Escalating conflict
The war in Gaza is escalating. It now seems almost certain that extra-territorial forces will soon be stakeholders in the conflict. The barbarism with which Israel is dealing with Gazans by insanely attacking its hospitals and mosques, over the pretext that the same are being used by Hamas as human shelters, is disgusting. The devastation of Al-Shifa hospital and Al-Khalid mosque are cases in point that go on to establish crimes against humanity. The warning from Iran that the scale of civilian suffering could expand the theatre of war must come as a tactical threat. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani that it would be pointless to limit the crisis to Gaza. At the same time Washington’s deployment of naval forces to the eastern Mediterranean and shipment of 123 cargo planes and seven ships with over 7,000 tons of arms and military gear to the Jewish state simply confirms that it is all boiling up for the worse.
The humanitarian catastrophe in the making cannot be addressed with piecemeal measures such as ‘pause’ in Israeli bombardment, or shifting of few refugees into Egypt. It makes no rational sense that Israel has the audacity to tell the international audience that it will resume killing of Palestinians after a lull. This is tantamount to genocide, and is a slap in the face of egalitarian and democracy-preaching western governments. To this day, more than 10,000 Gazans have perished and 40 per cent of them are children. If not a Holocaust, then what is it? The air and artillery strikes as well as ground invasion of Gaza must stop immediately, and international aid agencies are enabled to resume rescue activities. The minimum that is expected of law-abiding global citizens is to hold Tel Aviv liable for worst human rights violations, aggression and genocide. While Palestinians today remember Yasser Arafat on his 19th death anniversary, it’s time for the stateless nation to recollect its synergies and make a comeback.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 11th, 2023.
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