By Sushil Kutty
The Israeli Defense Forces struck a Palestinian Islamic Jihad command center in the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balahon Sunday. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in no mood to listen to US requests to steer clear of Rafah, an enclave on the Egypt-Gaza border, where upwards of a million Gazans have taken up residence in hundreds of tents, and which, Israel says, is the last refuge of the Hamas scoundrels and, therefore, requires an essential and urgent clean-up.
This, when humanitarian aid is facing hurdles in reaching famine hit Palestinians even as the death toll climbs steadily as the Palestinian population is slowly but steadily whittled away. The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza said that at least 32,782 Palestinians had so far been killed in Gaza and 75,298 have been wounded since the start of the ‘War on Gaza’ and life expectancy of Palestinians waging their futile war on hunger and famine is dangerously poised. Miraculously, the birth rate is willy-nilly keeping pace and the hospitals are aware.
The problem for everyone here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be without a job if Palestinian children stop getting killed in Israeli airstrikes. This is what we get to decipher from reading the Israeli Press; the left-liberal media accounts are scathing of Netanyahu and his tactics to keep the war going till the last opposing voice is silenced. Netanyahu and his war cabinet need the war and the war effort to keep their hold on deciding Israel’s future direction as a country.
It is not just the United States that has a Netanyahu problem. The Rishi Sunak government of the United Kingdom also received “legal advice” that “Israel is breaking international humanitarian law in Gaza”. But the Sunak government isn’t stating this “publicly”. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been hiding in the eaves of 10 Downing Street ever since Israel and Gaza happened. Sunak can’t be somebody who went to bed on hot air to feel the hunger pangs of Palestinian children. That being said, Sunak is Hindu and Hindus aren’t breaking records sending humanitarian aid to Muslim Gaza. Or, maybe, it is a silent operation.
The good news is, other important voices are breaking out in support of the wasting children of Gaza, seeking a stop to hostilities. Pope Francis, for instance, made renewed calls on Easter Sunday for an “immediate cease-fire” and the release of Israeli hostages. These two issues are so intricately interlinked that they have to be simultaneously addressed, which is what has made the entire Israel-Gaza imbroglio so damn complicated. For the children in Gaza, for the women in Gaza and for families of the Israeli hostages, there can be no end to misery unless the hostages are released and a mutually consenting ceasefire is declared immediately.
The problem is Netanyahu has Hamas and Hezbollah to keep the warfires burning. The Israeli war cabinet’s goal of eliminating Hamas from the face of the earth is an impossibility. Just as Islam cannot be denied, just like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda cannot be wiped off the face of the earth, Hamas too is an idea with no expiry date unless the planet returns to its original gaseous state. And so long as Hamas keeps regurgitating old heretic theories, Netanyahu remains an active player.
The reality is Lebanon and Syria are now part of the extended war and Israeli attacks on Lebanese and Syrian targets are not stopping. Just a couple of days ago, Israel targeted a vehicle in southern Lebanon and killed a senior Hezbollah official, shattering chatter that the Hezbollah are untouchable and “adults” compared to the “childish” Hamas. The Israeli attack was in retaliation after Hezbollah fire injured an Israeli soldier in northern Israel.
The Hezbollah and Israeli Defence Forces are fighting with drones and missiles and air force and artillery strikes are a daily feature. The Houthi are uncharacteristically quiet. Otherwise, drones have Hezbollah written on them. On Sunday, a drone from Lebanon fell in the “Hermon area” of Israel and Israeli fighter-jets have been intercepting suspicious aerial projectiles fired from Syria and those same fighter-jets are making raiding sorties far into Syria.
Meanwhile, after calls in the United States to cut off arms supply to Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu took note and said that “much more independent production capacity” of the arms was the need of the hour, another indication that Israel isn’t going to halt the war on the say-so of the United States. “We need to be immune from external pressures because we need to make our own decisions,” Netanyahu spelled out Israel’s intentions in clear terms. The Prime Minister was scheduled for a hernia surgery on Sunday and Justice Minister Yariv Levin was to be acting Prime Minister for the duration of the procedure. By now, Netanyahu must be back in action with the hernia out of the way. (IPA Service)