More than 2 million people squeezed into just 365 square kilometers (140 square miles), kept under siege since 2007, struggling with dire living conditions and fearing for their lives from continuous rounds of violence.
Suffocated economically, politically and culturally by the Israeli blockade, neither morally acceptable nor politically expedient is the Gaza Strip.
Gaza, the most densely populated place in the world, is bordered on three sides by a fortified fence and on the other by a naval siege.
In the best of times, 80% of the population depends on international aid, and more than two-thirds are registered as refugees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA).
In a society that suffers from 44.5% unemployment and similar figures regarding poverty, any cycle of violence pushes it even deeper into despair.
The enclave’s electricity and water supplies – in fact, supplies of everything – are under Israeli control, and the people are being brought to their knees by the shortages of basic necessities. Israel has carried out four major military offensives against the Palestinians in Gaza since 2008. Thousands of civilians have been killed in these and other Israeli attacks. The occupation state’s indiscriminate and aggressive terrorism remains relentless.
On Oct. 7, Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza, launched a large incursion into some Israeli cities, killing dozens and taking hostages in a shocking assault. The surprise attack on Israel – combining gunmen breaching security barriers and a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza – was launched at dawn during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.
The invasion from Gaza suddenly came and not just out of nowhere or out of surprise tactics, but what went on all the past years came around. In retaliation, Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes on Gaza, and bombed homes, schools and hospitals, killing thousands of civilians, and the deaths mounted. On his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country was “at war” and that “the enemy will pay an unprecedented price.”
The war cycle began again and Israel imposed a “total blockade,” including a ban on admitting food and fuel, to the Palestinian enclave, raising concerns about the well-being of its residents. While Netanyahu holds considerable responsibility for what has taken place, sole responsibility only serves to minimize what the facts are, as what he and his government of annexation and dispossession have accomplished brought this to a head.
Netanyahu’s coalition partners, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, had free reign in the implementation of their agenda, which involved pushing the Palestinians, who were already deprived of most of their legal and human rights, to the edge of endurance by increasing the oppression and violence meted out to them and expelling them from the West Bank altogether.
What is happening now in Gaza is just another battle in a war that started in 1967. That year, Israel decided to invade and occupy Gaza, Egypt and ultimately the West Bank. Besides, immediately after occupying the area in 1967, Israel unlawfully annexed thousands of hectares in and around Jerusalem. Ever since, it has instituted policies designed to drive Palestinians out of the city and to create a demographic and geographic reality that would frustrate any challenge to Israeli sovereignty there.
The policies, which disrupt every aspect of life, include isolating East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and deliberate underdevelopment and underservicing that result in overcrowding, poverty and substandard infrastructure.
After the Fourth Arab-Israeli War (Yom Kippur) in 1973, things changed. Eventually, Israel made peace with Egypt and Jordan while continuing its colonization project in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a project doomed to lead to this war.
Israel has systematically kept expanding its occupation in defiance of international law and violating the agreements it has signed. It has continued its settler-colonialism with no respect for the 1967 borders (actually the 1949 Armistice – “Green” – Line) and the Oslo Accords.
The Palestinian people have lived under Israel’s cruel oppression for decades while being enabled by those who have always had the power to stop it, such as the U.S., which has literally given the green light to Israel to do as it pleases without having to account to anyone while EU countries watch silently.
It is the right of all occupied and oppressed people to rise up against their oppressors by any means necessary. Israel has applied the politics of revenge, reprisals and more violence for the past 75 years.
The time has come to replace the old dinosaurs ruling Israel with people thinking in new and different ways; the time has come to start being serious about peace and stop pretending to be.
Palestine and Palestinians will not suddenly evaporate from their lands and what happened is a wake-up call. It is also an opportunity for mainstream Israelis to rid themselves of a right-wing extremist government and change fundamentally flawed Israeli foreign policies that have been in place since 2001.
Without ensuring a long-term peaceful solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians and a serious change approach to Gaza and the Palestinian Territories, the situation will remain explosive and another conflict with Israel will soon occur.
Netanyahu and his extremists would have to be replaced with politicians interested in democracy and self-determination, independently for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Such a peace agreement would change the dynamics of the entire region. After this war round ends, it might be possible to negotiate an end to the constant wars, attacks and counterattacks between Israel and Palestinians if both sides can find some politicians with enough courage to reach out and offer real peace to the other side.
It is time to have a realistic plan, to head off the deadly trouble that lies ahead, to tear down the watchtowers monitoring Gaza and the whole Palestinian Territories, time to tear down the ivory towers policing the minds of freedom-loving people worldwide and time to work for a fairer and more just world, and Palestine would be the greatest place to begin from.
