A humanitarian crisis has already evolved and is assuming grave dimensions with the passage of each day but the international community has so far not moved beyond consultations and rhetoric to save an entire population of 23 million living in unprecedented conditions due to carpet bombing and total siege of their territory by the Zionist State. Israel has already achieved its target of razing almost every building in Gaza Strip as the area is hit by a bomb every thirty second and these include all sorts of deadly weapons and ammunition including cluster and phosphorus bombs.
What is happening in Gaza is nothing but war crimes as the civilian population is mercilessly being killed in air raids conducted on residential buildings, bazaars, mosques, educational institutions and hospitals. These are not mere accusations as the Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a statement, has expressed concern over use of white phosphorus munitions by Israel in its military operation in Gaza and Lebanon. The HR watchdog has supported its claims with video evidence from Lebanon and Gaza, recorded on October 10 and 11, which shows “multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border.” It is all the more regrettable that the Jewish State has full backing of some, otherwise, civilized countries, which consider themselves as champions of human rights but their complicity with Israel confirms the widely-held perception that for them human rights mean rights for their own citizens and partners in crime. And the world should not expect anything good from the United States and the United Kingdom as both of them committed similar crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The just-minded people of the globe are raising their voice but the powerful are not listening to such voices because of their own vested interests and regional and global agendas.
The Israeli army itself has confirmed it dropped approximately six thousand bombs with a total weight of four thousand tones in Gaza Strip where independent reports speak of large-scale killing of children and women as well as residential blocks that were deliberately targeted in the campaign to punish the entire population for actions of Hamas. A dire humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the besieged enclave and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Thursday that crucial supplies were running dangerously low in the Gaza Strip after Israel imposed a total blockade on the territory. The Red Cross has also warned that fuel for hospital generators in Gaza would soon be depleted, and aid and medicine stocks remained stranded due to the lack of safe passage. No doubt, there are commitments from countries like Türkiye to send humanitarian aid but the Jewish State has already warned it would target aid convoys as well. What a duplicity that instead of urging Israel to provide safe passage for goods and medicines, some countries of the West are trying to secure a safe passage for Gaza residents to flee their homes and territory! Their objective is understandable – encourage citizens to leave and don’t allow them to return – a scheme of things they want to implement to ensure safety and security for Israel. It is because of this that the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has urged Gazan to ‘stay steadfast and remain on their land”.
Under these circumstances, when the powerful countries, instead of urging Israel to exercise restraint, are not only expressing total solidarity with Tel Aviv but also provide military and economic aid to Israel to sustain the war, there is every likelihood that denial of humanitarian supplies to Gaza could lead to an escalation and expansion of war. Already, Syria has said Israeli forces conducted coordinated missile strikes on the airports in the capital, Damascus, and northern city of Aleppo. An indication of this is the warning by Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, that a “new front” could be opened against Israel in the ongoing conflict with Hamas, depending on Israel’s actions in Gaza. In a statement after arriving in Beirut on Thursday, Amirabdollahian said that the continuation of crimes against Palestinians will receive a response from “the rest of the axis”, which refers to an alliance among Iran, Palestinian militant groups, Syria, the Lebanese group Hezbollah and other factions. Pakistan Foreign Office too has expressed serious concerns over fast deteriorating situation in Gaza, urging the international community to intervene urgently but mere statements would not suffice and a diplomatic offensive should be launched in coordination with like-minded states to stop genocide in Gaza.
