Gaza: More than a hundred days of genocide
More than a hundred days passed since the beginning of Israel’s war against Hamas, or rather against the entire Gaza and its inhabitants. Murderous air raids from the sea, land and air, shelling that does not spare houses, churches, hospitals, kindergartens and refugee camps, is the everyday life of millions of inhabitants of the largest prison in the world, as Gaza is rightly described. Cut off from the world, at the mercy of Israeli guards, now they are also on the mercy of the Israeli armed forces. There’s a lot of discussion these days that this military activity, which is committing genocide, is “transitioning” to a new phase, one that involves more “targeted” strikes rather than bombing and fewer personnel. Will this be the future? It’s difficult to imagine. At the same time, the prospect of an even greater conflict is looming on the horizon, which already stretches from the Red Sea to Gaza and, in a smaller form, to Syria and Iraq. The prospect of Trump returning to the White House does not make things easier either…
The vision of a less intense conflict in Gaza itself is also contradicted by the number of dead and wounded reported by both sides. According to the Gaza administration, 200–300 people are killed every day, mostly women and children. Obviously, mostly civilians. Hamas fighters using tunnels and a network of fortifications stretching throughout the zone, using hit-and-run tactics, are likely to have lost soldiers, too, looking at the arsenal of the Israeli war and occupation machine. But we are talking about one thousand to two militants killed, at a time when the number of civilians killed has already exceeded 25,000.
At the same time, the Israeli army last time reported over a hundred wounded soldiers in one day(!). We must remember that Israel is a state of state-military censorship, so we will never know the true number of victims, even after the war. However, it appears that if casualties had been lower, this would also have reflected progress in the land operation. However, there are none of these.
Not much has changed on the map of Gaza since November, except that nearly 80 percent of the buildings no longer exist.
The front line still runs through the corridor cleared by Israeli troops at the beginning of the operation. Gaza is divided into two parts, northern and southern. The Israelis believe they have taken over northern Gaza, but this is rather wishful thinking. The Israeli army’s tactic was to divide Gaza into smaller parts. Into several separately fighting city districts, just like the Germans did during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. However, this also failed.
So what are the future prospects? We have to look behind.
Israel’s war cabinet three goals in the war against Hamas in Gaza were to wipe Hamas off the face of the globe, shift the demographic balance by driving as many Palestinians out of Gaza as possible, and change the Middle East theatre, so that no other militant organisation could ever again carry out an attack like that of October 7. None of these goals were achieved in a hundred days!
Hamas is still fighting and is able to strike back. The “tunnel offensive”, i.e. the destruction of several hundred kilometres of underground Hamas fortresses, failed. Both combat gases or flooding the tunnel network with water. Even this seemingly simple manoeuvre in terms of scale failed. Of course, while we are sceptical about Israeli official statistics, we cannot trust the numbers provided by Hamas. Videos in which fighters blow up Israeli tanks do not allow to confirm the losses attributed to Israel by Hamas. However, there are losses and they are significant.
Whatever the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague on South Africa’s allegation that Israel committed genocide, there is no denying that Israel intentionally caused a humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
According to a UN assessment published in December based on data from 17 different organisations, 80% of the world’s population now experiencing catastrophic hunger is in Gaza.
With an average of one shower and one toilet for every 4,500 people in Gaza, the World Health Organisation reports that the region is bound for a pandemic even if the conflict ends tomorrow. When all of this is considered, the fatality rate in a year may be far higher than it was during the blitzkrieg’s peak. Giora Eiland, a government advisor and former chairman of the Israeli National Security Council, made the mistake of verbalising the war cabinet’s plan. According to Eiland, shutting off Gaza’s water, power, and fuel was insufficient.
The demographic idea of Israeli extremist politicians to expel Palestinians from Gaza? The people of Gaza do not want to leave it, regardless of whether there is no water, electricity, or the possibility of an epidemic outbreak. Space ideas of exporting people to African or South American countries seem much more detached from reality than any other idea born in Tel Aviv.
Has it been possible to transform the Middle East for Israel? This question is rather rhetorical. Even though the Saudis still want to normalise relations with Tel Aviv, they are giving ultimatums along the way. This will only happen if a Palestinian state is established. Other countries follow their example, but it is often just wishful thinking behind it, as in diplomacy. Arab societies have not been as united in their perception of Zionism for almost 50 years as they are now.
There is more and more talk about the normalisation of relations between various Muslim countries and Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran’s role has not decreased, but increased.
Despite the recent crisis on the Pakistan-Iran border, Iran still has advantages on its side that give it the ability to control the escalation of the conflict. Whether it be the issue of Yemen or the Shiite militias in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, the discipline of the Iranian regime over the last 100 days has only strengthened its perception in the region, showing in the attached image the hawkish policy of the US and UK, bombing Yemen, even if, as he himself admitted Biden, it’s not working.
When it comes to literate Gaza oblivion, if Hamas resistance is still possible, it means it will be possible in the future as well. On the issue of hostages, let us stick to the fact that only one hostage was freed by the operation of Israeli forces…
More and more countries are turning against Israel and the entire Zionist project. In addition to the growing group of countries that support South Africa, including Slovenia, even Trudeau of Canada, recently said that Israel’s short-sighted actions do not allow future support for the Israeli state project. At the same time, the President of the United States makes one bad decision after another, believing that he must do so… because his successor would make even worse decisions. Thus, he implicated America in everything that followed by providing Israel with unqualified backing.
Biden would have won if Netanyahu called off the war in a week and the leaders of Hamas chose to willingly burn in hell close to Tel Aviv. Given that the exact reverse has occurred, Netanyahu’s administration is more concerned with defending its own political future and survival than it is with defeating Hamas, Biden must be the backer, sponsor, and promoter of a right-wing dictatorship that he doesn’t even agree with.
What will the next weeks bring? We still have to wait for this, but the balance of power is extremely tilted towards the opponents of Zionism, something we could not say a month ago.
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