A WEEK into last July the pounding began. First it was from the air and sea. Relentlessly the Israelis, one of the world’s mightiest military forces and a nuclear power to boot, hammered a defenceless Gaza. The onslaught on this strip of Palestine, home to some 1.8 million mostly refugees, continued unabated. Instead, on the 17th, coinciding with the shooting down of MH17 over eastern Ukraine, Tel Aviv began a land assault and ever since it has only gotten worse. That the attack on Gaza by the Zionist regime is pitiless is testified to by the latter’s almost exhausted ammunition store. And yet, the United States, despite mouthing some platitudes in line with the protesting voices of a world in shock, agreed to replenish their supply with a hitherto publicly unknown cache already in Israel said to be worth US$1 billion (RM3.2 billion). Today Gaza is, as a result, with very little clean water supply and electricity, these utilities having been bombed to destruction.
The Palestinian dead have exceeded the thousand mark and increasing by at least a hundred a day. The tragedy bringing in global condemnation — although it must be mentioned that Israelis are for the most part in agreement with their government — is the proportion of civilian victims, especially the number of children massacred; 245 and counting. Of course, the number of Palestinian casualties is unspeakably high. Against these numbers of Palestinians killed and maimed are the 56 Israeli soldiers and three civilian deaths. For the most part the Iron Dome that protects Israel from Hamas’ near worthless rocket attacks, and paid for by American taxpayers, is holding up well. In short, the imbalance of potential to perpetrate violence between the two sides is heavily weighted against the Gazans. If not for Hamas’ meagre attempt, the Gazans would not even have a pretence of resistance against a heavily armed, near indiscriminate, Israeli aggression. These acts of inhumanity is premised on allegations that Hamas is using civilians as a human shield.
Such an excuse does not stand up to even a cursory inspection. If these accusations are true — which remain debatable given the lack of hard evidence — it is a fact that to knowingly inflict injury and death on the civilian population is a war crime. Any moral reaction, especially of such a proficient military, should first consider this, and then resolve the dilemma presented in other ways. Unfortunately, everything about this invasion of Gaza is built on lies; the most important of which is that Hamas was responsible for the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers. As the real sequence of events unfold what is surfacing is the intentional misguiding of its public by a regime determined on genocide. The land grab that has been incessant is, to all intents and purposes, looking to be in its final phase. After this only the West Bank remains to be annexed by Israel thus totally annihilating Palestine.