Absent traces of sanity

Since October 7, 2023, Israel is committing unrestrained genocide in Gaza—a tiny Palestinian enclave (150 square miles) to retaliate an assault by Hamas-led fighters that killed about 1,200 people in southern Israeli communities and some 250 people were taken to Gaza as hostages. In revenge, Israel launched a ground and air offensive in the coastal enclave that has killed during last ten months more than 39,400 people.

The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, alleged that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel was “committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinians as a group in Gaza.” Following the submission of her latest report called ‘Anatomy of a Genocide’ to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 27, 2024, she said, “Israel has committed three acts of genocide with a requisite intent: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Assassination of Hamas leader

On July 30, 2024, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political wing, was killed in Teheran. On the previous day, Hezbollah confirmed the killing of their senior commander Fuad Shukr, after an Israeli strike hit a densely packed neighbourhood just on the edge of Lebanon’s capital Beirut. The Israel Defence Forces had announced they had successfully assassinated Shukr on Tuesday night. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel has dealt “crushing blows” to Hezbollah and Hamas. In April, two months before Ismail Haniyeh’s death in Iran, three of his sons and two of his grandchildren were killed in an Israeli strike on a car they were traveling in in Gaza. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed Haniyeh’s death. The Guards said it took place hours after he attended a swearing-in ceremony for Iran’s new president. Haniyeh was killed by a missile that hit him “directly” in a state guesthouse where he was staying. Haniyeh, normally based in Qatar, had been the face of Hamas’ international diplomacy as the war set off by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7,2023, raged in Gaza, reports The Washington Post.

Haniyeh was appointed to the top Hamas job in 2017. He moved between Turkey and Qatar’s capital Doha to enable him to act as a negotiator in the truce talks or to talk to Hamas’ ally Iran. His assassination will elude the much needed peace process in Palestine and end Israeli killing of helpless Palestinians – mostly children and women. The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the killing and Palestinian factions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank called for a strike and mass demonstrations. Hamas’ armed wing said in a statement that Haniyeh’s killing would “take the battle to new dimensions and have major repercussions”. Vowing to retaliate, Iran declared three days of national mourning and said the US bore responsibility because of its support for Israel, reports the Reuters. However, citing Iranian officials, the New York Times reported that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered Iran to strike Israel directly, in retaliation for the killing of Hamas leader.

It may be recalled that in 1978, Mossad—Israel’s Intelligence Agency—killed ‘an enemy of Israel’, Wadie Haddad, using toothpaste. It was a ‘low-signature assassination’, and marked the beginning of a new phase of targeted killings by Israel. According to many reports, Haniyeh’s killing was a coordinated attack after months of patient intelligence collection by Israel and its agencies.

Gaza ‘genocide’

The Palestinian enclave of Gaza has been under an air, land and sea blockade since 2007, when Hamas came to power after defeating Fatah in the election. Hamas entered Palestinian politics as a political party in 2005 when it engaged in local elections, and won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in 2006, beating Fatah. Since 2007, Israel has launched four wars against Hamas and the Gaza Strip. After Hamas won elections in that year, Israel also imposed an airtight blockade. Hamas and Fatah have ruled the occupied Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank respectively ever since. However, it is alleged that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu allowed Hamas to grow while undermining the Abbas government in Palestine.

The UN data on Palestine-Israel conflict shows, between 2008 and August 31, 2023, Israel had made four major assaults on Gaza: (i) 23-day assault during 2008-09; (ii) 8-day assault in 2012; (iii) 50-day assault, 2014; and (iv) 11-day assault in 2021. These assaults resulted in 6,407 deaths to Palestinians and 308 Israeli deaths. 1,52,560 Palestinians and 6,307 Israelis were also injured.

It is reported that since October 2023, more than 1.8 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, often moving multiple times over the past months to get away from Israeli ground assaults or bombardment. The vast majority are now crowded into a 50-square-kilometer (20-square-mile) area of dunes and fields on the coast with almost no sewage system and little water. The distribution of humanitarian supplies, including soap, shampoo and medicines, has slowed to a trickle, UN officials say, because Israeli military operations and general lawlessness in Gaza make it too dangerous for relief trucks to move.

A steady stream of miserable children and worried parents flow into the dermatology office at Nasser Hospital in central Gaza. Skin diseases are running rampant in Gaza, health officials say. The cause, they say, is the appalling conditions in overcrowded tent camps housing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes. According to the World Health Organisation, doctors are wrestling with more than 1,03,000 cases of lice and scabies and 65,000 cases of skin rashes. As per a UNDP report, in Gaza’s population of some 2.3 million, more than 1 million cases of acute respiratory infections have been recorded since the war began, along with more than half a million of acute diarrhoea and more than 1,00,000 cases of jaundice.

The UN estimates that, by February 2024, 35 per cent of buildings in the Gaza Strip had been destroyed. The number of bodies still buried in the rubble is likely substantial, with estimates of more than 10,000. As of May 10, 2024, 30 per cent of the deaths were unidentified, writes The Lancet.

The genocide perpetrated by the Zionist Israel since October 7, 2023 is no less horrifying than the Holocaust of the last century. The Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accused Israel of committing “genocide” against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and compared its actions to Adolf Hitler’s campaign to exterminate Jews. During the last ten months, nearly forty thousand unarmed civilians of Gaza Strip, mostly women and children have been killed by the Israeli Military.

Palestine: a victim of its geo-strategic importance

Situated at the crossroads of major civilisations, Palestine played a pivotal role in the global trade networks for thousands of years. Its strategic location bridging Asia, Africa, and Europe made it a hub for the exchange of goods, cultures, and ideas. It was part of the Incense Route—one of the oldest trade routes in the world which connected Southern Arabia with the Mediterranean through Palestine. It was also part of the Spice Route, which connected the spice-producing regions of the Indian subcontinent with the Mediterranean. Gaza was a bustling trade centre in ancient times, serving as a vital link between Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean. Its port played a crucial role in facilitating trade with Africa. In addition to Gaza, the ancient port of Jaffa was a gateway for goods flowing in and out of Palestine. It was a hub for trade with the Aegean world and Asia Minor.

Thousands of Palestinians are getting killed in the Israel-occupied Gaza strip as global powers are trying to establish at least three major trade routes through Israel-occupied Palestine.

- The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC): It connects Indian ports with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Israel/ Palestine and the European Union. Countries that have signed up to become part of the project are: India, the USA, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the EU, Italy, France, Germany.

- The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): In December 2023, the number of countries that joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China was 151. Nineteen countries from the Middle East and North Africa have joined the BRI. With the exception of Israel, almost all the major economies of the Middle East, namely, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, and Oman have joined the BRI. It is reported that China has invested in more “BRI-like” projects in Israel than in any other regional country – even though Israel has not formally signed on to the BRI.

- Train route: A train route connecting Africa, Israel, the Middle East, and Europe. It is argued that this development has the capacity to catalyse a new era of industrial capability and economic growth in these regions. A few analysts believe that this proposed rail route can pose a major challenge to China’s dominance in industrial production.

Possible reasons for Hamas-Israel war

Three possible reasons are discussed to explain the suicidal Hamas attack on Israeli civilians which triggered a deadly Israeli counter attack on Gaza Strips killing thousands of unarmed Palestinians.

- US President Joe Biden has hinted that one of the reasons behind Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel was the announcement of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) that integrates the entire region with a network of rail, road and ports.

- The attack was aimed to disrupt a potential normalisation of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia sought by Riyadh. It is believed that the Abraham Accords, a series of agreements to normalise relations between Israel and several Arab states, all of which were signed in the latter half of 2020, instilled insecurity in Qatar – a small kingdom of 2.6 million on the Persian Gulf.

Qatar has exhibited its capacity to establish itself as the mediator of last resort for the West in the region, a role it is also playing in the on-going efforts to win the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. It is alleged that Qatar is against normalisation of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, as an agreement between the two largest economies in the region could have opened the door to strategic cooperation across a host of areas, including natural gas—Qatar’s lifeblood. Qatar feared that such a deal could pave the way for a pipeline stretching from India to Israel via Saudi Arabia. It is not a member of IMEC.

Interestingly, Qatar, a trusted US ally in the Middle East for decades, is a major Hamas financer and backed its political takeover of Gaza in 2007. Hamas opened a political office in Doha in 2012. It harbours top Hamas leaders. It is reported that in Doha, Hamas leaders live in five-star hotels. Qatar’s foreign ministry released a statement on October 7 holding “Israel alone responsible” for Hamas’ bloody rampage. Despite its support for Hamas, Qatar has been named by the United States as a major non-NATO ally, with the country serving as a strategic hub for US military operations in the Persian Gulf region.

Lately, Qatar has become a close ally of China. State-owned Qatar Energy reached a deal in June 2023 to sell China 4 million metric tonnes of liquefied natural gas over 27 years–one of the largest China-Middle East deals ever.

- Western nations wanted to desist China from brokering peace between Israel and Palestine. Beijing made an attempt to negotiate peace between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in April 2023, a few weeks before the October 7 incident. After a successful diplomatic negotiation in March 2023 when Saudi Arabia and Iran reached a deal in China to restore diplomatic ties that were cut off in 2016, China’s foreign minister told his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts that in its latest effort at mediation in the region, his country was ready to help facilitate peace talks between the two sides. However, that Chinese initiative did not materialise due to the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel war in October.

Beijing declaration

China has many economic interests in the Middle East, and Beijing always viewed instability in this region as a major threat to Chinese interests. Recently, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) took a major initiative to bring about a truce among the two major factions of Palestine—Fatah and Hamas. China realised that unless Palestinian people are united, negotiations with Israeli authorities are useless.

It may be recollected that Fatah was founded by several people, most notably the late president of the Palestinian Authority—Yasser Arafat. Under Yasser Arafat, and after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Fatah became the dominant party in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). In the 1990s, the Fatah-led PLO officially renounced armed resistance and backed United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for building a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders (West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza), alongside an Israeli state. Hamas and Fatah are the two most dominant parties in the Palestinian political scene. Hamas has been the de facto ruler in the Gaza Strip since 2007, after defeating President Mahmoud Abbas’ long-dominant Fatah party in parliamentary elections. Hamas then pushed Fatah out of Gaza when the latter refused to recognise the result of the vote.

On July 23, 2024, the leaders of Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, signed a joint statement in Beijing aimed at ending divisions between the bitter rivals. The statement called for the formation of a Palestinian unity government overseeing the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip and eventually holding elections, for which the leaders of the factions would meet and draw up a roadmap. The Israeli government has rejected any proposal that gives a governing role to Hamas or the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority. Chinese media hailed the “Beijing declaration” as a breakthrough and a sign of the country’s emerging role as a peace broker in faraway conflicts, reports the Washington Post.

Within a week of the ‘Beijing declaration’, the topmost Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated.

Observation

After the assassination of Hamas leader on Iranian soil, the Palestine crisis is very likely to worsen and a full-fledged war may spread in the entire region. During this crisis period, India could have played a constructive role in brokering peace among the warring groups. Instead, the Modi government has openly sided with the Zionist Israel by supplying them with arms and workers.

Nevertheless, public opinion against Israeli genocide is gaining momentum in India. Twenty five eminent citizens, including former Supreme Court and high court judges, economists, activists and poets, have written to the defence minister, urging him to halt the licence process that allows exporters to send military arms and ammunition to Israel.

Such sane voices of the people, across the globe, have the ability to halt genocides perpetrated by the agents of the global capital., on the innocent people of Palestine, Ukraine and in other parts of the globe.

Views expressed are personal