WHO’s SOS on Gaza

It’s useless to wail as none are listening, though. The existential crisis in Gaza has surmounted all records of annihilation registered in the annals of war and aggression. The difference here is that the world’s largest concentration camp consists of hapless civilians, and there are no combatants, per se. Yet, it has been under a brutal onslaught from Israel since October 7, and to this day around 32,800 have been killed, and the counting goes on.

The WHO estimates that more than 9,000 patients in the Gaza Strip are in need of evacuation, as their health condition is deteriorating in the absence of proper diagnosis and medication. Likewise, the world body has sent out an SOS saying there are hardly 10 medical units left behind and those too are dysfunctional under any criterion. The fact that 26 hospitals were razed to the ground as they came under bombardment on the assumption of shielding gun-runners is an open and shut testimony of genocide.

Like other calls for sanity, Pope Francis’ plea on the eve of Easter to hold the fire and kick-start rehabilitation has also fallen on deaf ears. Even now abettors of Israel, including the United States, are complaining that a complete blockade of Gaza is obstructing delivery of humanitarian aid to more than 2.4 million besieged Palestinians. This is because the Zionist state is riding high on arrogance, and it knows that it can get away with anything. Thus, all resolutions at the UN Security Council stand inoperative, and the trap of brokering a dialogue is nothing but a license to kill.

This cannot go on any further as world conscience is awakening and it is a miracle that even the liberal and apolitical constituents in the western states are rising against this apathy. A surge in radical activities in Asia and the Middle East in the form of attacking pro-Israeli and American interests must be treated as the beginning of the end for the no-rules based world order under the US diktat. The least that is desired is to stem the encroachment and killing tide of Israel.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2024.

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