651
