Unprecedented Gaza-Israel war

Since 2005, when Israeli troops left the Gaza Strip after 38 years of direct occupation, Israel has been periodically making war with Gaza every two to three years — each time killing thousands, razing infrastructure to ground and forcing Gazans to displace themselves within the stripy clasp of the city which is, by the way, the largest open-air prison of the world.

The Gazan are disallowed to use their air, water or land for engagement with the outer world. They cannot trade or travel, and they cannot have an airport, an army or an embassy. Though situated in the centre of the globe, they are completely isolated from it. Israel commits every kind of genocidal act on the Gazans — from repeated, un-proportional killings, to bombing homes of civilians, to using phosphorus bombs, and frequently cutting of supplies of food, fuel, electricity and water, practically making the health, education and even bare survival of the community impossible.

In this backdrop of constant depravation, collective incarceration and constant fear of attack, the people of Gaza do retaliate, time and again, by way of stone-pelting, sending incendiary balloons and shooting off homemade bombs at the most — every time just showing their anger and resent; every time harming the Israelis in the least possible ways.

So, what happened this weekend? Why did the impoverished, famine-stricken Gazans feel the need to stand up to the affluent and the most improvised fighting force across their fence? How did they have the courage to attack a rival with so many strong allies when all its own allies have repeatedly proven to fail it? What had changed?

In this unprecedented attack the Gazans have so far killed over 1,200 Israelis; they have entered and attacked their cities; taken hundreds as hostages. In retaliation, this time too, the Gazans have faced, so far, over 900 deaths, suffered over two thousand Israelis air attacks. And more than 260,000 have been displaced from their homes within the tiny confine of the city, in the fear of being bombed.

While Biden, Sunak and Macron have univocally vowed their support for Israel; Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have held Israel responsible for Gaza escalation; and Iran, though denying any direct involvement, has voiced full support for the Palestinians. Erdogan has gone a step ahead calling for an “independent, geographically integrated Palestinian state”.

On ground the situation is getting dire as the US deploys more warships close to Gaza in Israel’s support. On the one hand the US is talking to Egypt for a safe passage for the people of Gaza as Israel aims to raze the whole city into ashes and rubble, and on the other Israel is constantly bombarding the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt. The question is: will the people of Gaza be ready to evacuate the whole of Gaza, never to be able to return? Is this why they started this extreme escalation, just to run away?

One should reckon that constant apartheid and genocidal policies for 74 years have made anger and retaliation a constant in the people of Gaza and West Bank. Yet, as the Arab world became more and more divided in the ensuing decades, there was always less and less chance for the Palestinians to rise against the behemoth military force of Israel. Whereas, the support of the West was always unwavering and absolute for Israel, the Arab voice for Palestine was always soft and diplomatic — to the point that Arab states had started normalisation with Israel under the Abraham Accords since 2020.

Only after the long Shia-Sunni feud between the Saudis and the Iranians was subsided just months ago, has the Arab world come on one page within itself and with Iran. And since that day Israel has been feeling a threat to its existence. And since that day there has been a forceful push by Israel and the US for the Saudis to declare normalisation with Israel. But have they done the exact opposite?

Has there been a diplomacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran beyond the ending of the Yemen War, beyond accepting Bashar al Assad’s legitimacy, and beyond how Iraq will be integrated? Has there been a hidden diplomacy for Palestine too? Has the Hamas gotten a sudden go-ahead from the neighborhood, and a sudden influx of weapons and firepower too?

One should remember that the Arabs waged a united war against Israel the very next day of its illegitimate birth, and this united aggression against Israel continued periodically until the Iran-Iraq War — an episode that buried Arab unity beneath the ground for good. And now after decades, has this unity been resuscitated? Has the Ummah reawakened?

Unprecedentedly, news is circulating that US-made weapons from the Afghan front have reached Hamas; the Kata’ib militia of Iraq has warned America of direct intervention in Gaza; the Houthis of Yemen have warned they will fire missiles and drones if the US intervenes in Gaza; rocket have been fired in Israel from the Syrian soil; and Hezbollah has already created an active front across the Lebanon-Israel border.

One should remember that earlier when the Arabs used to lose their battles against Israel, they were economically and militarily weak, newly liberated states. But now Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Turkey all are among world’s top 20 militaries, and Pakistan’s military ranks above all of them. This time the Arab world is as strong upon Israel, as Israel is upon the weaponless Gazans!

So, when US Congresswoman Greene suggested that Hamas possibly got weapons from Afghanistan, that also from a black market operating in Pakistan’s Adam Khel Valley, it was not just an information, it was the encompassing of the fear that Israel and the US have, in spite of all their incredible firepower that they might not be able to use unilaterally this time, in their habitual way.

This time, it seems, Hamas has, in a single blow, seized Israel’s dominion upon Palestine; it has seized the Abraham Accord process; it has seized the camaraderie of the Muslim Ummah; and it has seized the conscience of humanity, who might be, in the coming days, looking at the complete annihilation of a human population, because another human population’s hate and prejudice could not stand its existence!

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13^th, 2023.

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